The seer held her hands out, cupped, one on top of the other. An orb grew out of her palm, swelling to the size of her head. Instead of being a solid, shadowed white color like Hadima’s forgings, the orb had streaks of dark charcoal swirled into the milky color of raw magic. Iryana couldn’t even fathom how such a thing had been forged.
When Iryana was little and the possibilities were endless, she had been obsessed with forgings. Read countless books about the most innovative forgings around Istri. She felt that long-buried curiosity peeking out.
“We should be safe for a few hours at least, but I will watch carefully.” Katashta squinted into the ball again, then let it sink back into her hands.
Was that how they survived the dakii? Hid in the trees if they saw them coming? Foraged and hunted only when they knew it was safe? She knew little of the foresight water-forgings were capable of, but she didn’t think a seer could see more than her own future, and even then not very far.
It wasn’t for her to worry about, Iryana reminded herself. She needed to stay focused. And hope more difficult missions would follow this one.
“Let’s get to it then.” Darish grabbed one of the packs from the cart, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the ladder.
A basket was lowered from high in the trees, and they filled it with the sacks from their cart, one-by-one watching them lifted into the trees. Once the cart was empty and the horse tied to a tree to graze, Darish headed up the ladder himself, the others following.
There was always someone standing at the base of the ladder, anchoring it to the forest floor, but it was still far more difficult to climb than it looked. The ladder swayed as soon as her weight was on it, leaning her back as if she were climbing under a ledge, but she made it to the wooden platform at the top.
The captain was first to grab a few sacks out of the basket that had followed them up to the platform, but as he hoisted them onto his shoulder, Iryana saw something black and paper inside.
Her whole body broke out in a cold sweat. Theyweredelivering poppies.
She had known this was coming, had known she would be exposed to them, but it hadn’t prepared her in the slightest. It didn’t matter, she tried to remind herself, but she just stood there. Staring.
“You coming?” A shoulder bumped into hers, and Mezhimar was looking at her.
Iryana snapped herself out of it.
“Yeah, of course.” Feeling numb, Iryana forced herself to move. To push the horror she was now drenched in to the back of her mind.
She hung two bulky sacks over her shoulder, gratefully noting that they felt filled with grain and not poppy flowers, and followed the rest of her team. Her eyes couldn’t rest on anything for more than a moment; there were too many things to look at: the strange method they used to tie the bridges to the platforms, the bark roof tiles on the buildings, the hammocks even further up. As she walked across one of the bridges, she realized it was sturdier than it looked from the ground.
Katashta led them from platform to platform, a few villagers waiting to let them by. They passed through the bottom of a few two-story buildings, empty rooms with no furniture in sight, but with ladders that led to doors in the ceiling painted with images of mostly plants and woodland animals.
Iryana realized none of the villagers had visible weapons on them beyond simple knives. They lived in the middle of dakya territory, yet they didn’t seem like fighters. Perhaps their weapons were forged, but water-forgings wouldn’t do much to the dakii, so she doubted it.
She felt like a wolf walking into a herd of sheep. The 18th was there to take advantage of these people, sell poppies, demand payment and tribute. She had to ignore the sick feeling in her gut.
Then they entered the largest building yet. It was oddly shaped, built around a few particularly large trees, and this room wasn’t bare. Shelves and hooks with woven baskets filled with goods covered the walls, leaving a path just wide enough to walk around. Iryana saw berries and wild onions, basket after basket of food that could be easily harvested from the forest. The closest shelf had bottles and small boxes labeled with simple remedies. A few people were slowly walking through, picking up an item from one basket only to add something else to another.
It was some kind of trading market.
“Put everything here to be sorted,” Vaneshta advised her, dropping her sacks into one of the open corners.
She was glad to be rid of them, but her eyes lingered on the lumpy linen sack Darish had carried. She couldn’t help but wonder how many contained poppies.
Katashta passed Darish. “I will go get the payment.” She sounded tired.
Iryana found herself hoping thepaymentthe brigade demanded wasn’t too high. Then she noticed something on the shelf next to Darish that caught her eye.
The label said it was a blood-clotting agent. Surely with such access to water-imbued medicines and treatments, the village wouldn’t need to resort to the poppy. Perhaps they took in addicts? She shook away the image of a whole room of patients tied to their death beds as water-forged healers attempted to help them recover.Focus. But still, such access to water-imbued medicine…
“Do they sell to us, Captain?” she asked hopefully.
Darish laughed. “Take anything you want.”
“That’s stealing,” she said before she could catch the words from flying off her tongue.
“We give them plenty, don’t worry about it. I don’t.”
Iryana wanted to tell him what she thought of that, but she knew doing so would be idiotic. Her hands clenched around the straps of her pack. Taking more from people that were already being forced to pay was disgusting. The village had seers, they could keep themselves safe. The brigade was just greedy and power hungry.
