Page 215 of The Iron Flower

“And later, when we...” I pause awkwardly. “I thought you stopped because you didn’t want to...put me in a difficult situation. But it was the wings all along.”

“It was,” he admits. “But I meant what I said that night. I want to be with you in that way, more than anything, but I don’t want you hurt because of it.”

I hold up my marked hand and consider it despairingly. “But now...that can never happen for us.” My despair rapidly starts a spiral down into panic. If the Gardnerians or the Alfsigr discover his existence, they’ll do everything in their power tofind him. And they’ll be bent on killing him.

“What abilities do you have?” I ask, desperately hoping he’s far more powerful than I can imagine.

He takes a deep breath. “I can throw fire from my hands.A lotof fire. More than you’ve seen. I’m incredibly strong and fast. I can heal people, which you already know. And I’m impervious to fire.”

“Could there be more?”

“Yes. But my father died before he could teach me anything about myself.”

The horrible truth rears its head—his father cut down by my own grandmother. “Does your mother know the extent of your power?” I ask, my thoughts careening.

“I think so, but she won’t tell me anything. She wants me to stay in hiding so that history doesn’t repeat itself. She’s tired of everyone she loves dying. And she doesn’t want me used as a weapon.”

I close my eyes and bring a hand to my face, my head starting to throb mercilessly, distress rising.

Everyone I love will be slaughtered in the coming war, and there’snothingI can do to stop it. My brothers and the Lupines, along with everyone else they’ve escaped with, will probably be hunted down by the Gardnerians and killed. The Kelts and the Urisk and the Smaragdalfar Elves will be enslaved by the Gardnerians and the Alfsigr. All the Fae in hiding, everyone who sheltered them, Tierney and her family—they’ll be discovered and murdered. Wynter, Fyn’ir, the little girl Pyrgo—they’ll all be cut down.

And Yvan will suffer the same fate—maybe worse, because he doesn’t know the full extent of his powers or how to use them.

And because I’m powerless, there will be absolutely nothing I can do to stop any of it. Because all I possess is a cursedly inaccessible echo of my grandmother’s abilities.

“I wish I had power,” I bitterly rage. “I’m the granddaughter of the Black Witch, and I’mworthlesswhen it comes to helping you or anyone else I love.”

“You’re not worthless,” Yvan vehemently insists, his wings folding rigidly in.

“You’re wrong.” I pick up a stick lying at my feet and rip the small diverging branches off it as I step into the clearing. “I’ll show youexactlywhat happened when they wandtested me.”

“You don’t even have a real wand in your hand, Elloren,” he points out gently.

I don’t care. I want him to see just how powerless I am—how I can’t even perform the simplest spell of all.

I lift the makeshift wand, point it at some trees in the distance and focus on the image of a candle lighting, searching my mind for the words to the lighting spell.

“Illumin...”I begin, the words of the spell coming together seamlessly from memory.

Power rumbles against the balls of my feet, just like on the day of my wandtesting so many months ago. Power pulled straight from Erthia’s core.

Power pulled from the trees.

It works its way slowly up my legs, coiling like an enormous snake ready to strike as I sound out the words to the spell.

The swirling, pulsating power catches on to my affinity lines like fire on dry brush. But this time, the power doesn’t meet with resistance, and the pain doesn’t come in its wake.

Instead, the power rushes out into every part of me, through every affinity line, flying straight toward the branch. As the power reaches my arm, it coalesces like lightning and explodes out from my wand hand and through the branch in a violent blast toward the trees.

A loud explosion assaults my ears as the trees before me are engulfed in flames that rise as high as the Valgard Cathedral. I fall back, slamming into the ground, the branch flying from my hand as birds and animals flee from all sides, the roar of the fire deafening, the trees screaming in my head.

I scuttle away from the flames as fear washes over me, my heart pounding against my chest. Yvan’s hand grabs my shoulder, and I jerk my head toward him.

He’s staring at the inferno I’ve created, his mouth agape as he crouches protectively over me, his large, black wings arcing around us.

“Holy Ancient One,” I cry, terrified.

His eyes are fixated on the swirling flames, riveted.

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