The Iron Flower

by Laurie Forest

  Yvan’s face fills my mind, and I struggle to push the beautiful image away, as well as the sharp ache that always accompanies thoughts of him.

  You can’t have Yvan, I remind myself. But I can’t fast to Lukas, and I can’t escape the Council’s mandate if I stay in the Western Realm.

  Gareth is right—we need to help each other.

  “If it comes down to it,” I say, decided, “I’ll fast to you. But let’s try to get you to Noi lands instead.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE SELKIE

  The next night, Gareth comes to the North Tower.

  He pauses just inside the doorway as Diana and I hold our collective breaths.

  “Hello, Marina. I’m Gareth Keeler.”

  We’ve carefully prepped her for this, and Marina wants to get past her fears, but still, we brace ourselves for her reaction.

  Marina looks up from where she sits slumped by the fire, her ocean eyes widening as they meet Gareth’s. Her nostrils give a hard flare and her gills fan out as she slowly rises, bracing herself on my desk chair for balance, seeming both shocked and strangely entranced. Then, to our collective surprise, she lets loose with a stream of earsplitting, impassioned barking that terrifies Ariel’s chickens and sends them aimlessly running about.

  Gareth looks at me with confusion, and this seems to frustrate Marina, her brow creasing tight. She tentatively approaches him. When Gareth doesn’t move, she ventures even closer, coming right up to him and pressing her nose into the base of his neck. Gareth remains completely still while Marina inhales deeply, then reaches up to carefully feel along his neck, as if searching for something.

  She murmurs something in her flute-like tones, grabs Gareth firmly by the arm and drags him into the washroom. Diana and I exchange a swift, questioning look and follow.

  Marina hurls herself into the large tub, splashing all of us with cold water as Gareth comes down on one knee beside her. She reaches up and slides dripping fingers up and down the sides of Gareth’s neck, the frustration in her eyes growing. Gareth watches her intently, completely under Marina’s thrall as she traces his skin over and over with her deft fingertips, a look of wild confusion on her face.

  Gareth’s throat bobs as he swallows. “I don’t have gills,” he says gently. “I’m a Gardnerian.”

  Marina throws herself under the water, curls around and looks up at Gareth from beneath the water’s surface. “You are one of us.” Her voice is faint, her underwater yell muffled. “Your silver hair is Selkie hair.”

  Gareth’s words are halting when they come. “I’m not Selkie. I can’t breathe underwater—”

  “You smell like us,” she insists. “Not bad like the others. You are Selkie.”

  Gareth grows very quiet, but not in the way of a person receiving outlandish news. More like a person having something they’ve secretly entertained confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  “Did your father take a Selkie to mate?” Diana asks Gareth. I realize that if what Marina is saying is true, Gareth’s father had a Selkie lover.

  “It can’t be...” I stammer. I know Gareth’s father. His quiet mother. His two sisters. But none of them have silver in their hair, save Gareth.

  “It must be so,” Diana says. “He must have Selkie blood.” Her nostrils flare, and she gives us all a significant look. “He smells like a shapeshifter.”

  Gareth has stilled, his expression tense and pensive. “There are things I’ve never spoken of,” he tells us hesitantly. “I... I don’t need my sextant to navigate.”

  I gape at him. “What, never?”

  “I pretend to use it,” he admits. “But I can navigate on instinct. And I don’t ever need a compass. I can’t explain it. It’s like there’s a compass in my head.” He looks to Marina. “And I can hold my breath underwater for a solid hour. Sometimes longer.”

  Marina nods, looking at him meaningfully while massaging her gills, as if they pain her.

  Gareth looks down at his hands. “No matter how long I’m in the water, my skin never gets wrinkled.” He glances back up at Marina. “And I can predict the weather. I sense the pressure change.” All of a sudden, his tentative approach gives way to a rushed confession. “I want to be in the ocean all the time. When I’m not there, I long for it. Even now, I know exactly where the ocean is and how far away. It’s a pull I can’t get out of my mind.” His voice breaks with emotion, like he’s speaking of a lover.

