Page 151 of Because the Gods Left

“I don’t know.”

He nodded slowly, like he knew this was coming. “Fine. We’ll leave it at that.” He spun on his heels.

“Pyetar, please…” she reached for him, needing to comfort him but hesitating.

“I’m allowed to be upset right now,” he said, not turning but pausing. “Please just… let me be upset right now. We can talk about it later.”

“Okay,” she said weakly, and watched him walk away.

Heart galloping wildly and stomach sour, Iryana headed back to Pyetar’s old home.

She forced herself not to think about Pyetar, letting her mind spin on everything she’d learned. Lidishta would be an asset to the fort, and they’d solved the mystery of Karvek’s dual-forging. But Iryana realized what else it meant: Karvek’s forging didn’t hold the answer to fixing her own magic.

She spent two days cramped in the house with the fighters who had joined her from the post. They needed to give the water-imbued medicine time to work, time for Levek’s injury to stabilize. Word had been sent back to the post, but her clan members were eager to return as quickly as they could.

Iryana had agreed to head back that morning.

She hid it, but Iryana was not as recovered as she’d hoped. She wasn’t keeping much food down, and her magic hadn’t settled as much as it usually did. There was a constant churning discomfort. She chose to ignore it.

Vaneshta and the rest of her old team saw them off, thanking them again for their help. Her clan members were surprisingly gracious. She tried to hide the hurt when Pyetar wasn’t there with them. Vaneshta covered for him, saying that he was still busy dealing with the fallout from the fight.

It was probably for the best.

Yet as the gate was opened to let them out, Iryana caught a glimpse of the general standing at the edge of the crowd. He watched her, eyes burning with worry, but there was a tightness to his jaw that Iryana knew was restraint. She nodded at him, gave a slight smile she hoped would be a comfort, and left with her clan.

They made it back by nightfall, relieved to find the post no worse off than they’d left. Iryana quickly excused herself from the reunion. The fear and pain she’d tried to keep bottled inside were starting to leak out. She could feel her sisters’ eyes on her, but Iryana needed to work through it on her own. She didn’t want to fail her sisters, didn’t want to abandon them. The thought of leaving, even in death, filled her with so much shame and guilt.

Bundling back up, Iryana headed for the remains of her cottage. She hadn’t been back since she’d burned it down with her sisters. It was slow and arduous, but she needed to be alone. The moon was a sliver in the sky, no longer providing as much light as it had even days prior. She didn’t need the light, though. Finding her old home was instinctual.

Snow had blanketed the remains of the cottage, but she could still see its rough shape. Iryana stared at it for a moment before finding a spot sheltered from the wind. The remains of her old bedroom, she thought. Iryana dropped her shawl onto the snow and lowered herself onto it. She sank down enough that it was like lying in a bowl.

Iryana sucked in a breath.

It would be all right. It had to be.

But she was hurting and scared, and without the others to force her to be strong, she fell apart. Tears burned her eyes and froze on her cheeks. She clutched her middle, where she was so tired of hurting.

She was a guardian heir. She was a warrior, and her people were at war. Staying out of the fight wasn’t an option. But it was killing her, and she was terrified of the idea of leaving them alone. Going to the water temple and attempting to have the bond with that magic ripped out wasn’t an option. If she was going to die, she wouldn’t do it deep underground, miles from her family. She would do it fighting for them, which was how she always thought things would end for her.

Shaking, Iryana tilted her head back, watching the auroras grow brighter against the sky. It was almost enough to soothe her.

On the dawn of the year’s second moon, the Bitter Moon, Iryana sat in Cavta Post, waiting for the duchess to arrive.

In the week since the fort had fought off the wave of gods’ creatures, she’d received more and more reports of attacks from within the 18th’s territory and from the River Brigades. It was becoming obvious to her that having the highland valleys fall back to the fort wouldn’t be enough. The duchess’s settlement needed to take them in. If the attack on the fort was a sign of what was to come, the brigades and other settlements out there wouldn’t survive.

The First had joined her for this meeting, leaving Uncle Dinhal in charge of their clan’s post.

She sat beside her grandmother in a lavish sitting room, where the other clan leaders had all gathered to “discuss” things before the big meeting. They weren’t truly making any progress; they were just keeping busy. Trying to feel useful, to stop the panic.

Rigidly perched on the edge of a silver couch, she watched the other clan leaders as they talked among each other, all putting on faces of confidence. But she could see worry in the tension of their jaws, the slightly too-wide look in their eyes.

The Vyukovolds were clearly grateful for Hadima’s help and less standoffish to Iryana, but they didn’t seem to be taking Thelbiz’s warning as seriously as the others. She’d heard their First and Third discussing how inconvenient it would be for creatures of any sizable numbers to ascend to their post from the valley below. They seemed to have relegated it as a problem for the other clans.

The Omisolds at least seemed like they might have no issue with opening up their post, but they hadn’t said anything conclusive yet.

Iryana needed to convince them all to let those beyond their borders seek refuge with the settlement or border posts, but she knew it was a hard sell. As much as they liked to pretend that the brigades were more like leeches than soldiers helping guard their borders, they kept much of the fight away from the posts. If they were gone, things would get much more difficult.

No one had been willing to agree to anything definitive because it didn’t really come down to them.