“Then perhaps, in future, you ought to be more careful with your belongings.”

“I can’t help it. I’m forgetful.”

Father shook his head. “You’ve never forgotten anything in your life, Rya. Who got your blade this time? Another woman needing protection from her husband?”

“That would be wrong. Blades are for warriors. Ash and I are the only exceptions.” She took a bite of her pork. “But if I did give it to some poor soul in need, it would be the spirits’ fault. They speak, and I must obey.”

Their father shared an eye roll with Ashyn. While it was true that the girls served the ancestral spirits, it was an excuse Moria used too often.

“Waiting so long for weapons isn’t reasonable,” Moria continued. “We need a smith. I’m sure there’s a strong young man who could take up the task, for the greater good.” She chewed. “How about that Kitsune boy?”

“What’s Gavril done now that you’re volunteering him for smithing?” Ashyn asked.

“It was merely a suggestion. He’s young. He’s strong. He’s in need of a trade.”

Ashyn sputtered a laugh. “He’s a warrior, Moria, from a line of warriors stretching back to the First Age.”

“Then his ancestors have forgotten him, because he isn’t very good at it.”

Ashyn shook her head.

“Since I won’t have my dagger by morning, I’ll need a knife,” Moria said, her voice deceptively casual. “I’m going lizard hunting.”

“Are you?” Father mused. “Perhaps I’ll come along.”

“You scare the lizards.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll scare you—away from the forest. Which is where you truly plan to go.”

Moria made a face. “Why would I want to go into the forest?”

Neither Ashyn nor their father replied to that. They both knew what Moria had in mind. Tomorrow was the Seeking. Ashyn was the Seeker. Having passed her sixteenth summer, she would enter the Forest of the Dead for the first time, where she would find the bodies of the damned and put their spirits to rest.

“I don’t see why I can’t go,” Moria continued when no one answered. “I’m the Keeper. I protect the empire from unsettled spirits, so it should be my duty to help with the Seeking.”

“No,” Ashyn said. “It’s your duty to stay here and guard the village during the Seeking.” She lowered her voice and whispered to Moria. “I don’t need my little sister to protect me.”

Moria grumbled. Ashyn knew she hated the reminder that she’d been born a half day later. Twins were so rare that their mother had gone that long before realizing the ongoing labor pains weren’t merely the aftereffects of Ashyn’s birth.

“I’m trained with a blade,” Ashyn continued evenly. “Besides, I have Tova. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”