Chapter 15: The Wish

Sabine's POV

I walked up to the Stone because he asked me to, and I put my palm on it because I could not look at his face any longer.

The rock was cold and rough.

For a breath nothing happened.

Then the rain came.

I was standing on the same ridge, but the grass was green and the sky was a soft grey, and I was laughing.

There was no white in my hair.

A man was walking toward me across the oath ground with his cloak over his arm, and he was not a warlord.

He was Rorik, with no scars on his forearms and no weariness in his eyes.

He looked at me as though he had waited a month for this hour.

"You came," he said.

"You asked."

"I asked in a letter that I burned."

"I read it before you burned it."

He laughed, and I knew the sound.

We were mates, and nobody knew.

Our packs hated each other and had for years.

Every month we met on this ridge for an hour.

Every month he took my hands and said the same thing.

"One more spring, and I'll end it."

I stood in the cold grass at the Stone, with my hand on the rock, and I watched myself kiss him.

Then the arrow came.

It came from the east slope, from the pines, and it took him between the shoulders.

He fell against me.

I held him in my arms and screamed.

"Run," he said. "Sabine, run."

I would not.

I cut my hair with his knife and tied it round his wrist.

I do not know why.

I think I wanted something of mine on him when he went.

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