Chapter 33 Homecoming #2
Eventually he swung down from his horse, and the movement seemed to break whatever tension had settled over the road.
A moment later Eira dismounted as well.
For several heartbeats neither moved, now close enough to see the faint shadows beneath her eyes, the road dust on her cloak beneath the snow, and to understand exactly how far she had traveled.
The irritation returned, stronger this time, and relief came with it, making the combination unpleasant.
"You shouldn't be here."
The words left him before he considered replacing them with something better, something more welcoming.
Eira stared at him for a second, then one corner of her mouth moved, not quite a smile but dangerously close.
"Hello to you too."
A few of the warriors suddenly found the surrounding snow very interesting, and Kael looked away altogether, but Soren ignored them.
"You crossed half the north."
"So did you."
"I had a reason."
"So do I."
The answer arrived immediately, without hesitation or apology, exactly as he should have expected.
For the first time since seeing her, something inside him eased, not because the situation had improved—it hadn't.
White Pass still waited, Vargan still waited, and war still waited.
But Eira was here, and for reasons he preferred not to examine too closely, that fact alone made the future seem marginally less impossible.
For several moments neither spoke as snow settled across cloaks and shoulders, the road stretching empty behind Eira while the mountains remained silent.
Soren was the first to look away, not from discomfort but from habit, because there was always another problem demanding attention, and this one happened to involve several thousand armed people.
"How many did Leander send with you?"
Eira glanced toward the riders behind her. "Eighteen."
"Too few."
"They were meant to travel quickly."
"Which is not the same thing as safely."
A familiar look appeared in her eyes, the one that usually arrived shortly before an argument.
"I wasn't aware I required permission."
"No," Soren said calmly. "You required better judgment."
Several of her escort exchanged glances, one looking alarmingly close to laughing. Eira noticed, and so did Soren, but neither commented.
The silence lingered just long enough before Eira's expression shifted and the amusement disappeared.
"What happened?"
There it was—the real reason she had come, not him, not the bond, not unfinished conversations, but White Pass.
Soren's own expression hardened slightly. "Exactly what you were told."
"And?"
He studied her for a moment, measuring and determining how much she already understood—probably more than most.
"Your father refuses to withdraw."
"I assumed as much."
"So did I."
The answer earned the faintest shadow of frustration, not because she disagreed but because she agreed too easily.
"And you?" Eira asked.
"You refuse to move."
"No." That caught her attention.
Soren looked toward the mountains. "I refuse to abandon the pass."
It was a subtle but important distinction, and Eira understood immediately, of course she did.
The silence that followed carried no confusion, only implications, until she finally asked the question he had expected from the beginning.
"How close?"
The wind shifted, and snow spiraled briefly across the road as Soren considered the answer.
"Closer than I would like."
That was enough. Eira's gaze sharpened.
"How many incidents?"
She did not ask whether there had been incidents, only how many—again, exactly the right question.
"Three."
The number settled heavily between them.
"What kind?"
"Patrols."
She waited, and Soren continued.
"Arguments."
Still she waited.
"A fight."
The shadows beneath her eyes seemed slightly deeper than before.
"Anyone killed?"
"No."
"Yet."
Soren looked at her, and she held his gaze; neither needed to explain the word. It existed inside every conversation at White Pass, every negotiation, every patrol route, every order given to armed men growing colder and more impatient by the day.
Eventually Eira exhaled slowly, then looked past him to the north, toward the pass itself, toward Frostvein, toward the problem she had ridden across half the continent to face.
"When do I speak to him?"
The question arrived so quickly that several of the warriors visibly stiffened—not whether, but when.
Soren watched her. Part of him had expected caution, but another part had known better.
"Today."
Her attention returned to him. "Today?"
"Before someone gives us a reason not to."
For the first time since her arrival, Eira looked genuinely troubled—not frightened or uncertain, but simply aware of the scale of what stood ahead.
Soren understood the feeling; he had been living with it for nine days.
For a moment neither spoke, then Eira nodded once—a small but completely decisive movement.
And just like that, they were no longer standing on a snow-covered road, but at the edge of whatever happened next.
