Page 80 of Salt Between the Wolves

Several times she fumbled with the bandage and had to begin again, but she worked patiently and methodically until she finally tied the last knot and stopped the bleeding.

The cut still hurt and her arm continued to throb, but the work was done.

Eira sat back against a rock and looked at the bandage wrapped around her arm.

A strange laugh escaped her, not because anything was funny, but because only a year ago she would have had no idea how to do any of this.

Someone else would have taken care of it for her—a servant, a healer, or simply anyone nearby willing to help.

Now there was only her.

The realization lingered longer than she expected, bringing neither loneliness nor pride but something quieter and stronger: the understanding that she was capable of more than she had once believed.

The storm continued raging around her, and the mountains remained as cold and unforgiving as ever.

Her arm hurt, she was tired, and she was alone, yet when Eira finally rose to her feet she found herself smiling in a way that was small, brief, and entirely genuine.

Then she gathered the reins, checked the mare for injuries one last time, and continued west.

The storm finally broke two days later.

By then White Pass lay well behind her, and the harsh northern peaks had given way to lower country where the mountains gradually softened into rolling hills and wooded valleys. The snow remained, though it no longer buried the roads beneath drifting white walls, and for the first time since leaving Ironfang she began encountering signs of regular travel, including wheel tracks, cart ruts, fresh hoofprints, and the occasional fence marking the edge of someone's pasture.

The sight felt strangely unfamiliar because she had spent so much of her life surrounded by fortresses and mountain strongholds that the evidence of ordinary lives seemed almost foreign.

By midday she stopped beneath a cluster of pines and pulled the folded maps from her satchel. The parchment crackled softly in the cold air as she unfolded it. Several of the routes had been copied from maps she had found in Ironfang's archives, while others were older, worn from use, and annotated in different hands.

Eira spread them carefully across a fallen log and spent several minutes studying the markings, tracing the road she had followed through the mountains, the river crossings, and the trade routes leading west. Eventually her finger settled on a small settlement marked near the edge of a crossroads. According to the map, it was the nearest village and the last reliable place to find supplies before continuing toward her sister's lands.

A faint sense of satisfaction settled inside her because, for once, she wasn't following someone else's directions but finding her own way.

The village appeared shortly before sunset.

Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys and drifted above snow-covered rooftops, while stone cottages clustered around a broad central road where merchants, farmers, and travelers moved about their business despite the cold.

The sight brought her horse's ears forward immediately, and Eira suspected the mare had recognized the promise of a stable before she had.

For a long moment she remained at the edge of the settlement, watching and listening as life unfolded around her. No one paid her any particular attention. A pair of merchants argued while unloading barrels from a wagon, children raced through the snow beside a well, and an elderly woman scolded someone from a doorway. Life continued without urgency, fear, or politics, and without anyone caring who her father was.

The realization felt almost surreal.

Eira pulled her hood lower and guided the mare toward the village.

The inn stood near the center of the settlement, larger than the surrounding buildings and warm with firelight spilling from its windows. Conversations drifted through the open doorway, accompanied by occasional bursts of laughter that made her hesitate briefly before stepping inside.

Heat wrapped around her almost immediately, and after days of cold wind and mountain snow the warmth felt overwhelming.

Several heads turned as she entered, but none remained interested for long because travelers came and went constantly in places like this, and she was simply another stranger passing through.

The innkeeper looked up from behind the counter.

"Room?"

Eira nodded.

"For one night."

The woman named a price, and Eira froze as an embarrassingly obvious realization struck her.