The Iron Flower

by Laurie Forest

  Black Witch.

  My breath tightens, and I step back from the forest.

  “I’m not the Black Witch,” I whisper nervously, aware of how senseless it is to be having a conversation with the trees. “Leave me alone.”

  Abruptly, the shadows of the forest pulse. Everything turns black as night. In the span of one terrifying heartbeat, the trees surround me, closing in like a ring of assassins.

  I gasp and stumble back, falling onto the icy snow as a red-hot vision of fire bursts into view. Leagues of forest burning. Trees screaming. Branches, thick and dark, flow in and knit together all around me to form an impenetrable cage, and I become acutely aware of the trees’ overwhelming desire to strangle me. I shut my eyes and cry out.

  A hand closes tight around my arm, and the roar of the fire, the screaming trees—it all falls silent.

  “Elloren? What’s the matter?”

  I open my eyes to see my friend Jarod’s amber gaze resting on me with concern. I whip my head toward the wilds.

  The forest is back where it belongs, an indifferent wind whistling through it, the leaves around me disappeared.

  Tense and light-headed, I let Jarod pull me to my feet and notice that the sky has darkened to the east.

  “The forest,” I tell him breathlessly, my heart skittering like a rabbit’s. “For a moment...it was like...it was closing in on me.” My eyes dart cautiously back to the forest that now seems like a sly, sinister child.

  Jarod glances toward the wilds and takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I feel confined here, too. With everything that’s happened.” He squints up at the Northern Spine. “Like there’s no escape.”

  The trees, I want to tell him, they want to kill me. But I hold my tongue. It’s bizarre to be afraid of trees.

  I flex my hand instead, wishing I still had my white wand—the wand I gave to Trystan. I know it’s impossible, and yet more and more, I imagine my wand to be the actual White Wand of myth. Increasingly, I dream about it, along with ivory birds on branches made of light.

  The wand would take care of me. Protect me from the trees.

  “Where are you going?” Jarod asks, examining my carefully made-up face, glittering jewelry and styled hair.

  I glance uncertainly toward the spires of the University as my heartbeat slows to a more normal pace. “To the Yule Dance.” I reach down and brush snow off the side of my cloak, my dress unharmed.

  A glimmer of confusion passes across Jarod’s expression. “Who are you going with?”

  I hesitate to meet his gaze. “Lukas Grey.”

  Jarod’s eyes widen. “But... I thought you and Yvan...”

  “No,” I cut him off sharply, a stinging flush rising along my neck, remembering his Lupine ability to read everyone’s attractions. “He doesn’t want me.”

  I can see Jarod biting back disagreement, but like my brother Trystan, he’s not prone to judgment or prying. He quietly extends his arm out to me. “Come on. I’ll walk you there.”

  I stare at him in disbelief. “You want to escort me to a Gardnerian dance? Are you sure, Jarod? You know how they’re likely to react. I don’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf.”

  Jarod gives a slight, resigned smile. “I can take care of myself. And I’m curious about your mating rituals.”

  I raise an eyebrow at his blunt phrasing.

  Jarod’s smile disappears as he glances down at his feet. “And...maybe...”

  Aislinn. Maybe Aislinn will be there.

  My dear friend Aislinn Greer, who yearns for Jarod as much as he does for her. Whose strictly religious Gardnerian family would never allow them to be together.

  Who’s promised to another.

  When Jarod looks back up at me, there’s undisguised longing in his eyes, and it pains me to see it.

  A hard gust of wind bends the trees and flattens my skirt against my legs.

  Black Witch.

  Panic gives a hard flare inside me, and I whip my head toward the forest. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Jarod cocks an ear and listens.

  The wind dies down, the world silent once again.

  I have to be imagining this. If Jarod can’t hear something with his heightened senses, then it isn’t there.

  I narrow my gaze on the forest. “Do you think she’s out there somewhere?”

  His brow tenses in question. “Who?”

  “The Black Witch of Prophecy.”

  Please, Ancient One, don’t let it be Fallon Bane.

