His hands were hovering a few inches from her, stopped by her wavering magic.
A gasp wheezed through her throat. She looked over his shoulder. Just trees. Around them, more trees. The dakii were gone.
Her eyes snapped back to Pyetar. He was kneeling beside her, breathing heavily, face contorted in something between rage and shock.
She let go of her magic and groaned as it snapped back to her. The relief was overwhelming.
Pyetar ran his hands over her quickly, feeling down the side of her rib cage, pressing her stomach, her legs, her arms. He grabbed her face and slowly tilted her head from side to side.
“Stop, I’m fine.” Iryana swatted his arm away.
Pyetar leaned back, giving her room to sit up. The movement hurt; she was surely already bruising. Yet somehow, she was okay.
“You should be dead,” he growled.
Iryana rolled over and coughed as her stomach heaved. “Sorry,” she groaned, sounding less sarcastic than she intended.
Two dead dakii lay beside them. He had saved her. That thought made her stomach threaten to heave again.
She made it to her feet and managed a few steps. Everything was working fine.
“You need to protect your back,” Pyetar barked as he stomped up behind her. “This isn’t your little valley with the big, safe wall behind you. Your guardian strategies don’t work out here in the open.”
Pyetar stormed past her, his shoulder bumping against hers. Her chest heaved wildly, and she clamped her eyes shut. He wasn’t wrong.
When she finally made it back to the clearing, she found Captain Darish watching her, a look reminiscent of that first time he tried to block her from petitioning Karvek. He was all narrowed eyes, crossed arms, and a displeased demeanor that sent a shiver of worry up her spine.
She couldn’t afford failures, couldn’t afford the extra eyes on her, and certainly couldn’t afford being in debt to any of them. She needed to prove to Darish he hadn’t made a mistake in letting her on his team, that the brigade wasn’t making a mistake recruiting her.
Giving up, packing up, and heading back to her cottage sounded so good, but the thought of failing her family hurt far worse than failing anyone here. If fighting the dakii out in the open, in these numbers, was harder than she thought, she would just have to get better.
Iryana reached into the wooden bowl, the water cold around her fingers, as she grabbed another handful of sinew fibers. They had soaked just long enough tosoften and begin to swell, but not so long as to be saturated and difficult to twist. She gently wrung the bundle out and added it to the pile on the bench beside her.
Vaneshta had been maintaining her armor in their room, so Iryana had sought somewhere quiet for her work. She was in the small side-yard between the barracks and the estate, and it was almost peaceful. The stone wall of the barracks and a cluster of trees created an isolated-feeling space filled with a few benches and a table. If it weren’t for the clear view of the main path, it would be perfect.
Selecting her starting bundle of fibers, Iryana began to twist. It was a soothing activity, one she was familiar with. With the threads twisted enough to kink, she established the loop where the string would attach to her bow, and then started twisting the legs together.
It had taken her a few days since the dakii damaged her bow to get everything she needed for the task. After convincing one of the hunting parties to let her join, she still had to harvest and prepare the sinew.
This part was repetitive, and Iryana’s mind wandered back to the dakii. It felt like every free moment her thoughts returned to them, to the way they had moved.
She had thought she understood how the dakii worked together, the roles they played, and now they were diverging from that cautious understanding. The dakii seemed to work differently outside her small valley when they moved in larger packs.
“What are you doing?”
Iryana glanced up, seeing Mezhimar standing a few paces away, with the rest of their team waiting on the path. Their faces were tight, Vabihn’s especially, which seemed to be standard after she’d offended them in the hall.
Iryana looked back down at the threads as she twisted them. “Making a new bowstring.”
“Why?”
She glanced up; a sharp look on her features. “Mine was damaged by the dakii the other day, so I need a new one.”
“When Pyetar had to save you,” Vabihn added, walking into the side yard with his arms crossed.
Iryana frowned, not needing the reminder. Every time she saw Pyetar around the fort, it was like she was back there in the woods with him, opening her eyes to find him and not the dakii.Why hadn’t he let the beast kill her?It would have been the easiest way to get rid of her, although he still seemed to think her family would cause problems if she died. Was he going to hold this over her? Did he want something from her?
Mezhimar ignored Vabihn. “No, I mean, why areyoumaking it? We have craftsmen who make them.”
