Valasca spreads her arms out wide, a besotted look coming over her face as she looks over the goats and they bleat and hop for her attention. She blurts out what sounds like a string of endearments in her language that only whips up the goats’ affectionate show.
“We can pass through,” Valasca tells us happily, pointing to the low runes. “But my goats can’t.”
Valasca presses her palm to one of the runes, and a strand of red light rays out. She shoots me a quick grin, then steps right through the fence, passing through several runes as if they’re made of smoke. Valasca motions for us to follow, and we do, passing through the runes, as well. The goats fall in beside and behind Valasca as she croons to them.
I turn to look back over Cyme, a soft, scarlet glow hanging like a gentle fog over the city, the moon-washed Spine just beyond.
The Spine.
Lukas is probably somewhere right over that western ridge, I grimly consider. His Fourth Division Base getting ready to rain chaos down on the world.
Good luck trying that here, I think wryly. Their rune shields will blast your dragons and soldiers to bits.
We leave the goats behind as we pass through another line of rune-fence and enter the dense forest, following on Valasca’s heels. For a moment, I have a subtle sense of the forest’s gathering animosity, and quickly coax my fire lines into a blaze, flaring my power out at the trees. They shrink back and go silent, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
The dark woods soon open up to reveal a small clearing. In the center stands a circular dwelling with a geometric rune-edged roof. The lodging is raised up from the forest floor on a wooden platform, and the stone walls are enameled with intricate mosaics that depict the Goddess in a forest with a variety of animals. A single red lantern that holds a suspended, glowing rune hangs by the door.
This place is removed from everything, reminiscent of the isolated North Tower. A place to bring people you want to keep separated from everyone else.
I turn to find Valasca swirling a glowing rune-stylus in the air, and I flinch as a circle of large crimson runes bursts into life all around us, ringing the entire periphery of the clearing.
She’s a rune-sorceress, I marvel. One of the twelve.
Apprehension takes root as I examine the runes more carefully. They resemble a larger version of the goat fence runes. I move to touch the closest rune and am surprised to find my hand making contact with a solid, mostly invisible barrier.
I round on Valasca. “We’re not goats. Why did you just pen us in?”
A low growl starts at the base of Diana’s throat, and Valasca exchanges a grim look with Ni Vin, whose hand moves to her sword hilt.
I take a step toward them. “What are they afraid of me doing?” I demand, alarmed to be suddenly imprisoned. “What’s here that you don’t want me to find? I mean no harm to anyone here.”
“I believe you,” Valasca says adamantly, standing her ground. Her eyes dart cautiously to Diana, her grip tight on her rune-stylus. Then she looks back at me and lets out a hard sigh. “I was instructed to erect a barrier, just until you meet with the queen. For your own protection, as well as the protection of our interests. It’s temporary, I assure you.”
“I have been in a cage before,” Marina says, her eyes wide and frightened, her voice breaking. With shaking hands, she reaches up to press her gills flat. “Why would you do this thing to us?”
Ni Vin’s careful and ever-present neutrality breaks, her face tightening with conflict. “You are not a prisoner,” she insists to Marina staunchly. “You have my nhivhor. My word.” Ni Vin makes a complicated gesture over her chest with her hand. “And you have my pledge of protection.”
Marina nods tightly, but her face remains troubled.
“Come,” Valasca says placatingly as she walks up to the dwelling and slides back the star-patterned door. “My only desire is for your comfort this evening, as the guests of the Amazakaran. I will remove the rune-barrier in the morning.”
I look to Diana questioningly, wondering if she’s picked up anything troubling in their scents. Diana has her eyes fixed on Valasca with lethal singularity, as if she’s deliberating on the most expeditious way to take her down, and Valasca holds her stare with a surprising level of calm. Diana purses her lips and gives me a look that reads I’ll let her live for the moment, then gives me a curt nod.
Valasca smiles at Diana, holds back the door’s edge and steps to the side, welcoming us with an elegant gesture, and I follow Marina and Diana through the entryway.
