The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

by M. A. Grant

  “Fighting a short distance away with Keiran.”

  Queen Mab stops pacing. I don’t dare look up, don’t dare look to see where she is, but I know she’s watching me. When she speaks again, it’s with all the barely contained fury of a winter’s storm. “Keiran, are you still in possession of the belt?”

  The belt. The belt. It always comes back to the damn belt. But accepting it was part of the cost of remaining at Lugh’s side and ensuring his safety, so I took it without hesitation. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Judging from your pallor, I may assume you used it during the fight?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “When?”

  The word cuts the air as it passes. No matter what answer I give, it will be the wrong one. Fear makes my muscles knot and the pain crests throughout my body, shooting up into my skull where it scrapes against the back of my eyes with the bear’s long claws. I duck my head lower, grimacing against the overload of sensations, and answer, “When Prince Lugh rushed to defend his brother. We were cut off from each other and I needed to reach him.”

  “Why did you leave his side at all?” she asks.

  “I ran ahead,” Lugh begins, but his mother cuts him off with a quick, “Keiran is capable of answering.”

  I’m not sure if I am. My palms are clammy and cold sweat sticks my shirt to my back. “I failed him today, Your Majesty. Failed you both.”

  “A rare occurrence,” she remarks. “I can’t remember the last time it happened, in fact.”

  “It—” My stomach roils. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

  Lugh notices my worsening state and steps in front of me. I focus on the worn leather of his boot heels, hoping it distracts me from the rapidly approaching threat of being sick all over the floor at Queen Mab’s feet.

  “Don’t worry about Keiran,” he tells his mother. “The belt worked. He protected me. I wouldn’t be standing here otherwise. Roark wouldn’t either.”

  “I do not doubt Keiran’s role in your escape—”

  “But you haven’t thanked him for it either,” Lugh interrupts.

  Queen Mab says nothing for a long while. Lugh doesn’t press further. He doesn’t move away from me either. I ignore the way the details blur before my eyes and try to count the number of stitches on his boots, the number of crystalline flecks mixed into the stone floor. The longer we wait here, the worse I feel.

  I can’t wait any longer for the queen to respond. She may be irritated with me for daring to speak now, but I have to do something. I lift my gaze and dare to meet hers across the room. She doesn’t strike me down for my boldness, so I clear my throat and say, “I will do better next time, Your Majesty.”

  She opens her mouth to speak, only to freeze. Lugh makes a hum of confusion and Queen Mab turns to stare off into the distance at one of the walls, as though she’s seeing something beyond it.

  “Mother, what was that?” Lugh asks.

  She doesn’t bother to look at him. Or at me. Instead, she murmurs, “All who live in my Court must serve their purpose if they wish to stay. In the future, I hope you will react faster against threats to my sons, Keiran. You are both dismissed.”

  We watch as she exits the room through one of the side entrances, leaving us alone. Lugh kneels across from me. The back of his hand against my forehead is blessedly cool and I sigh in relief. “Keir, why didn’t you say you needed to go sooner?” he chides.

  I stand and clutch at Lugh’s shoulders when the world twists and spins. At least I can’t sense the belt anymore. The moment Queen Mab left the room, its power hid, thank the gods. Lugh slips under my arm and starts walking me toward the doors.

  “How bad is it?” he asks.

  “It’s not—” His glare stops me. I sigh and gently butt my head against his. “It’s going to be bad,” I admit, wishing he didn’t know me well enough to call me on my attempted lie.

  “Let’s get you to bed then.” Instead of reaching out and opening the doors, Lugh kicks one of them viciously until the redcap guard outside obeys the summons. Lugh nudges past him and I try to apologize for Lugh’s rudeness, but can’t manage to thread the words together. They’re all there, but jumbled and out of order.

  The Hunt still waits for us, ranged against one of the far walls. Drest’s eyes widen when he spots us and he nudges Armel as he rises from his spot on the floor. Armel swears and rushes to meet us. Cybel doesn’t say anything, but his tight movements convey his displeasure.

  “Keir, can you tell me what’s hurting you? We can try to get some medicine from the healers to help,” Lugh asks as the Hunt approaches. “Do you think you’re going to change again?”

  No scents assaulting me. No tingling under my skin. I shake my head. “No. Head hurts.”

