He stared back with undeniable horror on his face. Almost as if he weren’t even seeing her. A shudder worked through her body, and she felt naked. Exposed.
“We—we can’t,” he gasped, shaking his head. His shirt was still hanging open; she could see the muscles along his chest straining as he heaved in each breath.
Her stomach tightened, but she let out a relieved sigh. They couldn’t. He was right.
That would be that. She wouldn’t have to worry about him getting too close.
Before she could tell him she agreed, that they could go their separate ways and pretend it never happened, Pyetar fled from the room.
Iryana stared at the slightly ajar door, telling herself it was a good thing. Now he knew; now he would keep his distance. But she felt worse than before, far worse. The ache in her heart throbbed even harder. She shouldn’t have let him get so close, shouldn’t have dropped her guard.
Not bothering to fix the straps of her armor or grab the rest of it, Iryana slung the meager bag she’d packed over her shoulder and slipped out of her room.
There was no time to regret her choice. She had a duty to her family.
She had a field of poppies to burn.
The night was oppressive, cloying and reeking of pine. Every cracked branch, shifting creature, and change in the sky had her tensing up again. Now that she finally had a plan, Iryana was terrified of it being taken away from her.
But she was here now.
Iryana stepped through the trees, taking in the vast field of dark purple and black resting in the moonlight. A shiver crept over her skin, making her hair stand on end.
The flowers were small, so delicate looking, to cause such trouble.
Confirming she was alone, and no one was stationed at the field like she’d feared, Iryana dropped her bag by a spindly pine. It wouldn’t be until at least tomorrow before a patrol came past this area; she had confirmed with the maps in Karvek’s office when he wasn’t there. A danger of its own, but she wouldn’t think of that.
She gave herself a moment to imagine the flowers burning, Karvek’s soldiers finding the patch in ashes come morning. Then she got to work.
Iryana paced through the woods outside the field until she found the perfect branch: thicker than her wrist, almost as long as her leg, and most importantly, too green to burn. Then she hunted for pitch. It was hard to see the oozes of thick sap in the dark, but she found a few softer chunks that she could twist the end of her branch in. Before long, the whole end of the branch was covered in sticky, resinous pitch.
After inspecting it in the moonlight, Iryana smiled darkly. It would do nicely.
Stabbing the torch into the ground, Iryana considered the area, the potential damage. The edges of the poppy meadow had been trampled down, crates and supplies littering the edge. There were a few spots she could potentially clear the brush away more to avoid starting too large of a fire, but the forest hadn’t fully dried out yet from the dampness of spring.
Her inspections led her to a small logbook tucked into one of the crates, listing harvest quantities taken from the site, timing the blooms. Her vision blurred as shetried to focus on the words.
She knew far more than she wanted to about drawing the drugs out of the unassuming little flowers. She’d helped her mother do it a few times when they couldn’t get enough supply from the military to keep her father alive.
Extracting the best opium needed to happen before the seed pods were ripe, and it could be done a few times without killing the plant. But it was time intensive and instead, tea could be brewed from the pods themselves. It looked like they were doing a bit of both: taking the pods and extracting the milky fluid from them after it’d had time to seep out and form a gum-like texture.
She was ready to toss the book aside until she saw a note describing it as “site 2”, and she sucked in a breath. Hopefully, there were only two. She scanned quickly, trying to find anything that listed or mapped out the other sites, but it was useless.
A fluttering sound from above sent Iryana into a crouch, hand outstretched to form her spear as she looked at the sky, expecting to see something pouncing down at her from the trees.
It was just a flock of bats, a swirling mass of flickering wings against the dark sky. Iryana let out a breath, chiding herself for being too jumpy.
The book clattered as she tossed it into the poppy field. It could burn with the rest.
Listening first for any strange noises in the forest, Iryana decided it was safe enough. Pulling out her supplies, she huddled beside the torch, hands right next to the pitch-end while she striked her curved firesteel against a bit of flint. The clicking sound echoed against the trees as small sparks flew off.
“Come on,” she urged, striking again. She needed this. Needed them to burn.
Finally, the pitch caught.
Quickly, she crouched closer, shielding the small flame from the wind and gently blew, coaxing it to grow. When the red and orange flames grew large enough to overtake the end of the torch, Iryana pulled it out of the ground.
Her hands were shaking as she crossed the field, crushing flowers between her feet. Even over the smoky, oily smell of the burning pitch, the spicy floral scent of the poppies was suffocating.
