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“You keep her safe,” Hadima ordered, pulling Iryana in for another hug. “I’m not doing this without the two of you.”

“You will do what you have to.” Iryana squeezed her sister hard, holding back tears. “We all will.”

“I love you, little sister,” Hadima whispered. “I’ll see you soon.”

Iryana smiled. “I love you too, so much.”

Within the next few minutes, the initial retreat had begun, and Iryana watched them for as long as she could. Until the effect of Limhiz’s staff was too far away and the ground beneath her feet began to shake again.

There were three dakii attacks in the day since the first wave retreated, and people were already losing their nerve.

Iryana tried to limit using her forgings as much as she could, helping in other ways, but she found herself relying on them more and more. They needed to hold three more days, but she was already aching and raw inside. Her magics never fully settled, twisting and lashing out at her anytime her guard dropped.

They’d all been trying to keep their spirits up. They sang bawdy tunes and ballads when there were no beasts to fight, one of the captains told riddles, and a metal-forged archer was slowly working out a new poem about a fire dragon falling in love with a water serpent. Anything to pass the time and take everyone’s minds off the fight and the cold and the shaking ground.

It was still a struggle. A few soldiers had deserted in the night, but there was nothing to be done about it.

All the dakii in Istri seemed to swarm to the highlands, hunting any trace of metal magic. She hadn’t thought they could come this far into the mountains, not in such large numbers, anyway.

The Bitter Moon was a shrinking crescent in the sky at night, and while the world was still blanketed in snow, on clear days the sun caused meltwater to drip off the roofs.

Misha stood firm at her side on the ledge before the eastern watchtower. The falchion Iryana had given her was belted at her waist. She never seemed to go anywhere without it. Misha had taken to braiding her hair into a single plait down her back instead of the two braids she used to wear, to keep her hair from getting in her way as she shot. It unnerved Iryana, for it made her look like an adult. Made her look even more like Iryana’s twin.

“Danger is coming!” someone called down from the wall a few minutes before the scout sighted the dakii and signaled their approach. A dark-haired water-forged seer on the wall was scrying, watching her forging ball and looking for danger. She didn’t see numbers or anything that detailed, but the early warning was helpful.

When the dakii came into view, Iryana drew her wooden bow in a single, smooth movement.

“Third from the right!” Iryana called out to the archers in the watchtower and on the ledge beside them. It was a sort of game—calling out a target, typically one that looked like a big threat, and seeing who could hit it before it went down.

A volley of arrows shot into the sky, raining down around that beast. Some of the archers hooted as their arrows landed.

“That’s twelve for me!” an archer said as someone else groaned about their score being overtaken.

They kept shooting, choosing their own targets among the dakii that were pouring out from the trees, the closest ones engaging with the soldiers below.

Were the threat not so great, Iryana would have been in constant awe of those standing at her side. It had been such a long time since so many different forging types fought together.

There was a water-forged archer who shot with her eyes closed, using the intuition gifted by the water magic to know where to aim. She rarely missed. The earth-forged with their slings were fascinating. They had to shoot from closer to the front because their range was shorter, but the stones they threw packed far more punch than they should have.

Despite the turmoil of her magic, she could rely on her archery skills. She wondered if the water-forged magic in her was helping, guiding her aim. Iryana had a near perfect score, though she wasn’t really tracking. Misha, though, never missed.

“Three horns by the big pine!” The arrows homed in on that dakii, a huge snarling beast, before spreading out again.

“Got ’em in the eye,” Misha bragged quietly.

“Remind me not to piss you off.” Iryana laughed, firing more arrows at the dakii just emerging from the trees.

Their joy was brittle, like cracked vases slowly leaking water. But the humor made it easier to pretend that everything was all right.

“We’re half through our arrows,” someone called up from the tower.

Iryana tensed, arrow drawn to her cheek for a moment, before she released, barely hitting the dakii she’d been aiming at. She forced a laugh. “Then I guess we’re having an arrow-making contest during our break!”

The fletcher who doubled as their carpenter was churning them out as fast as he could, but if they helped with some of the easier parts of the process, maybe they’d be able to make enough for the next shift.

They’d split the forces that remained at the post into three groups that took roughly eight-hour shifts. The team at the wall, the one on reserve ready to provide backup, and one team resting. While the 18th’s soldiers made up the bulk of the numbers, smaller regiments, clan guardians, and fighters from the other settlements were divided into the groups as well.

“Big danger!” came the seer from the wall.