Chapter Twenty-Eight
Iryana climbed the last few yards across the cliffs, her limbs full of trapped energy.
When her feet finally hit reliable ground, her head tipped back to glare at the sun.
Climbing into the post had taken far longer than usual; she was falling out of practice.
She was covered in too much sweat with how sticky the air already was.
With a quick check to make sure the map to the metal well was still safely tucked into her bag, Iryana headed toward the village. It felt strange to be back, the path not as worn as usual, but the same trees dotted the way as always, and the flowers were in full bloom.
She was tempted to stop and see if her cottage was the same, but she didn’t have time.
When she crossed the river bridge, Iryana headed toward the main house, fingers sliding the fabric of her skirt against her thumbs.
She kept her head down, avoiding eye contact.
She hadn’t seen a Kleesold yet, but her family was probably on duty or doing tasks at the house.
If she were lucky, she could slip in a side door to find her sister’s workshop before anyone else noticed her.
The closer she got, the more her hands clenched and her breathing quickened. She hadn’t realized how comfortable she’d grown at Myura River until she returned to the post and suddenly she was an outsider again.
Finally looking up, Iryana faced the courtyard gate. Bunches of upside-down water irises were hanging from the arched top, their once-purple petals dripping black. Iryana sucked in a breath, staring, begging them to be a figment of her imagination.
She turned and saw that black-dyed bouquets hung from more gates and doorways throughout the village. In her focus, she had somehow missed them on her walk through.
Someone had died. And with so many flowers, it had to be someone important.
No. No, no. Dread curled inside her. She refused to guess at who it could have been; she needed to know. Now.
She charged into the empty courtyard as if possessed, finally able to hear people from inside the hall.
Urgently, Iryana snuck past the windows and slipped in the side door.
The weight of the surrounding house pressed in tightly, but the fear-strangled hope in her chest was enough to force her onward.
About to slip into the hall where Hadima’s workshop lived, the sound of her own name made Iryana spin toward the kitchen.
Hadima stood there in the doorway, bordered by the cluttered walls of the clan’s home. She stared at Iryana, arms burdened with a large, chipped pitcher.
An enormous crash of relief made Iryana stumble. Hadima was safe. It wasn’t Hadima they mourned. Her sister’s dress was wrinkled, and an apron hung loose around her waist as the knots drew perilously close to untying completely. But she was whole.
“You’re back?” her sister asked with a frown, eyes examining her.
Iryana pressed down her discomfort and drew in a ragged breath. “I’ve done it.”
Hadima’s eyes widened. “You’ve found a temple? You’re forged?”
Iryana flinched at how loudly Hadima spoke, afraid someone might overhear.
“Yes, and I have a map. The Keeper said that as long as—” Iryana cut off as Hadima hoisted the pitcher onto her hip and grabbed Iryana’s hand.
“Things can be how they were meant to be now,” Hadima mumbled, tugging on Iryana. “We have to hurry and tell the others. I thought you wouldn’t make it.”
Her mind spun with so many questions that she was getting dizzy. “What do you mean, things can be how they were meant to be?”
Iryana wanted to ask about the mourning bouquets, but her throat was tight as she was dragged through the kitchen toward the hall.
“Wait, Hadima,” she protested. “I’ll give you the map; you can tell the clan without me.”
“Shh,” her sister shushed her. “You don’t understand yet, but you’ll see.”
The talking she had heard from the courtyard was nothing compared to the roar when Hadima pulled Iryana past the thick wooden doors and into the family’s hall.
Almost every Kleesold had squeezed into the room.
Some sat on the edge of the benches looking ready to burst to their feet, others paced the edges of the room, while a few were planted in wide stances with arms crossed over their chests.
There was whispering, shouting, and somewhere, one of them was crying.
Iryana’s eyes flitted across them, trying to determine who was missing.
“We’ve been a guardian family for almost three hundred years; we can do this!” Iryana’s cousin Kladara was shouting, her face reddened and her usually neat braids wild. Iryana had never seen her cousin in such a state.
Vesima stood at the center of them all, her back stiff as a decades-old pine.
“How?” she snapped at Kladara. “Our numbers are falling. We can’t go beyond the post to gather supplies and hunt, and our enemy does not weaken.
The dakii have only gotten harder to kill.
