Page 27 of Iron Beneath the Snow

Hours passed before the mountain path began to soften. At some point the pale stone towers of Frostvein disappeared behind a bend in the range and did not return to view.

Only then did Eira allow herself to acknowledge what she felt.

It was not grief, at least not yet.

It was absence.

By late afternoon the treeline closed around them. The forest in this part of the mountain was denser and darker, its branches bowed under the weight of unmoving snow. The silence changed as they entered it, losing the rigid ceremony of Frostvein and becoming something quieter but more alert.

The silence of Frostvein had always felt imposed.

This one felt alive.

Different scents drifted through the cold air: damp earth buried beneath snow, resin bleeding from darker pines, and somewhere beneath it the faint metallic trace of worked iron carried on the wind.

She did not notice her hands trembling until her grip tightened on the reins.

Cold, she told herself.

Nothing more.

Ahead of her, the Ironfang alpha slowed his horse and removed his cloak without a word. He did not ask permission and made no attempt to present the gesture as kindness. Instead he simply reached across the narrow distance between their horses and settled the heavy dark fur across her shoulders.

The sudden weight startled her.

Warmth followed quickly.

“I don’t need it,” she said, because pride demanded at least the attempt.

“You’re shivering,” he replied.

She almost denied it.

Instead she drew the cloak closer around herself.

It smelled faintly of smoke and pine sap, layered with something darker she could not immediately name.

Beneath her skin her wolf stirred, not in submission but in the cautious recognition of unfamiliar territory.

She ignored the feeling.

They rode until the light failed.

The first night was spent beneath a broad shelf of stone where the trees thinned against the mountain. The Ironfang wolves built a fire without ceremony, ate from what they carried, and divided the watches as though the arrangement required no discussion.

No one asked Eira to explain herself.

No one asked what she intended to do when they reached Ironfang.

She slept little.

By dawn, they were moving again.

The second day carried them deeper through the lower ranges. Frostvein’s white peaks remained visible behind them for a time, distant enough now to look almost unreal, before cloud and forest finally erased them.

The terrain changed slowly.

Steep stone gave way to long wooded slopes. Narrow passes widened. Streams moved beneath shelves of ice, their sound following the riders through the trees.