Page 9 of Iron Beneath the Snow

Withdraw.

They had come for the girl, and the work was done.

Now they would disappear.

Down the corridor, one of his wolves collapsed mid-stride, his shoulder split open by a Frostvein spear. Another caught him without hesitation, dragging him forward as the wounded wolf bared his teeth against the pain. Soren did not slow.

This was not a rescue.

It was an incursion carried out under the rising weight of Frostvein’s anger.

He turned into a narrow stairwell meant for servants and descended into the under-passages beneath the Hall, old tunnels carved into the mountain in an age when Frostvein had feared starvation more than shame.

Ironfang had learned those passages years ago.

Back when Soren had still belonged to Frostvein.

Back when Vargan had valued him enough to keep him close rather than cast him out.

The thought flickered briefly, then died without consequence.

Vargan no longer belonged to his past.

He marked the boundary instead—the wall Soren would one day either climb or break.

As they moved deeper, the air cooled further, the stone damp beneath their boots, water dripping in slow, patient intervals that echoed faintly through the confined space. His wolves remained silent, as they always did after a clean strike, their attention already shifting forward, measuring the next move.

Soren’s mind did the same.

By dawn, Frostvein would understand what had been done. They would see the mark, recognize the intrusion of a foreign rite, and realize that the girl no longer fit within the White Law they had built their power upon.

They would call her ruined.

They would call her unclean.

They would call it a sign.

And Vargan would lose the alliance he had spent months shaping into something sharp enough to use.

If he tried to hide it, the Keepers would force the truth into the open. If he attempted to cleanse it, the structure would fracture under its own contradictions. If he pretended nothing had happened, the other packs would sense the weakness immediately and move to exploit it.

That had always been the intention.

Soren had not chosen the girl because of who she was.

He had chosen her because of what she represented.

Because she was clean enough to make the fall undeniable.

Because her name carried weight in that Hall.

Because Vargan’s pride rested on her throat as surely as it did on his own.

A door had needed to be forced open.

This was how such doors were opened.

The image returned anyway—white against stone, her eyes widening not in pleading but in sharp, furious comprehension as the ritual tooth broke skin.