Page 202 of The Iron Flower

Ariel!I scream her name out in my mind, stretching it across the vast sky, my heart twisting with unbearable pain.

Ariel is gone.

Ariel, who gave her life for Wynter.

How could I have ever thought she was evil? How could I have not known the truth? Not understood? How could I have ever believed all the lies about her?

Wynter is crying softly next to me, her wings wrapped tightly around herself as we all mourn under the cold, apathetic moon.

* * *

As Naga’s form disappears into the distance, Queen Alkaia turns her attention to me. I’m sitting on the ground next to Wynter, quietly weeping, the crimson lights of the plaza’s torches casting fitful illumination over all of us.

“The male must go,” Queen Alkaia says definitively, gesturing toward Yvan, who raises his grief-stricken gaze to her.

“No.” I stand and move toward him. As if I could protect him againstthem.

Queen Alkaia raises her palm and gives me a fierce, narrow look. “We will spare the male’s life,” she says evenly, not deigning to look at Yvan.“This time.”She glares at me, and there’s serious warning in her gaze. Then she calls out for three of her guards. “Bring the male to the edge of our territory. Stand guard over him while I speak with Elloren Gardner. When I am done, if she so chooses, she may join him there.”

Two soldiers on horseback, one an archer, the other carrying a rune-sword, ride up to Yvan and prod him to stand up. Another older, muscular woman with a large rune-spear in hand strides toward him, as well.

Yvan turns to the queen, his green eyes blazing with emotion. “Thank you,” he says to Queen Alkaia. “For taking in Wynter and the child.”

Queen Alkaia’s face tenses, but she stolidly refuses to look at him. The soldier beside Yvan makes a jabbing motion with her rune-spear, urging him into motion.

I want to wrest that cursed spear from her hands and crack it in two.

But they’re letting him live.

It seems an extraordinarily delicate and dangerous situation.

As Yvan is roughly ushered away, I turn to Queen Alkaia, anger getting the better of me. “He saved the child, you know. Naga, too. And he tried to save Ariel.”

The queen’s guards bristle, hands tightening on weapons.

Queen Alkaia holds up a hand to calm her guard. “I know,” she says, an edge of danger to her tone, her piercing gaze unwavering on me. “That is why he is one of the only males ever to have strayed inside our borders who will live to tell the tale.”

I glare at her, anger spiking over their inflexible mores.

“You find our ways harsh, Elloren Gardner?” the queen asks with a note of challenge.

“There’s not a lot of gray area, no.”

“Perhaps,” she agrees, her eyes probing, “but this is also theonlysafe place on Erthia you could think of to bring the Icarals.”

She has a point. But only half of one. What if the child had been a male with wings, instead of female?

But I realize I’ve said enough. Challenging the queen further would be foolhardy and might even jeopardize Yvan’s life.

Queen Alkaia motions for people to leave, and the soldiers depart, one by one, until only the queen, Valasca, Wynter and some of the queen’s guards remain. Wynter quietly rises and comes over to stand beside me, her face slick with tears.

“Wynter Eirllyn told us much about Ariel Haven,” Queen Alkaia tells me, her expression grave.

I nod mutely, unable to speak about Ariel and keep any semblance of composure.

A voice rising in song catches my attention, and I look past the queen and spot Alcippe at the far end of the plaza, just before a dense grove of trees. The Icaral child is in her muscular arms, the child’s screams having subsided. A new sound rises from the little girl—a low, keening sound of despair.

Alcippe continues singing, her deep voice resonating on the rune-warmed air. It’s a song in a language I don’t recognize, some Urisk dialect perhaps, and it’s soothing, but sad.

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