Page 180 of The Iron Flower

There are people in the room, or at least the shadowy shapes of them. They’re talking in a dreamlike, slowed way and loose words float toward me, like so many soap bubbles.

Lupines. Escape. Full Moon.

I struggle to knit the words into a coherent thought with my sluggish brain. The world sloshes when I move my head from side to side, but the people start a slow pull into focus.

Several Gardnerian soldiers.

An older, white-bearded Gardnerian man.

Aunt Vyvian.

I blink repeatedly as the fuzzy outlines became sharper, the voices clearer, but I’m disturbingly unable to fully connect with my own body. I struggle to open my mouth, but it won’t budge.

“They left her behind,” my aunt is saying to the white-bearded Gardnerian, a stern-faced man with the Physicians’ Guild crest on his tunic. “She may not have any knowledge of this. Elloren,wake up!”

I try to speak again, my lips like heavy stone.

My aunt leans over to peer at me closely. “Where did your brothers go, Elloren?”

“She can’t answer,” the white-bearded physician says. “The poison hasn’t worn off yet. We’ll have to wait.”

“There is notime!” Aunt Vyvian snipes. The physician withers under her fierce censure.

Slowly, the previous night’s events seep back into my mind, each new thought like a fresh wound opening.

“Where did they go, Elloren?” my aunt demands.“Where?”

Again and again she interrogates me, not bothering to hide the threatening edge to her tone. My heart begins to beat more strongly, and a sharp fear washes over me.Danger. There is danger here.

All at once, reality slams into me with the force of a gale wind.

My head immediately starts to pound as if hit by a hammer over and over and over. I cry out in agony, my hands flying to my head. I force myself up, desperate for a change in orientation to lessen the pain, vertigo overtaking me as the room tilts. I drop my head between my knees and moan in distress.

“Where did you brothers go?” Aunt Vyvian presses.

Slam, slam, slamgoes the pounding in my head. I try to hear around the pain, try to respond, but the pain is everywhere.

“Myhead!” I cry, clutching at my sweat-soaked hair, digging my nails into my scalp.

It all rushes back—everything that’s happened. And I remember that I have to focus. I have to lie to her.

“Whathappenedto me?” I whimper.

“You’ve been poisoned,” the physician states in a carefully calm tone.

“Poisoned?”I ask, faking great disbelief.

“Yes,” he gravely affirms.

“By who? Aughh!Oh, Ancient One!” I flop down on my side, clutching at my head. They try to talk to me, to interrogate me, but it all fades into background noise again, fighting to be heard around the pain.

I catch snippets of what they’re trying to tell me as I grasp at my scalp: Fernyllia Hawthorne responsible, poison in the food, everyone sickened—Gardnerian and Verpacian soldiers, scholars, workers. 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.

Fifteen Gardnerian soldiers are dead. The University groundskeeper is dead, viciously decapitated. The ears pulled clear off a group of Third Division Gardnerian military apprentices. All of this havoc wreaked by the savage Lupine female.

Fernyllia, executed this morning. The Eastern Pass shut down. Rafe and Trystan Banished. Never would have happened if they’d been fasted and raised by Aunt Vyvian instead of Uncle Edwin.

“Where are they? Where are they? Where are they, Elloren?”

---