Elowen's POV
The line went quiet after I said it.
No answer. Not a yes, not a no, not even his breathing. Just the rain and the grey sky and the stone with my parents' names on it, and the phone still pressed to my ear because I couldn't make myself lower it.
Eventually I did. I set it face down on the wet grass and stayed where I was, kneeling, and let the rain come.
I hoped he was on his way to me. I'll know in five hours.
The umbrella was long gone, taken by a gust somewhere on the hill, and I hadn't gone after it. I told them about my exam scores. I told them I had been accepted to the Northern Reach's top university. I told them I was doing well, that life in the Northern Reach had been good, that the person looking after me had been good to me.
I didn't tell them the rest.
At