  Jarod’s expression turns somber as a lone snowy owl makes its way across the darkening sky and the first stars make their showing as pinpricks of light.

  “Well, I suppose if she is,” Jarod finally says, “we’ll have to hope that our side finds her before Vogel does.” He attempts a small, comforting smile, but his eyes remain serious.

  He offers his arm to me again, and this time I take it, the two of us setting off down the field together.

  Jarod chats with me amiably as we walk, but I can feel the trees watching my back.

  I turn once to glance uneasily back at the wilds.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE YULE DANCE

  Hoods pulled over our heads, Jarod and I move against the flow of festive Gardnerians that’s streaming toward the White Hall’s main entrance.

  A Gardnerian soldier positioned by the door spots us and narrows his eyes at obviously Lupine Jarod, his expression rapidly turning belligerent.

  I grab hold of Jarod’s hand. “C’mon. If we go that way, they’ll stop us.”

  We dodge around Gardnerian couples, stifling laughter at the astonished looks everyone gives us. Clinging to each other’s hands, Jarod and I sneak in through the side entrance that only kitchen workers know about. The muffled sounds of orchestral music and lilting conversation can be heard through the wall of black velvet fabric that hangs in front of us, the curtains extending around the White Hall’s entire peripheral walkway.

  I pause to pull my satiny shoes out from my inner cloak pocket and quickly slip them on, leaving my wet boots neatly propped by the edge of a wall to retrieve later.

  Jarod and I exchange an anticipatory glance and pull back the edge of the velvet curtain. Both of us excitedly peek inside, like two kids about to find forbidden candy. Warm air rushes toward us, the music growing louder and clearer.

  “Oh, Jarod.” I draw in a sharp breath as I take in the incredible transformation the hall has undergone, my earth affinity lines shuddering to life.

  Ironwood boughs are suspended above the crowd to create a low ceiling, completely hiding the White Hall’s constellation-adorned dome. Earth Mages must have coaxed the boughs into full bloom, the Ironflower blossoms glowing a sublime blue. Ironwood trees planted in enormous, black-laquered containers ring the hall and are interspersed throughout it, transforming the vast assembly room into a living forest.

  A dance floor at the far end of the hall is filled with twirling couples, and scores of blue glass lanterns hang from the dense, overhanging branches, their candles only heightening the ethereal glow of the Ironflowers. The sapphire light sparkles off jewelry, dress beading and the crystal flutes being waved around by celebratory, laughing Gardnerians.

  I breathe in deep, the smells of expensive perfume and Ironflower blossoms seductively transforming the hall’s normally dank air. Urisk and Keltic kitchen workers move through the crowd with expressions of forced pleasantry, serving food from golden trays and tending to the lamps. I briefly spot Fernyllia carrying out a selection of appetizers and search the white-aproned workers for a glimpse of Yvan, but he’s nowhere in sight.

  Anxious tension rises in me. What if Yvan’s working here tonight?

  Jarod and I slip into the hall and remain discreetly behind the line of potted Ironwood trees. I leave my cloak on, not wanting my phosphor
escent dress to attract attention just yet, but I pull down my hood and shake out my bejeweled hair. Jarod follows suit, grinning at me, his blond hair charmingly mussed.

  An orchestra performs from the hall’s central dais, the music full of melancholy grandeur. The whole scene is both breathtakingly gorgeous and completely disheartening. Seeing so many Gardnerians strutting about like a flock of triumphant, predatory crows is daunting, and it’s hard to look at the oppressively large Gardnerian flag hanging behind the musicians, with its silver Erthia orb on black.

  They’re weapons, these flags. Meant to intimidate.

  “Refreshment, Mage?”

  Torn from my troubled thoughts, I glance down to find an elderly Urisk servant offering up a golden platter, her eyes flitting toward Jarod with surprise, then nervous concern. I glance down at her tray, and my gut clenches at the sight of our traditional holiday cookies, cut in the shape of Icaral wings. Wings like those of my roommates, Ariel Haven and Wynter Eirllyn.

  I decline the horrid things with a shake of my head, and the Urisk woman seems more than happy to flee from us.

