Page 108 of Iron Beneath the Snow

“And it still makes sense to you?” he asked.

The question was quiet, almost incidental, but it didn’t leave her much room to retreat into certainty.

Eira met his gaze for a brief moment before looking back toward the valley.

“Yes,” she said.

The answer came without hesitation.

But not without doubt.

Riven’s attention remained on her a moment longer, but he did not press.

Below them, one of the younger wolves called up, struggling to secure a crate against the wind.

Riven moved at once, his response immediate and unforced, leaving her where she stood without turning the moment into something that required resolution.

Eira remained at the edge of the ridge a little longer.

The wind carried across the valley in long, steady currents, and for the first time since she had spoken, the thread at her throat stirred—not sharply, not insistently, but with a quiet persistence that did not align with distance alone.

She did not reach for it.

She only noticed.

And that, she realized, was no longer the same thing as before.

By late afternoon, the shift came without warning.

The wind sharpened first, cutting across the ridge in a way that felt different from the steady currents before it. Then the sky thickened, the pale light flattening as cloud closed in from the horizon. Riven glanced up once, his expression tightening just slightly.

“Storm line,” Rysa muttered, already moving.

The temperature dropped almost at once. Snow didn’t begin as falling flakes, but as fine, needling powder driven sideways across the rock, stinging where it touched exposed skin.

“We hold,” Riven said, his voice calm but leaving no space for argument. “No point fighting the path in this.”

They secured the horses quickly, hands moving with practiced efficiency, and retreated into the shelter as the wind rose into a low, constant roar.

Inside, the space felt smaller than before.

It wasn’t the dimensions that had changed, but the way five bodies filled it, forcing an awareness of proximity that had not been there in the open air. Eira settled between Riven and Rysa, her knees nearly brushing the opposite wall, the stone still holding a trace of cold beneath the growing warmth of the fire.

Riven pulled off his outer cloak and anchored it across the entrance gap, dulling the worst of the draft. As he reached across, his arm brushed lightly against hers—nothing deliberate, nothing that should have carried any weight at all.

And yet something in her awareness caught on it.

Not sharply. Not enough to make her move away. Only enough that she noticed the contact after it had already passed.

She drew in a slow breath and let the moment go.

Rysa glanced toward her arm.

“You’re favoring it,” she said, not unkindly. “Binding’s too loose.”

“It’s holding,” Eira replied, though she shifted slightly as she spoke.

Riven had already reached for the wrap before she finished. There was no hesitation in the gesture, but no assumption either—only the quiet practicality of someone used to tending injuries without turning them into a matter of discussion.