“Then we respectfully ask the children of Gunther Ulrich to withdraw,” the sorceress rejoins with calm diplomacy. “We have no argument with the Lupines. We wish only to kill the girl.”
Terror leaps in my chest as Yvan grips my arm, his fire power mounting. Diana takes a menacing step toward the gray-clad Vu Trin, her lips pulling back into a snarl. “Make one move for Elloren Gardner, and I will rip your throat out!”
It’s at that moment, amid my own debilitating fear, that I find my voice. “We need to speak to Freyja!” I choke out, rising to my feet.
Everyone turns to look at me with surprise.
The lean, hazel-skinned woman lowers her rune-axe a fraction and narrows her eyes at me. “I am Freyja.”
“We were told to seek you out,” I explain breathlessly. “Marina...the Selkie...she needs your help.”
“The Selkie?”
Marina slowly raises herself from the ground, teetering a bit as she struggles to find her balance. She reaches up and pulls her hood down, freeing her glittering silver hair.
A collective gasp goes up.
“Is this the groundskeeper’s Selkie?” Commander Vin asks, incredulous.
Diana lets out a deep rumble of a growl. “She does not belong to him!”
Commander Vin rounds on her sister. “Did you know of this, Ni?”
Ni Vin’s face remains impassive. “I chose to overlook it.”
“You chose to overlook it?” Commander Vin’s voice is steady, but it holds a knife edge of anger. “Is there anything else you might have chosen to overlook?”
“Who sent you to find me?” Freyja demands of me.
I hesitate to answer. Clive told me to mention his name to her only in private, but refusing to answer honestly seems like a bad idea right now. So, I take a deep breath and say, “Clive Soren.”
The side of Freyja’s mouth twitches and her posture becomes abruptly taller, her weapon higher, as if my words are a challenge.
An Urisk-featured Amaz soldier near Freyja shoots her a murderous look. This woman is easily the largest soldier here, broad and muscular, her coloring rose-white like Fernyllia’s and Fern’s, her rose hair short and spiked, her ears pointed. Her face is densely tattooed with small, circular runes, giving her skin the appearance of having scales.
I swallow nervously. “We went to Keltania to ask for his help in freeing the Selkies.”
“You were in Keltania? Meeting with Clive Soren?” Commander Vin seems furious. She shoots her sister a quelling glare.
“Yes,” I tell her. I turn back to Freyja. “He told us the Amaz may be willing to help us. The Mage Council is on the brink of killing all of the Selkies in the Western Realm. We need armed help to rescue them all.”
Marina’s musical voice rings out. “Elloren Gardner speaks the truth.”
Another collective gasp.
“Avenging Goddess,” Freyja breathes. “She speaks.”
“Explain this, Kam Vin,” the gray-clad sorceress demands, seeming stunned.
Commander Vin ignores her, focused only on me. “Elloren Gardner, explain yourself.”
“Explain myself?” I cry. “I just did! Why don’t you explain why you’re all trying to kill me?”
“We cannot allow the Black Witch into Amaz lands,” the gray-clad sorceress explains grimly.
“I am not the Black Witch!” I vehemently insist. “I’ve been wandtested. I’m a Level One Mage.”
“She is powerless,” Commander Vin affirms. “I tested her myself.”
“There is one named Fallon Bane,” Diana interjects, almost conversationally. “She’s likely to be the next Black Witch, and you should smite her immediately.”
“We know of this one,” Freyja puts in somberly, her eyes flicking to Diana. “She is no Black Witch.”
“They say her magic grows stronger by the day,” Diana counters, “whereas Elloren Gardner has none.”
The gray-clad sorceresses lower their stars in unison, and the Amaz look around at each other in bewilderment, as if trying to figure out what to do.
“What is your quest, Elloren Gardner?” Freyja asks me in a tone of confusion.
“To meet with your queen,” I answer. “To petition her for help in freeing the Selkies.”
Freyja motions toward Marina. “And...how, exactly, did you come upon this Selkie?”
“I freed her.”
