Chapter 28 What We Stopped Asking
Soren
The cliffs rose from the sea like broken teeth, their dark faces worn smooth by centuries of salt and wind.
Soren reined his horse to a slower pace as the narrow coastal path curved toward the headland, where an abandoned watchtower stood beyond it, little more than weathered stone clinging stubbornly to the edge of the cliffs.
It had once guarded the sea routes into Silverwake, but now it overlooked nothing but restless water and the long passage of time.
Leander had chosen the place well, far enough from the city to avoid curious eyes and close enough that neither of them could pretend this meeting was accidental.
The horse snorted beneath him, uneasy as another gust swept in from the sea, but Soren barely noticed, his thoughts circling the same three sentences since dawn.
She is alive.
Do not come for her.
Come for answers.
He had read the letter often enough that the words no longer belonged to ink and parchment, having become a challenge, a command he still wasn't certain why he had obeyed.
His jaw tightened as he considered that if anyone else had sent such a message, he would have ignored it without hesitation, and if anyone else had presumed to tell him what he could or could not do, he wouldn't be riding toward an old watchtower but already on his way to Silverwake.
Only Leander possessed the infuriating habit of making impossible requests sound almost reasonable, something Soren disliked almost as much as he disliked the fact that he had come.
The wind carried the sharp scent of salt across the cliffs, different from Ironfang, where the air smelled of pine, stone, and snow, while here everything tasted of the sea.
His shoulder throbbed beneath the bandages as he shifted in the saddle, the wound having begun to knit but not well enough to be forgotten, just as the defeat had not been.
His horse climbed the final stretch of the path until the tower came fully into view, appearing empty at first glance as Soren slowed to a walk.
His wolf stirred beneath his skin, not from fear but from expectation, because Leander was here, even if he couldn't yet see him, as he had known the man too long to mistake the feeling.
The sea had many ways of hiding what stood in plain sight, and Leander had learned from it.
Soren swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around a weathered stone post that had once held signal fires.
The wind pressed steadily against his back as he climbed the last few steps toward the ruined tower, from where the cliffs dropped sharply into the sea, waves bursting against black rock before dissolving into white foam.
There was no one, and his gaze swept over the headland before shifting toward the winding path below, finding nothing.
He was early, or Leander was late, and neither possibility improved his mood.
He folded his arms across his chest, only to abandon the position almost immediately as pain flared through his injured shoulder, the irritation that followed having little to do with the wound itself.
Waiting had never come naturally to him, especially when every instinct urged him to keep moving toward Silverwake, toward Eira.
His fingers brushed unconsciously against the folded letter inside his cloak.
Do not come for her.
The words still carried the quiet confidence that had irritated him from the moment he had first read them, for Leander had never been a man to waste ink, and if he had written six words, he expected all six to be obeyed.
Soren's mouth tightened as he realized he hated that the letter had worked, not because it had persuaded him, but because it had made him hesitate, and that alone was unlike him.
He stepped closer to the cliff's edge, from where Silverwake appeared only as a pale line in the distance, its towers softened by sea mist until they seemed almost unreal.
Somewhere beyond them was Eira, closer than she had been in weeks, close enough that every instinct urged him to ride straight past the agreement he had made.
He could be in the city before nightfall, and whether Leander would understand or not mattered very little to him at the moment.
A gull wheeled overhead, its cry swallowed almost immediately by the wind, and then another sound reached him—measured footsteps that were neither hurried nor cautious, but simply certain.
Soren didn't turn.
"There was a time," he said without looking back, "when you were capable of arriving before me."
A quiet chuckle answered him.
"There was also a time when you possessed something resembling patience."
Soren closed his eyes for the briefest moment, thinking that some things, it seemed, refused to change.
Soren turned at last.
Leander stood a few paces behind him, one hand resting lightly on the weathered stone wall of the tower. The sea wind pulled at his dark cloak, though he seemed as unmoved by it as by the silence stretching between them.
For a long moment, neither man spoke, until Leander broke it first.
"You look worse."
