The Iron Flower (The Black Witch Chronicles, #2)

by Laurie Forest

His expression grows serious as he considers my hand in his, his tone becoming ardent. “And...you and I... We could be together.”

“Would you say something to me in it?” I ask shyly. Yvan smiles at me, a sultry edge to his grin that sends warmth sliding up my spine. “What do you want me to say?” he asks, his voice a silken thrum. “Anything. I just want to hear what it sounds like.”

“What did you say?” I ask, mesmerized by him. “I said...your eyes are lovely.”

“You’ve five affinity lines?” he asks, curious. “I have strong earth lines and fire lines,” I tell him. “I’m starting to have a sense of small air lines and water lines, too, but I can’t sense my light lines. Most Mages can’t—Light Mages are very rare.” I look to him, hesitant. “Can you sense my lines?”

Yvan steps close and pulls me into a heated embrace. I cling to him, burrowing my face in his shoulder as our fire powers surge free to encompass each other. “Be careful, Elloren,” he whispers, his breath hot on my ear. “This is dangerous. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I’ve got everyone shielded, Yvan,” Trystan says calmly. “You can let Ren go.”

Yvan relaxes his grip on me, looks around, then slowly pulls himself away. He hovers by me, tense and coiled, his heat a violent frenzy.

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.

“May I suggest, Alcippe,” she says, “that if you wish to take revenge upon this girl’s family, the best way to do so would be by letting her live.”

He swallows hard, his gaze scorching. “If I kiss you,” he says, his voice low and rough, “there is no way I’ll ever be able to let you go.”

“Then don’t let me go,” I say fiercely, his fire grasping at mine with ardent heat. “A kiss... It isn’t a simple thing for me,” Yvan says haltingly. “There’s...power in it.”

“If I kiss you,” he says, struggling to find the right words, “it will...bind us.” “What do you mean? Bind us how?” That secret pain again—I can see it in his eyes. “Yvan, please. You need to be honest with me.” “I can’t,” he agonizes, his hands rigid on my arms. “There’s no happy ending for us, Elloren. There are things...things you don’t know...that you can never know. I’m dangerous to everyone you love...to everyone I love, as well.”

“I’m not just Fae!” he snarls.

I called it

wish things were different, but there is no changing them. Find someone else. Anyone you want. Anyone but me.”

Nooooo

My statement is met with silence, and I continue to cry late into the night. I’m thinking on how the Gardnerians should be completely obliterated from the face of Erthia when I feel something warm being gently placed beside me. One of Ariel’s chickens. “Let her roost near you,” Ariel says, her voice sharp and unfriendly. “It’s...soothing.”

reflect for a moment on how comfort sometimes comes from the oddest places, from the least likely people—like an Icaral, in spite of herself, choosing to offer comfort to the granddaughter of Carnissa Gardner.

Life is truly strange. And very confusing.

He finally relents, his voice low. “A little. But mostly I can scent your emotions.” Surprise flares in me. “Is that something Fire Fae can do?” He looks away cagily. “It’s something I can do.” “All of my emotions?” “Yes.” Oh, my. “What am I feeling right now?” I haltingly challenge.

“A little upset, I think. But mostly...you’re enjoying touching my hands.” I stop rubbing his fingers, my face coloring. “It’s okay,” he says, his lip lifting, his gaze turning sultry. “I like it, too, especially now that it doesn’t hurt.”

“If ever there were two star-crossed...friends.”

“Knowledge is never wasted, my dear. No matter how obscure or difficult...or confusing. It always serves to enrich our lives, if we let it, and in ways we can rarely anticipate.”

“Learn all you can, Elloren, about everything you can. You will find that, when you’re as powerless as we are, it helps to be clever.”

would be better to be powerful and clever.”

I pull out the crimson violin, tightening and rosining the bow as the rest of the group pushes aside some of the log seats to create space. Then I launch into the happiest tune I know—an old Gardnerian folk dance. My playing is soon accompanied by boisterous clapping and drumming on wooden stumps, my friends laughing and whooping.

“Set down your instrument, Elloren,” Jarod prods, gesturing toward Yvan. “Dance with him.”

Yvan holds out his hand to me. “Put the violin down, Elloren.”

“Do you know the steps to the first dance you played?” Yvan asks, ignoring my hesitation. “Yes.” “Dance that.” “All right,” I say, unconvinced, as we arrange our hands and arms around each other.

