The Iron Flower

by Laurie Forest

  The idea is so bizarre that it makes me laugh. Me. An Amaz warrior.

  But the thought is also surprisingly appealing.

  “I could teach you,” she insists.

  “Goat herding, too?” I wryly ask.

  Valasca grins. “Of course.”

  I smile back. “I’ll keep it in mind, then.”

  A wave of nausea sweeps through me, and suddenly I want nothing more than to be lying flat so that the world will stop tilting so disconcertingly.

  Valasca lets out a long sigh and catches me before I fall clear over. “C’mon, Gardnerian,” she says, wrapping her arm around my shoulder to steady me. “I’ll help you get back. You and I need to sleep this off.”

  * * *

  “You smell terrible,” Diana tells me as I crawl—literally crawl, as I can’t walk a straight line—to my bedroll. Marina and Ni Vin are asleep, or are at least pretending to be, and Valasca has returned to her own lodging.

  I fall back on the felted material, the room spinning. “Valasca gave me spirits.” I bring one hand to my forehead, which is pounding uncomfortably. “We both drank way too much of it. She tried to warn me not to.”

  “You should have listened.”

  I glower at her. “Oh, don’t tell me. You Lupines, perfect as you are, never partake of spirits.”

  She gives me a baffled look, as if this should be obvious. “Of course not. Maiya disapproves of anything that dulls the senses.”

  “Well, don’t judge me. My situation is pretty complicated right now.”

  Diana cocks an eyebrow at me. “So is mine. I’m in love with a Gardnerian.”

  “Who never wanted to be a Gardnerian,” I irritably counter. “Who spends all his free time running around in the woods hunting.”

  Diana’s amber gaze is calm and unflinching, which makes me feel like a jangling mess in contrast. I sigh and turn over to face her, the room tilting nauseatingly as I do so. “Diana?”

  “Yes?”

  I hesitate for a moment. “I think I have the White Wand. The actual White Wand. I think it’s real. Not just a story.” To my surprise, her unflappable expression doesn’t waver. “Do your people believe in anything like this?”

  Diana nods. “The Branch of Maiya—the last surviving branch of the three Origin Trees.”

  “What do your people think about this...Branch?”

  “It is a tool of goodness and hope. As the other Branches were. It aids those who are oppressed.”

  I consider this. “In my religion, it does that as well, but it only aids the First Children.”

  She shakes her head, emphatic. “Not in ours. Maiya sends the Branch to anyone who is oppressed. Lupine or not.”

  “So...maybe the Wand wants to help the Selkies.”

  She doesn’t even pause to consider this. “Yes.”

  “But if my Wand is really this Branch...then why would it come to me, Diana? I’ve no power. And...the Wand doesn’t, either. Not at the moment anyway. Trystan thinks it’s gone dead. Or dormant, at least.”

  “Perhaps it’s conserving its power. Perhaps there’s a bigger fight yet to come.” She eyes me significantly. “Or perhaps hope has its own power.”

  I shoot her a jaded look. “So, here we are, hoping the Amaz will help the Selkies.”

  She nods, her calm suddenly breached, her blond brow tensing. I know Diana wants it to be her people who save the Selkies. But I also know that Gunther Ulrich is reluctant to inflame an already turbulent relationship with the Gardnerians.

  “Perhaps the Amaz will help them,” I say, glancing toward Marina, desperate for this to be true. Marina is curled up on her bedroll, fast asleep, her glimmering hair splayed out on her pillow. She looks so frail. So wan and easily broken.

  “They might,” Diana says, looking to Marina as well, an uncomfortable note of doubt in her tone. That hint of disbelief is unsettling and kicks up the nausea already welling inside me.

  “I don’t feel so well,” I tell her, shivering slightly from the small draft that’s working its way in under the door.

  Diana scrutinizes me. “Are you cold?” she asks. “You look cold.”

  I gaze over at her, feeling pathetic. “Yes.”

  Diana slides under her blanket, lifts up the edge and beckons to me with an impatient wave of her hand. “Come. Come lie by me.”

