The Iron Flower by Laurie Forest

Author:Laurie Forest
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-07-23T14:55:11+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

WHITE BIRDS

Several small, nimble deer shyly follow us as Diana, Marina, Ni Vin and I trail Valasca through the city. I look around in fascination, drinking in the sight of small gardens in full bloom in the dead of winter, lantern-lit homes and shuttered markets. Women are making food in tavern-like alcoves on stoves glowing with heat while others sit quietly talking, eating, playing music, laughing. I breathe in the balmy air, everything around me cast in a reddish glow by the rune-torches illuminating the streets.

There’s an insistent, provocative pounding of drums just up ahead, along with the sound of women chanting powerfully in unison to interspersed applause. The buildings around us open up to reveal an expansive outdoor theater surrounded by torches flaming in every color. Women dressed in multicolored scarf garb and hair decorated with glowing orbs, like Skyleia, are whirling on the stage, their flowing scarves painting the air with rippling rainbows of fabric. They hold long red scarves in their hands and move them so fast that the scarlet streaks become circles and spirals and waving lines.

I pause, mesmerized by the sheer artistry of it, swept up in the seductive, pounding rhythm, only half-aware of the women beginning to stare at me, so out of place in my Gardnerian blacks, with my Black Witch face. Something cold tickles my hand and draws my attention from the unfriendly murmuring at the edge of the theater’s crowd. I look down to find one of the deer nuzzling an inquisitive nose against my palm, its twisting black horns festooned with scarlet ribbons and flowers.

I pat the little deer’s coarse fur, charmed by its gentleness, its snuffling nose and long-lashed eyes. Valasca stops as well, smiling at the tiny animal with delight. She doubles back toward me as Diana, Marina and Ni Vin wait patiently up ahead. I remember Valasca’s affection for her horse and realize she’s enamored of animals in general.

Diana’s amber eyes light on the deer with obvious predatory interest, her nostrils flaring. I shoot her a quelling look—You cannot eat the deer!—and Diana huffs, giving both me and the tiny animal a look of supreme annoyance. Valasca leans down to pat the deer and murmurs to it affectionately, fishing in her tunic pocket for a small orange fruit that the deer eagerly gobbles up.

The theater’s drumbeat intensifies as a new group of dancers takes the stage, all of them dressed in scarves of crimson. Other dancers fill in behind them, hoisting huge puppets on beribboned wooden poles—one a twisting silver snake, one a horned deer and one a white bird. Two dancers hold additional poles attached to the bird’s wings so that the bird’s white wings can flap across the stage.

“I see these little deer everywhere,” I say to Valasca.

“Visay’ihne deer,” she tells me, kneeling down to scratch the neck of the small animal and murmur endearments as it crunches the fruit. She flashes a grin. “Beloved by the Goddess. They’re one of her sacred animals, along with the Visay’ithere snake and the Visay’un.

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