/Ingrid Wolfhart/

Kael Frostborn

Noted. I hope your clan's pride keeps it as warm as my alliance would have.

Torvald Ashbane

Good. That's the Ingrid I remember.

Kael Frostborn

Welcome to the question I've been asking since the beginning.

Torvald Ashbane

Don't let him make this about him.

Ingrid Wolfhart

I wasn't planning to.

Torvald Ashbane

That's either the bravest thing you've said all year, or the most terrifying.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Why not both.

Kael Frostborn

Noted, again.

Torvald Ashbane

I had imagined my return differently. More cheering, perhaps. Fewer knives. But I suppose, in the Black Fjord, suspicion is just another way of saying welcome home.

Arvid Ravenmark

The ravens flew west before sunrise. All of them. Then the sea returned a man it had kept for ten years. I would like to call this a coincidence, but the world has never been kind enough to be that simple.

Freya Thorn

Everyone keeps saying he came back from the dead. I know I am probably not supposed to ask this, but I am going to ask anyway. Was he dead, or is that what people say when the truth is worse?

Astrid Seaborn

Ten years gone, and still smiling like he owes the world nothing. Careful, Ashbane. Some debts survive storms.