Page 23 of Iron Beneath the Snow

“Ironfang is not bound by the doctrine that diminished her in the first place.”

The insult lay not in the words themselves, but in how easily they fitted the law Frostvein had used against her.

Eira felt heat rise beneath her skin.

Not shame.

Anger, directed without distinction.

“I am present,” she said, her voice cutting cleanly through the tension.

The Hall quieted again, not completely, but enough.

Elder Sael turned toward her.

“Do you accept Ironfang’s claim?”

The question narrowed the space around Eira, not through force, but through the weight of what it implied, as though the entire Hall had shifted its balance to rest on the answer alone.

She did not respond at once.

The silence held, stretching just long enough for her to feel the steady rise of her pulse.

“And if I refuse?” she asked.

“Then you remain under Frostvein jurisdiction,” Sael replied, “compromised and unfit for sanctified union.”

The days behind iron seemed suddenly present again.

Meals passed beneath a locked door.

Keepers examining the mark without speaking to her.

A future being weighed elsewhere while she waited to learn what use remained in her.

Her gaze shifted toward her father.

He still was not looking at her.

Instead, he watched the room, reading the wolves gathered within it, tracking the movement of loyalty and tension, weighing the cost of every possible outcome with the same attention he would give a battlefield.

He was not waiting for her answer.

He was waiting to see how she could still be used.

Something tightened in her throat, though she did not allow it to reach her voice.

Soren had not spoken again.

He remained where he stood, neither pressing nor withdrawing.

The mark at her throat pulsed faintly, not with pain, but with a quiet persistence that made itself impossible to ignore.

“If I accept,” she said slowly, “I leave Frostvein.”

“Yes,” Soren replied.

The answer came without hesitation, and without anything that might soften its edges.