Page 95 of The Iron Flower

“Shut up!”Ariel screams at me, her face twisted up into a mask of hatred. “It’s not gone! I know there’s more! I had more! Just in case! I know I had more!” She starts rummaging through my dresser now, tossing my clothes out of it. “You hid it from me, Gardnerian! You stole it!”

Diana takes a step forward. “No one stole from you.”

Ariel’s eyes blaze with violence, and she takes a threatening step toward Diana. But then her legs buckle, and she throws an arm out toward my dresser to keep from falling, her trembling increasing to the point where I fear she’ll collapse.

Wynter and I rush to Ariel as her face turns deathly gray, and the trembling worsens to a full-body quaking. We grasp her arms just as Ariel lurches forward and vomits all over the clothing she’s pulled from my drawers. Wynter and I both recoil instinctively, and Ariel falls to her knees, still retching. We follow her down to the floor, Wynter throwing her arms around Ariel to steady her.

“We need to find a physician,” I tell Wynter, my voice tight with urgency.“Now.”

“Wecan’t,” Wynter cautions emphatically. “The nilantyr is illegal. If they find out she has it...”

“Then we have to go get Yvan!” I insist.

“You can’t get anyone right now,” Diana firmly interjects. “You’ll be lost as soon as you step outside. Even I couldn’t find my way around in that.”

We all turn toward the window and see that the world outside is a solid, impenetrable wall of white.

* * *

The following twenty-four hours are like something from a nightmare.

Ariel lies in bed vomiting until there’s nothing left in her stomach as she writhes in pain and cries out for the drug. Diana somehow manages to keep Ariel from hurting the rest of us and from clawing at her own arms, her own face, while her body burns with fever. Wynter and I clean up the vomit and try to get Ariel to drink some water, which she only retches up, and Marina fetches fresh water and soap for us and helps as best she can with the laundry.

Then, after hours of struggling, Ariel can fight no more. She collapses into unconsciousness, her breathing shallow, her skin waxy and soaked with sweat. We each take a turn tending to Ariel while the others rest, bathing her forehead with cool water to try and keep her fever down.

* * *

On the second day, as soon as the snowstorm lets up slightly, Yvan comes to us, bringing medicine to help dampen Ariel’s craving for the drug.

He helps me prop a semiconscious Ariel up so she can take the medicine. None of us ask Yvan how he knew to come. By now, it’s unspoken but common knowledge that Yvan can talk to Naga, just like Wynter and Ariel can.

“There’s nothing more I can do for her,” Yvan tells me as he kneels by Ariel’s bedside, his hand on her sweat-soaked forehead, her unconscious body still racked with fever and chills.

“Stop pretending,” I say coarsely, sleep deprivation and desperation for Ariel making me harsh. “You were able to help Fern and Bleddyn and Olilly. And countless refugees. Now helpher.” Tears sting at my eyes. He has to save her. She can’t die. She justcan’t.

“Elloren,” he counters, compassion in his tone, “I’m telling you the truth. There isnothingI can do, save give her some comfort with theItteliantonic. She has to overcome her dependence on the nilantyr on her own. There’s no other way.”

A tear slides down my cheek, and I roughly wipe it away. “Will she survive it? Tell me she’ll survive it, Yvan.”

He places his hand, palm down, over Ariel’s heart. “I think she will.”

* * *

Later that night, I sit with Yvan out in the hallway on the stone bench, slumped down with exhaustion, but filled with a tenuous hope. Ariel is hanging on and shows signs of improvement—her heartbeat strengthening, her breathing no longer faint and labored.

I look down at myself. I haven’t bathed in two days and stink of sweat. There are hastily washed vomit stains down the front of my tunic, and I can feel my hair sticking to my head. I lean back against the stone wall behind me.

“I’m filthy,” I observe with a long sigh.

Yvan glances me over briefly.

“I’ve never had to take care of someone who was so horribly ill,” I tell him. “My brothers and my uncle had this awful stomach sickness once, but I didn’t get it, and I had to care for everyone. That was pretty bad, but this...this is much worse. It’s terrible to see her suffer like this.”

“It’ll get easier,” he assures me. “She’s through the worst now.”

I reach up to rub my forehead. “Did you know that they put Ariel in a cage when she was only two years old?” I squeeze my eyes tight to try and combat the ache in my head. “That’s why she lashes out at cages. They fed her the nilantyr to keep her from being violent. What two-year-old wouldn’t become violent, thrown into a cage?”

Yvan doesn’t say anything. He just stares at Wynter’s white bird tapestry opposite us, his face tense.

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