  Marina’s eyes fill with compassion. She nods, her mouth trembling. She pushes on her gills and tenses her neck. “Come in,” she says, then takes hold of Gareth’s arms and tugs him gently toward the water.

  Gareth resists her pull, surprised. “With you?”

  Marina nods, and he gives in, letting her pull him into the wide tub, water sloshing over the edge as both of them sink completely below the water’s surface, crammed in beside each other. Gareth throws his head back, closes his eyes and gives a long, bubbling sigh.

  After what seems like a long time, he pushes himself up, breaking through the water’s surface, and Marina follows. Gareth pulls in a long breath as water streams off him, Marina’s slender arm draped around his shoulder. Then Gareth’s face devolves into despair, and he drops his head into his hands.

  “Aren’t you cold, Gareth?” I ask him gently. The water is freezing, gooseflesh broken out all over my shivering skin just from being splashed.

  Gareth shakes his head against his hands. “I don’t feel the cold. And the water...no matter what temperature it is, it’s always better than the air. But I can’t breathe in it. I can’t live in it.”

  “Half-shapeshifter,” Diana murmurs softly, compassion riding out with words.

  “Oh, Gareth.” I agonize, my heart going out to my friend—my friend who’s carried this secret alone for all this time. “Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

  “My hair causes me trouble enough. I never wanted to dwell on my other...oddities. And I could always tell it was a wound to my mother.” He raises his head and looks to Marina. Their eyes lock tight in mournful kinship.

  Marina reaches up to gently stroke Gareth’s cheek, and his eyes shine with tears. “You are one of us,” Marina says with great effort, barely intelligible. “Even if you cannot come home to the water.”

  Gareth’s whole face tenses. “I’m not. I don’t know what I am. I don’t fit in anywhere.”

  A fierce affection for Gareth swells inside me. “You fit in with us,” I adamantly insist. “You’re family. You always will be.”

  Marina is petting Gareth’s hair, and her casual affection for people she’s accepted seems to be creating fault lines inside Gareth, everything held back for years rushing out as tears mingle with the water on his face.

  “Has there ever been anyone else like me?” he asks Marina, his voice breaking as she rhythmically strokes his hair.

  Marina’s brow tightens with evident confusion. She pushes in her gills and speaks with great effort. “There has never been anyone like any of us.”

  “I mean...someone who is Selkie, who can’t go home?” Gareth stops, too choked up to continue.

  Marina studies him for a long moment, a pained expression in her eyes. “I do not know.”

  Gareth’s head drops as he brings a hand up to cover his eyes. Marina’s gills fly open, and she croons a flute-toned sound as she coaxes him into an embrace. He quietly cries against her slender shoulder, his whole face bunched tight.

  Diana is watching them now with one brow cocked, her expression lit with some surprise, and I wonder what she’s reading in them.

  Gareth eventually stills, and Marina pulls back a fraction, her slick hands coming up to caress his cheeks. She pulls her gills in. “My sister and the others,” she says, struggling to make the sounds, “they need help. They will know you are Selkie. I need you, Gareth Keeler...” She stops, as if momentaril
y overcome, her gills fluttering. She pulls in a long, uneven breath and forces them back down. “Please...help us. Help your people...” Her voice breaks into incomprehensible tones, her face distraught.

  Gareth gently takes hold of her hand. “I’ll help you,” he tells her with the steady, quiet force of a vow. “We’ll find your sister and the others, along with your skins. We will find a way. I don’t know how, but we will. And then we’ll get all of you back to the ocean.”

  * * *

  Marina practices her newfound language skills almost without ceasing, talking to herself when not in conversation with others. Her ability to speak without dunking her head underwater improves quickly as her control over her gills increases, allowing her tones to form consistently coherent words.

  Gareth spends every spare moment he has with Marina, often in our North Tower washroom, both of them completely submerged in our cold tub so she can effortlessly talk and sometimes sing to him in haunting, flute-like tones until deep into the night.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EVIL ONES

  I open my violin case with reverent hands, my eyes immediately drawn to the crimson sheen of the Alfsigr spruce. It was a gift from Lukas that I’ve been meaning to return to him, but I can’t find the will to part with it.

