“He’s a powerful fighter from what I’ve heard,” Vesima admitted. “Do you believe you can kill him on your own?”
Iryana felt lightheaded, as she did every time she thought about it. “I will have to.”
She’d lure him to a clearing with the promise of meeting the traitor, and then meet him herself.
Uncle Dinhal started to stand, a look of dedication on his face, but it wasn’t his voice that pierced through the room.
“I will do it.” Hadima was standing, a determined look on her face.
“No!” Misha shrieked, staring with wide-eyed fear that mirrored Iryana’s own.
“What?” Kladara sputtered. “You’re a healer, Hadima. We can’t risk that. And we have better fighters. Iryana should do it.”
Uncle Dinhal sauntered up, arms crossed and muscles bulging. “I can do it. I am a more experienced fighter than Iryana.” And he was metal-forged, too.
Aunt Emadya and Uncle Dinhal were the only metal-forged left that could actually fight—other than Iryana now. Uncle Byorsh was still too injured, their two middle brothers were gone, their father was gone. Even their cousin Gornhal was gone now. And Aunt Emadya was never very aggressive. She preferred training the newest guardians and watching the children to going out and fighting. Iryana couldn’t see her killing someone, not like this. Uncle Dinhal made sense…
If heirs could be replaced when they died, she was sure her grandmother would have chosen Dinhal.
Relief surged through her. If Iryana didn’t have to do it herself, she couldn’t fail them.
Hadima turned to their grandmother, and then to Iryana. There was a plea in her eyes. “You’ve said their general is dangerous, that he is too strong a fighter for us to take on directly. What is going to happen the moment he sees someone he thinks is a threat?”
Karvek would kill them, Iryana thought.
“Would he even let you get close, sister? Would he not immediately suspect you if you showed up instead?” Hadima turned to Uncle Dinhal. “No offense, Uncle, but he’ll know you’re a threat the second he sees you, too.” Then she turned to the rest of them. “If we’re setting up a fake meeting for him to intercept, we need to get close.Beforehe decides we’re a threat. I am too young to have been metal-forged before; he’ll know that. I will dress like a weak healer and make sure my forging tattoo shows.”
Hadima took a deep breath. “He won’t suspect I am there to kill him.”
“Absolutely not.” Iryana said.
“Look, I have a plan,” Hadima urged, looking around at them all. “I was experimenting with poisons after Iryana suggested trying that again on the dakii. It didn’t work on them, but forpeopleit would. I can go back to the temple I was forged in, reforge my dagger into a poison dart. I wouldn’t even have to get close.”
“How would you get to the temple? And we don’t have weeks like the last time you were forged,” Iryana argued. She’d have to go far beyond the wall.
“I will figure out the details, and the water well isn’t as far as they made us think. They tried to disorient us, to keep us from figuring out where it was, but I kept track. I have enough time.”
“No, Hadima.” She couldn’t let her sister put herself at risk.
Misha began crying, and Teshya pulled her to her side with her free arm.
“But… can you kill someone like that, Hadima?” Tonhald asked quietly, touching her arm.
Hadima pulled back and aimed a fierce stare at her cousin. “I am a guardian, trained just like you. Like all of you. I can do what I have to in order to protect my family.”
With a whirl, Hadima walked up to the First of the Guardians of Klees, the one whose decision could overrule the rest. “Grandmother, let me do this.”
“I don’t like the thought of losing any of you, and I would be foolish not to consider that you’re our only forged healer.” She took a slow, shaky breath. “But this is Iryana’s plan. If this is the best way to succeed—I will support whatever Iryana decides.”
They all turned to her. Iryana shrank.
“Don’t let her do this,” Misha pleaded, pulling away from Teshya to tug on Iryana’s arm. “I can’t lose her too.”
Iryana’s heart tightened, and she felt shaky. Like she was being pulled in a hundred directions. Misha had lost her mother because of what Iryana had done, so how could she risk the last family Misha had left?
“Sister.” Hadima pulled Iryana’s attention from their younger sibling. “You know this is the only way.”
But Hadima was wrong; it wasn’t the only way. And Hadima wasn’t a murderer. Iryana knew what a murderer looked like, what it took to be one. Karvek believed he had Iryana under his thumb, would let her get close. And she knew enough about Karvek to steady her blade.
