Page 96 of Iron Beneath the Snow

Eira paused at the threshold.

The hall did not turn toward her all at once, but awareness moved through it in quieter ways. Glances found her and slipped away again, quick and instinctive. There was judgment in them, but not only that—curiosity, calculation, and, in some, a trace of something like surprise.

She understood why.

It wasn’t that she looked like Frostvein.

It was that she didn’t.

She had stepped into Ironfang’s night wearing something that belonged not to her past, but to theirs—to their memory, their grief, their way of holding both without display.

She felt that weight along her spine, steady rather than oppressive.

Mara moved past her without hesitation, dissolving into the rhythm of the hall as if she had always been part of it.

Eira lingered only a moment longer before stepping inside.

The warmth met her immediately, softening the cold that had worked too deeply into her bones over the past days. Almost without thinking, she lifted her hands toward the fire, letting the heat seep into her skin.

A cup appeared beside her.

Riven.

He didn’t present it with ceremony, nor with any expectation. He simply held it out, as though it were obvious she would need something warm.

“It’s bitter,” he said, “but it helps.”

Eira accepted it, her fingers brushing the warmth of the clay.

“Thank you.”

His gaze shifted briefly to her hair, and something quiet passed through his expression.

“It suits you,” he said.

She glanced at him, one brow lifting slightly.

“My hair?”

“The fact that it isn’t restrained,” he replied, his tone even. “It looks more like you.”

There was no edge to it, no attempt to provoke. He was stating what he saw, nothing more.

Eira took a sip. The taste was sharp and bitter, like smoke dissolved into water, and she let out a slow breath as the warmth spread through her chest.

Riven’s attention was already shifting. A group of younger hunters approached, calling him back toward the tables, clapping him on the shoulder as they passed. He went with them easily, but before he did, he inclined his head toward her in a brief, understated acknowledgment.

Eira found herself watching him for a moment as he moved through the hall. There was something effortless in the way he belonged here, not because he dominated the space, but because he fit within it without resistance.

Her gaze drifted without intention—

and found Soren.

He stood on the far side of the fire, speaking with two elders. He wasn’t drinking, and he wasn’t laughing, yet he wasn’t separate from the gathering either. There was a stillness to him, as if the movement of the hall flowed around him rather than through him.

His gaze lifted briefly and met hers across the firelight.

Nothing in his expression changed, and no message passed between them, yet the thread between them tightened faintly, responding to proximity alone.