Chapter 31 White Pass #3
If Vargan advanced through the lower pass, Ironfang could break the first line before Frostvein reached the rise; if he tried to flank through the eastern ridge, the scouts would see the movement before dawn; and if he waited too long, the weather would punish both sides.
Vargan knew all of that, which meant this was not only about ground, and it never had been.
Kael seemed to follow the same thought, because his next words came quieter.
"You think he believes she's with us."
"I think he doesn't know what to believe."
"That makes him dangerous."
"It always did."
For a while, neither of them spoke, until Kael said, "He said if she comes willingly, he'll hear it from her."
Soren's gaze remained fixed on the opposite fires. "Yes."
"Do you believe him?"
The answer should have been simple, but it was not.
Vargan Frostvein had shaped obedience into virtue and called it protection, giving Eira choices only when he already trusted the outcome. He understood duty more easily than love, and control more easily than fear.
And yet Soren had seen something in him that day—not surrender or mercy, but a fracture.
"He will hear her," Soren said at last.
Kael frowned. "That isn't what I asked."
"No."
His second exhaled through his nose. "You have become very difficult to have conversations with."
"I was always difficult."
"Not like this."
Soren glanced at him then, and Kael did not look away.
There was no accusation in his expression, only concern hidden badly beneath irritation, and Soren almost preferred accusation.
A sudden ache pulled through his chest, slow and deep, as if something inside him had tightened around an empty space. He kept his face still, but Kael saw it anyway, of course he did.
"Soren."
"It's nothing."
"Don't."
The word came sharper than expected, and Soren looked back across the pass as Kael lowered his voice.
"If this turns tomorrow, you need to be able to stand."
"I will."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one I have."
Kael fell silent, but the anger did not leave him.
Below, Frostvein torches shifted as men moved between tents, and a line of riders crossed briefly through the light before disappearing again, orderly and controlled, waiting.
Soren understood the shape of it now.
Vargan had not marched only to take Eira back; he had marched because the world had disobeyed the pattern he trusted.
A daughter given a choice should have returned with the correct answer, a political bond should have strengthened bloodline and law, and an Ironfang alpha should have guarded what was placed in his keeping.
Instead, Eira had left Frostvein, then left Ironfang, and now neither father nor husband could say where she was.
No wonder Vargan had brought an army, because it was the only language control had left when certainty failed.
Kael shifted beside him. "What happens if she doesn't come?"
Soren did not move, because the question had been waiting all evening, perhaps longer.
"If she doesn't come," he said, "then she doesn't come."
Kael stared at him. "And then?"
"Then we keep Frostvein from crossing."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
A bitter wind swept through the pass, pulling loose snow from the ridge and carrying it between the camps like smoke.
Soren felt the cold less than he should have, and that worried him more than the pain.
Kael looked away first. "She might not know."
"She knows enough."
"Not this."
"No," Soren said quietly, "not this."
The admission settled between them.
Somewhere far below, a horse screamed and was quickly calmed, and then silence returned.
Kael folded his arms against the cold. "I hate waiting."
"Good."
"Good?"
"It means you still expect something to happen."
Kael gave him a look, but Soren did not smile.
Across the valley, the Frostvein banners moved in the wind, pale shapes against the dark, and for one irrational moment he imagined Eira seeing them—not from here, but from somewhere far away, perhaps Silverwake, in a room by the sea with a desk and an unfinished letter.
He dismissed the thought before it became hope, because hope was useless in a pass full of armed men, yet it remained anyway, small, unwelcome, and alive.
A scout approached from the eastern ridge, snow crusted over his shoulders.
Kael turned first. "Report."
"No movement through the upper trail," the scout said. "Frostvein has posted watchers, but they haven't advanced."
"And the weather?"
"Worse by morning."
Soren nodded. "Double the ridge watch. Rotate them every two hours. No fires above the tree line."
The scout bowed and left.
Kael watched him go, then looked back toward the pass. "Worse by morning."
"Yes."
"So we have tonight."
Soren said nothing.
Both armies had tonight, Vargan had tonight, and Eira, wherever she was, had tonight; after that, the mountain would begin choosing for them.
Soren remained at the edge of the camp until the cold settled into his bones and the fires across the valley blurred through falling snow, while no one attacked and no one left, and between the two armies White Pass waited.