The Morning Flower

by Amanda Hocking

  “Then I’ll wait forever. If you want to head back—”

  “I don’t,” he interrupted me, and I looked over at him. “You know that I don’t. I’m wondering what we’ll do if he doesn’t show up.”

  “I don’t even know what to expect if he does show up.”

  He laughed lightly. “Fair enough.”

  We stood out front long enough that my legs started to ache, and I stamped my feet to get the blood moving. Pan waited beside me, and behind us Dagny and Elof were sitting on the porch outside the restaurant, talking about the flowers, the food, the birds in the sky.

  And then, when I was starting to think we really had to come up with another plan, I saw something off in the distance. Slowly rounding the summit of the tallest mountain and walking into the valley was an elk. It wasn’t until it got closer and I saw the man beside it, leading it, that I could really appreciate its full size.

  “That’s a woolly,” Pan gasped as he came to the same conclusion that I had.

  “But I thought all the woollies were in Merellä,” I said.

  “So did I.” He turned back. “Elof, are you seeing this?”

  Elof got up and came over to stand with us. “Those are supposed to be extinct outside of Merellä.”

  “You didn’t know about this?” Pan asked him.

  “No. But I don’t think I know as much about the giant woolly elk as you do.”

  “Should we go out to meet him?” Dagny asked. “If that’s Indu strolling over here with his elk, why are we waiting here? We can just walk over and meet him.”

  Pan shrugged. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  We grabbed our bags and we walked across the field. The elk’s bridle was made of bold cobalt and white rope and was a near-perfect color match for the tunic Indu wore. A saddle sat on the elk’s back, on top of a blanket covered in blue and red runic designs.

  Indu greeted us with his usual smirk and a cold apology. “I’m sorry for my late arrival. I had to be sure that we were ready for you in Áibmoráigi.”

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck, so I asked, “Ready for us?”

  “Rooms for you to stay,” he clarified with a broader grin. “The journey is too long for you to venture back tonight. And I had to get Ealga ready.” He petted the giant cervid towering over him, his fingers raking through the thick brown fur. “I thought you might need extra help getting to the city.”

  Pan shook his head in disbelief. “Elk can’t be ridden.”

  “I don’t know about your elk, but this one can be,” Indu countered.

  Pan stepped forward, tentatively petting Ealga on his big snout. The elk huffed loudly, sniffing him, but he didn’t seem to mind the touch.

  “You’re certain it’s safe?” Elof asked as he eyed the woolly.

  “Yes, it is the only animal that we ride through the mountains. They are surprisingly nimble for such large beasts, like overgrown mountain goats,” Indu explained, and then he commanded, “Ealga, knäböja.”

  Ealga sniffed Pan’s head once more, then he stepped back, bent forward, and knelt down on his front legs. He moved slowly, mindful of the massive broad antlers, and he kept his chin up throughout the maneuver.

  “Hop on,” Indu said with a hearty pat on the back of the elk.

  Elof looked uncertain, but he stepped closer to it, and Indu helped him up onto the saddle. Ealga stood up, moving more quickly this time, and Elof gripped tighter to the reins with an uneasy smile. “He seems to tolerate me so far.”

  “Let us go, then,” Indu said, and he started leading Ealga back the way he had come.

  “How far is it?” I asked.

  “Not too far,” Indu replied, like that meant anything.

  So we walked on, mostly in silence. Elof occasionally talked to the elk, offering reassuring compliments and promises of friendship, but Indu definitely preferred silence. I asked him a few questions, but he replied as vaguely and as quickly as possible.

  Our path slowly steepened, rock outcroppings now breaking through the lush grass. Indu had been right about the woolly having a much easier time handling the mild ascent than the rest of us did. I was strong enough for it, but I wasn’t used to the hiking boots I’d gotten for this trip—or any boots or shoes, really—and they made me second-guess my footing and slip from time to time.

