Chapter 37 The Two Voices
Eira
The first thing Eira became aware of was warmth, not the warmth of furs or a hearth, but the warmth of another body.
For a moment she remained still, suspended between sleep and waking, listening to the steady rhythm of breathing behind her. A familiar arm rested around her waist, heavy, possessive, entirely unapologetic.
Eira smiled before opening her eyes.
Morning light filtered through the narrow windows of Soren's chambers, painting pale gold across stone walls and tangled blankets.
Outside, Ironfang was already awake; she could hear distant voices from the courtyard below and the faint clang of metal somewhere beyond the fortress walls.
Inside the room, however, the world seemed in no particular hurry.
Eira shifted slightly, and the arm around her tightened immediately.
"You are awake."
His voice was rough with sleep.
Eira turned her head enough to glance over her shoulder. Soren's eyes remained closed.
"You didn't even open your eyes."
"I didn't need to."
The answer sounded suspiciously smug for someone who was barely conscious, and Eira laughed softly.
Two months ago she would have found this version of him impossible to imagine. The Alpha of Ironfang, feared across the North, apparently believed that if he ignored the morning long enough it might go away.
"I have things to do."
The arm around her tightened again.
"No."
She raised an eyebrow.
"No?"
"No."
His face remained buried in her hair.
"The council can survive one morning without me."
"I'm not going to the council."
One eye opened, and that seemed to get his attention.
"You're not?"
"No."
There was a brief pause before he said, "Good."
Eira laughed again, and this time Soren finally opened both eyes.
The sight still caught her off guard sometimes, not because he was handsome, but because he looked younger like this—less like an Alpha, less like the man who carried the weight of an entire fortress on his shoulders, and more like the man only a handful of people ever saw.
The man who occasionally forgot where he had left important documents, who pretended not to enjoy teasing her despite doing it constantly, and who had once crossed half the North for her and somehow still looked surprised whenever she chose him in return.
"You're staring."
"I'm observing."
"Dangerous habit."
"So I've been told."
Soren leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss against her temple. The gesture was so casual that it still managed to surprise her, not because it was rare anymore, but because it had become natural, with no hesitation, no uncertainty, no careful negotiation of distance—just them.
The realization settled quietly somewhere inside her. Months had passed since the tower, and the bond no longer felt like a question; it felt like a second heartbeat, present and steady, part of her life rather than something looming over it.
Eira turned in his arms until she faced him properly.
"You should get up."
Soren narrowed his eyes.
"No."
"You are behaving like a child."
"A child would have fewer responsibilities."
"That is unfortunately true."
A smile tugged at his mouth before he brushed a loose strand of silver hair behind her ear.
"What important business is worth abandoning a perfectly good morning?"
There had been a time when Eira would have struggled to answer that question, but now she didn't hesitate.
"The archives."
A look of immediate suspicion appeared on his face.
"The archives."
"Yes."
"The archives are winning against me."
"The archives arrived first."
"I regret teaching you negotiation."
"You never taught me negotiation."
"Exactly."
Eira laughed and pushed herself upright. Behind her, Soren made a sound that strongly suggested he disapproved of her leaving the bed, but she ignored him—mostly.
As she crossed the room toward the door, she could still feel his gaze following her, warm, familiar, and certain, not because he doubted she would return, but because he knew she would.
By the time Eira reached her own chambers, the fortress had fully awakened.
The corridors of Ironfang no longer fell silent when she passed, as they had months ago when people watched her carefully, uncertain whether she belonged.
Now hunters nodded in greeting as they crossed her path, servants offered smiles instead of curious glances, and a pair of children raced through a side corridor before abruptly remembering they were supposed to be behaving, nearly colliding with each other in their haste to bow.
Eira hid a smile and continued walking.
When she entered her chambers, Mara was already waiting.
"You're late."
Eira blinked. "Good morning to you too."
Mara's expression remained perfectly serious. "You were supposed to be here an hour ago."
"Was I?"
"Yes."
Eira considered arguing, then decided against it, knowing Mara had become entirely too good at recognizing the difference between genuine excuses and invented ones.
"Fine," Eira admitted.
