When I turn back to look at Tierney, I’m surprised to see how much taller she is now. Tierney shifts her weight and looks down at her feet, as if testing her new legs, her wavy midnight blue hair cascading over her shoulders. Then she glances up at all of us, her smile radiating pure, unbridled joy. She bounces on her heels, seeming finally, finally comfortable in her own skin.
“Are you ready?” she asks Yvan and me, bold challenge now in her tone.
An anxious shiver ripples through me as Alder holds out the storming rune-stone. It’s warm and fills my palm with a staticky prickle as I take it from her. Small gray-and-black clouds drift over its surface, the central scarlet rune gauzily luminescent through the shifting haze.
“Picture the form you want,” Alder directs me. “In detail.”
I close my eyes and bring Aunt Vyvian’s face to mind. Her graceful figure. A black tunic, riding skirt and cloak. I build the image, painting it in my mind, detail by detail.
Aunt Vyvian’s braided hairstyle, delicate Ironflower earrings, swirling fastmarks, vivid emerald eyes...
When I’m confident my image of her is clear, I open my eyes and give a start. Aunt Vyvian looks out at me from the disc, the storm clouds hovering around her—so clear, it’s as if someone shrank her down to size and tethered her there.
“Is that right?” Alder asks me, touching the disc with her long, emerald-sheened finger. “Is that her?”
I scrutinize the image. Unsure, I concentrate more fully on the exact line of Aunt Vyvian’s jaw, the curve of her ears. Her face sharpens, bit by bit, until the image is finally the very picture of my powerful aunt.
Satisfied, I look to Alder. “That’s her.”
Alder nods and places her branch lightly on my shoulder. “Hold tight to the rune-stone,” she tells me.
I clasp it tight in my hand and close my eyes as Alder chants a flowing spell.
A buzz of unsettled energy courses through me from Alder’s wand. My skin tightens painfully, and I give a small cry, my eyes flying open. I’m immediately thrust into a near panic.
There’s nothing but black before me, and my body is covered with an oily substance, my fingers slick against each other. The oil abruptly solidifies, constricting my body, the breath driven clear from my lungs. I gasp for air and almost lose my footing. Then the black cloud abruptly breaks up and clears, and I’m able to pull in a long breath.
Alder’s emerald-dusted face is before me. She lifts her chin, looking pleased. Yvan, Tierney and Valasca are regarding me with wide-eyed astonishment.
“I look like her, then?” I question, my pulse thudding.
“Scarily so,” Tierney says, her usual sardonic tone seeping back.
I flex my fingers, my toes. Fidget and tense my muscles. It’s disturbingly claustrophobic to be in someone else’s skin while having a sense of my own body trapped just beneath it. I extend my arm and marvel at the sight of my aunt’s shimmering arm, her fastmarked hands, her manicured nails. I reach up to touch my face. It’s all smooth lines, the normally sharp bones of my cheeks drastically altered.
“Now hold the stone up and picture your aunt’s guard,” Alder says, her wand back on my shoulder.
I loosely cradle the rune-stone in my palm as I repeat the process again, calling up an image of Aunt Vyvian’s guard, Isan, this time. Black hair, square jaw, broad chest, surly moss green eyes. When the image scried on to the stone seems right, I hand the disc to Yvan.
Yvan grows very still and closes his eyes, as if unfazed and oddly practiced in this. Alder places her branch on his shoulder and sends the glamour over him.
I watch, transfixed, as Yvan’s hair flashes from brown to bright red, and then his form blurs and grows inky, sharpening and then coloring into...Isan.
Like Tierney and me, Yvan is completely altered—stocky and a good ten years older in appearance, dressed in Gardnerian military garb.
Yvan lets out a long breath and looks down at his splayed-out hands with apparent curiosity. I catch his eyes, now a darker shade of green, as he flashes me a penetrating, almost guarded look.
I turn to Alder. “How long do we have?”