  Feeling morose, I clumsily slide over to curl up against her. As I lie there, safe and warm with my dangerous friend, my roiling stomach starts to calm. I snuggle in closer to Diana, and she pats my back comfortingly. She’s always so different in the evening, her haughty, painfully blunt air giving way to this strong, soothing presence.

  “Diana?” I ask.

  “Hmm?”

  “What happened to Maiya’s other Branches? You said there were three.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “They were destroyed by the darkness.”

  Silence hangs over the room.

  “What happened to the people who had those other Branches?”

  Again, she hesitates. “They were destroyed, as well.”

  “So, there’s only one more branch.”

  “Just the one.”

  The silence gathers and solidifies.

  Ni Vin is quietly and steadily watching me from where she’s lying, and her uneasy face is the last thing I see before I close my eyes and fall asleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  QUEEN’S COUNCIL

  The next morning, we assemble in the queen’s council chamber, a side dome just off the main Queenhall.

  Diana, Marina, Ni Vin and I are facing the council members, all of them gray-and white-haired older women. They’re seated in a semicircle, talking in low tones among themselves as we patiently wait for Queen Alkaia to arrive. Behind the council, a sizable contingent of heavily armed Queen’s Guard soldiers are also seated.

  Valasca is standing near us, just off to the side. She arrived at dawn to bring us to the Council’s chamber, her manner aloof and all business. She avoids looking in my direction, but that’s quite all right with me. I’m a little mortified to be around her after telling her every last romantic secret of my life, and I imagine she feels the same way about me at the moment. Especially with Ni Vin standing right here with us.

  My head feels like a village blacksmith is pounding it into a new shape, and I’m filled with a jangling apprehension, hoping against hope that Queen Alkaia will agree to help the Selkies before it’s too late.

  She has to help them. How could she not?

  Valasca abruptly straightens, then kneels as Queen Alkaia is ushered in, the queen’s frail body supported by two young soldiers. I follow Valasca’s lead and get down on my knees, bowing to the floor, Marina following suit. Diana and Ni Vin both remaining stubbornly upright.

  It takes a moment for Queen Alkaia to get settled, but once she does, she motions for us to rise to our knees and turns her intelligent, piercing gaze on me.

  “Elloren Gardner,” she says. “The Council met this morn to discuss your appeal.”

  Something about her expression, how her lips are curved into the very smallest of smiles, makes me feel hopeful. My heart lifts. She’s going to say yes.

  “We have made the unanimous decision to deny your request.”

  The words slam into me like an avalanche.

  Marina lets out a shocked exclamation, her hands flying up to her gills. Valasca, Ni Vin and Diana look stunned.

  Righteous anger rises inside of me like a blinding fire. I spring to my feet. “But why?” I sputter furiously. “How can you reject it?”

  “The decision of the council is final.” She sounds almost bored, and I suddenly want to hurl something at her, to wipe that blasé expression off of her face. Doesn’t she realize what’s at stake?

  “Clive Soren told me that the Amaz cared,”
I snarl, devastated. “He said you’d help women who were being abused. He didn’t tell me you’re a bunch of hypocritical cowards!”

  “Elloren!” Diana cautions me sharply, just as several soldiers in the room spring to their feet, weapons unsheathed in a blur.

  I don’t flinch, my hands balled into tight fists. I know that I’ve just directed a serious insult at the queen. Andras has told me that calling someone a coward is huge in both Amaz and Lupine societies. Worse than any curse. But at this moment, I don’t care.

  Queen Alkaia places a hand on the arm of the soldier closest to her in a silent command, and slowly the weapons all around are lowered and returned to their sheaths. The soldiers reluctantly take their seats again, glaring at me murderously.

  “The rescue of the Selkies is a futile endeavor at this point in time,” Queen Alkaia says calmly.

  “So, according to you,” I challenge, struggling to hold back tears, “I should have just left my friend Marina where I found her.”