A dangerous look entered Mara's eyes. "Ah."
"No."
"Ah."
"There is no 'ah.'"
"There is absolutely an 'ah.'"
Eira sighed while Mara looked unbearably pleased with herself.
Some things, apparently, never changed, and fortunately that thought surprised her.
Not long ago she had imagined change as something violent, something that arrived like winter storms and shattered everything familiar, but now she understood that sometimes it arrived quietly instead—in the form of friendships that endured, rooms that felt like home, and mornings when she no longer wondered who she was supposed to become.
Mara helped her into dark leathers, trimmed with subtle silver stitching at the sleeves, practical and warm, entirely unsuitable for ceremonial occasions, which was exactly why Eira liked it.
When Mara finished fastening the final clasp, Eira looked up at the polished bronze mirror, where the woman reflected still startled her sometimes—not because she looked different, but because she didn't. The silver hair remained, the pale eyes remained, the scar on her neck remained, yet the woman looking back at her carried herself differently, her head no longer bowing automatically and her shoulders no longer holding tension she had forgotten how to release.
For years she had measured herself against expectations she could never satisfy, but now she simply looked like herself.
Mara watched her reflection for a moment, then said quietly, "You've stopped apologizing."
Eira looked at her. "For what?"
Mara's smile was small. "Exactly."
For a moment neither spoke, and then Eira reached for the satchel waiting beside the door, prompting Mara's expression to shift immediately into one of theatrical concern.
"You're taking work."
"I'm going to the archives."
"Which is work."
"It is interesting work."
"It is still work."
Eira ignored her, and Mara followed anyway, as she always did.
Together they crossed the fortress toward the oldest section of Ironfang, where the archives occupied a series of stone chambers built directly into the mountain itself—dusty, cold, poorly organized, and, in Eira's opinion, magnificent.
The heavy door stood open, and voices drifted from within.
The moment Eira entered, two young women sprang to their feet and immediately attempted to bow, nearly knocking over stacks of parchment in the process. Eira winced as the parchments barely survived.
"Good morning," she said.
The younger of the two beamed, while the older tried and failed to appear composed, and neither succeeded, which was one of the reasons Eira liked them.
Months earlier she had discovered both helping a clerk sort damaged records, and since then they had become the closest thing Ironfang possessed to apprentices—or future historians, or archivists, as the exact title remained under debate, mostly because Eira kept inventing new ones.
"We've made progress," the older girl announced immediately.
"That sounds dangerous."
"It is."
The younger one looked delighted by this.
Eira set down her satchel. "Show me."
At once both began talking, not taking turns but simply talking, explaining that several forgotten record collections had been identified, three damaged family registries had been restored, an inventory of winter losses had been recovered from nearly a century earlier, and someone had finally discovered why an entire section of documents kept disappearing—the culprit turning out to be a persistent leak in the ceiling.
Eira listened patiently, asking questions, making notes, correcting dates, and suggesting cross-references, until for nearly an hour she lost herself in the work and found herself wondering, for perhaps the hundredth time, how much history had vanished simply because nobody had cared enough to preserve it.
When the discussion finally slowed, the younger apprentice hesitated and then glanced toward a separate pile resting at the corner of the table.
"There was one other thing."
Eira looked up as the girl pointed toward several loose pages.
"We found those hidden inside a damaged ledger."
"Hidden?"
"Folded between the bindings."
The older apprentice frowned. "We can't read them."
Eira crossed the room and picked up the pages, studying the unfamiliar writing, which was not merely old but different, the symbols curving in ways she had never seen before—no Northern script, no Frostvein markings, no trade language from the coast. For a moment something stirred at the edge of her thoughts, a feeling she could not quite name, not recognition but possibility.
"What do you think it is?" asked the younger girl.
Eira turned another page, the strange symbols staring back at her, patient and waiting, before she set the documents aside.
"Leave them on my desk."
The girls exchanged a look.
"That's all?"
"For now."
The younger apprentice appeared mildly disappointed, while the older one seemed relieved.
Eira smiled faintly. "For now," she repeated, because something told her those pages had waited a very long time to be found, and they were not finished telling their story yet.