  We’d been traversing the mountain for a half hour, maybe longer. The mountain face had become sheer, and the only easily passable area—basically a three-foot-wide ledge that ran along the mountain—was blocked by a giant boulder.

  “Where do we go from here?” Elof asked.

  “This is where we go.” Indu handed the bridle rope to Pan, and then he turned his attention fully to me. His perpetual smirk had deepened into something more genuine, and he put his hands on my shoulders. “Do you want to see where you were born?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You were born in Áibmoráigi. Are you ready to see it?” he asked again. “Are you ready to go home?”

  And the weight of the moment suddenly hit me, and I couldn’t speak, so I only nodded. It was all so surreal, like I was floating above myself, watching as Indu smiled at me and put his hands on my temples. On either side, he pressed a forefinger and a middle finger against my skin, and then he put his thumbs over my eyes, and the world went dark when I closed my eyes.

  This was all gentle first, so soft I could hardly feel it. But suddenly there was pressure, on my eyes, on my temples, inside my skull. And I wasn’t floating above myself anymore, I was jerked back into my body, into the pain that jolted through me.

  My body went limp, but I wasn’t falling. Indu held me up by my skull, and I was dimly aware that Dagny and Pan were shouting my name. Then I did fall, landing in the dirt on my hands and knees. The pain was still there, like my head was going to explode.

  “Leat fámus,” Indu whispered, and somehow his voice made it through the yelling, the elk’s bellowing, even my own cries of pain.

  And just like that—it stopped.

  “What did you do to her?” Pan was yelling in anger.

  “I’m okay!” I shouted weakly. “The pain stopped.”

  All of this had taken maybe thirty seconds, and now I was on the ground, on my hands and knees, and with my eyes closed, gasping for breath.

  “Are you okay?” Pan was beside me, and his hand was on my back. “Ulla?”

  “I think I’m okay,” I said, but my whole body still trembled. “What the hell was that?”

  “Open your eyes, Ulla,” Indu said. “And then you will see.”

  43

  Unseen

  I sat back on my knees, and I opened my eyes, and there it was.

  The boulder was gone, and the narrow ledge has become a broad plateau that spread out before us, and on that was the ruins of a civilization. Crumbling structures of stone and iron, many of them overgrown with vines and weeds. Once, certainly, it had been a sprawling beautiful city, if the remnants of towers and collapsing vault ceilings were any indication.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Ulla?” Pan was still with me, his arm around my waist, and I felt better knowing that he was here, he was real, this was really happening.

  “Do you see all of this?” I asked him.

  Pan shook his head in confusion. “I just see the boulder that was there before.”

  “The boulder’s gone and…” I blinked at the lost city that had appeared on the mountainside, and I looked over at Indu. “What is this?”

  He’d been crouching beside me, but he straightened up again. “It’s Áibmoráigi. I’m sorry that process is distressing, but keeping our city hidden from all the tribes means we have to use very powerful magic. It’s so effective because it worms itself deep within your brain, but the side effect is that it’s very painful to remove.”

  “Is there another cloaking spell?” I looked back at the crumpled castles nearly falling off the edge of a cliff. “Nobody lives here.”

  “What do
you see?” Pan asked.

  “Ruins. It’s all in ruins.” I shook my head.

  “These are the ruins of the first First City,” Indu explained. “We rebuilt below it.” He stepped toward us, holding his hands toward Pan. “Here, I will show you, as I showed Ulla.”

  “Is it safe?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “It was agony while it happened, but I feel fine now. Mostly fine.”

  “It is the only way you can get into the city,” Indu told us.

  I stood up and wiped my hands off on my jeans. “Show me the city before you hurt my friends.”

  “You shouldn’t go in there alone,” Pan said and got to his feet. “I’ll do it.”

  I grabbed his hand, stopping him from walking toward Indu, and he looked back at me. “Pan, it does hurt, and we can’t know the full effects yet.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m going with you.” He turned back to Indu. “Hit me.”