* * *
It’s warm and comfortable inside our lodging. Scarlet tapestries line the walls and ceiling, and richly patterned maroon rugs cover the floor. There’s a small stove in the center of the room, pumping out warmth, a steaming brass teapot set on it. A low table with a purple tablecloth holds a gilded tea service and a plate of fruit. Cushions line the edges of the dwelling, and felted bedrolls have already been laid out for us.
The tapestries show more scenes of the Great Goddess performing various feats—defeating demons and armies of men, caring for children. And again, the motif of the small white birds swirling above the Goddess, rising up toward the ceiling to join a large bird.
Valasca stands near the door and watches us as Marina sits down on a bedroll, Ni Vin quietly arranging herself beside Marina, crossing her legs and closing her eyes. Diana follows her usual bedtime routine of stripping down to nothing, then curls up on top of one of the bedrolls near Marina.
Valasca is gazing at Ni Vin, an oddly intense set to her expression. Eventually, she pulls her gaze away and sits down at the low table, picking at some grapes. She seems deep in thought as she stares at the ceiling tapestry, her eyes following the swirl of white birds woven into the pattern.
I’m not ready to settle down to sleep. I feel too restless and confined, and also rather excited to be in such an unfamiliar and fascinating place.
“I’d like to go outside for a bit,” I tell Valasca, my tone tinged with resentment over needing to ask permission.
“Go ahead,” Valasca says wearily with a flick of her hand toward the door.
Ni Vin’s eyes fly open. She and Valasca exchange a few tension-fraught words with each other in what sounds like the Noi language.
“It’s a fortified barricade, Ni,” Valasca finally says, switching to the Common Tongue, her tone dismissive.
“Wait,” I say, catching their easy familiarity with each other. “You two know each other?”
Both Valasca and Ni Vin shoot me a quelling glare.
“Go,” Ni Vin finally says to me, her attention more focused on Valasca than on me, the two of them locked in what feels like intense, vaguely intimate communication.
I move to the door, feeling like I’m suddenly intruding on something personal, and retreat out into the night.
* * *
I linger outside, irritated by the barrier, but savoring the smell of summer in the dead of winter. I breathe in deep, reveling in the improbable leafy smells, the sound of insects chirring. I crane my head up to take in the starry sky, wondering what Yvan is doing right now.
Is he staring at the same stars?
An unsettled heat shivers through my lines at the thought of beautiful Yvan, coupled with the longing to have him here with me, right now...
A flash of white in the trees catches my eye, and my whole body goes rigid with surprise.
A Watcher. Perched on a tree limb, just beyond the rune-barrier.
My heartbeat quickens as the wand in my boot starts emitting an insistent buzz. I breathlessly fumble under my skirts for the wand, my eyes darting to the dwelling to make sure I’m alone.
I pull the wand out, my breath catching when I see that it’s glowing white and pulsing with energy. On instinct, with another quick look behind me, I raise the wand and touch it to the rune-barrier.
The huge run
e before me blinks out of existence.
My heart pounding against my chest, I reach out my hand toward the invisible wall and find a large portion of it gone. Glancing up at the Watcher, I slip through the barrier and breathlessly trail the white bird as it darts from tree to tree.
I follow the Watcher through the woods and to another rune-encircled clearing, this barricade formed by emerald runes of a design completely different from the scarlet Amaz runes—fewer curls and spirals, harder geometric shapes telescoping out from their centers. There’s a round dwelling similar to ours in the center of this clearing, with countless small green runes suspended above and around it like arrested raindrops, everything washed in their verdant glow.
The Watcher flies straight toward the rune-barrier, a small explosion of emerald rays flashing out as the white bird passes through. It lights on an eave above the dwelling’s doorway and sets its serene eyes unblinkingly on me.
Giddy with anticipation, I press the white wand to the barricade rune before me, and it pops out of existence.
I step through the gap and walk through the rainfall of runes toward the dwelling.
I’m halfway across the small clearing when the door begins to open. I freeze as a figure appears in the doorway, backlit by golden lamplight.
