Chapter 4: What She Hears

The second morning my hands started to shake.

I noticed it while I was buttoning my coat.

The buttons would not stay in my fingers.

The floor of the lodge seemed to lean toward the door.

Bjorn banged on my bedroom wall with his spoon.

"Up, girl! I'm taking you to the Stone!"

The Ridge Stone stood at the top of the bald hill behind the Den.

It was a grey boulder as tall as a man, flat on top.

My grandfather climbed it with his cane and his horn, swearing at every step.

Torin walked behind us, carrying a flask, and I did not look at him.

I had not looked at him properly since the pantry wall.

At the top the wind came straight off the sky.

"Stand on it," Bjorn said. "Close your eyes. Tell me what you hear."

I climbed onto the flat grey rock.

I closed my eyes.

At first it was only wind.

Then it opened.

I heard a vole turning over in its burrow, thirty feet down the slope.

I heard the old wolves in the lodge, their heartbeats slow and fast and uneven.

I heard the cook slapping dough on the counter.

I heard the barn, where the four sentries were awake and whispering to each other.

Past that I heard the road, and the trees, and the river.

Past that I heard the sea.

It was forty miles away, and I could hear every wave drag back over the stones of Saltclaw Shore.

"The sea," I said. My voice was thin. "I can hear the sea."

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