A shiver ran down her spine. Surely the First wouldn’t risk that.
“I wasn’t surprised they didn’t care that we’d lost another fighter, that we’d had to abandon foraging in the Yuresh Valley.” The First laughed without emotion, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “They’d doom us all to the dakii if they didn’t benefit from our survival.”
Iryana nodded, feigning patience.
“He even had the nerve to threaten me, right in this very office.”
Her grandmother was quiet for a moment, and then her eyes roamed over Iryana with contemplation. “Dinhal told me you took on a couple of shifts at the main watchtower this week.”
Finally.
Iryana really shouldn’t have done it. But…
The alternative had been letting two of her younger cousins manage it alone or forcing one of her uncles to go almost two days without sleeping, both being far too great a risk. If dakii had come too far into the valley below their wall, grown too interested in the mostly obscured switchback path that led up to the hangingvalley hiding her family’s home—she didn’t want to think about it. Thankfully they had not.
Iryana looked up from where she realized she’d been staring at her feet, knuckles white where she held her helmet. The First was still staring at her, waiting.
“It was an extenuating circumstance,” Iryana bit out. “It can’t be repeated.”
The First’s jaw clenched as she sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. “Time with the family will help you get used to being around them again.”
Iryana’s head was shaking before her grandmother had even finished. “It was a mistake. I could barely focus, barely… barely breathe the entire time.”
The words were a struggle to force through her lips, but her grandmother had to know that nothing had changed.
Part of her understood her grandmother. She was responsible for the entire Kleesold clan, the couple dozen of them that were left at least. And in charge of the Dovaki Post, which included nearly a hundred volunteers, and all the farmers and villages that existed further up in the valley to support the duchess’s settlement. Their lives were all in the First’s hands. She didn’t have room to worry about Iryana.
They were silent for a moment, Iryana trying not to tremble as she avoided her grandmother’s eyes, and the guilt that would come from meeting them.
“You will start training with the others again.” Iryana’s entire body stiffened at her grandmother’s words. “There’s only so much you can do on your own, and Byorsh could use help teaching the younger ones to handle their bows. You always excelled at that and—”
“NO,” she shouted, unable to listen a moment more, breathing ragged.
She trained by herself, or occasionally with one of the village soldiers or Uncle Dinhal to get some sparring in. He never pushed her, never asked questions. Training with the others had grown increasingly painful after she’d moved out. Especially after Marisha—no, she wouldn’t think of that now. It had gotten so bad that she’d struggle to breathe, head spinning and her vision darkening. Sometimes she’d have to run off and vomit in the side yard.
“No,” she repeated. “You said you’d let me resume at my pace, when I’m ready.”
“It’s been three years.”
“I’m not ready.” The thought of it made her want to retch now, right in the middle of the fraying carpet.
“Clearly the space you demanded isn’t helping. We can build it up slowly, gradually increase your tolerance to being around them,” the First offered in compromise.
If she gave an inch, her grandmother would take a mile.
“You wouldn’t ask a volunteer to do that,” she argued. That was how she gauged what duties were safe for her to fulfill, and which ones brought her too close.
The First’s voice was hard and cutting as she smacked her hand down on the stack of papers strewn across the desk. “You are a guardian, not a volunteer from the settlement.”
It hit her as if her grandmother’s hand had struck Iryana’s own cheek. Pain rocked through her. Shame. Regret. Anger.
Her grandmother kept on, hardly seeming to notice Iryana’s reaction. “Fewer volunteers from the settlement come to the border to help every year, and they stay for less time. We are struggling, Iryana. We are understaffed and losing more warriors each year.”
“I know.”
“Then help us!” the First shouted.
“I can’t!” Iryana cried out. Then her voice weakened. “You know I can’t.”