  “Wings?” Jarod inquires as he watches a group of Gardnerians pick the buttery cookies off a tray, the couples laughing as they snap the wings in two before taking a bite.

  “Icaral wings,” I reply ashamedly as I remember the baskets of cookies the Gaffneys would send over every Harvest and Yule. “You break them.”

  Jarod’s brow tightens as tray after tray of the cookies are brought into the hall, the snapping of the wings sounding like pelting rain. I wince, every snap an imaginary tear at Ariel’s wings. At Wynter’s.

  My people will conquer the Western Realm, I lament. As easily as they break these cookies.

  “What’s the significance of the Ironflowers?” Jarod asks. “They’re everywhere.”

  “There’s a story in our holy book,” I distractedly reply. “A famous prophetess, Galliana, saved my people long ago. The Mages were fleeing from demonic forces and were completely outnumbered. Galliana used the demon-slaying powers of Ironflowers as well as the White Wand to fight back. She’s often called the Iron Flower for that reason.”

  “How did she do it?”

  I shrug, having heard the story countless times, its drama dulled by repetition. “She rode into battle on a giant raven and struck down the demons with a river of Magefire. Then she led my people across a desert to safety. We’ve a holiday every year commemorating her victory, just before Yule—Gallianalein. The Ironflower Festival. The dance just happens to fall on it this year.”

  “Hmm,” Jarod says thoughtfully. He looks around. “Well, if you’re going to build a festival around a flower, you certainly picked a beautiful one.” There’s a hint of rapture in his tone, a devotion that’s often there when he and his sister Diana talk about the natural world.

  As he studies the Ironwood decor more closely, Jarod frowns. “They had to kill all these trees to do this.” He glances at me, deep disapproval all over his face.

  “I suppose they did.” I survey the boughs and the potted trees cut free of their roots, abashed by the way my earth affinity is pulling toward all the dead wood.

  Hungry for it.

  “It’s incredibly strange, all this,” Jarod comments. “Why do you Gardnerians build everything to look like fake forests, while you hate actual living forests and revel in burning them down?”

  “It’s part of our religion.” I shift uncomfortably. “We’re meant to subdue the wilds. They’re supposedly filled with the spirit of the Evil Ones.”

  Offense flashes in his eyes. “Charming. Truly.”

  I think of the hostile trees. Whispering to me on the wind. Sensing the magic in my veins...

  “And you know what’s stranger still?” he asks.

  I shake my head and look to him questioningly.

  Jarod scans the expansive hall. “Most of the couples in this room do not want to be with each other.”

  My brow lifts in surprise. “Really?”

  “More than half. It’s awful.” Jarod points out several ill-matched couples in a rare showing of his Lupine senses. Then he points out the many true attractions that run completely counter to how the couples are paired. He gestures toward a tall, slender military apprentice in a slate gray uniform marked with a silver orb. He’s standing next to a pretty, young Gardnerian woman, the two of them with fastmarked hands.

  “You see that man over there?” I nod. Jarod then points at another young man—a muscular mariner’s apprentice, his black tunic edged with a line of Ironflower blue. “Those two men, they’re madly in love with each other. I can feel it from all the way over here.”

  Surprise flashes through me, and I observe the two young men more closely. Soon, I can pick out a few surreptitious, heat-filled glances. It’s subtle, but there. I immediately think of my brother Trystan, desperately wishing that he was able to love freely, but scared about what would happen to him if he did.

  “They’d be thrown in prison if they were found out,” I tell Jarod, knowing he’s probably already sensed my fear for Trystan’s safety.

  Jarod’s blond brow furrows. “I don’t understand your people. You take perfectly natural and normal things and write religious laws that state they’re unnatural. Which is absurd.”

  Surprise takes hold. “You allow this in Lupine society? Men with men?”

  “Of course.” He’s looking at me with a mixture of pity and concern. “It’s incredibly cruel to treat people this way.”

  “There’s nothing in your religion that condemns it?” I ask, stunned. Nothing that condemns my beloved brother? Or forces people to hide who they really are?

