Page 5 of Iron Beneath the Snow

White Law. White Law. White Law.

The sound gathered, filling the space until it became less a voice and more a presence, something that pressed outward and inward at once.

Eira listened.

And felt something settle into place within her.

Something quieter than fear, and far more difficult to silence.

Chapter 2: The Mark

Eira

The chanting followed her out of the Hall, clinging to her like smoke as the escort guided her through the white-stone corridors toward her chambers. Wolves stepped aside as she passed, some lowering their heads in quiet acknowledgement, others watching openly, already weighing her future in litters and alliances, as though her path had long since ceased to belong to her.

To them, she had been sanctified—cleansed, proven worthy under the White Law—and the weight of those words pressed more insistently against her skin than the blood still drying along her palm.

Two guards walked half a step behind her, not because they feared she might flee, but because Frostvein did not leave what it valued unguarded.

Outside, dusk spread slowly across the sky, draining the last color from the mountain until only muted grey remained. The air cut sharper here, stripped of the braziers’ warmth, and Eira drew a deep breath, grounding herself in pine, stone, and snow.

For a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to imagine what lay beyond the corridor ahead—past the chambers, past the gates, beyond the boundary markers carved with the Frostvein sigil—continuing forward without stopping, walking until the White Law became something told about her rather than something spoken over her.

The thought dissolved as quickly as it formed.

She was not naïve.

Frostvein did not lose what belonged to it.

The guards halted at her door, and one stepped forward to open it without a word.

Inside, her chamber had been prepared for the ceremony. White furs layered the bed, white candles burned in still lines, and white cloth had been laid across the low table by the window with deliberate care.

A bride’s chamber.

Eira stepped inside, and the door closed behind her with a quiet finality that seemed to seal the space.

Silence settled, dense and unmoving.

She flexed her left hand, feeling the dull throb of the shallow cut from the ritual, then crossed to the basin and dipped her fingers into cold water, watching the pale wash of diluted blood spiral and disappear.

The White Law had marked her.

Soon, another ritual would bind her to a mate chosen not by desire, but by advantage.

She rested her palm against the stone wall and closed her eyes.

The memory came unbidden, as it always did when she tried to quiet her thoughts.

Two voices were once equal.

She saw the servant again, her hands lined with age, the flicker of hearthlight catching along the edges of her skin as she leaned close, her voice lowered to something barely above breath.

Before the White Law, she had said, there had been another law—older, erased, spoken only in whispers—a law in which no wolf ruled alone.

Eira had been too young to understand the danger of repeating it.

She understood now.