Page 45 of Salt Between the Wolves

No one objected, and no one looked away, because every wolf standing in that square knew the same thing: under ordinary circumstances, Soren would have gone himself.

Helvi's breathing grew uneven as her gaze shifted once more, this time toward Eira.

The change moved through the crowd almost visibly. Eira felt it before she fully understood it—the attention, the hesitation, the thoughts no one wanted to speak aloud.

Helvi looked at the blood covering her sleeves, the dried crimson staining her hands, and finally at the mark visible at Eira's throat.

Something twisted in her expression.

"Ever since she came here..."

The words emerged quietly at first before growing stronger.

"Ever since she came here, everything has been falling apart."

A murmur moved through the crowd, small enough to be almost imperceptible and therefore all the more dangerous.

Helvi pointed directly at her.

"My son would still be alive."

The words seemed to narrow the entire square around them.

"He would still be alive if none of this had happened."

No one moved or spoke. The entire square seemed to hold its breath, suspended in the fragile silence that followed her accusation.

Eira could feel hundreds of eyes on her without looking at them. Some were sympathetic, some uncertain, and some avoided her entirely.

That hurt most of all.

Not certainty, but doubt.

The possibility that some of them believed it.

"First Frostvein," Helvi said, tears running freely down her face. "Then the attacks. And now my son."

Eira stood frozen while part of her understood that grief was speaking and another part couldn't stop listening, because grief often reached for truths people concealed when they were calm.

For one terrible moment she found herself wondering whether others thought the same. Whether they looked at her and saw exactly what Helvi did—a curse, a burden, a mistake that had followed Ironfang home.

The thought settled like ice beneath her ribs.

Instinctively, her gaze found Soren.

She wanted him to say something, anything at all. She wanted him to stop it, to tell them they were wrong.

Instead, he remained silent—not because he agreed, and not because he believed Helvi, but because a mother stood over the body of her dead son, and there was no answer large enough to stand against that grief.

Eira understood that.

She hated that she understood it, because understanding changed nothing about how alone she suddenly felt.

Eira didn't remember leaving the square.

At some point the crowd disappeared behind her. The voices faded along with the questions, the grief, and the crushing weight of hundreds of eyes following her every step until only the cold remained.

She crossed the fortress almost without seeing it.