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She felt a simmer of unease as the situation sank in. She was prepared to argue the benefits of cooperation to struggling clan leaders and generals. Not to a well-fortified clan. But if they were hosting the meeting, that had to show they had some interest in working together, didn’t it?

“Have any of the others arrived?” she asked, needing to change the subject or risk her frustration showing.

“You’re the first,” the Second said, rising to her feet. “On that note, can I have Pasko show you to your chambers? There is much to do.”

Iryana blinked. “Of course.” There were still two more days until the summit.

She’d find her uncle and see what he thought of all this.

The next afternoon, Iryana walked with her uncle along the castle’s outer wall, right above the steep drop to the valley below. Dinhal would have towered over her like he usually did, were he not glued to the inner wall of the rampart, furthest from the drop.

“I’m not going to push you over, you know,” Iryana teased, smiling at her usually unflappable uncle’s fear of heights.

“The wind would do it for you,” he complained, voice gruff.

She shook her head at him. The wind was a major nuisance, sending Iryana huddling inside her thick hat and jacket, plowing down the slopes of the mountains toward the valley. But it wasn’t nearly strong enough to knock someone of Dinhal’s size over.

They would have to find their way to the hall in another hour or so for dinner, but for now they had free rein of the castle. The sun was preparing to set, casting the sky in a pink tint. The beauty of it and the crisp air helped her think.

A few guardians patrolled the walls, but they moved in pairs, chatting with each other instead of looking around vigilantly. They truly didn’t expect any trouble.

Iryana and her uncle waved in greeting as they passed, but the patrols never stopped to chat like she’d hoped.

With a sigh, Iryana walked to the edge of the stone parapet and looked over. It was a dizzying sight, how small the pine-blanketed valley looked below. She leaned her belly on the stone, her wool gloves gripping the edge as her braid slipped over her shoulder and dangled below.

Her gaze trailed down the cliffside near where she could see the gate leading to a strange pulley system. When she squinted, she could just make out what likely used to be a switchback staircase carved into the rock, leading down into the valley. Like the path that led up to the Dovaki Post, it was mostly collapsed. With all the snow and ice clinging to it, Iryana wouldn’t have risked such a climb. A dakya was far too large to make it up.

It made her wonder what the duchess’s settlement was like. Lake Vrasho was supposed to be high in the mountains where air forgings were required to reach it. It had to be higher up, right? Only they’d be looking down at smaller farming villagers in the Sky Valley, ready to be evacuated if the border fell.

“Will you get away from there?” Uncle Dinhal growled.

Iryana chuckled, but she pushed herself back up and moved to walk beside him again.

“I wonder why the Vyukovolds don’t fortify the other nearby posts if they truly have so little to do in winter,” she mused. “I know the duchess threatened to split us up and abandon that part of the valley, but that would have required the Vyukovolds falling back too, wouldn’t it? There’s no other way to have given up that valley.”

“I can’t see another option.”

“Must mean the Vyukovolds are very motivated to help us keep our post then.”

Her uncle nodded. “Yes.”

Her grandmother had reached out to their neighboring clan last spring, but they had apparently said their hands were tied. That they couldn’t do anything. Things must have changed.

Perhaps that was the only reason they were hosting this summit, but Iryana hoped there would be more. Something else they needed.

“I really wish we’d been able to talk to the Omisolds,” she sighed. They’d shown up midmorning, practically falling over with exhaustion, and had been taken right to their chambers to rest before tomorrow. Iryana and her uncle had only gotten a glimpse of them from the window in Iryana’s sitting room.

Dinhal grunted his agreement.

“Rushing to get here might mean they can’t be spared for too long.” It was something, at least. “And they both seemed younger,” Iryana added. “Perhaps not their strongest warriors.”

“True,” was all Dinhal said.

When she was living in her cottage, Dinhal’s quieter nature was partly what made her so fond of him during those years. He was happy not to talk, not to bring things up that she didn’t want to hear. But now, when she wanted his advice, wanted to know what he thought, she wished he were more talkative. It was hard to bounce ideas off him.

They walked several more lengths before Dinhal peered up at the sky. “It’s going to snow tonight.”

Iryana looked to where the moon was rising, barely overlapping with the sun these days, and noted the glowing halo around the waning moon. There were thicker, low-hanging clouds on the edge of the sky.