Page 238 of Salt Between the Wolves

At last she spoke.

"There is something I haven't told you."

Leander turned toward her without interrupting as she drew a slow breath.

"Yesterday..."

The memory returned at once—sharp pain, dizziness, and the overwhelming feeling that someone had reached through the distance and closed a hand around her heart.

"When the mark flared," she said, lowering her eyes, "I thought I was going to lose consciousness."

Leander remained perfectly still while she continued, "There was fear, then pain."

She hesitated, not because she doubted what she had felt, but because saying it aloud made it more real.

"And then..."

She paused again before adding, "I knew it wasn't mine."

For the first time since they had climbed the lighthouse, Leander's expression changed as the warmth faded along with the quiet humor that had lingered between them, leaving only concentration.

"You felt someone else's pain."

It wasn't disbelief or even a question.

Eira nodded slowly.

"I don't know how I know."

Her fingers drifted toward her shoulder as she added, "It was here."

Leander followed the movement with his eyes, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly, and for a few moments he said nothing while the wind moved around them and the waves far below kept their steady rhythm against the cliffs.

Finally he asked, "Did it pass?"

"Yes," she replied, looking toward the sea again, "as suddenly as it came."

Silence settled between them once more and lingered long enough for Eira to realize that Leander was choosing his words carefully.

"I hoped the healer was wrong," he said quietly.

"So did I," she answered, turning toward him before asking, "What did she tell you?"

Leander rested both hands against the stone wall and said, "She believed the marks had not simply awakened," meeting Eira's eyes as he continued, "she believed they had begun to answer one another."

The words seemed to vanish into the wind and then return with greater weight, making Eira feel something tighten in her chest.

Neither of them spoke as the lighthouse stood silent around them and the sea breathed steadily beneath the cliffs.

Finally Leander broke the silence.

"I don't yet know what that means," he admitted, and his honesty surprised her, "but I know enough to understand that whatever binds the two of you is no longer behaving as the old records describe."

The phrase caught her at once, and her thoughts returned to the archives, to Ilva, and to shelves filled with fragments of a history no one had managed to piece together.

Perhaps, she realized, the answers had never been lost and no one had been asking the right questions.

The wind carried the scent of salt across the lighthouse once more.