“A day, perhaps,” Alder says evenly. “Possibly less.” She points her branch at the rune-stone in my hand. “This glamour is very strong, but it will strain to pull back into the rune-stone more and more as the hours pass. You’ll have to be quick.”
We all make our way outside into the predawn darkness, Yvan and I mounting the horses Valasca has secured for our journey. Ariel’s raven flies out of the barn into the sky.
“Go,” Tierney prods me, her looks mind-bendingly altered, but her voice unchanged and hardened with purpose. “Go save Ariel from those monsters.”
Chapter Three
Ariel
“Open the gates! Make way for Mage Vyvian Damon!” a granite-faced soldier yells at two sentries who are stationed just inside the prison’s high, iron-barred gates.
My horse shies in response to the screech of iron as the gate’s locks are undone.
The prison looms before us, built in the style of most Gardnerian architecture—gigantic, carved trees forming the walls, their branches coalescing to support the expansive roof. But instead of being fashioned from our sacred Ironwood, the building is crafted from obsidian stone.
A hexagonal wall surrounds the immense prison, edged with rows of iron spikes pointed to the heavens. Each corner of the wall is capped off by a guard tower that houses a single archer. It’s a veritable fortress—I don’t know how we would have ever gotten in without the glamour.
The gruff soldier helps me dismount while Yvan deftly swings off his horse, handing both sets of reins over to one of the sentries and giving brusque orders regarding the care of the animals.
The other sentry gives a small bow, pushes open the gate and motions me forward. I glance back to find Yvan just behind me, and we share a swift, grimly resolved look. I turn forward once more, take a deep breath and step through the prison gates.
The iron gates clank shut behind us, and I wince inwardly as the screeching lock is thrown back into place.
I gaze up at the towering prison and swallow nervously. The sheer size of the building is daunting, as is the overwhelming number of guards.
And there’s iron everywhere.
Iron-tipped arrows. Iron swords propped against the walls. And thick iron planks stripe the surrounding wall from top to bottom.
As if the prison was built to withstand a Fae assault.
I fight the urge to grab Yvan and run away from this malevolent place.
The young, square-jawed sentry wordlessly escorts us toward the prison’s main entrance, an imposing pair of wooden doors etched with a giant, leafy tree. We wait as the sentry slips inside the doors to announce our arrival.
A few moments later, the door is opened again by the sentry and a willowy older man stands in its frame. The elderly Mage’s green eyes calmly regard us through silver-rimmed spectacles, his demeanor coolly intellectual. His black robes bear the crest of the Gardnerian Surgeons’ Guild—a tree made of surgeons’ tools. A wand is sheathed at his side, and his garb is marked with Level Three Mage stripes.
“Mage Damon,” the surgeon fawns, bowing slightly. “Another surprise visit. But certainly not an unwelcome one.”
“Bring me to the Icarals,” I say, trying to mimic my aunt’s smoothly domineering tone. “I’ve come for the one called Ariel Haven.”
He nods deferentially, steps back and motions for us to enter with a refined wave of his slender hand.
Heart thudding, I step inside the prison door.
The circular foyer resembles a midnight forest, the carved, obsidian trees dense and leaning in. Stone branches tangle overhead, the tree trunks bracketing several shadowy hallways. Green lumenstone lanterns are set about the space and line the multiple hallways, washing everythi
ng in a swampy glow. I glance down at my fastmarked hand, the emerald glimmer of my skin enhanced by the eerie light.
“You have secured an order of execution this time?” the surgeon inquires lightly, as if treading carefully.
I beat back a tremor of panic. “No. No order. I’ll obtain it from the Council and send it to you. We’re convening in less than an hour, so I don’t have time for technicalities.”
The surgeon dips his head, going soft and pliant. “Of course, Mage Damon.”
We follow him down a series of obsidian hallways, the heels of my shoes clicking against the black geometric tiles of the perfectly polished floors, Yvan’s steps echoing behind me.
