Chapter 22: Torin's POV

Torin's POV

A year to the night after she stood in Redmere's hall and chose me, I woke and the bed was empty.

Her boots were gone from the peg.

Her riding coat was gone from the hook.

I stood in the cold room in my shirt and told myself it meant nothing.

Hester found me in the passage.

"You've gone the color of porridge."

"She's not in the house."

"She's in the yard, you great fool. She left at first light with her father's steward." Hester looked me over. "You think she's run."

"I think the year is up, and she told me she doesn't want to walk, and I've been waiting a month for her to change her mind."

"Torin."

"Yes?"

"Go and put on a coat."

The Moot had come north for the first time in living memory.

Every pack in the Marches sat in my hall that morning, on benches that had been built for the occasion, under rafters hung with barley.

There was a barrel of flour in every corner.

The old Alpha of Highgate sat at the far end of the high table, much smaller than he had been, and did not look at anyone.

Ronan sat beside Bronwyn's father, who had his arm out of the sling and a great deal to say about the soup.

I had spent a year at the bottom of this hall with my cap in my hand, and I could not feel my own feet.

The eldest woman of the Moot rapped her staff on the floor.

"By the old custom, a wife is asked at the end of her wedding year. Before the packs, so no one can say she was forced."

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