Chapter 14: Everyone Goes Home

I did not tell anyone I was going.

I put my coat on at dusk and walked out of the Ridge gate with my hands in my pockets.

The summons sat in my chest all day.

Three Alphas were going to look at me across a table and decide whether I was fit to speak.

I needed to hear the sea.

There is a bend in the gravel road a mile down where the land drops, and from there I can hear the surf forty miles off.

I stood on the bend and listened to it until my breathing slowed.

I had been there ten minutes when I heard his boots.

He was running.

I heard it a long way off, and I heard his heart before I saw his face.

Torin came around the bend with no coat on and stopped six feet from me.

He was breathing hard, and he looked at me with his whole face open.

"You're here," he said.

"Where else would I be?"

"My sister said you went out the gate."

"I went for a walk."

"Without a word."

"I didn't think I needed to file one."

"You said you'd tell me before you left the Ridge."

"I'm standing on a road, Torin. I'm not leaving."

"You were halfway down it."

I stared at him.

"It's a mile," I said. "I can see the gate from here."

"I know."

"Then why are you shaking?"

He did not answer.

His hands were fists at his sides, and his heart was running ahead of him.

"You walked out of your father's hall without telling your mother," he said.

"What?"

"Your pack tells it at every table. You put the key down and went out the door, and you never looked back at her."

"She had her hand over my mouth."

"I know she did. I know." His voice cracked. "But you do it to everyone who matters. You get up, you go, and you don't ask anybody for anything."

"That's not fair."

"You'd leave me the same way, without a word."

The wind came up the road between us.

I had known it for days, in the way he held himself at the door.

I had known it from his heart.

I had not known he would say it.

"Who left you without a word?" I said.

He turned away and pressed his hand over his mouth.

When he spoke, it was to the hills.

"My mother."

I waited.

"I was nine. My grandfather called her home from the south, and she packed in the night."

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