Page 239 of Salt Between the Wolves

Somewhere behind her lay the archives. Somewhere beyond the horizon rode Soren. Between them stretched questions neither of them yet knew how to answer. Eira no longer intended to wait for someone else to find them.

Chapter 28: What We Stopped Asking

Soren

The cliffs rose from the sea like broken teeth, their dark faces worn smooth by centuries of salt and wind.

Soren reined his horse to a slower pace as the narrow coastal path curved toward the headland, where an abandoned watchtower stood beyond it, little more than weathered stone clinging stubbornly to the edge of the cliffs. It had once guarded the sea routes into Silverwake, but now it overlooked nothing but restless water and the long passage of time.

Leander had chosen the place well, far enough from the city to avoid curious eyes and close enough that neither of them could pretend this meeting was accidental.

The horse snorted beneath him, uneasy as another gust swept in from the sea, but Soren barely noticed, his thoughts circling the same three sentences since dawn.

She is alive.

Do not come for her.

Come for answers.

He had read the letter often enough that the words no longer belonged to ink and parchment, having become a challenge, a command he still wasn't certain why he had obeyed.

His jaw tightened as he considered that if anyone else had sent such a message, he would have ignored it without hesitation, and if anyone else had presumed to tell him what he could or could not do, he wouldn't be riding toward an old watchtower but already on his way to Silverwake.

Only Leander possessed the infuriating habit of making impossible requests sound almost reasonable, something Soren disliked almost as much as he disliked the fact that he had come.

The wind carried the sharp scent of salt across the cliffs, different from Ironfang, where the air smelled of pine, stone, and snow, while here everything tasted of the sea.

His shoulder throbbed beneath the bandages as he shifted in the saddle, the wound having begun to knit but not well enough to be forgotten, just as the defeat had not been.

His horse climbed the final stretch of the path until the tower came fully into view, appearing empty at first glance as Soren slowed to a walk.

His wolf stirred beneath his skin, not from fear but from expectation, because Leander was here, even if he couldn't yet see him, as he had known the man too long to mistake the feeling.

The sea had many ways of hiding what stood in plain sight, and Leander had learned from it.

Soren swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around a weathered stone post that had once held signal fires.

The wind pressed steadily against his back as he climbed the last few steps toward the ruined tower, from where the cliffs dropped sharply into the sea, waves bursting against black rock before dissolving into white foam.

There was no one, and his gaze swept over the headland before shifting toward the winding path below, finding nothing.

He was early, or Leander was late, and neither possibility improved his mood.

He folded his arms across his chest, only to abandon the position almost immediately as pain flared through his injured shoulder, the irritation that followed having little to do with the wound itself.

Waiting had never come naturally to him, especially when every instinct urged him to keep moving toward Silverwake, toward Eira.

His fingers brushed unconsciously against the folded letter inside his cloak.

Do not come for her.

The words still carried the quiet confidence that had irritated him from the moment he had first read them, for Leander had never been a man to waste ink, and if he had written six words, he expected all six to be obeyed.

Soren's mouth tightened as he realized he hated that the letter had worked, not because it had persuaded him, but because it had made him hesitate, and that alone was unlike him.

He stepped closer to the cliff's edge, from where Silverwake appeared only as a pale line in the distance, its towers softened by sea mist until they seemed almost unreal.

Somewhere beyond them was Eira, closer than she had been in weeks, close enough that every instinct urged him to ride straight past the agreement he had made.