The Iron Butterfly

by Chanda Hahn

  “Oh,” her smile dimmed a bit. “Well, that’s okay. We could always use more girls, as long as they know my rules.”

  “Rules?” I asked, puzzled.

  Avina began to make funny faces and it was becoming hard to keep a straight face.

  Syrani was getting impatient. “Of course rules.” She counted off on her fingers. “Rule number one, stay out of my way and we can be friends. Rule number two, stay away from my boyfriend, Joss. Rule number three…remember rule one.” She paused for effect. “I heard rumors that this new Denai is unique and no one’s ever seen anything like them. I mean after all they were given the largest rooms in the housing wing.” She tried to peer around my shoulder to look into the room.

  By now, Avina was doing a frumpy impersonation of Syrani ticking off her rules and I couldn’t help but giggle.

  “I’m very sorry, Syrani, but I don’t think the new student is going to be able to abide by your rules.”

  Her beautiful face snarled in reply. “Why ever not?”“Because…” I couldn’t help it, it was too easy. I plastered the biggest, fake smile on my face and threw my voice into a higher pitch similar to her own. “I’m the new student.” Before she could form a retort, I slammed the door in her face.

  Picturing her standing on the other side looking at the wooden door made me erupt into a fit of giggles. Avina hooted in laughter. But when we finally calmed down a bit, I thought about what I had just done and a large lump formed in stomach. I had just humiliated my biggest enemy.

  Chapter 13

  Whoever thought that I could slide into the classes without causing a fuss was crazy. Syrani had a head start and had spread some pretty ugly things about me to the other students. I was avoided like the plague. There were some curious stares and a few whispered comments, but no one welcomed me or asked my name.

  A training schedule had been sent to my room the night before with a stack of books, and I glanced over it in relief to see that it seemed pretty harmless. I had History of Calandry, Ancient Denai Languages and a few hours in the arena.

  Nothing that shouted; hey you’re going to learn to destroy the world. I still didn’t see what good it would do to take classes, considering I really didn’t believe that I had any significant powers.

  Ducking out of my room and locking my door, I rushed to make my way toward the indoor arena, hoping I wasn’t late. I wore one of Berry’s custom outfits she passed on to me, which consisted of tan pants, a white wrap-around skirt that skimmed my knees trimmed in blue and purple designs, a white short-sleeve top with more designs stitched around it with a leather pouch for books. It felt very light and airy. It was the most comfortable I had felt in a while. I felt normal. Well, at least until I approached the three story high wing-shaped entry doors to the training arena.

  This was the first time I dared to approach the doors for fear of being turned away, and my charade revealed. We were told that the doors would never open for anyone who wasn’t a Denai. Avina and I had spent many nights trying to guess what was beyond the silver wings. Now I was about to find out and I didn’t want to.

  Pausing, I stood in front of the silver doors and deep down I knew they wouldn’t open for me. I knew they would deny me entrance the same way Adept Cirrus’ mercury stone denied me.

  “Open,” I demanded.

  Nothing.

  “Open, says me,” I quipped, playing off of an old child’s tale.

  Nothing.

  The Adepts never told me what to do if the Arena denied me entrance. Should I wait to the side of the doors in the shadows and dart in behind another student? Or would the massive doors shut on me mid passage and crush me? Believe me, the doors could crush a person, they were too large to be moved by sheer force alone.

  I was still debating what to do when I noticed there was more to the iron winged doors than I first thought. The sculpted detail in the iron wings was masterful, down to each intricately sculpted feather that sprouted from a deep well-muscled back.

  “Can’t get in?” A voice spoke up from behind me, startling me out of my reverie. Turning, I saw Adept Cirrus.

  I shook my head no.

  “We were wondering if Cassiel would let you in,” Adept Cirrus frowned at the winged doors. “Nevertheless, one of us will escort you in, to make sure Cassiel behaves, and doesn’t try anything,” he smirked.

  I was right. The doors would have crushed me.

  “I’m glad that I came to check on you. I’ll speak with your instructor later.” Adept Cirrus walked toward the doors and they immediately opened for him. Staying as close to him as I dared, I scurried after the Adept, almost stepping on his heels, while making sure to keep one eye on the doors.

  They opened only long enough for us to safely pass through and then they closed with a thud once we were inside. Turning, I saw that the front side of the doors was shaped into a thirty foot tall man, arms crossed over his chest with giant wings sprouting from his back. This must be Cassiel and only the Denai would ever see the true beauty of the doors. Well, except for me.

  “Here you are.” Cirrus pointed to the Arena and I stumbled into him when I followed his long finger with my eyes.

  The Arena was an indoor world magically compressed into a small building. I never noticed upon entering the arena that I was no longer walking on stone, but grass. We had walked right into a realm consisting of every natural element known to man within a few square miles. There were mountains, woods, rivers, plains and I didn’t have a clue as to what any of it was for.

  “Just have a seat right over there and I’m sure you will do wonderfully,” Cirrus spoke, and gave me an encouraging slap on the back, which felt almost awkward.

  I snorted in rebuttal and gave him an incredulous look.

