Page 51 of Iron Beneath the Snow

“You won’t be dressed as an ornament here,” she said. “But you won’t be overlooked either.”

Eira’s gaze dropped briefly to her hands.

“In Frostvein,” she said, “those two things were often confused.”

Mara paused, just for a moment.

“I buried a mate,” she said.

The words came without emphasis, but they carried weight.

Eira’s attention sharpened at Mara’s words, though she did not interrupt immediately. Instead, she held the woman’s gaze through the reflection, weighing both the statement and the tone behind it.

“Was it sanctified?” she asked at last, more carefully than before.

Mara gave a slight shake of her head. “No. It wasn’t anything the Keepers would have approved of.”

There was a brief pause before she added, more quietly, “It was chosen.”

Something shifted in Eira’s chest at that distinction—not sharply, but enough to make her aware of it.

“And that choice,” she continued, “had nothing to do with ritual?”

“None,” Mara replied, drawing the comb more slowly through Eira’s hair as if the memory required steadier hands. “In Ironfang, we don’t wait for the Moon to assign meaning to what we’re willing to stand for.”

Eira’s hand rose unconsciously to her throat, her fingers brushing the mark as she considered that.

“And yet some things are still carved into us,” she said, her voice quieter now.

Mara met her eyes in the reflection without hesitation. “That mark isn’t ours,” she said, though there was no rejection in her tone—only clarity.

“No,” Eira agreed, holding her gaze.

“But you’re standing here wearing it,” Mara continued, as though placing the reality between them rather than challenging it.

Eira did not look away. “I am.”

The silence that followed felt heavier this time, not empty but deliberate, as if both of them were allowing the implication to remain unspoken.

At last, Mara stepped back, satisfied with the braid she had finished, her attention shifting from detail to distance.

“There’s already talk,” she said.

“I expected as much.”

“That Ironfang got what it wanted,” Mara continued, her tone light enough to pass as observation, though not careless.

Eira’s expression remained unchanged. “And what do they think that is?”

Mara took a moment before answering, as if deciding how much to say aloud.

“To unsettle Frostvein, first of all,” she said. “To loosen its alliances, to force movement where there was certainty before.” She paused briefly, then added, more carefully, “And perhaps to claim something Frostvein was guarding too tightly.”

At that, the mark at Eira’s throat pulsed faintly—not painfully, but with a quiet awareness that did not belong entirely to her.

“Do you believe that’s all this is?” Eira asked.

Mara tilted her head slightly, studying her with a kind of measured curiosity.