Page 259 of Salt Between the Wolves

"Only if they push hard."

"They will."

"How can you be sure?"

The answer came from Leander, quiet and certain, because he knew the man they were discussing.

"Because Soren Ironfang is already moving."

Something tightened painfully in Eira's chest—not the bond, not magic, not destiny, but a simple realization, cold and merciless.

If Vargan and Soren met in battle, Soren could die, and for the first time, that thought felt unbearable.

Eira left the council chamber before the meeting ended, and no one stopped her, perhaps because they assumed she had heard enough, or perhaps because Leander saw her face and understood that keeping her there would serve no purpose.

The corridors of his house were quiet now, with most servants drawn toward the lower levels where news moved faster than orders, and somewhere below, doors opened and closed, boots crossed stone, and voices rose in urgent fragments before fading again.

Silverwake was preparing, not for celebration or trade, but for whatever came next.

Eira reached her chambers and shut the door behind her, then stood there for a while without moving.

The room looked exactly as she had left it that morning: the writing desk near the window, the folded cloak over the back of a chair, the small stack of notes from the archive, and a clean sheet of parchment waiting beneath a weighted corner.

They were ordinary things, useless things.

She crossed to the desk and sat, her hands moving before her thoughts caught up with them as she reached for ink, pen, and parchment.

For several moments she stared at the blank page before writing a single word.

Soren.

The name looked wrong on the page, too small and too still.

She dipped the pen again, but nothing followed.

What was she supposed to write—that she had found a dead man in an old chronicle, that she had finally begun to understand something she had spent weeks refusing to name, that Vargan was moving, that Ironfang was moving, or that she did not know whether she was angry, afraid, or merely too late?

The pen hovered over the parchment until a drop of ink fell beside his name and spread into the fibers like a dark wound, and Eira set the pen down.

Outside the window, the sea moved restlessly beneath the cliffs, black under the evening sky, while lanterns swayed along the harbor and ships shifted against their moorings, answering the tide with low wooden groans.

She tried to imagine Soren somewhere beyond the mountains, not in the council chamber or the courtyard, not standing across from her with that infuriating restraint, offering truth only in fragments and expecting her to understand the rest.

Instead, she imagined him riding north, issuing orders, watching the passes, and preparing to meet her father.

The thought struck too sharply, and she stood so quickly that the chair scraped against the floor.

For several breaths she paced the length of the room, once, twice, and then again, though it helped nothing, as her mind returned to the same place each time: White Pass, Ironfang, Frostvein, Soren.

A knock came at the door, and Eira stopped, not answering immediately.

The knock did not repeat, which was how she knew it was Leander, since anyone else would have knocked again or called through the wood.

She crossed the room and opened the door.

He stood on the other side without cloak or gloves, his hair slightly disordered from the wind, as if he had stepped out onto one of the balconies after the council and forgotten the cold.

"I won't stay long," he said.