Page 27 of The Iron Flower

Ariel has retreated back into the cave with Naga, and Yvan is sitting on the other side of the fire, talking to Tierney in low tones, his arm wrapped comfortingly around her.

I’m shivering from the cold at my back, my hands stiff as I pull my cloak more tightly around me. I gently rebuff Trystan’s attempts to talk to me, and he eventually gives up and focuses back on his wandwork. Fizzy lines of blue lightning periodically flow from the tip of the white wand and into the fire.

Mywand.

Andras sits down beside me and hands me a hot cup of tea. The Amaz runes on his tunic glow crimson, his violet hair a deep purple in the firelight and curling around his pointed ears. He’s a quiet, comforting presence, Andras. He’s even patient with combative Ariel as they care for the dragon, treating her with the same unwavering calm that soothes even the most skittish horses he looks after.

I sip at the tea as Andras strips bark from branches with an impressive knife. I breathe in the scent of the green wood, the smell minty and invigorating.

Yenilin. For wound closure.

He and Ariel have been laboring long hours to undo the damage Damion Bane did to Naga’s wings, trying out a variety of medicinals with only limited success.

Before long, Rafe and Diana bound into the clearing and join us, practically falling over each other with laughter as they take a seat by the fire. They’re their usual happy selves, basking in their annoyingly requited love.

“Why are you here?” Andras asks me, his deep voice kind. He gestures toward the luxurious fabric of my skirt. “You’re dressed a bit formally for a bonfire.”

“I just came from the Yule Dance, and I was looking for Jarod,” I tell him quietly. “I thought he might have come here.” I recount what happened at the dance. “I’m worried that he might go after Randall. I don’t want him to get himself in trouble.”

“This will work itself out,” Diana puts in dismissively as my brother nuzzles her neck. I send her an irritated look, finding her superior hearing to be a tad invasive.

“Aislinn will come to her senses and become one of us,” Diana insists with complete assurance.

I inwardly cringe. Diana’s unwavering belief that everyone’s love lives will follow her own happy trajectory sometimes grates at my nerves. “Not everyone wants to become Lupine,” I irritatedly remind her. “Aislinn wants to remain Gardnerian.”

Diana blinks at me. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

I let out a long sigh of exasperation.

Andras glances up at Diana as he continues to strip bark. “This bond between Jarod and Aislinn will end badly,” he predicts. He reaches down and throws a handful of the bark into the fire. It sends out a strong, minty aroma, and I inhale deeply, feeling a surge of energy in my earth lines.

Andras pauses and gestures toward Diana with the knife. “They cannot defy culture and win.”

“You’ve said that before,” Trystan remarks as he balances a compact, rotating ball of sapphire lightning above my wand. He throws it at the fire, and it momentarily turns the flames blue. “What happened, Andras?” There’s a dismissive edge to my brother’s tone. “Did you fall for some renegade Amaz goddess?”

Andras’s mouth forms into a jaded smirk. “Therewasa woman.”

“Was?” Diana ventures, curiosity pulling her focus away from Rafe.

Andras takes a deep breath and sheathes his knife. He leans forward and clasps his broad hands above his knees, firelight flickering over the sweeping lines of his rune-tattoos.

“Tell us,” Tierney prods, drawn away from her conversation with Yvan. Andras studies her for a long moment, then stares back into the fire and relents.

“When I turned eighteen, she came to me—Sorcha Xanthippe. A young Amaz woman. I was out in the pasture with the horses. It was fall, everything ablaze with color. I felt the thoughts of an unfamiliar horse and looked up just as Sorcha rode in from the wilds, her skin as blue as the autumn sky, her hair flowing out behind her.”

Andras is quiet for a moment, as if lost in the memory.

“It was a shock to see her,” he continues. “None of my mother’s people had ever contacted us in all the years since she left with me. She was completely rejected, shunned.” His eyes momentarily tense with sadness. “Sorcha rode up to me and explained that it was the time of the fertility rites, when the Amaz honor the Great Goddess by seeking to bring new daughters into their fold. She’d heard of me, and that I had recently come of age. Given my own Amaz lineage, and my mother’s reputation as a brilliant scientist and a powerful soldier, she felt that my seed would produce especially fine, strong daughters.”

“So, she wanted to...” Diana interjects, looking shocked.

Andras turns to her. “Have relations with me, yes.”

“With no life bond?”

Andras seems like he doesn’t quite know how to respond. “That’s not the way they do things.”

“So, you saidno, of course.” Diana’s tone is self-righteous, her arms now folded in front of herself.

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