Page 2 of Salt Between the Wolves

When she finally looked up, he was crossing the yard. Not toward, but past her. The distinction should not have mattered as much as it did.

His attention remained on one of the scouts speaking beside him, though Eira noticed the slight adjustment in his path before he reached her position, subtle enough that no one else would have marked it. He widened the distance between them by barely half a step.

Enough to avoid brushing against her.

The realization landed with surprising force.

Ridiculous, she thought immediately afterward, anger rising almost as quickly as the humiliation itself. She had not crossed mountains to stand in a courtyard measuring the space between footsteps like some uncertain girl waiting for attention.

And yet the awareness remained.

Soren passed close enough that she caught the familiar scent of smoke and cold iron beneath the winter air. The bond reacted instantly, warmth tightening beneath her skin with an intimacy her mind still had not learned to tolerate calmly. For one irrational moment she thought he might stop.

His gaze shifted toward her at last. Not fully. Just enough for their eyes to meet. For the briefest moment, it looked as though he might stop.

The thought appeared in him too quickly, too visibly, before something colder closed over it again. Then he looked away first.

“South watch leaves before dusk,” he said to the scout beside him, his voice even. “Double the western line until the weather turns.”

And continued walking.

Eira remained still long after he passed.

The anger came slower this time, quieter and therefore harder to dismiss. It settled beneath her ribs beside the bond itself, tangled so tightly with frustration that she could no longer separate one from the other.

Because this—whatever existed between them now—had been his choice first.

He had marked her.

He had bound their lives together with blood and ritual and instinct strong enough to cross distance even when silence stretched between them for days afterward.

And now he avoided looking at her as though proximity itself had become dangerous.

Perhaps it had.

That thought followed her all the way to the upper storage terraces.

By midday the wind had strengthened, carrying salt-cold air across the mountain from somewhere far beyond the western ridges. Eira worked beside the others in relative silence, hauling frozen supply crates inward before the storm worsened, though concentration came unevenly. More than once she caught herself turning instinctively toward movement below, searching the fortress without meaning to.

Searching for him.

Each time it only deepened her irritation.

She should have hated the bond entirely by now. Parts of her did. The connection blurred thought at the worst possible moments, pulled her attention apart without permission, and left her carrying the constant awareness of someone determined to keep his distance while remaining impossible to ignore.

Nothing about it resembled equality.

By evening the resentment had sharpened into something colder.

The slow humiliation of realizing she had begun wanting things from him he had never promised to give.

Chapter 2: What Remains Unspoken

Eira

The council chamber overlooked the western ridge, though little of the mountain remained visible beyond the weather gathering outside. Snow moved thickly across the narrow windows in pale shifting bands, blurring the world beyond Ironfang into something cold and indistinct, while inside the air carried the dense scent of smoke, damp wool, and iron left too long beside the fire.

Eira stood near the far end of the stone table as the council gathered around it, their voices low enough that individual words dissolved into tone before reaching her clearly.