  It’s been weeks since I’ve played, but the bundle of sheet music that arrived this afternoon has me lifting the Maelorin violin from its bed of green velvet and setting bow to string. The music is from Lukas, written in his own hand—discordant and fractured, his usual precision giving way to something raging and turbulent, as if he’s blasted the notes on to the page.

  When I attempt to play the pieces, I can only make it through about half of each composition before I have to stop. It’s too raw and too reminiscent of the same amorphous conflict that’s mounting inside me—a struggle against a powerful, dark current that’s all too easy to get swept up in, an essential part of him trapped.

  Eventually, I give up and put the instrument away, but the disturbing music lingers in my mind and thrusts me into a troubled confusion. It’s as if Lukas has embedded a hidden message for me in the notation, and in the middle of his most turbulent piece, he’s written one word amid the violent crescendo.

  Elloren.

  Feeling suddenly restless and needing to walk, I grab up my cloak and lantern, my wand already pressed into my boot.

  “Where are you going?” Marina asks me from where she sits by the fire.

  “Naga’s cave,” I tell her.

  “I want to come.”

  I raise my brow at her. “Are you sure? My brothers might be there. And other men.”

  “Gareth?” There’s a heightened intensity in her ocean eyes. I know that Gareth has become one of the few solid moorings in her life.

  “He might be.”

  Marina stands and braces herself against the bed’s headboard. “You say your people want to help free my sister.” Her gills ruffle, and her words momentarily devolve into incoherent tones. She tenses her throat and pulls her gills in flush with her neck. “I need to meet with the rest of them. Let me come.”

  “All right, then.” I cede, inspired by her courage. “Come with me.”

  * * *

  It’s slow going as Marina and I cross the North Tower’s field and slip into the dark forest. She’s prone to stumbling, and I have to hold on tight to her as we pick our way through the woods toward Naga’s cave.

  The trees are remarkably subdued as Marina and I weave around them, but I can feel their attention disconcertingly set on me.

  As if they’re lying in wait.

  When Marina and I near the small clearing, the bonfire becomes visible through the silhouettes of the trees, the fire sending up slender, golden arms of flame. I can hear my brothers’ familiar voices and Diana’s laughter, and I’m able to catch small glimpses of them sitting around the bonfire in relaxed camaraderie, Trystan balancing a ball of compact white lightning over the tip of his wand.

  Everyone turns as we enter the clearing. I look just past them, toward the cave, and a rush of shock bolts through me.

  Naga is out in the open with Yvan slouched against her side.

  I grip at Marina’s arm as Naga sets her reptilian gaze on me. Trystan’s ball of lightning is immediately snuffed out as both he and Gareth rise to their feet.

  “Marina,” Gareth says with evident astonishment, the silver tips of his hair glittering in the firelight.

  Rafe’s arm has fallen away from Diana’s shoulder, and Tierney and Jarod sit frozen beside them, everyone’s eyes riveted on Marina. Andras and Ariel blink at us, Naga’s splinted back leg held slightly suspended between them.

  Only Wynter seems unsurprised, her silver gaze serene, her pale arm loose around Naga’s muscular neck.

  Rafe gets up and smiles warmly at Marina. “Welcome.” He motions loosely toward the seats around the fire. “Please, join us.”

  Marina’s nostrils flare, and she takes a shaky step backward.

  “Are you all right?” I ask her.

  Marina closes her eyes tight and jostles her head, as if trying to pry loose a torturous remembrance. “The men,” she rasps out. “Their smell...”

  Diana rises, her amber gaze fierce. “You have nothing to fear,” she says, emphatic. “No one here will harm you.”

  I glance uneasily at Naga, remembering how she tried to attack me only a few months ago, fast as lightning, stopped only by Yvan and the bars of her cage.

  The dragon is still peering at me through slitted eyes that glow a burning gold, as if they’ve caught fire. Her mouth lifts with what looks like wry amusement in response to my discomfiture.

