Page 71 of The Iron Flower

Air.

Water.

Four affinities now quickening inside me, spiraling tightly around the wand.

PART TWO

THE REAPING TIMES

Gwynnifer Croft’s eyes are full of excitement as she looks out over the sea of Gardnerian Mages filling Valgard Cathedral’s central plaza. Everyone’s skin shimmers a spellbinding emerald in the darkness of the evening—a mark bestowed upon the Mages by the Ancient One’s own hand as undeniable proof of the Gardnerians’ blessed status.

Gwynn glances down at the glowing, verdant beauty of her own slender hand, an elated rapture filling her. Like most of the other young women here, looping black fastlines swirl over Gwynn’s luminous skin, creating a lovely stained-glass effect on her hands and wrists. The women all wear dark fitted tunics over long skirts, like Gwynn’s own, and their sacred uniformity fills Gwynn with a heady, comforting sense of belonging to something good and powerful and pure.

The wintry night should be freezing, but Gwynn doesn’t even have her cloak on. She doesn’t need it. There are huge blessing stars suspended in the air around the plaza’s periphery, bigger than waterwheels and crafted from golden flame. Gwynn marvels at their incandescent beauty and how they suffuse the entire plaza with their lambent glow and enveloping warmth.

Soldiers stream into the plaza and fill the cathedral’s broad staircase, row by row. The entire Third Division is here, their tunics’ shoulders marked with the division’s Ironflower insignia. Giddy anticipation swells in Gwynn as she strains to get a glimpse of her young fastmate, Geoffrey.

Wonderful, handsome Geoffrey.

She peers over the black-clad shoulder of the young woman in front of her, then breaks into an enamored smile as she catches sight of her tall, slender fastmate. Geoffrey’s close to the top of the sweeping staircase, all of the soldiers around him standing at rigid attention and facing the gigantic crowd.

Gwynn can’t help but smile as Geoffrey meets her gaze. His eyes spark and the edges of his mouth lift as he beams back at her in adoration. Geoffrey quickly schools his face back into military solemnity, but he glances back at Gwynn repeatedly, and her heart flutters each time his eyes meet hers.

There’s a white bird embroidered on the chest of Geoffrey’s black military tunic instead of the traditional silver Erthia orb, marking him as a member of the Styvian sect, the most devout adherents to the teachings laid out inThe Book of the Ancients.

The most blessed of all the Mages.

Geoffrey’s tunic is a reflection of the new Gardnerian flag hanging from the cathedral’s front—a design proposed by High Mage Marcus Vogel that replaces the heathen Erthia sphere with the Ancient One’s white bird on black.

A sweeping cheer rises up from the crowd as Marcus Vogel himself steps out onto a large platform at the staircase’s broad pinnacle. Gwynn is swept up in the excitement of her people, a bolt of tingling fervor flashing through her as the crowd goes wild.

Vogel is all lithe grace and power, the sharp, elegant planes of his face shining with an emerald glow that eclipses that of every other Gardnerian, his priestly tunic emblazoned with the Ancient One’s white bird.

Vogel draws up behind the Ironwood podium at the center of the platform and looks out over the crowd as if they belong to him.

Gwynn trembles as she basks in his presence.The most righteous and blessed amongst us.

A line of Level Five Mages stands in an arc behind Vogel, along with several priests and Mage Council members. Four young Mage Council envoys bracket him, two on each side. Their faces fill with pride as Vogel raises both arms in a gesture for silence.

The crowd abruptly quiets, excitement thrumming on the air.

The Council’s elderly Light Mage steps onto the dais. He flicks his wand and three rotating, glowing deep green runes appear in the air, hovering just below Vogel’s head like small planets.

“Mages,” Vogel says in a booming, sonorous voice, amplified by the runes. “Too longhave the Evil Ones been allowed to run rampant over Erthia.” His eyes sweep across the rapt crowd, and Gwynn’s heart strains toward him, like the tide yearning for the moon. “Too longhave the heathens and Fae-blooded been allowed to procreate like wild beasts on Mage land and in the cursed wilds.”

Vogel grows momentarily silent, and Gwynn feels her whole-self falling into that silence.

Everyone waits, the crowd of thousands hanging suspended as if by a slender thread.

Vogel’s penetrating gaze fills with zealous fire. “They thought they could destroy us. The Kelts. The Urisk. The Fae. They enslaved us.Abused us. Mocked us.They tried to crush usunder their heels.” His eyes flick over the crowd like black lightning. “But we have quietly filled ourselves with the will of the Ancient One. And now the Magedom is set to roll over Erthia like amighty river of power.”

The crowd breaks like a storm, cheering and yelling and crying out as one torrential force.

The beautiful Magedom. Holy and strong and true.

Caught up in the fervor, Gwynn sends up an impassioned cheer, tears sheening her eyes, her smile so wide she feels like joy will burst right out of her to flow over all the other Mages.

The crowd eventually quiets, and Vogel opensThe Book of the Ancientsthat’s set on the podium before him.

---