Chapter Sixteen #3
But she couldn’t forget the panic from last time, the blindfold rough against her face. The fear and isolation she’d felt in an exercise that was supposed to inspire trust. You couldn’t force someone to fit; she’d learned that with Hadima’s repeated failures.
“I can’t. I—I’m good right now,” she fumbled before she could fully think it through. “Sorry.”
Iryana could feel the disappointment in Vaneshta’s gaze, the critical eye she used to judge everything Iryana did as lacking. There were many at the fort who had demanding expectations, but Vaneshta’s were the hardest to withstand.
“Right.” Vaneshta’s voice was clipped. “Well, if you change your mind…”
Iryana scratched the back of her neck, guilt coiling in her throat. “I think after last time, it’s better if I work through them on my own awhile.”
Vaneshta straightened, face hardening.
She turned just as Lidishta stormed up to them, a slight limp in her step and a bruise forming on her cheek. “Well, look at that. Your superior offers to train with you, and you turn her down. What, we not good enough to train with the fancy guardian?”
Iryana flinched. “It’s not that—I focus better alone.”
“Sure you do.” Lidishta rolled her eyes, braid snapping as she spun away, muttering something under her breath.
Iryana watched, trying to calm her thumping heart.
“Hmm.”
She turned to find Captain Darish heading down the stairs beside her, the others gone. He looked down at her distastefully as he walked past. “Sure you want to be here?”
Her hands tightened painfully around the staff.
The captain thundered through the yard gate, not looking back.
Iryana spun again, a roar in her ears, striking the dummy over and over, anything to hide the trembling in her hands.
She was so tired of not being enough, of failing. She hated it. She despised it.
If the only way to show Darish she wanted to be here was to work with the others on the team, Iryana would have to suck it up. Hope she wouldn’t panic again like last time. Put herself at risk of disappointing them further.
If it weren’t already too late.
Iryana put the training weapons back on the shelf and slipped out of the yard. Running up and down the tower stairs around the fortress was just the diversion she needed. Something to clear her mind so she could figure out how to undo the strangling web she’d woven herself into.
The next day, Iryana trudged back through the abandoned city toward the fort. The buildings with their elaborate facades and colorful, chipping paint seemed to loom over her. The air around them seemed to swell with the pain of the past, of the horrors that had stalked these streets.
She had failed in today’s mission. The sack over her shoulder was too light.
She had seen the other soldiers heading back a while ago, their bags bursting. She was probably the last one to return. It was already mid-afternoon, hours after they had started their search early that morning. Her stomach was growling from having missed lunch.
When Darish had sent them into the city to look for forged tools, she hadn’t thought it would be difficult. After making her way through the third building, with only a horseshoe and a small chisel in her bag, she realized her disadvantage.
It had to be a common exercise; the others seemed to know exactly where to look, which buildings had already been cleared out. The whole team seemed disinterested in her. Except for Vaneshta, who was actively avoiding her.
Darish wasn’t going to be pleased with another failure.
Perhaps he would kick her off his team, something she wasn’t sure she had time to recover from.
It had been five weeks since the First shared the ultimatum with the Kleesolds, a month since she’d been at the fort.
And she only had another week until she was supposed to meet Hadima again.
She was running out of time, and everything was a mess.
Iryana trudged into the fort, through the utilitarian central square.
It was dominated by large barrels of well water and soldiers handing out rations and supplies.
Some children ran around between the workers, playing war games and mimicking sword forms. Through the gaps in the buildings, she could see farmers hurrying through the rest of the spring planting, filling the empty fields with turnips, barley, hemp, cabbage, and rye.
Beyond them, sheep and cows filled the small pastures.
She turned down the wide, wood bricked road leading to the estate, her dragging footsteps muffled by the wood.
Iryana looked up just in time to see Vaneshta walking toward her. Her teammate raised a single brow at Iryana and then turned down another road, not even attempting conversation. Rejecting Vaneshta’s offer to help had been a big mistake.
Darish was supposed to be in the estate somewhere, but when Iryana entered the main hall, it was empty. The sky had been shrouded in clouds all day, and the dim light that made it through the tall windows didn’t vanish all the shadows.