  I glance back at Marina to find her gills ruffling out, as they’re wont to when she’s deeply unsettled. Still, she forces her head up, a look of stormy resolve on her face.

  Seemingly pleased by Marina’s obvious show of courage, Diana straightens and gestures formally toward her brother. “Marina the Selkie, this is my brother, Jarod Ulrich.” Diana hesitates, appearing for a moment like she’s swallowing back her tongue, her lips twitching as she visibly bites back the longer lineage introduction. Rafe watches her closely, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

  “It’s good to meet you, Marina,” Jarod says with a dip of his head. I notice that his face is wan and stressed, but relief rushes through me to have him back in our circle again.

  Diana introduces Marina to my brothers, then sweeps her hand towards Andras. “And this is Andras. He is the University’s equine physician.”

  “I am honored to meet you,” Andras says to Marina, his low voice warm and gentle.

  Naga is still watching me closely, her left wing intricately splinted, a riot of firelight reflecting off her onyx scales and horns. I wince as I take in the large M branded onto Naga’s front flank—the mark of the Mage Council.

  Yvan is reclining back against Naga’s shoulder, his arm draped casually over her front leg, quietly watching me. I’ve never seen him so at ease, but I hesitate to move forward, eyeing Naga with more than a small amount of trepidation.

  A crooked smile forms on Yvan’s lips. “Relax, Elloren. If she wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

  I frown at him, thrown by his rakish demeanor around Naga.

  “It’s true. Naga means you no harm, Elloren Gardner,” Wynter says, her palm flat on the scales of Naga’s neck, giving voice to the dragon’s thoughts. Then she looks to Marina. “And she is a friend to you as well, Marina. And to all the Selkies. Naga is a friend to all of those in captivity.”

  Dubious, I meet the dragon’s gaze. Naga eyes me with dark humor, then cranes her serpentine neck up and blows out a stream of golden fire. I gasp as a shower of sparks rains down on our circle, Trystan expeditiously swatting at one that lands on his tunic’s arm.

  “Holy Ancient One,” I breathe to Naga. “You�
��ve got your fire back.”

  Naga’s reptilian expression turns smug. Yvan inclines his head toward the dragon, then lets out a short laugh, his green gaze sliding back to me, as if in response to an acerbic comment from Naga.

  I shoot him a knowing look. I know you’re speaking to her with your mind. We all do.

  “We’ve fixed Naga’s leg,” Ariel crows to me, her triumphant smile blackened from the nilantyr berries, her raven perched on her shoulder. Her mouth twists into a sneer. “Soon she’ll be able to kill you with all four sets of claws.”

  “You did a good job, Ariel,” Andras says as he surveys Naga’s splinted leg with deep satisfaction, overlooking Ariel’s penchant for sniping at everyone. “It’s a nice set, and the Asterbane paste you made has finally gotten her wounds to close. She should be able to put weight on it soon.”

  Ariel’s unfriendly grin fades, and she glances over at Andras as if wildly thrown by his praise. She turns oddly reticent, her threadbare wings agitatedly flapping as she abruptly gets up and joins Wynter near Naga’s head, her raven flying off to light on a branch. The dragon rubs her scaled cheek against Ariel’s shoulder in a very feline gesture of affection. Ariel throws her arms around Naga’s neck, and the dragon closes her eyes and lets out a rumbling purr.

  Yvan’s mouth lifts into a satisfied half smile, his gaze on me almost sultry, and my face warms in response to it.

  Sweet Ancient One, you’re beautiful.

  “Come, sit with me,” Gareth invites Marina, extending his hand to her.

  Marina lets Gareth lead her to a seat between himself and Tierney, and I sit down beside them, intensely aware of Yvan’s eyes tracking me.

  Gareth’s arm comes around Marina’s shoulder with an ease that catches my eye. Distracted, Marina lifts her head and smells the air, her eyes carefully homing in on Rafe, like an animal assessing a potential predator.

  “This one,” Marina says to Diana, angling her chin toward Rafe. “He is your mate, no?”

  “Not as of yet,” Diana says, smiling congenially. “Soon.”