At the end of one darkened hall, the surgeon unhitches a ring of keys from his belt and unlocks a heavy wooden door. We trail him through the door and down a spiraling stone staircase, the air around us cooling as we descend.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and enter a tunneling hallway washed in dim green light. Faint groaning and nasal chattering sound up ahead.
I can make out the foul stench of nilantyr long before we reach the arching entrance to the dungeons, the odor triggering a wave of nausea and dark memory.
And there’s something else. Something that sends ice knifing down my spine. Somewhere far ahead, hidden in the bowels of this malignant place, a child is screaming.
The surgeon pauses to grab a large brass ring of keys from a hook set in the wall. A series of iron-barred prison cells bracket the hallway just ahead of us.
It’s hard to make it all out, the lumenstone more sparsely hung down here, the greenish glow fainter. But I have a strange sense of déjà vu.
A dream I once had. A dream in which I was trying to free Marina and little Fern from a cage. In this exact green-lit dungeon.
My eyes are drawn up to the ceiling of tangling, stone branches as a translucent white bird shimmers into view, then blinks out of sight. Apprehension ripples through me, and the White Wand pressed into my boot warms against my ankle.
We pass under an archway of branches into a hallway filled with cavernous, barred cells. I can’t make out anything at first, but my eyes soon adjust to the light.
I turn, pausing in front of the first cell, and that’s when I see him.
A male Icaral is crouched inside, eyeing me with milky white, soulless eyes, his spindly arms wrapped tight around even spindlier legs. Wingless, ragged stumps jut out where his wings used to be.
The cell is cold and small, empty except for a hard wooden bed without blankets and an iron chamber pot.
And a metal bowl full of nilantyr berries.
The Icaral opens his blackened lips and hisses at me, baring sharp, rotted teeth.
Recognition spasms through me.
I know this Icaral—he’s the one who escaped that day I was attacked in Valgard.
Horror and pity rush over me like a black wave, forcing me backward, away from the broken creature, until I collide with the iron bars of another cell.
Clawed hands come from behind and grasp my arms, pinning me to the bars at my back, foul breath at my ear. Terror leaps into my throat as I whip my head around and stare into the empty eyes of another male Icaral. “I will rip its arms off,” he hisses at me, hatred burning in his emaciated face. “Like they rip and tear at our wings.”
The surgeon jams his wand through the cell’s bars and mutters a spell. A bright blue explosion bursts all around me, and the Icaral’s piercing grip falls away.
I stumble forward and whirl around to find the Icaral knocked to the ground, a network of glowing blue lines traversing his body as he writhes in agony.
I struggle to catch my breath, trembling with both fear and horror at the surgeon’s casual use of torture. My hands rub at my stinging forearms as the surgeon considers me with a slightly perplexed expression.
Like something doesn’t quite add up.
“You need to stay away from the Icarals’ cells, Mage Damon,” he says, his brow creased, as if he’s surprised by the need to advise my aunt.
My heart blasting against my rib cage, I struggle to regain my composure. I force myself to take a few deep breaths while the surgeon eyes me with budding suspicion.
You have to be Aunt Vyvian, I chastise myself. Calm down! You have to get Ariel out of here!
“Where is she?” I ask, forcing my chin up and assuming a haughty expression.
The surgeon’s face relaxes, as if he’s more comfortable with my predictably imperious behavior. “The creature is housed at the end of the hallway.”
Housed.
What a wildly inappropriate way of describing this nightmarish dungeon.
Horror and acute distress seep into me as we walk down the curved, winding hall and I come face-to-face with the Icarals imprisoned here. I try not to stare, try not to slow my regal, unsympathetic gait, but I can’t help but hear them, to see them out of the corner of my eyes.
There’s one, a female. She looks to be about thirteen years of age, dressed in rags, her hair pulled out in scabby patches. She’s banging her head against the stone wall of her cell again and again as her wing stumps frantically flap behind her, the rhythmic thud echoing after us as my heart begins to fracture in my chest. We pass another female, this one even younger. She’s crouched in the corner of her cell, muttering darkly to herself in a high-pitched voice.
