Chapter 8 After the Fire #2
Then Harlan folded one of the reports and set it aside.
The movement itself was small, but the silence that followed was not, and Soren felt immediately that the conversation was turning in a different direction.
"They're still talking about Riven."
No one responded right away because the statement required no explanation. Weeks had passed since the funeral, yet the wound remained fresh.
"Of course they are," Kael said.
Harlan nodded slowly.
"They're talking about other things too."
Soren already knew where this was heading, and his patience began thinning almost immediately.
Varek exchanged a brief glance with Harlan before speaking.
"The rumors haven't disappeared."
"No," Soren said evenly. "They haven't."
"The attacks continue."
"They do."
"The losses continue."
Soren lifted his gaze and fixed it on Varek.
"So say what you're trying to say."
The room fell silent as Varek held his stare for several seconds before finally answering.
"People are afraid."
The words landed softly, not as an accusation but as a statement of fact, which did nothing to make Soren dislike them any less.
"People have reason to be afraid."
"That's not what I mean."
The irritation began stirring beneath Soren's control while, across the table, Harlan rubbed a hand across his beard.
"Every attack strengthens the rumors."
Kael shifted slightly in his seat, and although the movement was almost imperceptible, Soren noticed it anyway.
"And?"
The older hunter met his gaze.
"And people are beginning to wonder how much longer this can continue."
For a moment nobody spoke while the mountain wind rattled faintly against the stone outside the narrow windows.
Soren looked from one man to the next. Neither seemed comfortable, and neither seemed eager for the conversation, yet both had brought it here regardless.
Finally, he asked, "What exactly is it you think should change?"
Varek exhaled slowly, and when he answered, his words came with a caution that immediately put Soren on edge.
"The situation."
Something cold settled in Soren's chest.
"The situation."
"Don't do that."
Varek's voice remained calm.
"We're not discussing Eira herself."
The fact that he felt compelled to say it only made things worse.
"Then who are you discussing?"
No one answered immediately, and the silence served as an answer of its own.
Soren leaned back in his chair, and for the first time since entering the room, genuine anger stirred beneath his composure—not because they blamed her, but because they had reduced her to a problem waiting to be solved, a complication, a risk, and a subject to be debated around a table while she remained elsewhere in the fortress, unaware of any of it.
"The attacks began before she arrived."
No one disagreed.
"Frostvein would still want Ironfang weakened if she vanished tomorrow."
Again, no one disagreed.
"The rumors are nonsense."
"They are," Harlan agreed.
The answer came too quickly and too easily, causing Soren's jaw to tighten because everyone at the table understood the contradiction. The rumors were nonsense, yet the fear was real, and fear rarely cared about truth.
Varek folded his hands.
"Then what do you intend to do?"
The question settled heavily across the room, not as a hostile challenge but as something impossible to avoid.
And Soren found himself without an answer.
The silence stretched long enough for discomfort to appear and long enough for everyone present to notice, because the truth was painfully simple: he didn't know how to stop the rumors, he didn't know how to stop Frostvein, he didn't know how to repair what had been broken since Riven's death, and he certainly didn't know how to protect Eira from all of it.
Across the table, Harlan lowered his gaze, Varek looked away first, and even Kael remained silent.
No one pressed further because no one needed to; the absence of an answer spoke loudly enough on its own.
The council chamber emptied slowly as chairs scraped against stone, reports were gathered and stacked, and a few final observations were exchanged in low voices before Harlan and Varek eventually departed, leaving the door to close behind them with a muted thud.
A heavy silence settled over the room, and for a time neither Soren nor Kael moved from their seats.
The maps remained spread across the table between them while, beyond the windows, the afternoon gradually slipped toward evening.
Soren gathered several reports into a neat stack and pushed them aside. Although the meeting had ended, the problem itself remained unresolved.
Eventually Kael leaned back in his chair.
"They're wrong about her."
Soren didn't look up.
"Then why are we still talking about this?"
"Because they're not wrong about everything."
