Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
As she lay pinned beneath Karvek, panicking as she struggled to pull in more than the slightest puffs of air, Iryana thought that was it. The end. She wouldn’t have enough time before she suffocated.
She kept pushing on her magic, anyway. At least she’d die trying.
Iryana had wondered if she would actually kill Karvek when the time came, or if she would knock him out and lock him away somewhere.
But she’d been preparing herself for this moment.
Had known Karvek would want to kill her in such a way, so personal—so intimate, after everything she had done to him. After she had betrayed him.
And she knew she’d need time, so much time. Too much time to do it at any point in an actual fight. She was exhausted, her magic more sluggish than it had ever been, her body so close to falling unconscious.
Her mouth gaped in a strangled stream as she pushed with her magic.
But finally. Finally.
Her metal-forged dagger found form through Karvek’s chest, the handle pressed against her palm.
Karvek jerked, his hand loosening slightly. His face twisted with confusion, his body not yet processing the dagger inside him.
She took advantage of his loosening grip to fully wrap her fingers around the dagger’s handle, her joints aching under the pressure of Karvek’s weight.
No longer focusing all her energy on forming her dagger, Iryana realized people were screaming.
Pyetar was yelling her name; her family was calling for her, begging.
They saw Karvek strangling her and thought that was it. They thought Iryana was dead. They didn’t know what she had done.
Karvek still didn’t realize it, despite the blood now leaking over Iryana’s hands.
She stared into his eyes and twisted the dagger, shoving it deeper.
He jerked again; more confusion lit his face.
His hands moved to the wood-bricked road at her sides and he leaned back as blood started trickling out of his mouth.
Then he pushed up, muscles shaking, lifting his body off her dagger.
It made a stomach-churning sucking sound.
He stared in shock at the red pouring out of him. Bewilderment spread across his face as he looked back up at her. Iryana didn’t waste the opportunity.
She drove her forged blade into Karvek’s neck.
His death was so quick that Iryana only saw a flash of shock and awareness before Karvek’s eyes flickered and his body sagged. Iryana shoved him, his body dropping to the ground with a thud at her side. Releasing the dagger, blood spurted out of Karvek’s neck.
His body lay still in the growing pool of red.
She’d done it. She’d killed him.
Her hand touched her throbbing throat as she sucked in air. Slowly, her vision cleared, and the ringing quieted. She tried to swallow, but it hurt nearly as badly as her head.
Karvek was dead, which meant… she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the way the world tried to spin around her, and met the eyes of Karvek’s people.
With a burst of luck and willpower, Iryana managed to cast her spear and staff, pointing them at the soldiers. She flashed her teeth through the blood coating her face, promising death to anyone who dared challenge her now.
Her eyes found Pyetar, and she struggled to comprehend the state of him. He was alive. They were alive. He met her shocked stare with one of overwhelming relief.
A grin spread across Pyetar’s face.
“Karvek is dead,” she screamed, her voice rougher and deeper than usual, and the crowd roiled. “The 18th listens to me now. And I name Pyetar Horvol as general of the 18th.”
That divided the soldiers. Those near the front—the ones most loyal to Karvek—looked angry and confused. The others, though, they looked relieved.
The soldiers holding Pyetar backed away as Iryana stalked toward them, holding her spear and staff in each hand. It wasn’t like she could use either weapon well like that, but the effect of her metal and water-forged weapons had the soldiers backing away like she was one of the dakii.
“Untie them,” she demanded.
Soldiers who had been near the back of the crowd, ones that had been in the brigade for longer and respected Pyetar, rushed forward. The bags and ropes were taken off the Kleesolds, and they were helped to their feet.
She watched as Pyetar was freed right in front of her. As he stood slowly. For a moment, they just stared at each other. Bloody and beaten because of Karvek. But Karvek was dead.
“Bring out the other prisoners now,” Pyetar ordered. “And have them released. All of them.”
Many of the soldiers didn’t hesitate to obey their new leader. The others, with a single look from their new general, took control of the crowd, creating a barrier between the soldiers and Pyetar and the Kleesolds. Some of Karvek’s most loyal fought back, but they were quickly subdued.
Iryana was still standing there with her staff and spear, coiled like she was ready to attack. She couldn’t believe it was over, that the danger was gone.
Since the spring melts, she had been working toward this moment.
