Chapter 42 #2
“There must be a way then,” Iryana whispered, mostly to herself.
“What if we can blow a hole through their wall? They’ll have to leave without a barrier against the dakii. That might make it easier to get our people back,” one of the brigade leaders suggested.
“They’d just kill the prisoners then,” Nenad reasoned.
One by one, ideas were thrown out and quickly shot back down.
Iryana turned toward her sister, ignoring the others.
“He should have been weak to fire, but he wasn’t. And he broke through my forging,” Iryana said quietly.
“So you think he was fire-forged as well?”
“He’d have to be. His forgings were so dark, so full of well-magic. It’s possible it wasn’t all metal-magic, but fire too.”
“Can you forge something in two wells at once?”
“Perhaps if the wells were next to each other?” Iryana mused. “Or if you reforged something in another well? Added a second magic to it? I don’t know.”
“We don’t have time to figure all that out, if it’s even possible.”
But it was all Iryana could think about.
They didn’t have the numbers to make another frontal assault, and trying to break them out was too risky.
Challenging Karvek directly made the most sense, but it would have to be someone in a position to make that challenge.
He would have to be goaded into it. And who could fight him if he was double-forged?
The attack they’d planned had failed. Her plan had failed. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t save them now.
“It would have to be water.”
“What?” Hadima stilled.
“I have some raw magic left. If I forge it in a water well, I might be able to defeat Karvek.” Her voice grew louder with every word.
It felt right, like she had a chance at saving her people for the first time.
Sure, the doubts and fears were there, reaching out to try to poison the idea, but she gave them no power.
“You want to try double-forging?” One leader asked in disbelief, turning toward her.
“Water is powerful against metal and weakens fire. It’s the only choice.”
“Iryana, it could get you killed!” Hadima cried. “I’m water forged already; I can do it.”
A hint of resentment bubbled up inside her. Anger at her sister’s over-eagerness to please despite the cost. The same eagerness that had led Hadima to push her too hard before she’d healed. Iryana pushed that irritation to the back of her mind to deal with later.
She looked at her sister. “You’re a healer, Hadima, not a murderer. And Karvek won’t accept just any challenge; it has to be one that he has no choice but to answer or look weak.”
“But it’s dangerous.”
“Believe in me, Hadima,” she urged, just as much to herself as to her sister. “I believe I can do this.”
Hadima nodded so slightly Iryana could have easily missed it. “I’ve always believed in you, Iryana.”
That was enough. The rest of the hurt between them would heal.
Iryana stood quickly, yanking the needle out of Hadima’s hands.
“We don’t have a perfect choice. Too many things could go wrong, so let’s improve our odds.
Jesha and Nenad, if you open negotiations with Karvek, it will buy us time.
The rest of you can arrange a small force for breaking our people out. And then I will challenge Karvek.”
Iryana waited for someone to argue, to point out the flaws in her plan, but they were quiet.
“We don’t have a water well in our territory,” Nenad pointed out contemplatively.
Vesima met Iryana’s eyes and gave her a long, hard look. “Hadima knows where the water well is, the one she was forged at.”
The thought of Hadima guiding her was a balm to the worst of her fears. She wouldn’t have to go alone.
“You have no way of knowing this won’t kill you.” Jesha observed her, as if trying to decide if Iryana was brave or just crazy. “Or what it will do to you if it doesn’t.”
“I know.” Iryana couldn’t explain it, but she knew this was her best chance. There was no risk she wouldn’t take if it meant a chance to save them. “One way or the other, I’m challenging him. He’ll definitely kill me if I don’t gain an advantage. At least this gives me a chance.”
“Then it’s worth trying,” Jesha said, her husband nodding in agreement.
They were all silent, as if considering if they were really going to put their hope in something that should be impossible. Iryana opened her mouth to plead to the First when a warning sound came from beyond the tent.
Everyone froze.
Then a soldier rushed in, panting and gasping. “Beasts.” The room burst into movement.
“If you’re going to go, go now,” Jesha snapped, forming two dark purple swords.
Iryana looked to the First.