“With magic?” the gray-clad sorceress asks suspiciously.
I glower at her. “I just told you that I have no magic.”
“Then how?” Freyja presses.
I shrug. “We unchained her and just...made a run for it.”
“Made a run for it,” Freyja repeats.
My temper flares. “Because I have no magic. I may look like my grandmother, but I have none of her power.”
“She was despised by many,” Freyja informs me gravely.
An embattled incredulity flashes through me. “Really? Was she?”
Yvan’s hand finds my arm, as if cautioning me, his fire steadier now, consolidated.
The muscular, rose-skinned soldier moves forward threateningly, jutting her strong, square chin at our party. “If your men step one foot over our border, we will slay them. Especially that one.” She points her huge rune-axe at Rafe. “His male energy is particularly strong.”
Rafe’s mouth falls open, and he stares at her, wide-eyed, as if he doesn’t know whether to be offended or flattered.
“Only Diana Ulrich, Marina the Selkie and I seek to come across your border,” I hastily clarify.
“I am their guard,” Diana informs them with a flash of her teeth.
Commander Vin eyes me carefully before turning to her sister. “Ni, you will accompany them. And you will inform me if there are any more surprises.”
Ni Vin inclines her head in assent. “Yes, Commander.”
“And you will strike her down if she seeks to harm what is ours,” the gray-clad sorceress puts in.
I’m thrust into complete confusion. What are they afraid of me harming?
Diana falls into a protective crouch. “Strike her down if you wish to have your face clawed to shreds, Sorceress.”
“You forget, Kam Vin,” Freyja interjects, “that this is our territory, and we decide who may cross over our borders.”
“We implore you,” Marina says to Freyja, and everyone stills, all eyes on Marina. She splays her palms out in supplication, her flute-like tones breaking through. “Please, let us enter your land for an audience with your queen.”
Freyja’s hostility dissipates as she looks at Marina, her expression now conflicted. Her eyes flit to me, then back to Marina as she deliberates. She lifts her chin, as if decided. “I will grant you leave to cross,” she finally says. “Diana Ulrich and Ni Vin may cross with you.”
Freyja cuts me a glare. “You may also accompany them, Elloren Gardner. But only under close guard.” She motions toward Commander Vin and the two gray-clad sorceresses with her rune-axe. “As for you—the Vu Trin will meet us here in two weeks’ time to collect what is yours. Your time is almost up. The debt stands repaid.”
I’m cast into further confusion. What debt?
“The wand, Elloren Gardner,” the gray-clad sorceress asks, her eyes set tight on me. “Is it still in your possession?”
I swallow hard, my head spinning as everyone’s eyes turn to me. They know about Sage’s wand. How do they know?
“Yes,” I croak out, acutely aware of the white wand pushed into the side of my boot.
The sorceress visibly relaxes and glances toward Ni Vin. “Watch the Gardnerian closely, Ni Vin,” she cautions, her eyes darting back to me. “The wand may have sought her out, but do not forget the dark blood that flows in her veins.”
“I forget nothing,” Ni Vin says grimly.
“S
ee that you don’t.”
With that, the gray-clad Vu Trin sorceresses prod their dark horses into motion and ride into the forest, Jarod calmly stepping aside to let them pass. Freyja watches them go before turning back to consider us. She points her rune-axe toward the ivory-skinned Alfsigr-featured Amaz. “The Selkie may ride with Thraso.” Then she looks to me. “You, Elloren Gardner, will ride with Valasca.”
A dark-eyed young woman in a rune-marked indigo tunic rides forward. She appears to be around my age, or perhaps just a few years older. A small rune-knife is sheathed on her belt and she carries herself with a magnetic bravado. Her features look Noi, but her ears are pointed, her skin is sky-blue and her short, spiky black hair is streaked with vivid blue highlights. Her face is marked with Amaz rune-tattoos, and a fur-lined, black cloak is draped over her shoulders.
Valasca peers at me through Trystan’s shield and smiles.
