“How much do they trust you?” came a scratchy voice from the far side of the room. Iryana’s Uncle Dinhal limped closer to them, watching her intently. “Enough for you to learn their plans?”
She froze.
Naturally they’d ask her to do more; they would keep asking for more until she failed, and then they would blame her for it all. “I don’t know.”
“Of course she could,” Tonhald said.
Iryana opened her mouth to argue, but her family was throwing out all sorts of ways forherto help. Kladara wanted her to sabotage them; Aunt Emadya wanted her to convince them to take out more of the dakii; Dinhal wanted her to spy on them. With each suggestion, each demand, Iryana’s throat grew dryer.
She looked at the door, so far away. She’d have to make it past her cousins, who were gathered so close she’d have to shoulder her way through, but how could she explain that? They would never understand.
She didn’t wantthis. To be wrapped up in their plans and thrown to the wolves.
Then Kladara’s too-loud interruption quieted the others. “None of these ideas matter if the Kleesolds don’t have a Secondora Third.”
They were all quiet for a moment, and Iryana tried to calm her worry, just happy their attention had moved on.
“We still don’t have anyone who qualifies,” Edvar grumbled.
“If we can forge the new guardians in a metal well, there will be options,” Aunt Emadya pointed out.
“Will be. But not for a while,” Kladara didn’t hesitate to add. “I still think we should have the rules changed, or throw them out entirely.”
“But now we have—” Hadima started, but she was drowned out immediately.
“The only thing holding this border together,” Levek snapped at his sister across the table, “is tradition and duty, and you want us to throw that away? It’s the only thing we have left!”
“We have each other!”
“For now.”
Hadima leaned between them, eyes wide with desperation. “Hey, we all care about the Kleesold family’s honor. We will do what we must.”
Hadima was always the peacemaker of the bunch.
The First twisted her mouth. “The duchess has been very clear in her plans for us, what the conditions of our being able to keep this post were.”
Iryana made the mistake of looking over toward her grandmother to find the First staring right at her. Iryana blinked, nearly looking away, but there was something accusatory in that stare that she couldn’t bring herself to look away from.
“We have a new metal-forged now,” the First reminded them all. “One in the third generation. One who infiltrated the gangs.” With each of Vesima’s words, Iryana’s heart beat faster. “The duchess would accept Iryana as the Kleesold’s Third.”
The room exploded into a silence so loud that Iryana could do nothing but recoil from it.
Hadima’s head snapped around, looking at her with wide, hopeful eyes. They were all staring at her, Iryana realized as her stomach tumbled. They looked at her as if she were the answer, as if they could ask such a thing and expect her to save them.
It was a fucking joke.
Kladara broke the silence first. “That will work; we just need to get the duchess on board.”
“And then as the others come of age they can be metal-forged,” Dinhal continued.
Tonhald smiled. “If we have new metal-forged, more would be willing to help out the post.”
Iryana stared at them, face frozen in a mask that hopefully hid the horror she felt. “How can you ask that ofme? You’d be stuck with me; an heir can’t be replaced. So you’d buy a little time for the clan and then make me run it into the ground? No, thank you.”
They quieted and looked at her with surprise, but Iryana couldn’t stop the words tumbling from her mouth. “You don’t wantmeto lead the Kleesolds after grandmother, you can’t.”
“But you could—” Hadima tried to say, clutching onto her arm, but Iryana leaped up from the bench and stepped back.