  Cirrus never saw it as he was already departing, the doors opening for him and then he was gone. Turning back around, I came face to face with Syrani.

  Syrani was sitting on a wooden bench, her long legs crossed, surrounded by a bunch of young Denai. Her golden hair was twisted and wrapped upon her head and gave her the appearance of a queen presiding over her court.

  “Here she is now,” she sniffed as if she smelled something rotten, and moved away from me and sat on the next section of arena seating, her entourage following.

  Chewing on my thumb, I waited until the arena began to fill with late comers. Each of the Denai had a haunting quality about them and I was the obvious ugly duckling of the group.

  They looked at me with a wary expression and purposely walked passed me to sit in another row. When it was obvious that no one was going to sit next to me, I felt my face turn beet red.

  My eyes started to burn as I struggled to hold back my tears. I was stronger than this, I told myself. I can handle a bunch of stupid, petty Denai. I squinted my eyes, pretending to examine my boot. I blinked away any trace of the glittering evidence of my weakness.

  A loud thunderclap rolled in; everyone looked up in expectation. A lone figure appeared out of the woods and literally walked across the flowing river to stand in front of the seated students.

  This was my new instructor, I presumed. He was medium height with white blonde hair and he had the strangest grey eyes. Another clap of thunder rang out and I jumped. The instructor’s head turned my way and those strange grey eyes didn’t focus on me but looked through me. I squirmed in my seat nervously.

  He glanced at me longer than necessary and then another crack of thunder followed and he looked toward the rest of the Denai sitting clustered away from me.

  He had a disapproving look on his face as he gave the full force of his odd glare to the other students who started to shift in their seats uncomfortably.

  “Well, it seems we have a new student. What’s your name, child?” His voice rumbled like the thunder.

  “Thalia,” I stated.

  “What clan are you from?” he looked at me thoughtfully.

  “I’m not sure?” I wanted to disappear into the ground.

  “No matter
, what are your strengths?”

  I looked down and shrugged my shoulders in answer, dropping me head down in defeat. I could hear the twitters of laughter echo in the arena. Now it was the instructor’s turn to turn bright red with anger.

  “Silence!” he yelled as an angry crack of thunder split through the room. Immediately the students quieted down and a few looked duly chastised, while others looked bored.

  “Well, let’s go on and pick up where we left off last week.” He managed to regain control of the class and began a review of basic strengths and weaknesses of different Denai gifts; weather, like our instructor, earth, water, transference, vision seeking, healing, mind speaking, and some students could shift forms.

  After being called on a few times in class and not being able to answer a single question, the instructor had pity on me and quit calling on me altogether.

  A few of the Denai helped demonstrate their gifts when the instructor was teaching. I watched dumbfounded as a small girl went to a tree sapling and made it grow to an adult tree, and a boy controlled the movement of the river. Instructor Weston controlled thunderstorms and seemed to enjoy showing off because every few minutes or so I would hear another crack of thunder.

  When he finally dismissed the class, he asked me to stay after. I sat quietly, playing with the hem of my over-skirt trying to not make eye contact with anyone.

  “Pathetic, isn’t she, came into her powers late. She gives the Denai a bad name.” I didn’t have to look up to see that it was Syrani and her gaggle of friends laughing on the way out and purposely knocking against me. If only they knew I wasn’t even a Denai.

  Another crack of thunder and Instructor Weston walked over to me.

  “Thalia, I must apologize for singling you out like that. I assumed you had been trained. I have not been given any information regarding your circumstances. I’ve only been notified that you are different than the others. Can you tell me what training and education you have had?”

  “I can read, write and do basic arithmetic, but as to anything else you spoke on today, absolutely nothing.”

  Professor Westen blanched in surprise. ”So no one in your family was Denai? How odd. When did you acquire your gifts? Most Denai achieve them before puberty.”

  “Well, I can tell you that I only, ah, uh, acquired them recently… as in two days ago?”

  He blinked in disbelief.

  I blurted out all of the fears and insecurities I felt in a rush of hurried sentences. “I’m in over my head. I’m at a complete disadvantage compared to the others. I don’t know what I can and can’t do, so how am I supposed to learn here?”

  “Do you think you’re the only one with a disadvantage to overcome? Look at me, Thalia.”

  I looked at Instructor Weston as he instructed but I found it uncomfortable to stare at his still grey eyes. I shifted my eyes back to the ground.

  “Can you see?” his deep voice rumbled.

  “See what?” I asked, looking back to his face in confusion.

  “I can’t,” he answered.

  “I don’t understand…” And then I did. I looked into Instructor Weston’s grey unseeing eyes and realized. He was blind.

  Chapter 14

  “It happened long ago, when I was a child. I fell from a tree and hit my head,” Instructor Weston explained. “When I woke up, everything was dark. My parents found me some time later but no matter how many healers they took me to, none could restore my sight. I was stricken with grief. I couldn’t go on living like an invalid. I felt like I was half a man.” Weston smiled crookedly. “Well, half a boy, I should say. I went into the woods and called on the largest thunderstorm possible in an attempt to kill myself. It was then, during the rumble of the thunder that I realized for a split second I could see.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I see through the thunder’s vibrations.”