She lost sight of the Kleesolds as the crowds rushed to follow Pyetar’s order.
The new general closed the last few steps between them, a looseness in his limbs that he usually lacked around other soldiers.
“You can let those go now,” he breathed, shaking his head at her in amazement. “I don’t know how you—” His fingers grazed her neck. “Are you okay?”
It still hurt to breathe, even more to speak, and she thought she might vomit. But she would be fine. Hadima would take care of her.
When he pulled his hand away from her, his fingertips looked like they’d been dipped in red.
She was covered in blood. Karvek’s blood.
A sound burst out of Iryana as she released her forgings, part sob and part laugh. “I thought I would challenge Karvek just to discover he had already killed you.”
Pyetar’s smile softened. “I’m okay. You saved me.”
Emotion slammed into her, emotions she didn’t know what to do with. She wanted to reach for him, bring his mouth to hers, but when she licked her lips, she tasted blood. And she quickly remembered the others around them.
Iryana pulled away, and while understanding lit across Pyetar’s face, he looked just as regretful.
“How did you do it? Are you really water-forged now?”
“I don’t know how it worked, but—”
Turning away from Pyetar suddenly, Iryana ambled to Karvek’s body. Ignored the blood and the way his eyes stared unseeing at the sky.
Karvek had not stripped like the others at that party, where she’d seen plenty of soldiers’ tattoos. He had never taken his clothes off in front of her. She had never seen Karvek’s tattoos.
Crouched, Iryana started undoing his armor.
“What are you doing?” Pyetar asked as he kneeled on Karvek’s other side.
“Help me,” she demanded hoarsely.
Between the two of them, they soon had Karvek’s torso exposed. Above the great gash cut through his chest was his forging tattoo.
It wasn’t like Iryana’s, some mixed with metal-magic and some water-magic; his was uniform. A deep plum color one could only achieve by mixing red and purple.
She met Pyetar’s eyes over his brother’s dead body. She had been wrong about Karvek.
He wasn’t forged twice like Iryana. He had been forged once, in both. Together. Her mind spun. Somewhere there was a well where both fire and metal magic could be combined. She’d never heard of such a thing.
How had she survived then? Was she the first to be forged twice?
“Where was your brother forged?” she demanded.
Pyetar’s brows tugged together. “I don’t know. But he was gone for over a month.”
She covered the body back up. It didn’t matter. It was time to move forward. She climbed to her feet.
“Iryana!”
She turned at the sound, finding the Kleesolds making their way through the crowd, no longer bound.
Uncle Dinhal got to her first, wrapping his large arms around her. “You’ve done our family proud, Third.”
She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to handle the attention. So she mumbled, “You’ll get blood on you.”
“I’m already covered in blood.” Her uncle laughed. “A guardian should always have less of their own blood than anyone else’s. You’re restoring my honor.”
She gaped at him, not recognizing him in such a jolly mood.
But looking around at the rest of the Kleesold Clan surrounding them, they all seemed to be in as good a mood. Huge smiles, tears of relief.
She found Pyetar watching her from a few steps away, and she almost said something, but he nodded and turned his attention back to his brigade. His people.
A few of the Kleesolds watched him suspiciously as he walked away. Iryana sighed. It wasn’t meant to be, for so many reasons.
Tonhald was holding his wife, rubbing her arms to comfort her, as he met Iryana’s gaze. There was so much relief in their depths she almost looked away.
“This is why the guardians have tradition,” Edvar bragged, but there was an enormous grin on his face. “Tell me I was right, Kladara.”
Kladara rolled her eyes as she grabbed Iryana for her next hug.
“Never,” she hissed at her brother. But then Kladara winked at Iryana.
There was still a hint of fear and worry inside her at all the attention from her family. But she soaked it up—discomfort, relief and all.
“Thank you, cousin.” Tonhald said, gripping her shoulder. “Now, let’s get you to Hadima.”
She swallowed. There were others she wanted to see, but it would be best to get her family out of there. It was time to move forward.
“We have to get her. She’s hidden just inside the city,” Iryana said, ordered perhaps. “And then we have to go to the camp. Dakii attacked there, but Hadima and I left before we could see how they fared.”
“Where grandmother was?” Tonhald asked.
Iryana nodded. “And the River Brigade majors.”
She had to hope they would all be all right.
They didn’t make it to the main gate before being stopped by someone else calling her name.