Page 8 of Salt Between the Wolves

And yet the image remained fixed unpleasantly in his mind anyway — Eira laughing beside another wolf while the bond between them sat silent for the first time in weeks.

As though, for those few moments, she had forgotten him entirely.

The thought should have relieved him.

Instead, it followed him all the way back across the yard.

Chapter 3: Fault Lines

Soren

The snow along the northern ridge had hardened into wind-cut ice by dawn, forcing the patrol to slow where the mountain narrowed into broken stone and exposed roots. Below them, dark pines swallowed the lower slopes in dense silence, while farther west the sky remained the flat grey of an approaching storm.

Soren rode ahead of the others without speaking.

The cold usually helped him think. It stripped distraction down to necessity, sharpened movement, steadied instinct until decisions became simple things: track, anticipate, survive.

Lately, even that clarity had begun to fracture.

Behind him, the patrol moved in loose formation through the trees, their horses picking carefully across the frozen ground. Riven rode near the center beside Kael, speaking quietly enough that the words disappeared beneath the wind before reaching Soren clearly. Every so often a brief laugh drifted through the group before dissolving into the mountain air again.

It should not have held his attention as strongly as it did.

Yet he noticed it anyway.

They stopped near midday beside a narrow outcropping where the ridge widened enough to shelter the horses from the worst of the wind. One of the scouts moved off to check the lower trail while the others unpacked waterskins and dried meat in practiced silence.

Soren crouched near the edge of the ridge, studying the tracks below. Too many. Not Frostvein. Smaller patrols moving west, testing boundaries.

Behind him, conversation rose and fell in fragments.

“…Varos caravans pulled back entirely…”

“…heard two southern packs delayed their traders…”

“…people are starting to talk.”

That last comment drew a quieter silence.

Soren did not turn immediately, though he recognized the voice. Dain. One of the older wolves who had ridden beside Ironfang long before Soren became alpha.

“The younger wolves are nervous,” Dain continued after a moment, his tone less confrontational than careful. “They hear enough pieces to build their own conclusions.”

Kael glanced briefly toward Soren before answering instead. “Let them talk. Winter always breeds rumors.”

“Not like this.”

The wind shifted sharply across the ridge as Soren straightened slowly to his feet.

“What exactly are they saying?”

No one answered at first, and the hesitation irritated him more than the rumors themselves.

Dain finally exhaled through his nose. “That Frostvein isn’t done. That smaller packs are pulling away because they think Ironfang tied itself to something dangerous.”

Not someone. Something.

Soren felt his jaw tighten slightly.