“Ni Vin,” Freyja continues to direct us all, “you will ride with Euryleia. And Diana Ulrich—”
“I ride with no one,” Diana counters. “I will run alongside Elloren Gardner.”
“We travel fast, Lupine.”
Diana smirks. “Then you might have a chance of keeping up with me, Amaz.”
The other soldiers go very still, as if in awe of her boldness, but Freyja smiles widely and she dips her head to Diana. “It is an honor to meet you, Diana Ulrich.”
Diana smiles back—not a friendly smile, mind you, but a wild-eyed, feral grin that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end.
The huge rune-scaled Amaz soldier is still glowering at me threateningly as she grips her gigantic rune-axe. Her aggressive posture gives me serious pause.
What are we doing here? These people just tried to kill me. This is a cliff, and we’re about to step right over its edge.
But then I catch sight of another face: Marina’s. Seeming to sense my hesitation, her expression has morphed into one of sheer desperation.
“You can drop the shield,” I shakily tell Trystan. He holds my gaze for a long, questioning moment, then murmurs a spell and the shield fizzes into oblivion, the amber wash over everything fading away.
Yvan’s hand falls away from my arm as I step forward toward the young Amaz, Valasca. “I’m ready,” I tell her.
Valasca grins and reaches down to help pull me onto her horse with a surprisingly strong arm. I settle in behind her and wrap my arms around her waist.
“Interesting company you keep, Gardnerian,” she observes, turning her head to shoot me a wide, mischievous grin. She glances over at Diana, who stands beside us and is watching me closely. “The daughter of Gunther Ulrich. A most excellent choice of bodyguard.”
A nervous tremble kicks up inside me, and I try in vain to still it.
“Relax, Elloren Gardner,” she tells me, an edge of seriousness to her tone. “I’ll protect you, as well.”
I eye her with distrust. “You’ve only just met me.”
Valasca shrugs. “I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, Gardnerian, but only because you freed the Selkie. For over a year now, I’ve been trying to convince my people that we should do something to help the Selkies. I saw one once, when traveling near the Gardnerian border.” Valasca’s heavily accented Common Tongue grows tight with outrage. “They had her in a cage. Her movements, her voice...it was all very seal-like. But her eyes... I only had to look into her eyes, and I knew.”
Valasca looks down at her horse and pats its neck affectionately, her expression lightening. She shoots me a wry smile. “It’s my belief that you have to look past the surface of things to get to the truth of the matter. Wouldn’t you agree, Elloren Gardner?”
She doesn’t wait for my answer, but instead rides forward through the runes and over the border until we’re just past her fellow Amaz. She raises her arm up to the heavens and looks around as the Amaz fall in around her. “Hold tight,” she cautions me before calling out something in another language.
Then Valasca swipes her arm down, and we set off like a bolt of lightning. I glance back over my shoulder quickly, straining for one last look at Yvan and the others. I catch only a brief glimpse of Yvan’s fierce eyes, and a hard rush of his fire, before the thick pine forest closes in around us, like a massive green door slamming shut.
CHAPTER TWO
THE AMAZAKARAN
I’m not prepared for the speed at which we move, the thunderous sound of hooves kicking up soil and snow all around us. At times, it’s like the trees are hurtling straight at us, set to collide. But always, we swerve just in time, like rapids zooming through the forest. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, and I hang on to Valasca’s cloaked form for dear life.
We ride through the long break in the Northern Spine as the shadows lengthen, and I lose track of time. Before long, a brilliant moon hangs above us, silvery clouds dispersing to reveal brightening stars. The immense Spine rises on either side of us to tower above the black-limbed treetops, and I stare up at it in awe.
I remember riding over those same jagged peaks with Lukas, the Spine staggeringly beautiful from above. But here, below it, I’ve a clearer sense of its overwhelming heft, and it takes my breath away.
It’s bone-achingly cold, our speed knifing the icy air into my body. My fingers are becoming stiff and difficult to bend, and I begin to grow concerned about the dropping temperature, wondering if we’ll all become irreparably frostbitten.