At first, I think I’m staring at a young Urisk woman, her skin violet and her hair a riot of purple. But her skin has a glowing amethyst quality to it, much like the green shimmer of Gardnerian skin, and her ears are round, not pointed. I look closely at her features, and a sudden, light-headed rush of recognition swoops through me, my shocked surprise almost buckling my knees.
It’s Sage Gaffney standing in the doorway, her Icaral baby held in her arms.
CHAPTER SIX
THE ICARAL
“Sage?” I rasp out.
She’s frozen, too, her expression one of openmouthed amazement. “Elloren? Elloren Gardner?”
It is Sage. My childhood friend.
Her fastmark wounds are still horribly present, but she doesn’t seem as pained and distressed by them as she did the last time I saw her. There are small, golden chains affixed to her hands now, looping around her fingers and palms and wrists. The chains are adorned with a series of tiny scarlet Amaz runes that glow like iridescent berries.
Sage’s Gardnerian black garb is gone, replaced by a loosely woven violet tunic and pants—pants!—edged with purple gemstones and golden embroidery. There’s also a wand sheathed at her right hip, and a rune-dagger sheathed on the left, a flowing golden rune on its hilt.
The baby in her arms watches me with wide, silvery-green eyes filled with an almost heartbreaking innocence. He looks to be about six months old, with a gemlike pattern to his skin that glitters as many shades of violet as Sage’s hair. Delicately pointed ears peek out from beneath little tufts of Gardnerian black hair, and a pair of ebony wings are folded behind him like soft fans.
Beautiful, opalescent wings. Like Naga’s.
Sage’s plum-colored eyes light on the glowing white wand in my hand. “It led you back to me.”
I try to get hold of my whirling thoughts. She’s so dramatically, mind-blowingly altered.
“Um, no,” I say, flustered, blinking around at the runes, at the Watcher, at Sage’s unexpected purple figure. “I freed a Selkie,” I say absently, everything surreal. “I’m here to petition the queen to rescue all of them.”
“A Selkie,” Sage echoes, more a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
She stares at me for a long moment, clearly astounded. Then laughter bubbles up inside her, first as an involuntary cough, then as an open bout of incredulous mirth, her mouth lifting into an irrepressible grin. “It’s because of the wand. All of it.”
I nod, still adjusting to her complete metamorphosis.
“Saving all the Selkies,” Sage marvels, shaking her head, a glint of mischievous rebellion in her eyes. “That’s just the sort of outrageous thing that wand leads you to do.”
“Why are you purple?” I blurt out.
“I’m a Light Mage, Elloren,” she says, growing serious. “A Level Four Light Mage. My light affinity lines are strongly oriented toward purple, so when I started casting light spells...” Sage looks down at her violet hands and shrugs. “The color stuck.”
My lip twitches up. “So now you’re a purple Gardnerian?”
She stiffens slightly at the word and draws up taller. “I’m a purple Light Mage.”
“And...this is your baby?” I nod at her stunningly unique child.
Sage’s mouth lifts into a smile filled with pride. “Yes. This is Fyn’ir.”
So, this is him. This sweet, purple, winged babe. The hunted Icaral of Prophecy.
“Stop where you are!”
I turn at the sound of Ni Vin’s sharp voice just as she, Diana and Valasca burst into the clearing. Valasca and Ni Vin come to a sudden halt just before the rune-barrier, their eyes immediately lighting on the translucent Watcher hovering over Sage’s door and the glowing white wand in my hand. Beside them, Diana immediately relaxes her stance as she calmly surveys the entire scene.
Suddenly, it all clicks into place in my mind—exactly what the Amaz and Vu Trin are so afraid of.
You will strike her down if she seeks to harm what is ours.
Incredulous anger wells up inside of me.
“You didn’t seriously think I would harm her baby?” I ask Valasca and Ni Vin, feeling stunned and more than a little bit outraged. “That’s why they attacked me, isn’t it? They think I’m the Black Witch, here to fulfill the Prophecy.”
“You have a weapon,” Ni Vin weakly points out, her eyes riveted on the Watcher with reverential awe.
