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The past clung to them, stubborn as pitch. It was a cloud that darkened any light in the world, a wound that had never healed fully. Their pain wasn’t something that could just be set aside. It was rooted in them, clinging to their flesh with barbs and hooks.

She’d hurt for so long. Grieved and blamed and internalized. Perhaps her family hadn’t been able to see past it because she herself could not. It had taken over her life. Had taken over who she was.

And when she’d finally been brought so low that she couldn’t hold the pain up in front of herself anymore, she’d been shocked to see she wasn’t the only one tormented. Nothing had surprised her more than learning how deeply Hadima hurt too. Iryana had been oblivious to it, blinded by her own suffering. If her sister hadn’t been willing to let down her guard the same night Iryana did, would they have ever truly understood each other? Would they have ever been able to forgive?

Pain was something people kept close to their hearts, in the same place meant for precious things. No one wanted others to see their suffering, so they protected it. Shielded it. Put on brave faces to hide it. All it did was make them alone.

People couldn’t see what connected them, the hurt they all shared. And she still struggled with it herself.

Perhaps part of the problem was that they all hurt differently. It was easier to think you were alone when someone hadn’t walked your same steps, easier to overlook what they’ve gone through when you hadn’t walked theirs. But even if you thought they hadn’t been through as much, it didn’t make the pain in their heart less real. It didn’t mean they couldn’t understand. Everyone’s heart bled the same.

Iryana pulled the cloak higher around her neck as her thoughts turned to her younger sister.

Perhaps Misha wasn’t ready to let those guards down, to take her pain from its prison in her heart and show it to Iryana. She knew Misha hurt. Knew that despite the bravery she showed everyone, there was something aching beneath it.

One day Misha would be ready. And Iryana would wait for that day.

Misha had been so young when their father died and their mother abandoned them. The clan and her sisters were all she had.

She’d wait as long as she had to.

Iryana couldn’t be so patient with the clans and brigades, though. She doubted they had the time. If Iryana waited for them to be ready, peace might never come.

She wanted her clan to open themselves up not only to her, but to the soldiers as well. And she wanted the brigade to do the same. But she didn’t want to put herself out there again, didn’t want anyone else to see the suffering inked on her skin. Could she really blame them? Could she really see things changing?

She hoped they would. But perhaps hope was all she could do.

Iryana shivered in the cold air, staring numbly up at the moon. When one of the temple’s staff came to take over the watch, she went back to her room to try and lure Edvar out again.

Chapter Eight

Iryana couldn’t convince Edvar to leave their room that night—he’d just sat up on his bunk playing cards with himself, sneaking sips from his flask when he thought she wasn’t looking. Iryana had spent hours trying to coerce him before giving up and going to sleep.

He needed to rest, she reasoned. When she woke, she let him sleep in. Took another shift on the wall and did some brief training in the courtyard to get her blood flowing despite the cold. In her mind, she thought of new ways to convince him. Perhaps archery with Mezhimar? She could tell him it was a chance to show off the clan’s skill with a bow.

But when she returned midday with a bowl of warm grain stew for him, she found Edvar drunk and flicking cards at the wall. Iryana just about lost it.

“You don’t have to stay in here if you’re so bored.”

“I have no desire to spend time with the soldiers,” Edvar snapped.

“They’re not going to bite you!” She’d managed not to yell at him or push him too far the entire trip, but that control was slipping. “My old team is great. I think you’d get along well with Vaneshta if you tried just a little—”

“Yeah, no.”

He refused to look at her, just flicked another card, which bounced off the wall and fell down the side of his bunk. He reached for the next card off the deck.

“And what if I ordered you to?” she challenged.

He actually looked at her then, his eyes bloodshot. “You’d order me to suffer the company of the assholes who have been terrorizing our family for a decade?”

She swallowed. “That isn’t fair. We need to move forward and—”

“Unless you’re going to order me to go out there, leave it be,” he snapped.

Iryana’s throat bobbed again. She wasn’t sure he would actually listen if she did order him. She was Third, and if he truly disobeyed a direct order, she’d have to reprimand him. Inform the First when she returned. She didn’t want to have to explain this to her grandmother. Didn’t want to push Edvar that far, either. And forcing him was unlikely to help the situation.

“Are they really that bad?” she pleaded.