Page 114 of Salt Between the Wolves

The snow continued falling in a steady, uninterrupted curtain while the silence stretched between them.

Then Kael asked the question Soren had been avoiding since returning.

"Did you really think she would stay?"

Soren's eyes narrowed.

His second neither looked away nor softened the question, and he certainly didn't apologize for asking it.

"I gave her a place here."

The answer emerged automatically, though even to his own ears it sounded insufficient.

Kael's expression didn't change.

"You gave her many things."

The pause that followed felt deliberate.

"But you stopped giving her yourself."

Silence settled between them, heavy and uncomfortable precisely because it was true.

Soren looked away first.

Across the courtyard, light glowed from the great hall windows, appearing warm, distant, and somehow unreachable.

"I was trying to give her space."

The explanation sounded weaker spoken aloud than it ever had inside his own head.

"I know," Kael said calmly. "That's the problem."

For a moment neither spoke.

The words lingered between them, and Soren hated them because he understood exactly what Kael meant.

There had been weeks of distance and weeks of waiting, weeks spent convincing himself that there would be time later—time after the council, time after the patrols, time after the grief had settled, and time after he figured out what he was supposed to say.

Everything had been postponed until later. Always later.

Kael looked toward him.

"You kept waiting for the right moment."

The words landed with quiet precision, carrying neither accusation nor anger, but only a simple observation.

Then, after a brief pause, he added:

"She stopped waiting."

Neither man spoke again as the wind moved through the courtyard and snow gathered along the stone walls.

Standing beneath the dark sky of Ironfang, Soren found himself unable to argue with a single word.

Chapter 16: The Man from the West

Eira