Page 42 of Salt Between the Wolves

Blood touched his lips when he tried to speak again.

Whatever words were meant to follow never came.

His eyes searched her face instead, looking for understanding, for reassurance, or perhaps simply for something familiar to hold onto while the rest of the world slipped away.

Tears blurred her vision.

"Don't."

The plea fractured as it left her.

"Please don't."

For a moment, his gaze drifted beyond her shoulder toward the pale winter sky overhead before slowly returning to her. The faintest trace of a smile touched his mouth—not acceptance, and not peace, but something closer to disbelief. It lingered there for only an instant, carrying the quiet astonishment of a man who still could not understand how a day that had begun with laughter could possibly end like this.

Then the expression faded, and with it the light behind his eyes.

Eira felt the change before she fully understood it.

Some invisible thread had broken.

She kept talking anyway.

Kept pressing her hands against the wound.

Kept waiting for him to blink.

To breathe.

To do anything at all.

Reality arrived slowly and with a cruelty that left no room for denial.

By the time someone touched her shoulder, she already knew.

Riven was gone.

The certainty tore through her with such force that it felt physical. A sound escaped her throat, raw enough that she scarcely recognised it as her own, and the grief that followed left no room for reason or restraint. It swept through her completely, carrying away everything except the crushing certainty that she would never hear his laugh again, never watch him grin before saying something ridiculous, never see him standing beside a fire arguing with half the patrol while pretending to be offended by the outcome.

Around her, voices continued to rise and fall as the others struggled to impose order on what had happened. Reports were exchanged. Orders were given. The wolves who had ridden in pursuit eventually returned with nothing except frustration and fresh snow on their cloaks.

Eira heard almost none of it.

The only thing that felt real was the weight of Riven's head against her lap and the terrible certainty that the warmth leaving his body would never return.

Riven, who had spoken about the sea.

Riven, who had wanted to see more of the world.

Riven, who had been alive less than an hour ago.

The thought came without invitation.

Yesterday, Soren had stood at Ironfang's gates and watched them leave.

If he had ridden with them, the morning might have unfolded differently.

She didn't know whether that was true.