In the far corner of the room, beside the dais, the door to the major’s study was partially open. The warm glow of lantern light seeped out. Darish was likely inside.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to admit her failure in front of Karvek.
Iryana walked between the empty tables, passing in and out of the rectangles of light laid across the room by the windows. She briefly considered leaving the fort then and there. It all seemed hopeless. But perhaps she was more stubborn than she’d thought, because Iryana didn’t turn around.
She knocked on the sturdy door as she peered inside. Karvek’s study was usually closed off, and she’d never seen inside.
Her heart was beating wildly.
Karvek stood at a great table in the center of his office.
There was a sitting area to the left, and a wall of bookshelves on the far wall with a massive desk in front.
The fabrics were fraying, but everything in the room was still grand.
The wood was dark, still shining, the floor covered in hides and midnight-blue carpets.
Her eyes made their way back to Karvek, where he was watching her. His hands were braced on the table on either side of him. His hair was messy, as if he had been running his hands through it; his dark brown, gold-trimmed vest was partially unbuttoned.
Before him, the table was covered with maps and scraps of paper covered with scrawl.
She wasn’t sure why, but it felt like she was seeing something she shouldn’t be; that she should look away, retreat. But Karvek was now staring right at her, daring her to stay.
Iryana took a step into the room. “I’m looking for Darish.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I—”
“There was a reason I gave you that coin,” he cut her off, tilting his head. “We all have different purposes here, different strengths.”
Iryana frowned, trying to read him. “What are you saying?”
“You want to be one of my soldiers?” He leaned against the table, arms crossed. “Then prove you have what it takes.”
Her stomach dropped. “That’s what I’m doing. Or trying to.” And her failure that morning just put her one step further from that goal.
“By trying to impress Darish? Your team?” Karvek raised a brow. “It’s good to earn your place, but it isn’t the only way to help the 18th.”
Iryana stared at him. There was something about his posture, his expression. Like he was welcoming her to join him. To be bold. She felt challenged.
After setting her bag down by the door, Iryana grasped what confidence she could muster and walked all the way into the room, stopping at the edge of the table. “Then what are you suggesting?”
Karvek studied her, the lines of his face sharpening in the flicker of lantern light.
“When I first saw you, there was a wildness in your eyes,” he said. “Like you were taking in everything around you, unconstrained. You didn’t flinch—not even with a dakya racing toward you.”
“You want me to be wild?” she asked, skeptical.
He shook his head with an amused jerk. “No. I want to see the force that drives that wildness. That look in your eyes wasn’t chaos; it was focus. Desperation sharpened into instinct. You saw what needed to be done, and you moved.”
Her breath caught. She felt like she’d lost sight of that focus, like all her instincts had fled. Trapped between anxious panic and trying to impress everyone. Her chest tightened. “Didn’t help much on our last mission. Your brother had to save me.”
“Darish told me you held off three dakii before Pyetar could get to you,” Karvek said. “You’ll adapt. Just like you did in the pit.”
She blinked. “You were there?”
“I couldn’t miss it.”
“Why?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He didn’t answer that. “People respect strength here. Loyalty. You don’t have to make friends; you don’t have to play nice. And you—” a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, “you don’t trust anyone half as much as you trust yourself.”
She bristled. “I’m used to being on my own; it’s not that—”
“Don’t apologize,” he interrupted softly, stepping around the table toward her. “That’s not a weakness. Not here. Trust is a dangerous thing to give away.”
He stopped beside her, leaning back against the table, still towering over her. His voice dropped to something quieter, more intimate. “What you want—what you need—is control.”
Iryana sucked in. She did want control. She felt it slipping even now. The way he looked at her made everything uncertain, too sharp and too close. Her muscles twitched with the urge to move, to avoid being seen. But she stayed.
He looked down at her. “You don’t want the others to see weakness. Because if they do—they’ll take advantage.”
Could he see it? See the thing inside her that didn’t fit? Iryana looked into his eyes, her hands trembling slightly. Everything felt surreal: the grain of the wood under her hands, the weight of his gaze.
Then his voice became lower still, almost conspiratorial.
“We’re more alike than you think.”