By the time they reached White Pass, word had already spread.
Eira noticed it almost immediately, not because people stopped what they were doing, since most didn’t, but because something in the air had shifted.
The camp remained occupied with the same tasks it had been performing for nine days, with horses being fed, fires tended, and weapons maintained as life continued.
Yet she felt the glances all the same.
A warrior carrying firewood looked up as they passed, while a woman standing beside one of the supply wagons paused briefly before continuing her conversation, and several younger hunters watched openly, their expressions a mix of curiosity, hope, and worry.
Eira could not tell which was worse, perhaps all three.
No one approached her, no one challenged her presence, and no one demanded explanations, which for some reason made her more uncomfortable.
She had spent much of the journey imagining this return, yet none of those imaginings had included kindness, normalcy, or people simply accepting that she had come back.
The feeling settled heavily somewhere beneath her ribs.
Ahead of her, Soren exchanged brief words with several officers, moving through questions, reports, and updates as the machinery of command never seemed to stop around him.
Eira's attention drifted across the camp, taking in faces, voices, and fragments of familiar places.
She recognized more than she expected, from the blacksmith's shelter to the southern watchtower and the training grounds, and for a brief moment it felt as though no time had passed at all.
Then she noticed one of the warriors standing beside a supply cart, young, with dark blond hair and broad shoulders, familiar not because she knew him well, but because she had seen him countless times standing beside Riven.
The recognition arrived before the memory, and Eira looked away immediately as the weight returned, heavier this time.
She kept her gaze fixed ahead on the snow, the road, and the command tent, anywhere else.
Beside her, Soren said nothing, yet she had the distinct impression he had noticed, which of course he had, and the realization was irritating and somehow reassuring at the same time, a difficult combination.
They continued through the camp, and the closer they came to the command tent, the quieter the conversations seemed to become, not silent, never silent, but simply more aware.
People were watching, not her alone but both of them, waiting.
Eira understood why, as the entire pass appeared to be holding its breath.
At the center of the camp stood the large command pavilion, and the sight of it pulled her attention away from everything else, from maps and reports to messengers and decisions, the real reason she had come.
Soren slowed his horse.
"So."
Eira glanced toward him.
"So."
For the first time since arriving, something that looked suspiciously like amusement appeared in his eyes, a rare enough occurrence to be concerning.
"You still have time to turn around."
Eira stared at him, then looked toward the Frostvein banners visible beyond the northern ridge.
When she spoke, her voice was perfectly calm.
"I crossed half the north."
"Yes."
"I'm not turning around."
"No."
The amusement disappeared.
"You're really not."
For reasons she could not fully explain, that answer eased something inside her, not because he approved, since Soren rarely approved of anything, but because he sounded as though he had expected no other outcome.
He dismounted, and a moment later she did the same.
The wind shifted, and somewhere beyond the pass, hidden by distance and snowfall, Frostvein waited.
Tomorrow, perhaps even today, she would stand before her father again, and the thought settled heavily in her chest, though she ignored it.
There would be time for that conversation later.
For now there was only the command tent and the war neither side seemed willing to begin.
The command pavilion was warmer than the air outside, not comfortable, but simply warmer.
Several braziers burned along the edges of the tent, their light reflecting across maps spread over a large wooden table.
At least four people were already waiting inside.
Conversation stopped the moment Eira entered, not dramatically, just long enough to acknowledge her presence before attention shifted back to Soren, which somehow felt worse.
Eira had expected curiosity, but instead she found urgency.
One of the officers stepped forward immediately.
"My lord, the eastern patrol returned."
Soren removed his gloves.
"Problems?"
"Not yet."
The answer earned several expressions that suggested everyone had grown tired of those two words, which carried the uneasy feeling of a door slowly opening.
Eira understood why.
The officer placed several markers on the map, and Soren leaned forward as questions followed—distances, patrol routes, supply reports, messenger schedules.
For several minutes nobody paid much attention to Eira at all.
She stood quietly near the edge of the table, listening and observing as the shape of the problem gradually became visible.