I look down at the glowing wand in my hand. The White Wand.
The White Wand.
Holy Ancient One.
I hold the Wand out to Sage and immediately feel the lack of it as she somberly takes it from me. I shoot Ni Vin a look of challenge. “There. Now she has two wands. And a rune-dagger. I’m completely unarmed.”
“Leave us,” Sage tells all three of them, her gaze set tight on me.
“We are charged to protect the Icaral,” Ni Vin insists, her voice tinged with confusion, as if her world has been suddenly turned on its head.
Sage’s expression hardens as she sets suddenly fierce eyes on Ni Vin. “He’s my child, and I asked you to leave us. We are both bearers of the Wand, and I wish to speak to Elloren. Alone.”
I stare at Sage in wonderment—what happened to my timid, obedient neighbor?
Valasca gently sets a hand on Ni Vin’s arm. “Do you see it, Ni?” Her eyes flick up toward the Watcher.
“I see it,” Ni Vin admits shakily. “No one else will believe it, but I see it.”
Valasca says something to her, too softly for me to hear, and Ni Vin nods. Valasca looks back at Sage and me. “Go,” she says respectfully. “Speak with each other.” She glances at the Watcher one last time, then both she and Ni Vin walk back into the forest.
Diana flashes me a wide, gleaming smile and follows them into the darkness of the trees.
I turn to Sage, feeling like I’ve landed in a dream as she quietly returns the Wand to me. I take it from her and slide it back into my boot, heartened by her trust.
My gaze drifts to her little boy. “Fyn’ir? That’s not a Gardnerian or Keltic name.”
“Fyn’ir’s father is Smaragdalfar.” There’s a note of bold challenge in her tone.
Smaragdalfar? Her baby’s father is a subland Elf? “But, I was told—”
“Ra’Ven was glamoured,” Sage cuts in sharply. “To look like a Kelt.”
“Ra’Ven?” My head is fair spinning with confusion.
“His Keltic name was Ciaran. His true name is Ra’Ven.”
My astonishment notches higher. “But...everyone
thinks your child’s father has a Keltic family...and they...” I pause, disturbed and confused by the remembrance of what Yvan told me. “Sage...they were killed by the Gardnerians.”
Her face tenses with pain. “I know. I heard. They were the family who took Ra’Ven in when he escaped the sublands.”
The terrible ramifications of all this swamp over me. And the fact that Sage and I are intractably, completely and forever altered.
“Oh, Sage,” I say, my voice breaking.
I can see it all rushing over her, too. The world-shattering improbability of this moment. The two of us. Standing here. In Amaz lands. The Icaral of Prophecy in her arms.
Tears sheening her eyes, Sage comes toward me, and we fall into an embrace, loosely sandwiching Fyn’ir, who squirms between us and stares up at me with an expression of such adorable indignation that an affectionate laugh bursts from me.
“I’m so happy to see you,” Sage says through her tears.
I hold on to her, never wanting to let go of her again. “We’ve quite a bit to catch up on.”
A laugh escapes her. “You might say that.” She angles her head toward her dwelling. “Come in. I’ll make you some tea.”
* * *
Sage pours us steaming tea from a cobalt teapot with a golden filigree design, the cups fashioned from clear glass, set in jeweled golden holders. The interior of her cozy lodging is similar to ours, with rich scarlet-hued tapestries, a lush rug, a circular table low to the ground and cushions all around. I sip at my tea, which tastes of vanilla and spice.
“Can I see the Wand again?” Sage asks as she cradles Fyn’ir, her eyes lighting with interest.
I set down my cup, pull the Wand from the side of my boot and set it in the center of the table.
The ambient glow of the surrounding rune-lamps seems to momentarily dim in the face of it. There’s a presence about this wand. As if it’s another entity in the room.
“Do you really think it’s the true White Wand?” I ask her.
“I do.”
Then I notice her necklace—a small white bird hanging on a delicate silver chain. I inhale sharply, my eyes darting up to meet Sage’s.
The Iron Flower Page 31