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Iryana looked around at her family. At her clan. She hadn’t felt so close to them, so accepted by them, in over a decade.

Her fears were still there. The fear that they wouldn’t stand by her when she messed up. That she would never be worthy of them. But they were looking at her with so much love and hope that it was easy to dismiss those fears for tonight.

Iryana raised her metal-forged beast spear into the air, letting the pain be drowned out by her clan’s cheers.

The next day, Iryana sought out Hadima to help her prepare for going to the Cavta Post. The house was still quiet after the excitement of yesterday’s ceremony.

She was almost to her sister’s workroom when she realized Hadima wasn’t alone. Conversation drifted from the room, and Iryana recognized Hadima and Uncle Byorsh’s voices. Iryana hesitated, not sure if she should interrupt or wait.

“It’s complicated, Hadi,” their uncle was saying, sounding tired. “But you’re not a bad person.”

“I wish I could hate him,” Hadima answered, the words barely registering with how quietly she was talking.

Iryana frowned, hesitating. Who was Hadima talking about?

“It might help to talk to her about it?”

Hadima’s voice was pained. “How could I? After everything she’s been through.”

It was quiet for a moment; Iryana leaned against the wall, frozen in place.

“You can always talk to me about him, okay?” Uncle Byorsh offered. “I know things changed, but I knew my brother for a long time before that.”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

Iryana gasped, stumbling quickly back down the hallway. Hadima was talking about her father. She turned and fled as quickly and quietly as she could, heart racing.

Breathing fast, Iryana locked everything she’d heard in a tight little cage and cast it from her mind. Whatever that was, she couldn’t deal with it right now. Thankfully, she was heir and there was plenty to distract herself with.

Iryana had what felt like a thousand things to do, already five days into her now-official role as Third. Yet she found herself standing on the slippery wooden walkway outside the hall, watching the training in the courtyard.

Most of the snow in the main courtyard had been cleared out, swept away or shoveled after every storm. It gave them room to train and keep their bodies in shape in the few hours of dim sunlight they had in the middle of the day.

The wind seemed to cut right into their bodies and drain the warmth from their flesh.

Teshya had made Iryana a fire-imbued scarf that was now tightly coiled around her neck and head. It made an enormous difference in the cold.

Iryana watched Misha and Sanora spar, their thick fur coats hiding the training armor beneath. They kept repeating certain forms and strikes, and Iryana could only assume it was what Uncle Dinhal had been working on with them most recently.

She wanted to give Misha a tip to improve, but she didn’t think her little sister would be open to feedback from her. Perhaps she’d ask Uncle Dinhal to show her later.

“Things have been… difficult between me and her lately, too. You should go talk to her,” Hadima said over a steaming mug as she slipped out of the hall and stilled at Iryana’s side. Hadima was wrapped in her coat and a shawl, but she wasn’t wearing her thick, fire-imbued boots. Hopefully she wasn’t planning on being outside long.

Iryana sighed. “I tried talking to her the night before the ceremony. She was really upset, said she didn’t trust me. I’m trying to give her space now—for however long she needs it. I can wait until she’s ready to reach out.”

Hadima’s silence stretched long enough that Iryana looked over to her older sister. Hadima looked so tense, her lips pursed and eyes scrunched as if it were too bright.

“What is it?” Iryana demanded.

“When Misha was brought to live here after Mother left, she was only four. And she hated it at first.” Hadima swallowed, not meeting Iryana’s eyes. “She missed her mother, she hardly remembered me, and mostly she missed you. She would throw these huge tantrums when she couldn’t go visit you at the cottage. She barely saw you in those almost three years before you came back.”

“I know, but…”

“When we told her you were moving into the main house, she was so excited. It was all she could talk about. But you weren’t what she remembered. You were distant and closed off, and I think losing you, not having the sister she remembered, that was the hardest on Misha.”

Gods, those words hurt.

“She must hate me,” Iryana whispered, her whole body feeling unsteady as she grappled with her guilt.