Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
“Voordiza’s magic won’t accept the same ones?”
“No.” The Keeper’s voice was apologetic. “It is not much of a sacrifice to give secrets already shared.”
Of course, Iryana thought bitterly. Of course not.
“If the god’s blood requires sacrifice,” she argued half-heartedly. Stalling. “What better sacrifice is there than risking my life to save my family?”
“I won’t pretend you aren’t brave. That I don’t respect you for this choice, stupid as I think you are for it.”
Iryana snorted.
“But the magic of the well is showing no interest in coming out. So no, I would say that is not enough.”
Iryana turned her face into the bench. She knew how this worked. Knew better than to fight it.
There was little time, so she had to go right to where it hurt the most.
“I am angry,” she started. “Angry at my father for what he did. Angry at my mother for leaving. And I am angry with my family for not seeing us hurting.”
She took in a steadying breath of air. “I’ve acted like I’ve forgiven them, but I’m still so angry. I forgave Hadima, but deep inside I’m still mad at her too.”
“Good,” the Keeper encouraged. “More.”
Iryana knew her sister couldn’t hear her, knew far too much stone separated them, but she still feared letting the words out. Feared her sister being hurt by them.
“Hadima is…” Iryana squeezed her eyes shut tighter.
“She wasn’t as perfect as I thought, and she’s been hurting too.
I am so angry that I didn’t know that. But somehow I am still jealous of her.
Of her relationship with Misha, with the cousins.
How comfortable she is in the main house.
How she found her purpose and accepted it with open arms. There is—so much I am angry about.
But it all pales to the rage I feel for Karvek. ”
“The magic is relaxing,” the Keeper said, sounding shocked. “Keep talking. Who is Karvek?”
“He’s the man who has my family, my friends, and—and Pyetar.” Iryana’s voice hardened at the thought. “He is double-forged, or I hope he is. I hope I haven’t grossly miscalculated.” Iryana swallowed. “And I am going to kill him tomorrow.”
The Keeper’s hands stilled. “If you survive this.”
“I will,” Iryana vowed. “I have to.” But she could sense the magic of the well drawing closer, and it felt so wrong. Like she stood in a pitch-black lake and then something brushed against her leg. Something big. That bone-deep, unsettling fear was what she felt at Voordiza’s magic.
“I haven’t done this before,” the Keeper said, sounding breathless. “But there was a Keeper I trained with who tried it early in the wars against the dakii. A man had begged her to try. But the man was dead before the first few symbols were inked. Are you sure this is what you want?”
Her heart thundered. At least she could know quickly if she was to be killed too.
She couldn’t force the word yes out of her mouth, so instead she offered Voordiza more. The deepest sacrifice she could find within her.
“Part of me wishes—” her voice was so small, so ashamed.
“Wishes I had just abandoned my plans and stayed with Karvek. Let him take control of my life, wield me like a tool, because then I wouldn’t have to face any more failures and know I’d chosen wrong.
Because he would have chosen for me. And I wouldn’t have to face this pain inside me, these fears inside me…
the broken pieces. Because he liked me broken. ”
The Keeper had nothing to say to that.
“And his touch,” Iryana almost whimpered the words. “I hated it. But it felt like atonement for everything I’ve done wrong in my life. I have made so many mistakes, and I deserve the punishment of his touch.”
Karvek was rough, demanding. He wasn’t someone who would ensure his lover was satisfied first, or at all. He took.
“I could have given into that so easily,” she admitted. “But there’s a man I—have feelings for.”
Gods, she hoped Pyetar was all right.
“And he touches me like I am the most worthy thing in the world.” She choked on a sob. “And I’m not!”
The tears came out quickly now, and she could barely talk through them
“I’m not worthy. And I am terrified that once I save him—because I will save him—he will forgive me and I will give into him, because I want to so badly, and then I will have to spend every moment in his arms feeling unworthy.”
“Voordiza’s magic is—” the Keeper bit out, voice straining. “Ready.”
“Do it,” Iryana demanded.
The Keeper put a spare wooden tool in her hand. “Bite down on this.”
“If this goes wrong.” She took the tool. “Tell Hadima how much I love her.”
“I will,” the Keeper vowed.
Iryana put the tool between her teeth, curled her arms around the end of the bench, and tried to relax.
“Okay, I’m starting,” the Keeper said, taking a breath like she was bracing herself.
And then the tool hit her back, and Iryana screamed.
Gods, it was the most excruciating pain she had ever felt, like her very soul was being hammered into. And the Keeper stopped.
“Don’t stop.” Iryana gasped around the tool as she bit down, her voice muffled.
“But—”
“Don’t. Stop!”
When the needle hit her back again, Iryana was ready for the pain, but still her whole body jolted. Her teeth bit down so hard on the wood in her mouth that she was surprised it didn’t snap, that her teeth didn’t crack.
The woman kept tattooing, the familiar tapping of the tools ringing through the room.
It wasn’t just pain that made the tattooing horrible; it was the feeling of wrongness in it. The way her magic seemed to grow sick inside her, the way her skin prickled and dampened with sweat, the way her soul felt like it was dying.
Please, Voordiza, Iryana begged, though the god was long dead. Her whole body spasmed from the pain. Please let me save them.
