We reached the ridge at noon.
Six of us. Me, Kira, Maren, Rowan, and two of Cole's security wolves — Petra's training students, compact and capable and entirely silent in the way Cole preferred his security. The path up was narrow enough that we went single file, the specific effort of carrying a five-month-old up an elevation change that my post-pregnancy body did not entirely appreciate.
Rowan was awake for all of it.
Not fussy — alert. The enormous focused attention directed outward, taking in the tree line, the specific quality of the light at altitude, the way the air changed in the upper section of the path. Their bond thread running bright in the network, the gift sweeping the terrain with the casual thoroughness of someone who found everything interesting.
The ridge itself was