  Watching Indu do the whole routine with Pan wasn’t much better than experiencing it myself. This time, though, I saw how his face turned beet-red, and the way the veins stood on his face and neck during the agonizing moments before Indu finally released him with the words leat fámus.

  He bent over, struggling to catch his breath, and I put my arm around him, steadying him.

  “Shall I help you two?” Indu asked, turning to Dagny and Elof.

  “We will wait,” Dagny said, but I could see how torn she was about doing the safest thing rather than the thing she wanted most to do. She nodded as if to reassure herself, and added, “That seems the most prudent thing to do.”

  “We’ll set up a campsite here,” Elof said. He had gotten off the woolly elk, and he stood next to Dagny, his brows pinched together anxiously. “If you are safe, or if you are not, come back and let us know. We won’t leave here without you.”

  Pan was standing, but he seemed weak still. While the leat fámus thing had left me weakened, weak for me was still much stronger than the average troll. I put my arm around his waist, and he put his arm around my shoulders, leaning on me slightly, as we followed Indu and Ealga into the city.

  Dagny gasped when we went through where the boulder had been, even though she was probably expecting just that. But I don’t know how much you can prepare for watching your friends disappearing into a big rock.

  “This was once Áibmoráigi,” Indu explained. He motioned to what was left of a large domed building, now little more than a curved stone wall, crumbling and mossy. “That was once our meeting hall.”

  “What happened here?” Pan asked. “Avalanche or something?”

  “No, our magic keeps us safe from that,” Indu said. “But we were unprepared for the Grændöden.”

  “The Green Death?” I asked.

  He looked back, his eyebrows arched in surprise. “You know of it?”

  “I heard that it wiped out most of the álfar living here.”

  As we followed the overgrown roads that wound through the rubble, I spotted a large building that didn’t look quite as forgotten as the rest. The wooden exterior was weathered and faded, but it wasn’t overgrown like the others, and the roof appeared intact.

  “That is true.” Indu nodded. “But that was only the beginning. The fallout led to an uprising between tribes, and it was Vígríðabifröst that decimated our city.”

  “You fought with the other tribes?” I asked, trying to decipher what he meant. “In a battle for the bridge?”

  He stopped walking so he could face us fully as he answered. “We fought a war that we lost. They destroyed our city, they outlawed the Älvolk, and they tried to erase us from history. But we could not be stopped so easily. To survive, we went underground.”

  He made a clicking sound at Ealga, and he led the elk into the building. From the scent alone, I gathered before we stepped inside that it was a stable. Pan and I followed hesitantly behind him, since he left the door open.

  Through the barn doors and to the right was a large space with large butcher blocks in the center. Meat hooks hung from the ceiling, and the far wall was covered in various knives and tools. A pletheroa of antlers were left piled in a corner, while a large elk hide had been pulled taut to dry.

  They butchered the animals right next to where the others slept, and that made my stomach turn.

  Indu and Ealga walked down the stone aisle, past other elk chuffing in their large stalls. A young woman, maybe a couple years younger than me, was waiting outside an open stall, and Indu handed her the rope.

  “He needs a brushing,” Indu told her curtly, then he looked back at me and Pan. “If you could follow me this way.”

  The aisle eventually ended with a locked door, and on the other side was a spiral stone staircase leading down into the earth. I walked in front of Pan, glancing back over my shoulder at him as we descended.

  The stairs ended at a large stone room. Other than the rugs on the floor and a few wooden chairs against the wall, it was empty. The only notable details were the stone arches—one on the north wall, one on the south wall.

  Each of their keystones were marked with different but familiar symbols. The northern one had triskelion with vines that I recognized as the Älvolk sigil, and the leaves were marked with amber gemstones.

  The other was one I had only seen once before, and it had been a tattoo on Jem-Kruk’s friend Sumi. A serpentine dragon biting its own tail to form a perfect circle. On the keystone carving, green emeralds had been added for eyes.