Blessedly, the pain continued. The rhythmic tattooing, though jerky, continued along her shoulder. Blessedly—because she was not yet dead.
She could feel the moment the magic of the water well adhered to her. Bonded with her. It was wrong, an intrusion, like bugs crawling under her skin.
Iryana groaned as her breaths came quicker and quicker until she was hyperventilating. Each breath dragged a moan out of her chest. She struggled as the Keeper helped her lean onto her side, baring more skin to be marked.
She wanted it to stop, needed it to stop, but Iryana forced herself to think of those in Karvek’s dungeons. Her screams bounced off the stone, and she hoped Hadima could not hear them.
Iryana had promised Tonhald that she would keep his wife safe. She had promised Uncle Dinhal that he would have vengeance. Had promised Vaneshta that the 18th could be a force of good in the world again. Had promised Pyetar he would be free.
She had promised herself that she could do this. That she would save them.
Despite the agony of her magic being pulled so hard it felt like it would be ripped out of her, Iryana endured.
The tattooing ritual felt like it took hours, each moment a struggle, a waver on the edge of death.
But she kept reminding herself that Karvek had survived this. If he had done it, she could to.
Finally, the pain stopped.
She lay there, every muscle limp, throat raw. Waiting for it to begin again.
“It’s done,” the Keeper said. She sounded exhausted and disbelieving. “And you still live.”
Iryana wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up, her every muscle shaking with tremors.
The Keeper was more hunched than before, skin pale and eyes haunted. “You survived this when no others have. That the magic of Voordiza and Noshtiz allowed it…”
“I wasn’t the first,” she groaned. Karvek had to be. Or someone before both of them.
“How do you feel?”
Horrible. Wrong. Unstable. “I’m fine.”
Iryana had to drag herself to the mirror leaning against the stone wall. The Keeper tried to help her, but Iryana shook her off. She had to do it herself.
She stood, fingers shaking as she turned, baring the new tattoos that climbed over her shoulder up her neck, over her chest, down her arm.
In the glimpses she’d seen of Hadima’s water-forging tattoos, the shapes were soft and gentle. Swirling like waves and curling like shells. But the tattoos on her body were nothing like that. They were jagged and sharp, like waves during only the fiercest of storms and the edges of sharks’ teeth.
She wasn’t sure if the tattoos looked like that because she had been shaking and spasming too hard, or because that was how much the magic had to fight to bond with her. Or because there was nothing gentle about the truths she shared.
Either way, it looked right.
“The hardest part is over,” the Keeper said, lowering herself down onto the bed Iryana had laid on, placing a basket of supplies. “Let me bandage your tattoos. They look—they don’t look like they will heal easily. And then we can get started.”
Iryana nodded and sat down again, fighting the nausea. She let the woman clean her skin and wrap her in bandages. She kept her eyes closed, trying to get used to the discomfort, the wrongness, inside her.
When the Keeper was done, she helped Iryana back to her feet.
Her legs wobbled like a newborn foal, but she followed her Keeper into the inner chamber of the temple. To the well itself.
It was set up like the metal well Iryana had first been forged in, but the walls were more organic, like the cavern had existed long before becoming a temple.
Iryana walked up to the well, and it was like peeking into an underground river of magic.
She took a deep breath, knowing it would be unpleasant to call on Voordiza’s magic.
And pulled.
The Keeper dragged the temple doors open.
Iryana felt restless and shaky after working all night. She was still wearing the robe, stained with blood and ink and sweat.
“Iryana?” her sister’s voice screeched as footsteps pounded up the corridor.
Then Hadima was rushing through the open doors, face splotchy and stained with tears, and throwing her arms around Iryana.
She couldn’t stop the yelp that erupted from her throat at her sister agitating the new tattoos, but she wrapped her arms around her sister, anyway.
“You’re okay,” Hadima sobbed in relief. “You’re okay.”
Iryana nodded against her sister’s shoulder. Holding her tight. Let her warmth wash over her.
“You did it?” Hadima glanced at the bandages against her neck. “You’re… forged with Voordiza too? With water?”
Iryana nodded.
“Holy shit, Iryana.”
She almost giggled at her sister’s rare cursing, but the moment was too heavy.
“Can I—” Hadima swallowed. “Can I see it?”
Iryana winced, but she held up her hand and focused.
She instantly located the water-forged magic inside her. It sat like a sickness in her that was easy to isolate. She pulled that magic into her hand. Iryana had to clench her jaw, and pull and pull. But eventually a simple staff formed, long as she was tall and blue as the sky.
It looked like a regular water-forging, not like Karvek’s strange mixture. She’d tried to pull her metal-forged dagger out, see if she could combine it with the water magic, but it had been impossible. She didn’t know what Karvek had done.
The water-forging wasn’t as easy to command as her metal ones. She wouldn’t be able to do anything fancy with it; just summoning it would be hard enough.
But it hit her. She’d done it. She was double forged and had a secret weapon now to defeat Karvek. There was a chance to save them.
And she’d sacrificed a lot for that chance. Become something new. Something that wasn’t entirely whole.
“Karvek,” she sang lightly, running her thumb along the edge of the staff. She had torn herself apart for the chance to kill him.
“I’m coming for you.”