Page 268 of Salt Between the Wolves

Vargan straightened slightly.

"This ends very simply."

Soren already knew what came next.

"Return her."

There it was—the heart of everything, not land, not armies, not politics, but one woman and one choice.

Soren held the older man's gaze.

"No."

The answer arrived immediately, without hesitation or qualification, and the word hung in the frozen air.

Vargan became very still, the kind of stillness that came before avalanches, before storms, before violence.

For several moments neither man spoke.

Then the older lord nodded once, as though confirming something he had already suspected.

"Pity."

He turned his horse, the conversation over and the decision made.

After several steps he stopped and, without looking back, said:

"If she comes to you willingly, I will hear it from her."

The words struck harder than any threat would have, because for the first time Vargan had named the only condition that mattered—choice.

Then he rode away, toward Frostvein and toward war.

Soren watched until the white horse disappeared among the waiting ranks. Only then did Kael ride forward.

"What was that?"

Soren kept his eyes on the distant banners, and the answer came slowly.

"Time."

Kael frowned.

"For what?"

For Eira, for her choice, for whatever came next—but Soren merely looked toward the darkening mountains and said nothing.

By nightfall, both armies had made camp without retreating.

Ironfang held the northern rise, where dark pines broke the wind and the slope gave them sight across the pass, while Frostvein settled below the opposite ridge, pale tents and white banners cutting clean lines through the snow until the whole valley seemed divided by more than distance.

No one attacked or left, and that was the worst of it.

Soren stood at the edge of the camp long after the last orders had been given, watching torchlight appear one by one across the valley.

Frostvein fires burned cold and orderly, as they always did, since Vargan had never liked disorder, even in war.

Behind Soren, Ironfang moved with quieter purpose: horses were brushed down and fed, watches assigned, scouts sent to the upper ridges before darkness swallowed the paths. Men spoke in low voices, not from fear but from instinct, because sound carried strangely in the mountains.