We may be guardians, but we are Kleesolds first. If we can’t even protect ourselves, how are we to protect anyone else? ”
“There has to be something else we can do.” It was Tonhald who called out this time. One of his arms wrapped around Teshya, and the other held little Anara.
Iryana stared at the little rosy-cheeked babe, at how she was holding herself up in her father’s arms. Anara could do little more than wiggle the last time Iryana had seen her. They grew so fast. In the blink of an eye, Anara would be running around the room.
With dread in her gut, Iryana’s eyes dragged over the room until she found Misha.
A sigh of relief almost left Iryana’s lips, for Misha looked much the same.
She may have grown an inch, her braids longer than last time, but Iryana recognized the dress she wore and the ribbons in her hair.
Then she saw the expression on Misha’s face, and her chest was painfully tight.
Her sister was only thirteen, but there was a tightness to her eyes and a stiffness to her jaw that wasn’t there before.
Fear, anger, exhaustion, or some combination of all three.
Iryana didn’t know her sister well enough to know for sure anymore, but it was an expression that shouldn’t be made by little girls.
Iryana could remember when Misha was Anara's age. Hadima was more than a decade older than Misha, bustling around like a little mother, but Iryana was too young herself to help their mother much. But she had held Misha while the others went about the chores, laid on piles of blankets on the floor with her and showed her all her toys. The image of her baby sister’s grabby hands pulling on Iryana’s favorite doll’s hair seared across her mind.
Misha’s hands had been so chubby, and the pale yarn slipped from her grasp easily when Iryana pulled the doll back.
She would giggle every time, a high-pitched sound that made Iryana laugh with her. She had loved making Misha laugh.
A jerk snapped Iryana out of her memories. Hadima was pushing the pitcher into Aunt Emadya's arms and heading toward the center of the room. Her hand still tightly gripped Iryana’s arm.
“Hadima, no,” she hissed under her breath. But Hadima just kept dragging her.
“But, Grandmother,” Hadima called out as she forced Iryana forward. “Iryana, tell them what you’ve done.”
Iryana’s eyes spun around the room, taking in the shocked and confused faces of her family. She had once known them as well as she had known herself.
She accidentally met Misha’s eyes. There was undeniable hurt there. Iryana looked elsewhere, but everywhere she looked, she found doubt and accusation in their features. Iryana wanted to tell them; she wanted them to know, but her throat was as tight as freshly tanned leather.
Why was she so afraid? She hadn’t failed, not this time.
But next time…
Hadima sighed and pushed Iryana forward again. “She didn’t really go to Lake Vranna, I’ve been covering for her. She joined the 18th Brigade to earn their trust, to find their well.”
There were gasps, and the First’s eyes narrowed. She looked ready to berate them, but Hadima kept going. “And she did it. She’s forged!”
“Metal-forged?” One of the cousins called out, but Iryana couldn’t tell which one in the chorus of whispers.
“Show us!” another called out.
A rush of nausea overtook her, and Iryana briefly worried she was going to collapse. Her head was light, and she couldn’t feel the tips of her fingers anymore.
The First walked up to Iryana, her gently swooping brows lifting toward her silver-streaked hair. Iryana recognized the sternness her grandmother had always worn when disciplining the younger Kleesolds, but there was something she didn’t recognize in that gaze.
“Well?” Vesima demanded. “Show us then.”
Forcing her hands to steady, Iryana held her right hand out and pushed her magic out, the great, sharp spear appearing in her hand.
It was the unmistakable color of purple storm clouds: a metal-forging.
Gasps and cheers filled the room. No longer able to stop the trembling, she turned all her concentration to what she had practiced the entire trip there.
She raised her left hand and let her bow form. The bow was strung.
“A metal-forged bow?” Uncle Byorsh stared at the metal-forging, likely comparing it to his own air-forged one.
“You did this for us?” came a soft voice to her side, and Iryana saw Misha had slipped through the crowd to face her.
Iryana’s lips parted as she took in her sister. Of course she had.
“It won’t be enough.” Vesima sighed and sank down onto the bench.
Iryana gaped at her grandmother, disbelief loosening her tongue. “What do you mean it’s not enough? I know where the well is; future Kleesolds can be metal-forged. It might take a few years, but we will be back to our old strength again.”
“It’s too late.”
Too late? How could it be too late? There was still time left before the family had to leave the post.
Iryana’s voice was weak when she said, “I don’t understand.”