A broader path opens up before us, and suddenly, the forest gives way to a Spine-stone road that cuts through haphazard piles of mammoth white boulders. There’s a borderline of suspended crimson runes just ahead.
Valasca pivots to grin at me, then yells out a hearty order in another language. Everyone’s horses break into a faster run, the animals’ hooves pounding the stone beneath us.
Terror clamps on to me with staggering force.
We’re riding at a faster and faster clip toward what looks like the edge of a cliff. Just past it, splayed out before us, are the lights of an immense city in a bowl-shaped valley, the snowcapped Caledonian Mountains just beyond.
The Amaz border city of Cyme—the largest of the six Amaz cities set throughout the Caledonian mountain range.
My fear-stricken mind absorbs all the details of the scene at once—countless buildings densely covering the central valley, their roofs streaked with illuminated red lines.
And there’s green. Everywhere in the valley. Green in the dead of winter.
And we’re going to ride straight off a cliff of Spine-stone and hurtle down into it.
I glance pleadingly at Diana, who’s running beside us, her hair flowing behind her like a pennant. Diana meets my eyes and bares her teeth in an invigorated grin.
“We need to stop,” I protest frantically, panic building. “Stop the horse, Valasca!”
Valasca glances back at me with a rakish smile. “Hold on to your head, Gardnerian.” She snaps the reins and urges the horse faster.
A scream takes form in my throat as the cliff barrels toward us.
In unison, all of the Amaz thrust their arms out, palms flat, fingers splayed open. Glowing crimson runes spring to life on the backs of their hands as we race toward the line of larger runes and the precipitous drop. Valasca’s palm smashes into a huge rune and blinding red light rays out from her hand. A huge, translucent dome encasing the entire valley briefly flashes into view above and around us, warm air enveloping us all.
“Auuughhhhh!” I cry out as we gallop straight for the cliff’s edge.
Just as we reach the cliff, flat, circular runes burst into life at its edge and multiply out like a swarm of insects to rapidly form a crimson road suspended high in the air. I clamp my arms around Valasca as our horse seamlessly rides off the stone road and onto the rune-road.
Swept up with a dizzying vertigo and desperate relief, I take in the startling
view. The rune-road continues to form ahead of us as we ride out over the city, the runes multiplying at incredible speed.
Valasca holds up an arm, and everyone slows to a canter, then to a trot.
My heart racing, my breathing staggered, I loosen my death grip on Valasca’s waist, and she gives a low chuckle. I note, with pure amazement, that it’s summer here, the frosty sting in my cheeks giving way to a flushed, prickling heat. Green-leafed trees, gardens and farms are spread throughout the entire valley, many of the farms set under geometric glass domes marked with huge scarlet runes.
“How is it summer?” I ask Valasca, overcome with awe.
“Advanced rune-sorcery,” she says with a grin, then points up. “You might have noticed the dome.”
I look up, nothing visible above but the star-strewn night sky. “What would happen if someone tried to fly a dragon through that dome?” I wonder.
Valasca’s chest jostles with laughter. “A rather large explosion. Flying limbs. A blood-streaked sky. I’d say that it’s not advised.”
I raise my brow at this. Good, I think. At least the Amaz might have a chance of withstanding a Gardnerian military assault.
Below us, Elfin-style buildings are carved into the Spine’s northern face, curving like seashells and giving way to a dome-covered forest filled with strange trees. “That’s our University,” Valasca tells me.
“I’ve never seen trees like that before,” I marvel.
“Those are the University research gardens,” Valasca says proudly. “We have plants from all over Erthia.”
The rune-road zips out before us toward a glowing red pole rising up from the center of the city. There’s a large disc atop the pole, and our rune-road slams into it with a burst of red light.
As we ride out onto the enormous disc, the rune-road disappears behind us, fading back toward the Spine as fast as it formed, then blinks out of sight.
“Holy Ancient One in the heavens above,” I gasp, letting out a long, shuddering breath as I watch the road disappear.
Valasca gives a hearty laugh. “It’s always fun to watch people experience that for the first time.”
The Iron Flower Page 27