“Go. Quickly,” her grandmother said.
Hadima grabbed Iryana’s hand and clung to it. “I know another way out.” Her sister’s hands were shaking.
Iryana nodded and rushed out of the tent with the others.
Between the rocks, Iryana could see blurs of blue-gray leaping at the soldiers. Watched a man’s head ripped right off his shoulders.
Someone was screaming.
The urge to fight seized her. These were the people who were too important or too vulnerable to have marched on Myura River Fort. Many couldn’t fight.
She shook that thought away. In the dakii’s realm, everyone had to be ready to fight.
“This way,” Hadima squeaked, pulling Iryana toward a crack in the rocks.
She followed her sister, hoping she’d recovered enough to summon her forgings if needed.
One last look behind showed the First of the Kleesold Guardians holding her arm out, a slender gray-violet sword slowly forming. Iryana stared at that forging.
The First looked over her shoulders, looking right at Iryana and Hadima.
Go, she mouthed.
So they did.
“How much further?” Iryana asked quietly as she trudged alongside her sister.
She was still weak and sore, her injuries barely patched up, but she knew they didn’t have time to wait.
Iryana had assumed the water well would be near the treehouse settlement she had visited with the 18th, but that would have been further north, and they were headed southeast instead.
“We’re close,” Hadima whispered. “It took me a while to find it when I went to forge the poison dart, but I know exactly where it is now.”
They were both shaken, neither daring to bring up those they’d left behind.
One step in front of the other. It was all they could do.
Iryana glanced around them again, but so far the dakii had not found them.
They had used strong smelling herbs to disguise their scent, and despite the constant tickle in Iryana’s nose, it was working well.
Eventually, Hadima brought her to a small waterfall pouring out of the cliffs above. Iryana doubted she had ever been there before, or if she had passed by, it had been too insignificant to remember. The thought was mildly unsettling. It had been right under her nose this whole time.
Hadima started climbing the rock toward a ledge about twenty feet up. Iryana hurried after, ignoring the aches as she pulled her body up. She worried she would fall, but she reached the top right after her sister.
The ledge was larger than it had looked and dominated by a pool of water that overflowed into the waterfall below. Another waterfall poured down from above, filling the pool.
“This is it,” Hadima announced.
Iryana looked around, but it was just a pool of water…
“Behind the waterfall?”
Hadima shook her head. “No, there’s a channel beneath the pool. We have to swim it.”
With little warning, Hadima started stripping off her outer layers and hiding them behind one of the bushes. Her hands were shaking.
“Hurry, Iryana.”
Iryana shook her shock off and joined her sister, unstrapping and removing her training armor, and then her outer layers to add them to Hadima’s. The autumn air was chilly against her sweat-soaked skin.
Hadima headed toward the edge of the pool, carefully placing her bare feet on the slick rocks.
“You’re just going to jump in?” Iryana eyed the water, feeling queasy.
Hadima bent her knees, about to jump in.
“Wait,” Iryana pleaded, stopping Hadima with a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” Hadima smiled, though her eyes were tight with worry. “I’ve done this a few times now. Follow closely.”
And she jumped into the pool.
Iryana gaped, but she didn’t have time to question. With a leap, she crashed into icy cold water after her sister.
When she opened her eyes, Iryana was met with currents of frothy white obscuring the darker, murky water. But below her, she could see Hadima swimming. Iryana followed.
The water darkened, almost turning black, as they swam under what Iryana thought was a solid cliff wall.
Her lungs burned, and her hand skimmed the rock above her.
It was so cold her joints were locking up.
She kicked her legs as hard as she could, struggling against the drag of her clothes.
Then, thankfully, the water lightened again and she could see her sister’s dark figure rising above her.
Iryana gasped as she surfaced, sucking in musty air. She opened her eyes to an enormous cavern. A squat, kind-faced woman stood on the rocky bank of the cavern, two large towels in her arms.
“Keeper Magovya,” Hadima greeted, already out of the water and taking a towel the Keeper handed her.
Wiping the water from her eyes, Iryana hesitated in the freezing water. But her suspicions about the woman waiting for them melted away when she remembered what they were. Water-forged.