  “This is our main hall,” Indu announced loudly, his voice echoing off the walls. “The Älvolk live in the north wing, and the thrimavolk live in the south wing.” He gestured to the arched doorways that led out of the hall.

  “Does Eliana live here?” I asked.

  “No. She has never lived here, and she has not visited in quite some time. Years, I believe.”

  “What about Jem-Kruk?” I asked. “Or Sumi?”

  “I don’t know who either of them are,” he replied curtly. “There is so much here that you have to see. I’m surprised that you’re so focused on what isn’t here.”

  “You’re right.” I smiled thinly. “Where should we start?”

  “If you want to see others, I would suggest that we start with the thrimavolk. You could meet your sister,” Indu suggested.

  “Yes, I would like that.”

  “That would be this way.” He went toward the arch marked with the dragon.

  44

  Sisters

  Through the archway was a spacious living area. The stone walls and floors were softened with colorful rugs and tapestries. At one end there were sofas lined with elk fur and leather, poised around a fireplace. Instruments—a lyre, a guitar, various drums—were stacked in a corner next to a bookcase.

  The other end was more of a game area. There was what looked like an økkspill board on the wall, with the kasteren axes in a basket on the floor. A small table had a chessboard on it, and there was something that looked sort of like foosball but with wooden figures on ropes.

  “These are the main living areas for the thrimavolk.” Indu stopped in the middle of the room, his hands folded behind his back, as we took in the bright and slightly cluttered space. “The girls spend most of their downtime here, when they’re not training or going to services.”

  “So this is basically a female wing?” Pan asked.

  “That would be a scientific way of referring to it, yes,” Indu replied carefully.

  “Does that mean the wives stay here? Or girlfriends?” Pan pressed.

  Indu licked his lips and spoke slowly. “We have no wives.”

  “But the thrimavolk are your daughters? As in your biological children?” Pan clarified.

  As he’d been talking, he’d been subtly moving forward, putting himself between me and Indu. Not blocking me, not entirely, but his shoulder was in front of mine now, and he hadn’t taken his eyes off Indu since we’d gotten down here.

  “Yes. I have five biological daughters,” Indu answered
, and his smirk seemed to fade for the first time. “All of the thrimavolk are children of Älvolk.”

  “All girls?” Pan asked.

  “Yes, but I made sure of that,” Indu said.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You made sure of that? How?”

  “I always ate a powerful herb before I lay with a woman.” Indu lowered his eyes when he said that, his dark olive skin flushing subtly in embarrassment. “That’s how to ensure that your child will be a girl.”

  “Why?” I asked, and Pan looked back at me, his eyes pained and flickering with something darker. “Why was it so important to you to have daughters?”

  “For the thrimavolk, of course,” Indu replied, like that would be obvious.

  “And what are the thrimavolk?” I asked.

  “We are the only warriors strong enough to protect the kingdoms, not just from our world but the next,” a strong female voice announced.

  I jumped in surprise—I’d been so focused on Indu, I hadn’t seen two tall young women come striding down the hall toward us. They wore long tunics similar to Indu’s, except theirs were dark red and cinched around the waist with a black fabric belt.

  The features of the girls were dramatically different—the one on the left was blond, blue-eyed, stick-thin, and the other slightly shorter, with tawny skin and dark eyes—but their hair was styled exactly the same. Long hair pulled back, with multiple braids tight to the scalp and interwoven with dyed leather straps, until they came out in ponytails. And they each wore two solid lines of cobalt and white painted from eye to eye above bold red lips, an effect that looked more like war paint than makeup.

  It was the blond one talking, her voice deep with an accent heavy on her vowels. “And when the time comes, we will be the only ones strong enough to cross the bridge and take back what is ours.”

  They walked right up to us and stopped in unison, like trained soldiers.

  Pan moved back and put his arm around my shoulders. “Oh. Wow. That is quite the mission statement.”

  “You guys definitely have more exciting job descriptions than we do,” I agreed with an uneasy smile.