  Queen Alkaia leans toward me, her eyes gone steely. “You are asking me to send our soldiers, likely at great risk, up against the Gardnerians. To rescue all of the Selkies. A feat that may cause the Gardnerians to declare all-out war on us. That would be seen as an unforgivable strike on their sovereign territory.”

  “But it’s the right thing to do!”

  “Let us suppose for a moment, Elloren Gardner, that we do this thing you ask of us. Suppose we rescue all of the Selkies, but the Gardnerians remain in possession of their skins. What do you think will happen next?”

  Oh, Holy Ancient One. She’s right. Destroy a Selkie’s skin, and she becomes like the living dead, like the soulless dragons, the broken Icarals.

  “Are you ready to sentence all of the Selkies to a fate much worse than death?” Queen Alkaia challenges me.

  I’m outmatched, out of my league. I’m a fool.

  “Then there’s no hope,” I say, my fire gone, my voice weak.

  Queen Alkaia’s face softens, and she smiles maternally. “As long as the Avenging Goddess rules this world, there is always hope.”

  “Where?” I ask her, defeated. “Where is there hope for the Selkies?”

  Queen Alkaia sits back. “Find their skins,” she tells me. “Without the skins, rescue is futile. The Gardnerians hold the ultimate weapon against the Selkies in their hands. We could bring the Selkies to the other side of Erthia, and it would all be in vain. No, you must find their skins.”

  “How will we find them?”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Ask those men of yours to find them. No doubt they are familiar with the places where the Selkies are held captive.”

  “No, that’s not true,” I say, shaking my head. “They’ve never gone to—”

  “They are lying to you,” she cuts in, certain.

  “No, I’m sure...”

  She cuts me off with a wave of her hand. “They are liars and deceivers,” Queen Alkaia says. “All of them. Without exception. It has been so since the beginning of time. But you can make use of their vile natures to find out what we need to know.”

  I bristle, because she’s wrong. Wrong about Rafe and Trystan. Wrong about all my other male friends and family. But I hold my tongue, because I know that in this, there will be no convincing her otherwise.

  “And then what?” I ask. “If we find their skins, what good will it do? How can we free them by ourselves?”

  Queen Alkaia’s gaze sears into me. “Who here,” she asks the room, “would agree to the raising of an army of our finest warriors for the sole purpose of invading Gardneria to free all of the Selkies, if their skins are found?”

  Every single warrior in the room, as well as the entire queen’s council, rises to their feet. Not a single one of them, save the queen, remains seated.

  “Find their skins, Elloren Gardner,” Queen Alkaia tells me, “and we will free your Selkies.”

  * * *

  The day is still young when we reach the border, the snow-dotted forest abruptly thinning out to reveal the small field where the Vu Trin sorceresses and the Amaz attacked us.

  Yvan, Rafe, Trystan, Jarod, Andras and Gareth are all there, just as they said they would be, and my heart leaps at the sight of them.

  But they’re also strange to my eyes.

  Men.

  They’re like foreign beings, a whole other race, after being around so many Amaz. So many women.

  And their maleness isn’t the only thing strange about them. Their expressions are oddly serious, and unease rises inside me as I scan each of their faces.

  The Amaz stop just before the line of border-runes and eye our men coldly—except for Valasca, who simply studies them with an air of curiousity. Our escorts wordlessly help us dismount and gather our belongings.

  I look to Yvan searchingly, his fire shimmering out toward me.

  “What’s happened?” I ask Yvan as I pass through the border runes and approach him.

  “Something good, Elloren.” Yvan looks over at Gareth, who is focused intently on Marina.

  “Marina,” Gareth says to her gently, “yesterday, we decided to search the area around the groundskeeper’s cottage again. Now that there’s been a thaw.”

  “What did you find?” Marina asks carefully, her mouth trembling at the edges.

  Gareth reaches into the leather sack hitched over his shoulder and pulls out a shimmering, silver seal skin. Marina lets out a startled cry, her hands flying over her gills.

  “It was buried near the back of the cottage,” Gareth tells her. “In a box made of Elfin steel. The thaw exposed its edge. I heard a bird’s wings flapping—a large white bird. It startled me, and when I looked back down, there the box was—poking out of the ground. I just knew. The moment I saw it, I just knew.”