Surely there was a forged seer among them.
Swimming to the edge and pulling herself onto the ledge, Iryana squeezed the water out of her clothes the best she could, shivering and teeth chattering. Her eyes wandered to the ceiling again. There were small tunnels above letting in some light, but it was dimly lit at best.
The Keeper turned toward Iryana as she toweled off, a challenge in her eyes. As if she knew why Iryana had come, but refused to believe it.
“I am Iryana, Third of the Guardians of Klees. I am here to be forged,” Iryana announced, her teeth chattering.
The Keeper scrutinized her closely, like a grandmother might a child who came home covered in mud. “You are already forged, young guardian. And not with the magic of Voordiza.”
“Yes, I am.”
“To be forged with the magic here would kill you.”
“Is that what you’ve seen?” Hadima asked sharply.
“No, I have not seen the outcome of this. But surely it is the only option.”
Iryana let out a sigh of relief. If the Keeper had seen her death, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.
“I wouldn’t ask this of your temple if it wasn’t necessary,” Iryana explained. “There are lives at stake.”
The Keeper sighed. “It is your life you risk.”
What was her life worth when weighed against those she loved? Very little.
When Hadima stepped up to the woman, the Keeper’s argumentative expression softened.
“She must be forged now; skip all the ritual. Do you understand?” Hadima’s voice was hard, uncompromising. “We don’t have much time.”
Iryana glanced at her sister, whom she had never seen dive so strongly into confrontation. But the situation did call for it.
Looking slightly frustrated, the Keeper nodded. Hadima reached over and squeezed Iryana’s hand.
“Follow me.” The Keeper turned and started walking down an arched hallway.
They were led deeper into the cave system.
“Are you sure about this?” Keeper Magovya asked, stopping in front of a large stone door.
“I am sure, and we must be done tonight.” The longer this took, the odds of Karvek hurting people grew.
The Keeper looked unsure, but she nodded and pushed open the door to reveal a large chamber that reminded Iryana of the one at the bottom of the metal well.
“You’ll have to wait out here, Hadima,” the Keeper gestured down another tunnel.
Hadima nodded and then latched on strongly to Iryana. “You survive this, do you hear me?” Hadima demanded into Iryana’s ear.
“I will,” she promised, best she could.
There was so much in Hadima’s eyes when she pulled away. Grief and hope. Regret and resignation.
“Good luck, little sister.” Hadima pressed a kiss to both her cheeks, squeezed her hand, and then stepped back.
“I love you,” Iryana said, before turning and walking into the outer chamber of the wall.
The door closed as Iryana sat on one of the stone benches in the center. Her nerves were starting to get the better of her, her hands shaking slightly. She clutched the fabric of her pants to calm her hands. With the door shut, the Keeper sat down beside Iryana.
“I can only theorize how this works,” she told Iryana.
It was the best she could ask for.
“I have enough raw magic left to forge something.”
The Keeper rolled her thick shoulders back. “Voordiza’s magic won’t accept you without the tattooing ritual; we can’t skip that part. I need a look at your tattoo.”
Iryana pulled her sopping clothes off and accepted a robe from the Keeper, putting it on so that her back was exposed. She kicked her boots and stockings off as well, adding them to the heap. At least the air so deep in the mountain was warmer.
“The symbols are different,” the Keeper mumbled as she traced the metal symbols on Iryana’s body. “But I understand them.”
Iryana stiffened, but she forced herself to lie down on the bench.
She could hear the woman pulling her supplies over and setting up, but this time Iryana didn’t want to watch. If she was going to die, she didn’t want to see it coming.
Slowly breathing, Iryana searched for enough calm to make it through the forging. She didn’t need much from the well, just enough to save her family. Just enough to save Pyetar and the others in the 18th that turned against Karvek.
The gods were lost, there had been no sign of them for hundreds of years. But still, Iryana prayed to Voordiza. Begged her to let her survive this.
Finally, the Keeper spoke. “Tell your truths, the ones not already given to Noshtiz.”