Chapter 5 #2
Iryana would lose the small scraps of family she had left, and worse, her family would not have each other.
And they needed each other.
“Don’t worry, I promise we’ll stay together,” Hadima soothed Misha, and Iryana realized she had stepped further into the room, her sisters only a few steps in front of her now. They hadn’t noticed her, Hadima rubbing their little sister’s back. Misha was getting so tall. How had Iryana missed it?
The younger cousins, those old enough to be nearing their pilgrimages, were as silent as she was. She could see it on their faces, the shock of their futures being unwritten.
If they left, they doomed the family. Did they realize that? The unforged could not give up.
Iryana missed whatever her grandmother said next, but the crowd began to disperse. Some remained, gathering in the center of the hall, their voices urgent. The youngest ones were crying, their parents pulling them close.
Hadima was walking further into the house alone, Misha somewhere in the crowd still. Iryana watched her older sister, her mind reeling.
This could not be it.
Iryana was an outcast, someone the family didn’t want too close.
But Hadima? They loved her; she was a fundamental pillar of the family.
Hadima was kind and selfless, always ready with a smile or a helping hand.
In the short time Iryana lived at the house after their father died, the cousins always picked Hadima first for their teams when playing Beast or Guardian Capture, and she was the first to be pulled into the dancing during festivals.
The Kleesold Clan had done everything they could to support her, sacrificing a wealth of resources so she could pilgrimage to the closest water well in the 18th’s territory.
If there were a sum that could have convinced the 18th to let one of their guardians pilgrimage to one of their metal wells, Iryana was sure the Kleesolds would have paid it. For Hadima to be Third.
If anyone could guide them through this, it was Hadima.
Iryana looked down at her clenched fists and forced them to stretch out.
Bloody crescents marred her palms, and the joints of her fingers ached.
She didn’t like the way her body felt, how on edge she was, how untethered.
There was nothing she could do, but if Hadima told her she would fix it, she could have faith in that.
Slipping around the others, Iryana followed Hadima down the hall.
It had been years since she had been so deep in the house, but it still made her feel like it would close in on her at any moment. There were just so many things, so many reminders of the family she couldn’t have and the lives they had long since left behind.
Hadima rushed into her study, and Iryana moved to follow but froze at the threshold of the room. Hadima stood at the far end, facing away. Her arms moved quickly as she ground something at her worktable, and Iryana recognized the distinct scraping sound of Hadima’s water-forged mortar and pestle.
The room looked just as Iryana remembered, with cabinets of tinctures and ointments, herbs hanging from twine stretching across the ceiling.
Small cauldrons, mortars, pestles, and knives dotted the many tables shoved against the walls.
There were neat labels with Hadima’s careful scrawl and so many smells that she couldn’t pick out the plants and barks they came from.
Iryana remembered Hadima’s study had always been full of people who needed her help, lingering and chatting with new smiles when they were through. Hadima brought life to the Kleesolds, and not just with her magic.
Watching her sister work, Iryana’s mind split between memories of watching her as a child and the desperate fear clutching at her heart.
When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, but it didn’t tremble like she worried it would.
“Hadima?”
With a slight jump, Hadima turned around; brow furrowed. She opened her mouth a few times, slowly setting the forged, pale-blue mortar and pestle down on the worktable. Iryana shifted nervously on her feet, sure she was the last person Hadima expected to see.
“What are you doing here?” her sister demanded, voice both a plea and a demand.
“I—” Iryana’s words slipped away from her.
“Do you need something?”
“The family—there has to be something the clan can do.”
Hadima sighed, sagging against the table behind her, watching Iryana warily. “Grandmother is the most stubborn person I know.” She squinted at Iryana, mouth softening a bit. “Or one of them, anyway. But she wouldn’t accept this if she could see another way.”
Iryana stared in disbelief, unable to believe her sister was giving in so easily.
Hadima was supposed to be the one to hold the rest of them together.
She was the stubborn one who had forced Iryana to try again and again to fit in with the others when she’d moved back in at thirteen.
Never accepted it wasn’t possible, even long after Iryana knew it. Yet this she’d just accept?
