Page 234 of Salt Between the Wolves

The word settled between them with a weight that felt both heavy and familiar.

"He has always cared, perhaps too much."

Another turn of the staircase brought another gust of wind.

Eira frowned, and Leander noticed immediately, just as he always seemed to.

"You don't agree."

"No."

The answer escaped before she could soften it.

Leander waited patiently until she finally added, "Someone who cared wouldn't have made some of the choices he made."

For a moment she thought he might argue, but instead he nodded.

"That's fair."

The response surprised her.

Leander continued before she could say anything else.

"Caring about people and understanding them are not the same thing."

Silence followed, and the words struck closer than she wanted to admit.

"He spent years earning the right to protect Ironfang, and somewhere along the way, he began treating protection as the answer to everything, even when it wasn't."

Ahead of them, the staircase finally ended, and daylight spilled through an open archway that led to the top of the lighthouse and the sea beyond it.

For a moment neither of them moved as the wind swept through the opening.

Then Leander spoke again, his voice quiet beneath the wind.

"That doesn't excuse what he did."

The words carried easily through the open air.

"But if you want to understand Soren, you need to understand that most of his mistakes were made for the same reason."

Eira looked at him, and Leander met her gaze.

"He was trying to prevent a loss he couldn't bear."

The words lingered between them as they stepped into the light, and for the first time since leaving Ironfang, Eira found herself asking a different question—not whether Soren had been wrong, but what exactly he had been so afraid of losing.

The wind struck them the moment they stepped onto the platform, cold and heavy with salt as it tugged at their cloaks and sent loose strands of Eira's pale hair dancing across her face, while beyond the stone parapet stretched an endless grey-blue sea that merged with the morning sky until the horizon disappeared into mist.

For a long while neither of them spoke, as the silence seemed to belong entirely to the ocean, and only when Leander rested both forearms against the weathered stone did he finally continue.

"You asked what he was afraid of losing."

Eira nodded while Leander kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, as though the story lay somewhere beyond it.

"When Soren was nineteen, the North was struck by one of the worst winters I can remember," he said as the wind swept across the lighthouse again, carrying with it the memory of that time when the mountain passes closed, entire settlements disappeared beneath the snow, roads became impassable, and messengers stopped arriving.

Eira listened quietly as he continued, explaining that there wasn't enough food, nor enough medicine, and certainly not enough time, and although his voice remained calm, she could hear the weight beneath it.