We left before dawn.
Not the whole compound — Darius and I, Cole and Marcus, Tavri in the back seat because she knew the summit layout and had been inside Dena's circle long enough to understand how she operated. Aldis stayed to run the compound's security in Cole's absence. Soran managed the pack bond monitoring. Roan doubled the gate rotation without being asked.
Rowan stayed with Kira and Maren.
The goodbye was the hardest thing.
Not because Rowan understood — they didn't, they were three months old and the world was still assembling itself into meaning around them. They didn't know we were leaving. They were alert and taking their morning inventory of the world and making the presence-registration sound at the lamp because they had recently discovered the lamp and had opinions abou
