I shoot my eyes up. From the pulled smile and tilt of her head, I can tell my eagerness has pleased her.
“How…?”
She waves her hand. “We’ve known each other for years now, Felicity, so you know how this goes.”
Oh, of course. I hadn’t doubted it. She’ll want some truth in return. Information. Ah…I do have something. I have my meeting with Willoh Vane in the forest. But hehelpedme. It wouldn’t feel right to snitch on him to a queen who hates his existence almost as much as her son does.
“Anything to share?” she prods.
“Yes,” I say. “This isn’t the first unusual request for a rare flower I’ve had recently.”
I decide to tell her about the anonymous request for the Feiyan, that I found the flower in the northern forest (without mentioning Willoh), and that the request for the Odyssa seems to be from the same person. When I finish my expertly worded tale, she hums.
“Interesting,” she says. “And you have no idea who wants the flowers or what they want them for?”
I plaster on a smile. “Your Majesty, I admit I was curious. They seem to have more knowledge than me, but with respect, it’s not professional to pry into the identity of my anonymous customers. I do my best to strive for a reliable, trustworthy reputation.”
The glow of the fire flickers in her eyes.
“Of course, dear, but please come and tell me if you feel concerned at any point,” she says, then reaches to her side table. With bony fingers, she lifts a battered hardback book. “Here. A good friend of mine was able to source this at the Library of Heris and send it over promptly. I hope it will help you deliver this flower just as efficiently as the last.”
She passes the book over and I read the title:From Bud to Bloom:Mountain Regions and Their Wildflowers.This is a debt she’ll hold over my head. She’ll want to know how this story ends, how it could affect the kingdom she so desperately tries to keep stable without her husband at full strength to share command.
For now, at least, all she says is “Good luck.”
Chapter Five
The Spinal Steppe Mountain in the northeast of the Kingdom of Alrick is no place for a florist. I traipse up a slope, thoroughly underdressed in a few measly layers of cotton, clutching a cloak under my chin with wind-burnt fingers. A short while ago, the rocky path gathered dustings of snow, and now, with only the wool around my shoulders for protection, I’m faced with an endless expanse of white. A steep climb toward a clouded summit.
It occasionally snows in the citadel in winter, but it’s a light coating, the barest kiss of ice on the cobbled streets. This, I am unprepared for. This is a deep bitter bite under my skin, a cold that claws into my bones and makes my joints struggle to function. With a wolven howl of wind around my stinging ears, I drag my feet forward, heaving my sodden slip-on shoes through inches of snow, and pray to the gods I’m still on the right path. If the gods even exist in this bleak, infinite nothing.
The book the queen gave me said that Odyssa flowers only grow here on the Spinal Steppe, on the edge of a precipice not too far up the mountainside. Great, I’d thought. No problem. I like walking, Ilike nature, it shouldn’t take that long. From the citadel to the mountain, I can hop on the back of a traveling cart for an hour or so, and from there, I just follow the road up until I reach the cliff. Simple.
Then snow started falling faster than I could anticipate—far faster than any ordinary blizzard—and the path before me disappeared, like the flower is being protected by the mountain itself, sending snow and wind and storms to keep people away. Now icy rocks grow from the ground like the goosebumps on my skin, and somewhere to my left, an ashy abyss waits, a drop so severe that it descends abruptly into darkness.
I should turn around. I should go home and come back more prepared. Maybe with thicker clothes. Or a firelit torch. A hot drink. Something to thaw the shivers in my veins.
But I can’t. I know the flower is near. I can feel it. There’s a certain nip in the air, an energy that shivers from the sky—something louder than the wind, stronger than the chill. It’s the blue hour, the in-between. Magic.
A shuffle nearby freezes me in place. From the stillness, a white hare bounces over the snow with the lightest of leaps. It pauses, resting on its hind legs, and sniffs the air, twitching an ear. As fast as it appeared, it scampers away, blending into the snow like the water bleeding into my socks. I hoist a foot up and try to follow its tracks. If there are small animals here then it should mean I’m not in danger of meeting any bears, or worse. White rabbits are animals blessed by the gods. It should mean that there’s food and water nearby, a cave, a burrow,something.Anything—
A hidden rock trips me up and I’m sent sprawling into the quilt of snow. Powdery ice seeps into my chest like a cold poison. My cloak, now heavy and useless, weighs down my shoulders, as does the flower basket strapped to my back.
A sob cracks my dry throat.
I’m going to die here.
I’m going to freeze and die and be forgotten and be buried in a blizzard until a bear comes and has me for dinner.
Or—
My head shoots up, the wet ends of my hair stuck to my cheeks. Something just called to me. Nudged me. Roused my magic like all flowers do.
I listen intently, lying flat and still.
What is that?
My eyes focus. Right before me, on a canvas of cloudy gray sky, twin flowers sway on the very edge of a precipice that pokes out like an arrowhead. I whimper in relief. The deep blue stems of two Odyssa flowers twist around each other, softening out to a pastel blue that gives way to blooming heads of white petals. Unlike the showy, pointed petals of the Feiyan, both Odyssa are soft and round, balls of inward curls that protect a gleaming cerulean center—exactly like Card’s eyes, sharply aware and persistent. Resilient. As I must be to collect them and get off this godsforsaken mountain.