That answer immediately drew his attention, and Soren lifted his gaze to meet Kael's steady expression.
Neither spoke for a moment before Kael continued.
"They don't trust her."
Soren's jaw tightened.
"They don't have to."
"No. But they do have to live beside her."
The words lingered between them, carrying a practical reality that was frustratingly difficult to argue against.
Kael folded his arms.
"Every attack, every rumor, and every problem that starts beyond these walls eventually circles back to her."
"That's not her fault."
"I know," Kael replied evenly. "But fault isn't the issue."
Silence settled over the room once more while the wind brushed softly against the fortress walls outside.
Soren leaned back in his chair.
"What are you suggesting?"
"I'm saying this stops being a council problem the moment someone decides to act on it."
The statement landed harder than anything that had been said during the meeting because it wasn't speculation but a simple acknowledgment of reality.
Fear made people reckless, and grief often made them even worse.
Soren turned his gaze toward the windows and the mountains rising beyond them.
Kael watched him for a moment before speaking again.
"If this were anyone else, you would've made a decision already."
The words struck with surprising force precisely because they carried neither accusation nor judgment, making them far more difficult to dismiss.
Kael was right.
If this had been a political liability, a hostage, a trader, or an ally under Ironfang's protection, the answer would have been obvious. The risk would have been assessed, the vulnerable target removed, and the clan protected.
Instead, weeks had passed without any meaningful change.
Kael exhaled slowly.
"You're waiting for the situation to improve."
Soren offered no response.
"It won't."
The room fell silent again before Kael added in a quieter voice,
"She isn't safe here."
The danger no longer came from Frostvein alone.
That threat could be fought, tracked, and eventually destroyed.
The others were far more difficult to confront.
Rumors, suspicion, and fear spread faster than any enemy and reached places no warrior could defend.
Soren stared toward the western mountains.
Beyond those passes lived old allies, remote settlements, and families whose loyalty to Ironfang had never wavered. They were places far enough away that few would think to search for her and isolated enough that she could disappear completely.
For a long time he remained silent before finally speaking.
"Find somewhere beyond the western passes."
Kael remained quiet, listening.
"Somewhere loyal."
Soren's gaze never left the mountains.
"Somewhere Frostvein won't reach."
After a brief pause, Kael asked,
"And if she refuses?"
A faint smile touched Soren's mouth, brief and entirely without humor.
"She will."
The answer came immediately.
Eira would argue, demand answers, and refuse to be ordered anywhere without a fight. The certainty of that should have been reassuring, yet instead it left an unpleasant weight in his chest.
Lately she hadn't argued.
She hadn't demanded anything.
In truth, she had barely spoken to him at all.
Kael studied him for a moment before asking the question neither of them had voiced during the council meeting.
"Are you doing this for Ironfang?"
Soren looked out at the mountains.
"No."
The answer came without hesitation, and neither man spoke after that because both understood exactly what he meant.
When he finally rose from his chair, the chamber had grown noticeably darker.
He left the council hall and made his way through the fortress without any particular destination in mind, and only when familiar corridors began appearing around him did he realize where his feet had taken him.
Eira's rooms lay at the end of the passage ahead.
Soren stopped.
The distance between them was not far—perhaps a dozen steps at most—and it was close enough that the bond stirred immediately, a familiar and persistent ache beneath his ribs.
For several moments he remained where he was.
The corridor stood empty, with no voices, no footsteps, and nothing but silence and the closed door waiting at the far end.
He could have crossed the distance, knocked, and finally said something—anything at all.
Instead, he found himself thinking about the square, about Riven, and about all the conversations that should have happened and never had, along with the explanations that arrived too late and the truths he still didn't know how to speak aloud.
His hand tightened briefly at his side before relaxing again.
A moment later, Soren turned away.
The bond lingered long after he began walking, as did the uneasy certainty that every day spent waiting made the distance between them larger.
Yet he continued down the corridor anyway, and the door remained closed behind him.