  Marina stares at the skin in his hands as if mesmerized. She gives Gareth a look filled with meaning, something private and charged passing between them. “I’ll be completely transformed,” she prepares him.

  “You’ll still be you.”

  Marina shakes her head as if he’s incredibly naive. “No. I’ll be much stronger than you. Power changes everything.”

  Gareth holds out the skin for her to take. “I want you to be powerful. And I want you to be free.”

  The Amaz look stunned. I realize that Gareth’s actions fly in the face of every myth, every legend, every assumption they have about men. Marina drops her travel sack and pulls off her boots, then all of her clothes, unfazed by the wintry cold.

  Her eyes locked on Gareth’s, she reaches for her silvery skin.

  The minute she makes contact with it, flashes of sapphire lightning crackle down her arm. The lightning sparks over all of her skin, and a glowing blue aura coalesces around her, Marina’s form beginning to blur as it merges with the blue light. Then both Marina and her skin fade until there’s nothing left but a haze of blinding illumination.

  Then the blue light begins to dim, the details sharpening until Marina reappears.

  In seal form.

  A magnificent, predatory seal with Marina’s ocean eyes and dazzling silver fur.

  Just as we’re all adjusting to the idea of seeing her in this form, Marina rolls over on to her back and closes her eyes. The sapphire lightning returns, streaking in a crackling line down her seal stomach. Again, her form blurs, then splits, and Marina emerges from the silver skin, human once more.

  She kneels on the ground, breathing heavily, her eyes closed, as she supports herself with trembling arms. She’s still recognizable as Marina—her hair silver, her features the same—but she’s lost her drawn, willowy appearance. Reunited with her seal-skin, she’s now deep blue from head to toe. There was always a sheen of blue just beneath her skin, but now it’s on the surface. And she looks strong, her muscles lean and taut, much like Diana.

  “Are you all right?” Gare
th moves toward her as she struggles to catch her breath. Marina moves her head up and down, seemingly with great effort.

  Eventually, her breath evens out, and she stands, her movements more like a warrior Amaz than the weak slip of a girl she once was. She retrieves her clothes and throws them on, then slings her seal-skin over one shoulder.

  She walks over to Gareth and reaches up to caress his cheek. Gareth smiles at her with a look of fierce alliance. But I can see it in the tightness around his eyes—this is the beginning of goodbye for them.

  Marina steps away from Gareth, one hand on his shoulder, one hand on the silver skin. “Now,” she says, turning to all of us and exposing predatory teeth, “we need to save my people.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  EQUINOX

  “Don’t you have studies to catch up on?”

  Diana’s stern tone cuts through my fog of worry, and I look over at her from where I sit on my bed, gripping a mug of hot tea. I don’t know how she can concentrate at a time like this. My mind is a whirl of tense worry. I’ve tried to do some reading, but the medicinal formulas keep flying right out of my head, like birds refusing to be caged.

  Rafe, Trystan and Gareth are off investigating the three Gardnerian Selkie taverns located in the isolated forests just over the Verpacian border. And, in an unexpected turn of events, Clive Soren is traveling with Yvan to the sole Selkie tavern that’s in Keltania.

  They left yesterday before dawn, each carrying a generous supply of guilders in their pockets, courtesy of Queen Alkaia. All of them are armed with stacks of pictures Wynter drew—images of Marina, her sister and every face Marina could remember from the night she and her sister were taken. There are also pictures of Amaz rescuing the Selkies, leading them back to the ocean—a visual map of the planned escape to show any Selkies they encounter.

  Ariel hovers near the roaring fireplace, thin flames flashing out from her palm. She’s getting stronger every day. She still avoids me and hardly speaks to me, but she doesn’t seem so angry anymore. She’s more...settled. And her wings have undergone a wondrous transformation—they’re smoother and shinier, and her eyes are brighter and steadier. It fills me with quiet satisfaction to see her improving so.