Page 42 of Iron Beneath the Snow

“One you hold,” he said. “Not one you’re given.”

Silence held between them again, but it no longer felt brittle. There was weight in it now, something forming rather than breaking.

The fire snapped, sending a brief arc of sparks into the air before they disappeared into smoke.

Eira stepped back first, not retreating and not conceding, but choosing distance before it could be imposed on her.

“Then we’ll see,” she said quietly.

She turned and left without waiting for dismissal.

Soren remained where he was, the steady warmth of the embers pressing faintly through the soles of his boots.

A few wolves lingered at the edge of the hall, their attention carefully disguised as indifference.

He gave them nothing.

From the outside, everything remained within expected parameters. Frostvein would respond. Ironfang would adjust. Pressure would redistribute.

And Eira—

She had held under scrutiny.

That aligned with his expectations.

The faint pressure beneath his ribs stirred again, subtle enough to ignore and brief enough not to require action.

He dismissed it.

Chapter 11: The Yard

Eira

Eira woke before the light reached the mountains.

No one came for her. No voice called her name. Instead, the change reached her through the stone itself, a low, distant impact that seemed to travel along the walls and reach somewhere beneath her ribs.

Another followed. Then a third.

The sound found rhythm before her thoughts fully did—steel striking steel in steady intervals, measured rather than chaotic.

She opened her eyes, already aware that she had not truly slept. The night had passed in fragments, in shallow drifts that never quite deepened into rest. The mark had not burned, but it had not gone still either. It remained beneath her skin like a drawn bowstring, held in quiet tension, waiting without release.

She rose before anyone came to summon her.

No one stopped her when she stepped into the corridor and made her way out of the east wing.

The sound guided her.

The training yard opened below the main hall, carved directly into the mountain’s side and exposed to the pale edge of dawn. The first light had not yet reached the stone fully, leaving most of the space in a muted, cold grey.

The walls bore the marks of repeated impact, shallow fractures and worn edges where steel had met stone again and again. The ground beneath her feet had been smoothed by years of movement, shaped by the repetition of drills rather than design.

Dozens of wolves were already there.

They moved without spectacle and without ceremony, their focus contained entirely within the work itself. Blades met in controlled strikes, boots shifted and turned across the stone, breath leaving their bodies in steady rhythm.

No one called out to the Moon.