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Hadima handed her a bowl of water, and Iryana poured it with shaking hands, starting at the top of her grandmother’s head and down her entire body.

“Your body is pure.” The bowl clattered onto the ground as she clumsily sat it down.

Iryana formed her metal-forged dagger, letting the pain ground her. Then she placed the edge against the side of her grandmother’s neck and swallowed. Begged her hand to be steady. The dagger nicked the pale, weathered skin, just enough to bleed.

“Your soul is free to rise. Your body will be welcomed back home to the dirt.” She sobbed at the sight of red marring her grandmother’s neck and the sharp lash of releasing her forging.

Iryana stumbled through the caves, letting Pyetar and her sisters lead her. She stared mindlessly as she went. The walls and ceiling were breathtakingly deep blue. The ice rippled like waves, the crests reflecting the light. It was too beautiful a place for death. For mourning.

She hated it.

Her clan needed her to be strong, but there was no strength in her left to give. She had no words of comfort to offer. She had only the sinking knowledge that they were all doomed. Her clan had only her. An impostor who only pretended she could be heir.

Pyetar helped her onto a bed of pine boughs at the end of a medium-sized, circular cavern. She was vaguely aware of her clan milling about the caves, quiet and somber. Someone placed the staff from Limhiz on the boughs behind her. It drove her grief deeper. Her grandmother could no longer guard it.

A high, spiraling chimney of ice revealed a narrow glimpse of the storming sky. The space was colder and louder than some of the other areas, but some of her clan were building a fire, using the natural chimney to vent the smoke.

She turned away from the ice’s beauty, squeezing her eyes shut. It felt like they were on a boat, the mountain slowly tipping side to side from the quakes below them. She almost wished it would come crashing down.

Her mark began to burn again, but she begged it to go away once more.

The magic inside her was enraged, but Iryana welcomed the pain.

Pyetar and her sister took turns lying with her, like they were afraid to leave her alone. Vaneshta and Lidishta came at one point, offering condolences that Iryana hardly heard and holding out porridge and jerky she didn’t take. She knew others had come by as well, but she couldn’t remember who they were or what they said. She felt numb.

“You should eat,” Major Tenar said as he hovered by the cavern entrance, closely watching Lidishta’s failing efforts to make her take the food.

Sighing, she took the bowl, glaring at the tasteless goop as she forced herself to eat it. Tenar didn’t leave until Vaneshta and Lidishta did, following them through a tunnel.

Iryana just stared at the ice. The vast expanse of the night sky could fit inside her for how empty she was.

What did her clan see when they looked at her? A girl too young to lead them? The heir who forced the First on a dangerous trek she never could have survived? Whose negligence killed her own grandmother?

She shouldn’t have made her grandmother take this journey. Shouldn’t have pushed for this. “What did you do!” said her father’s voice. A chill raked through her. This was her fault.

“Little owl, you’re still a child,” her mother’s voice added. “You can’t lead the clan.”

Iryana buried her head in her knees.

Why had it taken her so long to realize her parents were right? She wasn’t enough. She had never been enough.

“You can’t take responsibility for them all. You have to see this can only go one way.”

She had already failed them.

“Iryana,” Uncle Dinhal said, taking the next shift beside her.

She nodded her acknowledgment, but didn’t turn to him. The wind was loud above them, the ground rocking.

It was late, though few of her clan were sleeping. Teshya and Tonhald were struggling to get Anara to eat or sleep, so she just fussed constantly. She was too big to sleep lying across her parents’ chests now, but the pine needles seemed to give her a rash. Misha was playing with her now; Teshya curled near the ice wall, trying to get some sleep. Hadima had patients to see despite everything—the major had requested something to help him sleep, and plenty of the others were struggling too.

Her uncle kept glancing at her, worrying his jaw. He was hesitating.

“What is it, Dinhal?” she ordered, too hollow for patience.

“I don’t want to add to what you’re going through but… the magic feels wrong. Do you feel it?”

That somehow got through the swirling storm of numbness that shielded her. But everything about her felt wrong, especially her magic.