  “Like a bat?” I asked dumbfounded.

  “Very much like a bat. The thunder causes vibrations and, for a second only, I can see the world in black and white. So during the deadliest storm, in the dead of night, when all hope at a normal life was gone, I still chose life.”

  It explained why the other students never jumped from the thunder, they were used to it. It was why he was never seen in the commons or main hall, he couldn’t see beyond the vibrations of the thunder. So he chose a life of solitude within the arena.

  Instructor Weston sat thinking for a moment and went to a nearby hollowed tree where he selected a few books from inside before handing them to me. “Here, read these and hopefully this will catch you up on what you need to know.”

  Reluctantly I took the books and thanked him for his help. The rest of the day went very similar to my first class, with students avoiding me. I, of course, embarrassed myself with my obvious lack of knowledge.

  I decided to skip lunch again and hide out in my room. Picking up the first book that Weston gave me, I looked at it. It appeared to be a child’s reading primer, including pictures. I rolled my eyes at the thought of what I possibly could learn from a picture book, but I sat legs crossed in the window seat and opened the small, red leather bound book.

  I was most surprised by the beautiful artwork encompassing each page. The first page included a tall, beautiful being almost ethereal in nature surrounded by white light. The caption described the person as being one of the first Denai.

  In short, the book told about the coming of Denai to the human plane; how the race of powerful beings was unjustly banished from their ancestral home. Seeking refuge among the humans, they offered their healing services for asylum. The people of Avellgard were wary at first, thinking the Denai gift was nothing more than tricks. Over time, they accepted them and their power as the land grew under the Denai’s touch, sickness disappeared and the people prospered. The Denai became the unspoken guardians of Avellgard.

  But Avellgard was ruled by a weak-willed King and it wasn’t long before others noticed Avellgard’s growing wealth and prosperity and wanted it for themselves. The King asked the Denai to help fight the invading countries but the Denai refused to take part in the coming human war.

  They watched in silence, as war came upon the humans that they had begun to love, followed by years of death, strife and famine. The country quit flourishing and the borders of the land were in an ever-changing state, whole kingdoms were built in a day and destroyed the next.

  The Denai were a long-lived race and the wars made the Denai sick as they watched whole generations of friends die by the sword. Another picture depicted a Denai bathed in light crying over the death of a human.

  Then a dark day became darker when King Ridgar was crowned and demanded the Denai power for his own use. When the Denai refused again, he began killing their children as punishment. It didn’t stop and genocide began until only the strongest Denai were left.

  Then Sinnendor’s King, King Brancynal II, with his anti-Denai campaign, began an invasion with the sole purpose of removing the rest of the Denai taint from the world. The Denai realized their race was coming to an end, so in a last ditch effort, the remaining Denai joined forces and entered the human war knowing that by doing so, they would never be able to return to their ancestral home.

  The Denai used their powers to defeat both countries’ armies in their tracks, killing Avellgard’s King and exiling Sinnedor’s King to the Shadow Mountains. This was known as the First Denai War.

  The Denai took up an oath to protect their new homeland, with a promise that it would never again be ruled by a king, but by a Queen. They chose a human girl with a kind heart and made her Queen. Since then, the country has always been ruled by a Queen and her councilors of Denai. The Denai healed the land, gave hope to the people and rebuilt the country, renaming it Calandry.

  I gazed at another picture of a fierce Denai holding a flaming sword, guarding the path to the city, pointing toward the distant mountains as the King of Sinnendor crawled away in defeat.

  As the years passed th
e Denai diminished in power and beauty, and the once proud and noble race was on the verge of extinction. They took on human characteristics and traits, and they believed it was their punishment for killing the King and entering the human war.

  So they accepted their fate and prayed for redemption as they stood guard over the humans of Calandry.

  The final picture showed a Denai holding a human baby girl with curls, and though the baby was cute, it did not capture your attention like the beauty and light that emanated from the Denai.

  Closing the book, I let the tears fall for the Denai. My heart ached for the race that was banished here as they tried to live peacefully among the humans, only to be forced into a war to save themselves and losing their chance to return home.

  A tear slid down my face and onto the picture of the Denai holding the baby. I wiped it away before it could ruin the ink, but not before the wetness created a faint outline of wings behind the Denai. I stared at it until it faded away.

  I was wrong about the Denai. I never understood them until now. I blacklisted them and thought that they were evil beings only to realize that they were the ones that were the protectors of the human race. I thought about the proud race and how much they gave up trying to live among humans for it to only lead to their downfall. I understood why the Queens wanted to protect the race that saved the country. The Denai could have taken control of Avellgard, but instead they gave it back to the people.

  The Denai today are nothing but a faint echo of what the Denai were at one time in all of their glory and beauty. Syrani’s earlier statements about bloodlines made sense. It made me wonder what blood ran through my veins and what I was now. For I couldn’t possibly be human anymore and I wasn’t Denai; so what else did that leave? Something inhuman?

  My body gave a shudder at the thought of the Raven and his experiments. The numerous serums and colored vials of potions he injected me with. I remember screaming for hours at the pain, and feeling as if my insides were turning out. Maybe Breah was right. Maybe I was a monster.