Page 93 of Iron Beneath the Snow

For a moment, the forest stilled, breath and steam rising into the cold air as the tension unwound.

Riven kept his hand on the shaft until the movement stopped completely, only then withdrawing it without ceremony.

By the time Eira looked up, Soren had already closed the distance.

His gaze moved across the injured hunter, the opened line, the place she had abandoned, and finally to her—precise and assessing, giving nothing away.

Eira released the injured hunter only when she was certain his breathing had steadied. When he tried to rise too quickly, she caught him again, more firmly this time, anchoring him in place until the urgency left his body.

“Give it a moment,” she said, quieter now, though no less steady.

He exhaled sharply and finally yielded.

Only then did she begin checking the injury, her hands moving with controlled precision now that the immediate danger had passed.

When she lifted her gaze again, Riven was watching her—not intrusively, but with clear attention.

“You pulled him out before he broke the line,” he said, as if finishing a thought he had already formed.

She wiped her hands lightly against her sleeve before answering, her eyes shifting briefly toward where the boar lay.

“He wouldn’t have recovered in time.”

Riven gave a small nod, accepting the logic without hesitation.

“You waited longer than most would have,” she said.

That earned the faintest shift in his expression, not quite a smile, but something close to it.

“I needed the boar to choose its direction,” he said. “If I moved too early, it wouldn’t have committed.”

“And if it had turned back?” she asked.

“It didn’t,” he replied, not dismissively, but with a kind of quiet acceptance of the risk he had taken.

She studied him for a moment before her attention dropped briefly to his shoulder.

“You’re hurt.”

He followed her gaze as though only now acknowledging it.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just caught the edge.”

“You adjusted before anyone else reacted,” she noted. “That’s not nothing.”

A quiet breath left him, something that might have been the beginning of a restrained laugh.

He rolled his shoulder once, testing it.

“It won’t slow me,” he said. “And it doesn’t need tending yet.”

She didn’t argue, though the look she gave him suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Next time,” she said instead, her tone softening just slightly, “don’t let it open that far.”

That drew a faint, almost reluctant amusement from him.

“Next time,” he replied, “give the line a breath before you step out of it.”