Page 25 of House of the Iron Reaper

Calm. Be calm.

I force my brow to smooth and my frown into something resembling neutrality. But before I can say anything, Lysandra continues quietly.

“I was married to her father, Elder Mavros,” she says and I nearly choke on my drink.

“S-She is your daughter?” I try and fail to smother my stutter. And then another thought occurs to me. “Deyanara is a noble? Daughter of the House Elder?”

Elder Mavros. It has been many years since the Iron Grief and I was a very small child when he was alive. But his name is marked in the House of History and he was infamous amongst dragons, in a way. A dragon who worked as a scout but kept killing doomkin before they could be brought back, so he retired early. His strength and size was immense—Deyanara’s size makes sense, knowing this. The words under Mavros’s entry in the House of History read He loved to fight and laugh in equal measure.

I have not seen Deyanara even smile, let alone laugh. Why does that trouble me so?

Lysandra turns to look at me fully and her expression is unreadable. This close, I see the dark rings under her eyes. I fear I have misspoke and given too much away.

“Titles are worthless in the face of starvation,” Lysandra says. “Tell me, if your House were to come to ruin, do you believe your nobility would save you? Or would it turn to dust the moment your gems ran out?”

Lysandra takes a half-step closer, just enough for me to wilt like a flower before a flame.

“What of your prestige?” Her eyes narrow into slits. “How much value would it hold if your stomach were empty and your family sick?”

I suck in a slow, shaky breath. I desperately scramble for something to say, anything, but I have nothing. I have never suffered an empty stomach nor an illness we could not afford to treat. Worse, it had never reached my consideration to think anyone truly lived much differently. But of course they do.

A strange feeling sits in my chest. I do not feel foolish, not quite, but something close. I once visited the sandstrider stables when I was young. I saw the stable hand affix something to their heads—two pieces of stiff leather joined by a strap—which sat on either side of the strider’s eyes. He called them blinkers.

Easily distracted creatures, the stable hand explained. We put these on so they can only see straight ahead. Narrows their view.

I am a sandstrider and my blinkers are gone.

“We all must do what we have to, to survive,” Lysandra says, stepping back.

She places her untouched drink on a table and taps her forehead in farewell. Before I can say anything else, she leaves in a swirl of earth and smoke.

Chapter 11

Deyanara

Despite the ache in my limbs from the day’s work, Aythora trains me as though I have freshly returned from a week of rest in Caldercruix. The enchanted training dummies come alive when I take my stance before them, prompting me to start the spar. The others train separately around me, with the occasional barked order from Aythora. She herself stands in the middle of us, arms crossed and fiery hair running down her back, like an immoveable volcano.

I sneak a few glances at Novalie, who has not spoken a word to me since the opening ceremony. She trains in the far side of the room, her back to me. Her violet hair is braided high on her head and there is something altogether hypnotising about her bare neck. The lithe muscles of her legs peek from the slits of her culottes as she moves.

My gaze wanders over occasionally, until Aythora reaches up to slap the back of my head and snaps at me to concentrate.

“You may not be light on your feet, but you will need to learn how to dodge,” she tells me after the dummy lands another blow across my right cheek.

I rub my bruised face and nod miserably. Medicinal bahk is plentiful in Coalsburgh, but expensive. Due to the nature of our magic, our bodies are prone to injury, and so our city imports bahk from Frostalm regularly. The next few days after the opening ceremony, Aythora had snuck me several more vials of the sweet, coral-pink bahk and organised a clandestine meeting with a cleric.

But even siren magic can only do so much, and my rib still twinges with dull persistence when I work.

“It is easier if you simply strike first,” Aythora continues. “One well-placed hit from you and the doomkin is unlikely to get back up.”

When I take up my stance once more and throw my fist, the dummy swings to the side, moving as though on marionette strings. Before I can draw my arm back, it catches me on the upswing and strikes hard against my rib. The pain is blinding. I crumble to the ground like dry sand.

Aythora sighs with the weight of a thousand disappointments, a sound that drills directly into my soul.

“A-Apologies,” I wheeze.

“What have I just told you?” she demands, fists on hips. “Strike first if you cannot dodge.”

I stumble to my feet, pain radiating from my torso. I gently prod my rib, checking for any signs of further breaks, and sigh when there is not. For now.