Page 14 of The Iron Flower

The icy air of full winter hits me like a punch to the teeth.

I emerge from the North Tower into the twilight of the sloping field, a pale, rusty sunset giving way to a barren gray sky.

My breath clouds the frigid air, and I pull my dark cloak tight, the hood protecting the hair that Tierney carefully styled for me. Even Ariel paused to gape when I emerged from our North Tower washroom garbed in the splendid Ironflower gown. Marina simply blinked at me, as if mesmerized by the phosphorescent glow of the dress. Only Wynter seemed uneasy, her silver eyes instantly lighting on the Snow Oak pendant around my neck, her gaze full of ominous caution.

I pick my way down the jagged, rocky path, ice crunching beneath my feet. My cloak covers most of my dress, but the skirt’s iridescent hem peeks out slightly, washing the surrounding snow in a glowing, sapphire halo. The effect is lovely, but my shoulders are tense beneath the formfitting silk, and I feel jittery with apprehension, reluctant to reenter the Gardnerian fold.

Halted by the weighty silence of the immense field before me, I pause and look toward the twinking lights of the University in the distance. My gaze is drawn past the city and up the snowcapped Southern Spine, the immense mountain range looming over everything alongside its northern twin. Both Spines scythe clear through the clouds, their jagged peaks as sharp as my deepening foreboding.

So impossibly high...

A sense of dark premonition washes over me. They have the look of a trap, these mountains. Ready to close in. Just like the Gardnerians.

Black Witch.

The words whisper on the wind, light as snow.

I glance around uneasily. A creeping awareness of the wilds around me sets the hairs on my neck prickling. The tangled forest is close, not more than several feet away.

I can feel it watching me.

I peer into its gnarled darkness and find nothing but winter’s emptiness and shadows. Unsettled, I glance back toward the University.

Black Witch.

I stiffen as my heart picks up speed.

“Who’s there?” My voice is shrill as my eyes frantically search the shadows of the wilds’ border.

There’s no reply. Only the dry scratch of some tenacious brown leaves still hanging on to the branches for dear life.

A leaf breaks free on a gust of icy wind and shoots toward me. I give a small cry as it smacks into my face and is quickly followed by several more that graze my cheek, my chin, just below my eye. I bat the leaves away like biting insects as the wind dies down.

Silence.

I look toward the snow-covered ground. A scattering of brown leaves lies piled around my feet, but the rest of the snowy ground is untouched. Alarmed, I stare deep into the forest as palpable tendrils of malice creep toward me.

Black Witch.

My breath tightens, and I step back from the forest.

“I’m not the Black Witch,” I whisper nervously, aware of how senseless it is to be having a conversation with the trees. “Leave me alone.”

Abruptly, the shadows of the forest pulse. Everything turns black as night. In the span of one terrifying heartbeat, the trees surround me, closing in like a ring of assassins.

I gasp and stumble back, falling onto the icy snow as a red-hot vision of fire bursts into view. Leagues of forest burning. Trees screaming. Branches, thick and dark, flow in and knit together all around me to form an impenetrable cage, and I become acutely aware of the trees’ overwhelming desire to strangle me. I shut my eyes and cry out.

A hand closes tight around my arm, and the roar of the fire, the screaming trees—it all falls silent.

“Elloren? What’s the matter?”

I open my eyes to see my friend Jarod’s amber gaze resting on me with concern. I whip my head toward the wilds.

The forest is back where it belongs, an indifferent wind whistling through it, the leaves around me disappeared.

Tense and light-headed, I let Jarod pull me to my feet and notice that the sky has darkened to the east.

“The forest,” I tell him breathlessly, my heart skittering like a rabbit’s. “For a moment...it was like...it was closing in on me.” My eyes dart cautiously back to the forest that now seems like a sly, sinister child.

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