  Jarod studies me closely, perhaps reading my suddenly troubled emotions. “Elloren,” he says with compassion, “no, there’s not. At all.”

  Tears sting my eyes, and I have to look away from him. “So, Trystan would be completely accepted for who he is in Lupine lands?” My voice breaks around the whispered words.

  Jarod hesitates, an expression of dismay knotting his brow tighter. “Yes. But...he’d have to become Lupine first.”

  I throw Jarod a caustic look. “Which would strip him of his Mage powers, since Lupines are immune to wand magic.” I shake my head ruefully. “He’s a Level Five Mage, Jarod. It’s become an important part of who he is. He’d never want to lose that.”

  Jarod nods gravely, and anger on my brother’s behalf spikes inside me. “So, there’s nowhere for him to go, then. Nowhere he can be himself and not be vilified for it.”

  “Only the Noi lands,” Jarod says quietly, but we both know that the Noi people aren’t likely to welcome the grandson of the Black Witch into their lands. I inwardly curse the cage that the people of both Realms have forced my brother into.

  “Do your people have dances?” I ask a tad crossly, frustrated by the wretched state of things and struggling to regain my composure.

  Jarod looks out over the hall, his expression edged with contempt. “No. Not like this. Our dancing...it’s more of a spontaneous thing. And the way your people dance...it’s so...stiff. Our music has a strong rhythm to it, and when our couples dance, it’s very close. Not like this. This is like a child’s dance.”

  A flush heats my neck as a picture of Lupine couples fills my mind, twined around each other, moving sensuously to the rhythm of the music.

  As I scan the crowd, my eyes land on Paige Snowden. She’s nibbling on a skewer of toasted goldenfish that glint in the lantern light and standing with a knot of young Gardnerian women. A shadow falls over her expression as they’re joined by her fastmate, Sylus Bane. I recoil at the sight of Sylus in his military uniform, a gleaming wand at his hip, the same charismatic, arrogant stance and cruel smile as his vicious siblings, Fallon and Damion.

  “You know,” I say to Jarod, intimidation pulling at me, “when Fallon recuperates and finds out I was at this dan
ce with Lukas Grey, she’s going to kill me.”

  “No, she won’t,” he counters with surprising confidence as he selects a crystal glass full of blue punch from a servant’s tray. “Diana told Fallon quite a while ago that if she ever bothered you again, she’d rip her head off and display it on a post in front of the University gates.”

  I cough out a shocked laugh as Jarod grabs up another glass of punch and hands it to me. He lifts his glass in a toast and straightens. “To freedom,” Jarod says, smiling at me. “For everyone.”

  “To freedom,” I agree, momentarily overcome by the sentiment. I smile back at him as we clink our glasses decidedly together.

  I sip at the sweet punch. Candied Ironflower petals float on the surface of the blue liquid, and the crystal glass is cool in my hand. I survey the outwardly happy-looking couples, my thoughts turning to Diana and my eldest brother. “My aunt’s cut Rafe off, did you know that?”

  Jarod’s pleasant expression dims.

  “She found out about Diana,” I tell him. “Everyone knows. My aunt’s sent word that she’s coming to visit us in a few days, once the Mage Council adjourns. Her letter was friendly enough, but I suspect the real reason for her trip is to threaten Rafe.”

  Jarod cocks an eyebrow at me. “If she’s cut him off, how’s Rafe going to manage the University tithe?”

  I can’t help but smile faintly at the absurdity of it. “He’s working with me now. In the kitchens. Which is funny, because kitchen work is Rafe’s least favorite chore.”

  A collective gasp goes up near the entrance to the hall, and we both turn to see Rafe and Diana burst into the room, laughing. He’s pulling her by one arm, a wide grin on his face as she jokingly resists his pull. They’re dressed in rumpled brown hiking clothes, a dead rabbit tied to Diana’s back and swinging behind her.

  My mouth falls open as all the blood drains from my face.

  Rough shouts of protest go up as Rafe leads Diana to the middle of the dance floor and takes her into his arms, twirling her around smoothly, their faces radiant with happiness.