Free

Iris

I raise my hands, holding out my hands as though I'm pressing them against a solid wall, willing every bone in my body for it to work. My eyes are gritted with tiredness, and I close them in concentration, trying to summon the power from inside me.

We spent the whole of yesterday, from the minute we left the Apothecary's, searching for the tempus plantandi. We're on the peak of the highest mountain in Orbis, where the last plant has to be, but so far we haven't had any success. It's impossible to see anything further than two feet in front of our faces, the snow is so thick: we would probably have frozen to death if I hadn't worked out how to conjure a force field. Eventually, as darkness fell across the sky like a cloak, we decided to rest for the night, but it's morning now and I can't sleep any longer. I tried and tried yesterday to use a locator spell to find it, but it's a complex spell even for someone who was born with magic. Still, I move to the shimmering transparent wall of the force field dome and try again. 

And again.

And again.

No matter what I do, no matter how high the magic builds in my hands, nothing happens. I blink back tears of frustration and try again.

Nothing.

"Don't worry," Cressida says groggily from behind me, sitting up and blinking sleepily. "You'll get the hang of it." She yawns, stretching her arms above her head, and her sleeve falls back.

"Oh, no..." I run back to her, grab her arm and examine her mark, my heart sinking. The mark is darkening around the edges, slowly changing from red to black.

"How long left?" asks Cressida quietly.

I swallow. "A few hours. A day, if you're lucky."

Cressida doesn't speak, but her thoughts betray her fears. I jump up, hold my hands out and try the spell again. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

"Hey," says Cressida, seeing my face. "You're doing fine-"

"No, I'm not doing fine!" I cry, kicking a stone hard. It flies through the air and bounces off the force field. "If we don't find it in time it'll be all my fault!"

"No, Iris..." Cressida reaches towards me but I step away and raise my hands again, squeezing my eyes shut. She moves towards me anyway and places her hand on my shoulder.

"Listen to me," she whispers. "This isn't your fault, all right?"

"I wish Sky was here," I say. The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

Cressida gives a hissing sigh. "Yeah, I know."

We stand in silence for a second, then-

"Iris. Iris."

"What?"

"Look."

I open my eyes and gasp. My hands are glowing purple, and on the ground there is a trail of shining footprints leading into the snowstorm.

"Come on!" Cressida grabs her quiver of arrows and bow, and we race forward, following the trail. I don't know how long we follow it for- a few hours maybe?- but eventually an indistinct shape comes into view. We move further towards it, the force field moving with us, so the shape comes inside it too and into focus.

It's a bright yellow flower, exactly like the one in the Apothecary's textbook.

"We found it!" Cressida gasps dizzily. "We found it!"

"The last one," I breathe. We crouch down and I reach out to pick it, then hesitate. I wave my hand over it, and another identical flower blooms next to it, then more and more, until we're sitting among a sea of sunshine yellow.