“Since when did you start giving up so easily?” Iryana snapped. “We have until winter.”
“We?”
Iryana turned away. “The Kleesolds need to show the duchess they can hold the post. Whittle down the dakii packs, get more metal-forged, something.”
Hadima reached up absently, touching the forging tattoo that peeked above the collar of her dress.
It had been four years since Hadima went on her pilgrimage to the water well, just before Iryana moved out of the main house.
She had come back quieter and more serious, as if taking care of the family had become a duty instead of just a quirk of her personality.
Iryana had seen that tattoo once, when she had gone with her sisters to jump in the mostly frozen river one autumn.
It was almost translucent blue, the color of deep water.
The symbols flowed along her arm, shoulder, and down her back like a river.
Swooping waves, tight swirls of rapids, overlapping circles, and fish scales.
She was sure the tattoo symbolized her sister’s kindness and compassion, friendship and laughter, but looking at it had made her sad.
Iryana had always wished she could ask what they meant, but it was not something you could just ask about—especially with how difficult their relationship was.
Forging tattoos were deeply private, and to share their meaning was akin to sharing one’s deepest secrets. The exact nature would be a mystery until Iryana went through her own forging. Even now, a decade and a half after society as they knew it crumbled, some traditions still held on tight.
Was Hadima touching them to remind herself of her family? How her duty was to take care of them? Iryana hoped so.
Hadima cleared her throat. “The duchess’s entire settlement only sees a new metal-forged every couple of years, and they’re almost always military runaways,” Hadima reminded her. “We don’t have access to a well. It’s too dangerous to try and find one, even if it weren’t for the brigades.”
Iryana’s jaw clenched at the mention of the brigades—the military gangs.
“They stopped being our country’s military when they turned on us, claiming the metal wells for themselves.
Military should protect the people, not force them to pay for their ‘protection.’ They’re criminal gangs only pretending at honor. ”
“I know, Iryana. I deal with them more than you do.”
Iryana swallowed, her words drying up.
“You’ve always been clever, Iryana. You got us out of so much trouble as kids. Tell me what to do.” Hadima’s eyes pierced right into Iryana’s. A plea and a challenge.
“Me? That’s a joke, and you know it. You can convince the cousins to stay. They’ll follow if you lead them.”
Hadima threw her head back and let out a single, wild laugh that was so uncharacteristic Iryana flinched. “Me lead them? You were supposed to be trained as Third. You, not me.”
“That’s not true,” Iryana spit out. But she had once thought her grandmother was grooming her for the role. But she hadn’t yet turned ten when she was forced to leave the main house with her parents and younger sister. That expectation died soon after.
Hadima shook her head. “We all knew it. But you ran from it and so, no. There isn’t someone to lead the cousins through this.”
“That’s not fair.” Iryana’s hands trembled, but she hid them behind her skirts. “You just have to try. If you can get rid of more dakii or find a metal well—”
“How are we supposed to do in a single summer what the settlement has failed to do for years? The brigades will never let us into their territory, and the odds of finding an unclaimed well are hopeless.”
It sounded impossible to Iryana too. The exact location of the wells had always been a mystery.
The pilgrimages led to nearby temples, and from there the unforged would be led to the wells blindfolded.
It had never made sense how secretive it was, but knowledge meant power.
The Elementi Conclave that ruled the temples and the wells had a tight control over the forgings; giving that up would have meant giving up power.
Now that the brigades held the metal wells, they clung to that power too.
But there had to be a way.
“If we turned one of their soldiers to our side, maybe…” Iryana trailed off, her mind spinning around the problem. The brigades sometimes took in initiates from outside their ranks; they would be less loyal than those raised with the groups. Could the clan bring one to their side?
“How?” Hadima stepped forward, that eager, angry look still on her face.
“I don’t know. You can find a way,” Iryana said quickly, her mind suddenly empty.
Hadima scoffed. “If we need to get more metal-forged, then why don’t you go?” she snapped. “I heard you were so chummy with that soldier out in the market. Have him take you to his well.”
Iryana recoiled with disgust, lips twisting into a sneer. “We were not chummy. He’s a rotten peddler, and I told him as much.”