Soren glanced down at the bandage beneath his cloak before meeting his friend's gaze again.
"I've been told I wear injuries well."
"I wasn't referring to your shoulder."
The answer came so evenly that it almost sounded casual, almost.
Soren let out a quiet breath that might once have become a laugh.
"I was beginning to miss your talent for insults."
"I had to make certain you were still capable of recognizing them."
For the first time since arriving, the corner of Soren's mouth lifted, though only briefly before the expression disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Leander noticed, as he noticed everything.
"You rode alone."
"I preferred it."
"I didn't ask whether you preferred it."
Soren's jaw tightened.
"No."
Leander nodded once, accepting the answer without comment as his gaze drifted toward the horse standing several yards away.
"Tired."
"He carried me here."
"So did mine."
The conversation sounded aimless, almost absurdly ordinary, yet beneath every sentence lay the quiet assessment of two men who had known each other long enough to notice what remained unsaid.
Leander studied him for another moment.
"You've lost weight."
Soren looked out toward the sea.
"I've been occupied."
"So I gathered."
Another silence settled between them, easier than the last, not comfortable and never comfortable, but familiar.
The wind carried the scent of salt between them.
Finally, Leander folded his arms.
"You've been rehearsing what you intend to say to me since you received my letter."
Soren met his eyes.
"And you've been rehearsing your answers."
A faint smile crossed Leander's face.
"No."
It was such a simple answer that Soren frowned.
"I learned a long time ago that conversations with you never follow the version I prepare."
For the first time that morning, Soren laughed, quiet and brief but real, the sound vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared, carried away by the wind before either of them chose to acknowledge it.
Then Leander's expression grew still.
"So," he said, looking directly at Soren, "ask me the question you've been holding onto for the last four days."
The sea seemed suddenly louder.
Soren didn't answer immediately, his fingers curling once at his side.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, too calm.
"Is she safe?"
The question hung between them, carried briefly by the wind before disappearing into the endless noise of the sea.
Leander held his gaze and answered immediately, without hesitation or qualification, with complete certainty.
"Yes."
Something in Soren's chest loosened before he could stop it, though only slightly and only for a moment before the feeling disappeared.
"Where is she?"
Leander's expression did not change.
"No."
Soren stared at him, and for a heartbeat he thought he had misheard.
"What?"
"You asked whether she was safe," Leander said as the sea crashed against the cliffs below. "I answered."
A dangerous stillness settled over Soren.
"I didn't ride across half the North for riddles."
"And I didn't ask you here to discuss geography."
For several moments neither man spoke while the wind pulled sharply at their cloaks and, far below, another wave shattered itself against black stone.
Finally Soren exhaled through his nose, slowly and deliberately, in a gesture that looked remarkably like patience and felt nothing like it.
"You seem determined to waste both our time."
Leander folded his arms.
"On the contrary," he said, his gaze remaining steady. "I suspect this is the first useful conversation you've had in months."
Soren's jaw tightened.
"Careful."
"Or what?"
The answer arrived so calmly that it nearly became an insult, and for a moment the old familiar irritation surfaced between them, not quite hostility but something older, the kind of friction that existed only between people who knew exactly how far they could push before the other stopped finding it amusing.
Leander was the first to look away, not in surrender but in calculation, as his eyes drifted toward the sea.
"When news travels north from Ironfang, it usually follows a pattern."
Soren said nothing.
"Trade reports, patrol movements, and disputes," Leander continued, his gaze returning to Soren. "For years those reports changed very little, because the North likes predictability."
Soren frowned.
"What does that have to do with Eira?"
"Nothing," Leander answered immediately. "That's the point."
The silence that followed felt heavier than before, and for the first time since arriving, Soren had the uncomfortable sense that the conversation was no longer moving where he wanted it to.
Leander continued.
"In the last few months, every conversation I've had with every leader worth speaking to has eventually reached the same question," he said as the sea roared beneath them. "What is happening in Ironfang?"
Soren's expression hardened.
"Then perhaps they should spend less time gossiping."
A faint smile touched Leander's face before disappearing.