Other Icarals cry out strange, twisted things, rattling the bars as we pass them.
“I am filthy, so filthy...”
“I will fly at you! They tried to take my wings, but I hid them!”
“Look into my eyes! I will turn you into one of us!”
They’re all wingless, with the same dead, broken eyes.
A catastrophic outrage pours into me.
My own people, we’ve made them this way.
They could be whole and unbroken, like Wynter, if the Gardnerians had only left them in peace. Instead, they’ve been tortured and drugged into insanity.
I realize the Icarals that attacked me months ago were probably tormented like this, perhaps since they were small children.
Like Ariel.
A fierce wave of compassion for all of them, even the ones who tried to kill me, washes over me along with a staggering, nauseating fury.
We pass by a few vacant cells scattered among the occupied ones—the empty cells that probably once “housed” the Icarals my own aunt methodically hauled before the Mage Council for execution.
Devastated, I turn toward Yvan. He’s staring at one of the Icarals, his eyes wide, his face gone sickly pale. I’ve never seen him so rattled before, and it fills me with deep concern.
“Do not look directly at the Icarals,” the surgeon instructs Yvan and me, his tone clinical. “It’s polluting to the soul, bad for the spiritual health of a Mage.”
“I assure you,” I reply, wanting to cut him down and free every last Icaral imprisoned in this evil place, “I have no desire to stare at the vile creatures.”
The surgeon seems pleased with my response and turns to lead us farther down the nightmare hallway.
The child’s screams split the dank air, cutting through the Icarals’ ceaseless moaning and dark mutterings.
“I apologize for the disturbance.” The surgeon half turns toward me as we walk. “We apprehended a young one only yesterday. I’ll be removing the creature’s wings later on today. That should quiet it down a bit. Although, as you can see—” he waves his hand dismissively toward the noisy cells that surround us “—not nearly enough.”
“Apprehended?” I’m stunned by the use of such a term to refer to a child.
The surgeon presses his lips into a thin, disapproving line. “Never underestimate the ability of these Evil Ones to disguise their true natures, Mage Damon. Even a very young one. The mother of this one was completely under this creature’s thrall, convin
ced it’s not a demon, but a harmless child. Thank goodness her neighbor alerted us to the Icaral’s existence. Who knows what future evil could have come of it?”
“And the mother?” I ask, thinking of Sage and little Fyn’ir, wanting to retch. “Where is she now?”
His expression tightens. “Dwelling with the Evil Ones, no doubt. Her soul was so polluted by the dark being she created, that after we took it from her, she killed herself rather than live without its vile presence.”
A wave of dizziness threatens to overtake me, and I bite down hard on my cheek to steady myself.
“There it is,” he says, a look of disgust on his face as he gestures toward an open cell.
There’s a woman inside, dressed in dark apothecary garb marked with Level Two Mage stripes, a wand sheathed at her side. She has a pinched face and gray hair pulled back into a tight bun, and she’s struggling with a child of about three. A little girl.
The woman appears to be trying to force-feed nilantyr to the child, the little one’s white tunic stained down the front with black vomit as she whips her head from side to side, her eyes wide and bulging, her mouth closed defiantly tight.
Seeing us, the apothecary abandons her task and rises, the child fleeing from her with desperation and launching back into her panicked screaming. She flaps her black wings rapidly and futilely, only able to lift herself slightly off the ground. She falls back onto the stone floor, restrained by an iron shackle locked around her ankle. The shackle is attached to the wall by a short metal chain that rattles against the floor as the child pulls at it as far as it will stretch.
Horrified, I glance back at Yvan, whose shocked, pale expression has morphed into one of undisguised rage. Hectic red colors his cheeks, and his hand clutches the hilt of his broadsword so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.
“Do not look directly into its eyes,” our guide cautions the apothecary, who’s resumed her attempts to drug the child.
The Iron Flower Page 49