The room erupted into chaos as everyone voiced their pain and anger at once, some groups clinging to each other and whispering fiercely. Iryana could barely make out their words over the pounding in her head.
Each breath felt too small, the room too small.
She repeated her grandmother’s words in her head, sure she had misheard. Their family had served these lands for generations. They were a guardian clan, and their honor could not be denied. How could the duchess separate them?
The Mud Moon had risen, spring already beginning. Three months of the year were already behind them, and they only had untilwinter? They would have the two months of spring; the Mud and Greening Moons. Then three months of summer; Honey, Storming, and Harvest Moons. She liked to think they’d have both autumn months after that, Thatching and Falling Moons, but in truth, winter in Istri was long and brutal and liked to sneak up on them. If they were leaving, they’d need to do it before the Falling Moon brought the first snow.
Six months?She counted them in her head again. Six months left together.
Iryana found her eyes glued to Hadima and Misha as they clung together, their eyes wide and lips moving with unheard whispers. Her sisters needed each other.
Six months. They had until winter to change the duchess’s mind. Vesima and Gornhal would knowwhat to do—they had to.
Vesima had looked weaker every year, but it seemed like she had aged another decade that spring alone. Weariness and defeat were etched in every line of her face.
She wasn’t hearing a thing the First said, the world a roaring buzz around her, until two words tore Iryana out of her spiral.Leave now.
Iryana’s head snapped around to stare at the First, to hear her.
“She hasrecommendedthat our unforged guardians leave now to find their place in a new post, especially those nearing their pilgrimage. It would be an easier transition, according to her, and a few unforged won’t make enough of a difference here.” Her voice was strained, the words forced out. Her gaze drifted around the room and lingered on those being offered an exit. “You all know that every Kleesold, forged or not, is essential. But… I will give you the choice to leave now or wait until winter.”
Unable to stop herself, Iryana imagined the post come autumn, the brief time that divided the warm months from the unending winter that would last nearly seven months. Tearful embraces, possessions divided and packed up, possibly permanent goodbyes.
The unforged guardians were their clan’s future. If they left, there would be no hope of changing the duchess’s mind. No hope of a metal-forged heir to carry the next generation. Their family would crumble. Their clan would be gone.
Iryana waited for the arguments and cries of anger, for the plans to turn things around, but none came. A weak acceptance had settled over the hall.
Her breaths came quicker as Iryana realized they were giving up. They would not fight to stay together. As if they had accepted their entire family being ripped apart as some foregone conclusion. Come winter, that would be it.
She would never see her cousins working together.
Never see the family rally to protect those they were sworn to.
Never see her aunts and uncles teaching the next generation of guardians.
Never see Hadima raise Misha into the fierce young woman she would become.
Iryana would lose the small scraps of family she had left, and worse, her family would not have each other.
And they needed each other.
“Don’t worry, I promise we’ll stay together,” Hadima soothed Misha, and Iryana realized she had stepped further into the room, her sisters only a few steps in front of her now. They hadn’t noticed her, Hadima rubbing their little sister’s back. Misha was getting so tall. How had Iryana missed it?
The younger cousins, those old enough to be nearing their pilgrimages, were as silent as she was. She could see it on their faces, the shock of their futures being unwritten.
If they left, they doomed the family. Did they realize that?The unforged could not give up.
Iryana missed whatever her grandmother said next, but the crowd began to disperse. Some remained, gathering in the center of the hall, their voices urgent. The youngest ones were crying, their parents pulling them close.
Hadima was walking further into the house alone, Misha somewhere in the crowd still. Iryana watched her older sister, her mind reeling.
This could not be it.
Iryana was an outcast, someone the family didn’t want too close. But Hadima? They loved her; she was a fundamental pillar of the family. Hadima was kind and selfless, always ready with a smile or a helping hand. In the short time Iryana lived at the house after their father died, the cousins always picked Hadima first for their teams when playing Beast or Guardian Capture, and she was the first to be pulled into the dancing during festivals. The Kleesold Clan had done everything they could to support her, sacrificing a wealth of resources so she could pilgrimage to the closest water well in the 18th’s territory.
If there were a sum that could have convinced the 18th to let one of their guardians pilgrimage to one of their metal wells, Iryana was sure the Kleesolds would have paid it. For Hadima to be Third.
If anyone could guide them through this, it was Hadima.