And then Yvan begins to change the dance, moving gradually closer, wrapping one arm around me, then unexpectedly pulling me in tight. I stumble into him, stepping on his foot, my flushed face growing hotter. “I’m so sorry...” Yvan just grins as the others continue to clap out the beat for us. We begin again, and this time, he eases the changes in more gradually, an extra step here, a different hold on me there. Little by little, my body loosens, the rhythm claiming me. He starts to pull me closer, until I’m pressed up against him, his fire licking deliciously toward me, but this time, I don’t stumble. I soon forget there’s anyone else around, aware only of him, fascinated by him—how he weaves around the rhythm, how he weaves around me, his eyes hot on mine, the feel of his hands, his body and fire moving against mine.

I lean into Yvan, and his arm tightens around me. My life isn’t at all how I’d imagined it could be a year ago, but better. So much better.

“It’s so hard to believe,” he says, shaking his head. “That it might be possible...”

“Perhaps,” he says, beaming at me, “there is some hope after all.”

Lupines gone. Rafe and Trystan gone. Vu Trin sorceresses and Elfhollen and some Urisk gone. Amaz horse-physician and his professor mother gone with stolen horses, all the rest of the University and military horses scattered to the wilds. Gone. All gone.

It worked

“I love you, Elloren.”

“I love you, too,” I whisper through salty, tear-soaked lips. Yvan takes my face in his warm hands and looks at me intently as my heartbeat quickens.

“I want to kiss you, Elloren,” he says, the words weighted with import, “but...it will bind us.” “I don’t care,” I tell him, impassioned. “I want you to kiss me.”

His kiss is like the sweetest honey, like something I could gladly drown in forever.

And then the warmth builds, growing heated where his lips move against mine, my sense of his fire rapidly escalating until his heat is shuddering through my entire body, flames coursing through my lines and around us both.

Yvan loves me. I’ve sensed it for a long time, but now he’s fully surrendered to it, and so have I. And the completely unexpected, all-encompassing fire of Yvan’s kiss—just the thought of it makes my feet unsteady.

“How can you do this?” I cry. “You said you were my friend!” “If I walk out of this room right now,” he says through clenched teeth, his voice so low it’s almost a whisper, “your aunt will still be fasting you to someone who, in her exact words, will ‘beat some sense into you.’ I’m here because I am your friend, whether you think I am or not. Believe me, I’m not thrilled about someone fasting to me only because she’s being held down by two armed guards.”

“What do you care?” I snarl back at him. “You don’t even love me.” Lukas’s face takes on an expression so dark that for a moment, I fear he’ll strike me. He looks away, his mouth pressed into a hard line, like he’s at war with himself, then he glances back down at me again with intense frustration. “I’m trying to help you!” he grinds out.

But he dose

“She has my permission to go wherever she chooses,” Lukas snarls before storming out of the room.

“You think I don’t want you now?” he asks, impassioned. “Because you’re fasted to Lukas? That doesn’t change anything. I love you.”

“Listen to me, Elloren,” he tells me, his grip loosening to a caress. “Our being together can’t be about revenge. That’s why I’m refusing you. I love you. That’s why I want to wait.”

“You’re an Icaral,” I breathe out.

I knew it even when they told us he was fae

His black wings flex. “He was the Icaral killed by your grandmother, Elloren.” I wince and grab onto a nearby tree to steady myself. It all makes sense now. The horror in his mother’s face when she saw me. It wasn’t only because she’s yet another Kelt who hates the Gardnerians, who hated my grandmother. It’s because I look exactly like the woman who killed her husband—the Icaral shown in the statue in front of the Valgard Cathedral. Yvan’s father.

“That’s what being an Icaral is, Elloren. You know that. I’m part dragon.”

“I promised my mother I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he explains haltingly. “I wanted to tell you. But, Elloren...even just knowing this puts you in danger.”

“I wish I had power,” I bitterly rage. “I’m the granddaughter of the Black Witch, and I’m worthless when it comes to helping you or anyone else I love.”

“You’re not worthless,” Yvan vehemently insists, his wings folding rigidly in. “You’re wrong.” I pick up a stick lying at my feet and rip the small diverging branches off it as I step into the clearing. “I’ll show you exactly what happened when they wandtested me.” “You don’t even have a real wand in your hand, Elloren,” he points out gently. I don’t care. I want him to see just how powerless I am—how I can’t even perform the simplest spell of all.

Power rumbles against the balls of my feet, just like on the day of my wandtesting so many months ago. Power pulled straight from Erthia’s core. Power pulled from the trees. It works its way slowly up my legs, coiling like an enormous snake ready to strike as I sound out the words to the spell.