Page 181 of The Iron Flower

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

And then, silence as I writhe in pain.

Oh, Ancient One, Fernyllia! You saved everyone and they killed you for it...

“Why are you crying?” my aunt snarls.

“Thepain!” I lie, racked by the staggering loss of Fernyllia, each lie slicing straight through my heart like jagged glass.

“I don’t think she knows where her brothers are,” the physician says to Aunt Vyvian.

“Of course she doesn’t,” my aunt snaps. “Rafe and Trystan didn’t tell her anything. They were under the thrall of the Lupines. That’s why they let theirown sisterbe poisoned.”

They question me for what seems like an eternity, while my head splits in two along with my heart. And then they leave me alone to wrestle with the pain.

Finally, I give up and pass out.

* * *

Hours later, I’m still shaking from the aftereffects of the poison, my skin clammy, my balance off. Lightning flashes in the night sky visible through the windows of my Bathe Hall lodging.

Aunt Vyvian sits before me on another velvet-cushioned chair, a fire crackling in the fireplace beside us. I clutch at the cup of bitterBorsythiantonic Aunt Vyvian had an apothecary brew for me, feeling hollowed out and broken.

“I never imagined your brothers would go so terribly wrong,” she rages, her emerald eyes searing.

Trystan. Rafe. Where are you right now?

Her cruel words skewer into my heart. I miss Rafe and Trystan so much already I don’t know how I’m going to bear this new Realm without them.

“Rafe was turning out to be a bad one,” she seethes, “running around with that Lupine bitch. But Trystan.” A look of wounded betrayal flashes across her features. “Ineverimagined.”

She looks to me, uncharacteristically distraught, as if there might be some clue in my gaze as to how things went so horribly wrong.

They’re gone. Almost everyone I love—gone.

The finality of it is too much to bear, and I’m not prepared for the force of my grief. I start to cry, letting the tears fall freely, knowing she’ll assume I’m crying over my brothers’ betrayal.

Aunt Vyvian’s face contorts into a hateful grimace. “It’s your mother’s blood. That’s what caused this.”

I look up at her, startled, her mention of my mother momentarily halting the flow of tears. Aunt Vyvian shakes her head and glares off into the middle distance, as if a terrible, perfect clarity has descended.

“Tessla Harrow.”She hisses my mother’s name with such venomous loathing that it stuns me. “ThatDownrivergirl. Raised around Kelts... Urisk. You wouldn’tbelievehow Keltish she was when she first came to Valgard. And shenevershook her low-class ways.”

She bites out the words. “And Rafe looksexactlylike her. Trystan... He resembles your father a bit more, but the Downriver blood ruined him in the end.” She looks to me, her expression of hatred softening, her eyes glassing over. “But not you, Elloren. You look so much like Vale. Andexactlylike Mother.”

She nods to herself, as if affirming her own argument. “You have the blood of our line, not your mother’s. That’s why you’re good and pure, and your brothers are so bad.” Her expression turns bitterly rueful. “If only you had our legacy of power. But it’s in you, and it will manifest in your children.” She nods to herself again as if our salvation is assured. “You’ll fast to Lukas and you’ll redeem our family name.”

I inwardly draw back from her, stunned and outraged, a remembrance of my mother’s smiling face filling my mind, my father’s kind presence.

You witch,I silently rage. You cruel, elitist witch.

“Did you know your father fasted to that Downriver girl out ofpity?” she snipes, a volcanic fury simmering in her eyes.

“No,” I force out in a wavering voice.

“Oh, yes. She was trying to whore herself out to a Kelt. No one else wanted her. So, my brother foolishly stepped in and fasted to her.That’sthe type of blood your brothers have in their veins.”

“What...what do you mean?” I’m practically light-headed with confusion.

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