Page 94 of Iron Beneath the Snow

She almost smiled—only barely, but enough to shift something in her expression.

When Eira looked past Riven, Soren was still standing where he had stopped.

His gaze met hers briefly, unreadable.

The familiar awareness beneath her skin held steady as the group began to reform for the return.

Chapter 26: Fire Names

Eira

By nightfall, Ironfang smelled like smoke and salt.

Not incense. Not sanctified oil.

Real smoke—pine resin and old wood, thick in the beams of the hall. Real salt—rubbed into meat to keep it through winter. The scent clung to skin and cloth and hair until everything felt marked by it, as if the mountain itself had pressed its thumbprint into the clan.

Eira lingered in the east wing longer than she needed to.

Frostvein celebrations had been arranged like doctrine: clean lines, controlled voices, a measured allowance of joy that never threatened to become disorder. Even laughter had carried a faint edge of permission.

Ironfang did not ask permission.

They simply gathered.

Mara appeared at the door without knocking, as if she had been waiting for the moment Eira’s hesitation grew too obvious to ignore.

“You will come,” she said.

It was not phrased as a question.

Eira glanced at her reflection in the small polished metal disk beside the hearth. The braid she wore most days was tight, practical, convenient. The clothing Ironfang had given her fit her body without ornament. It made her look like she belonged to work, not ceremony.

But this night was different.

“I don’t have anything suitable,” Eira said.

Mara’s eyes flicked once, taking in the neatness of the room, the folded garments, the quiet control Eira kept wrapped around herself like a second skin.

“You have something,” she replied. “You simply do not know it yet.”

She stepped inside with a bundle of cloth.

Dark—of course—but not plain. The fabric had a softer fall, a faint sheen that caught firelight like embers under ash. It wasn’t a gown, not in Frostvein terms. It was a dress made for movement, for warmth, for a body that might sit by a fire and then stand to dance without needing help.

“This belonged to my sister,” Mara said as she unfolded it. “She did not survive her first winter.”

The words were delivered without tremor.

Eira’s breath slowed.

“I can’t—”

“You can,” Mara interrupted gently, and that gentleness was rare enough to feel like a blade turned sideways. “Tonight we wear what reminds us we are not alone.”

Eira touched the fabric lightly. It was worn at the seams, but cared for. Mended carefully. Kept.

“Mara,” she began.