Page 75 of Iron Beneath the Snow

She didn’t answer immediately, finishing the cut before setting the branch aside.

“No one is trying to define me.”

A brief pause followed.

“That doesn’t make it easier.”

“No.”

She met his gaze again, something steadier in it now.

“It makes it harder to step back.”

That held.

Soren’s posture shifted slightly, not withdrawing, but recalibrating.

“You don’t intend to.”

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation.

He studied her a moment longer, then inclined his head—not agreement, not dismissal, but acknowledgment.

“We’ll see how that holds.”

“We will.”

Mara’s voice cut in from behind them.

“If you’re done talking, there’s still work.”

Eira almost smiled again.

This time it stayed a fraction longer.

She lowered her gaze, returning to the branch in her hands.

Soren remained where he was a moment longer than necessary, his attention resting on her a fraction longer than the work required.

Then he turned, as if the delay had not been a decision at all.

Eira didn’t watch him leave.

The rhythm of the work closed around her again, steady as before.

But this time, she didn’t feel outside of it.

Chapter 21: Provocation

Soren

The body was found before dawn along the southern path that ran across the lower ridge, precisely in the stretch Eira had indicated Frostvein would avoid holding.

One of Ironfang’s scouts.

He lay where he had fallen, the cut at his throat clean enough to leave little doubt that it had been done with certainty rather than haste. Nothing had been taken from him, and nothing obscured who he was, which made concealment unlikely to have ever been the intention.