Page 10 of Salt Between the Wolves

“You snapped at Riven for no reason.”

“I corrected him.”

“You cut him apart for suggesting a route change.”

Soren said nothing.

“That isn’t like you,” Kael continued carefully. “And people notice when something isn’t like you.”

There it was again. Soren hated how quickly that unsettled him.

“He’ll survive bruised pride,” he said flatly.

“That wasn’t the problem.”

Kael’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer before shifting toward the tree line below. “The patrols are already nervous. If they start thinking their alpha’s judgment is slipping—”

“It isn’t.”

The answer came too quickly.

Kael noticed that too, though neither of them acknowledged it aloud.

Below the ridge, one of the scouts signaled sharply from the lower trail.

Movement.

The conversation ended immediately after that as the patrol re-formed around necessity and began descending through the trees toward the western pass.

But the silence that followed Soren for the rest of the ride no longer felt clean. It felt watched.

The great hall was loud by the time Soren entered, though not with celebration.

Ironfang rarely wasted energy on forced cheer, especially in winter. The noise filling the chamber came instead from habit — low conversations layered over the scrape of benches against stone, the dull clatter of cups, the steady rhythm of wolves eating after a long day spent in cold air and harder conditions.

Heat gathered thickly beneath the rafters, carrying the scents of roasted meat, smoke, damp wool, and melting snow tracked in from the yard outside. Torches burned along the walls in uneven gold, their light catching against iron bands driven deep into the dark stone columns supporting the hall.

Soren crossed the threshold without slowing.

The nearest conversations shifted almost immediately around his presence, not stopping entirely, but lowering just enough to acknowledge him before continuing. Most wolves looked away again once they realized he wasn’t there to address the hall directly.

He preferred it that way.

At the center tables, several hunters moved aside automatically to clear space as he approached. Kael was already seated near the far end with two of the patrol wolves from earlier that morning, their conversation quieting briefly as Soren sat down among them.

No one mentioned the ridge. No one mentioned Riven.

That silence irritated him more than open commentary would have.

A serving girl passed nearby, setting down another tray of dark bread and salted meat while conversation gradually resumed around the hall in uneven currents. Soren reached automatically for a cup without really tasting the drink once it touched his mouth.

His focus remained elsewhere.

The doors at the far end of the hall opened.

The reaction was subtle enough that an outsider might have missed it completely.

The shift moved gradually instead, table by table, conversation by conversation, until the room adjusted around discomfort almost without acknowledging it openly.