  Lugh nods and his arm around my waist tightens. We’ve done this enough times we both know what’s coming. The symptoms are building too quickly though. The halls of the sídhe keep wavering, drifting away into empty darkness before my eyes. The transformation’s physical consequences are awful, but the coming nightmare will be worse. Of course I’d see it after today’s near failure. It will be fitting punishment to relive that moment, and wake with the knowledge that I almost lost Lugh as well.

  “Don’t stop walking yet,” Lugh growls to me. He looks up, probably toward the Hunt, and calls out, “Drest, he’s about to go—”

  The whole world goes dark for a long moment and I stumble against Lugh. His arm vanishes from my waist and I begin the slow, confusing fall to the ground, where the memory of my greatest failure welcomes me.

  * * *

  The stories lie. Dying is not easy. It never has been, and lying here, in this memory, I know it never will be.

  I stare up at the stars drifting overhead and wonder how much longer it will be before I slip away.

  The smoke has finally begun to clear as the fires die, though here and there, sections of the sky shiver from the heat the ruined houses still give off. Smoldering piles of rubble collapse with muffled thuds that remind me of snow shedding from roofs. By morning, there will be nothing left of our village but ashes and corpses. The fires didn’t burn hot enough to destroy the bodies lying scattered on the ground, cut down and left to rot where they’d taken a final stand. The people of my village lie in the same haphazard fall of wheat or grass mown down in preparation for winter, though their stench warns this is a crop gone to rot too quickly. When I was five, I helped my father gut a deer he shot. I accidentally nicked the guts, a mistake I never made again. That same sickening scent of organs and fouler things hangs in the air, mingling with the cloying coppery tang of blood.

  The seeress was right. The fog brought death.

  The band of travelers who passed through our village at summer’s end had looked a little different. One had skin as gnarled and craggy as the trees surrounding our village. Another was so tall my father’s head barely reached his shoulder, and he didn’t speak any words I understood. Their leader had a series of strange bumps across his forehead, as though he were a young buck going through his first velvet, and I tried my best not to stare. Despite their unusual appearances, they offered fair prices for some of our extra weapons and they shared news from their journey. I liked them. Felt comfortable around them, especially when they showed me a new way to grip a knife when they caught me staring at their weapons too long. They left quickly, but the seeress said the ljósálfar, the beautiful fae of life and spring, would punish us for breaking our neutrality and trading iron to their cast-off cousins. Our jarl told her we would make amends. We assumed it would be enough. Instead, our enemy slipped in with the fog before we could make a peace offering to them. They assassinated our watch and came for the rest of us.

  Father woke first, already grabbing his axe before he understood what the screams meant. “Protect each other,” he ordered us as he ran from our home.

  My mother, pale
faced, gripped her seax tightly and watched the door as Halfur and I dressed. He took Father’s sword. I took my hunting knife. Together, we joined the fray.

  There were too many of them. The fires had already started. Anyone holding a weapon was struck down. My aunt, throat slit, fell defending my baby cousins, who were sent to meet her soon after. It took three of the ljósálfar to kill my father. My mother screamed like a Valkyrie when she witnessed his death and charged them. When they cut her down, Halfur and I dove in. They grabbed Halfur before he could get in a single swing and beat his head against the stone plinth until there was nothing left. They knocked the knife from my hand and sliced across my back, leaving me to die in the dirt. I managed to get to my feet and took up my father’s axe, but I blocked only one strike before my enemy impaled me on his sword.

  The sword edge ground against bone as it pulled free and I fell, lost to the pain. Even when my back and head slammed against the ground, I refused to relinquish the axe.

  And still I live.

  A horse nickers. My body refuses to rise. All I can do is turn my head to watch a procession of beings trickling out from the darkness of the forest. At their head, a strikingly beautiful woman takes in the carnage. Her black dress blends into her steed’s flanks. She sits with rigid attention, her chest wrapped in a skeletal corset of platemail. The delicate circlet on her brow looks forged from starlight.

  “We’re too late,” she announces.

  “Ploughing Seelie,” growls the heavy creature who stands beside her mount. His hat is made from a heavy fabric so saturated with blood that it’s turned crimson. The liquid nearly slops over the short brim when he looks around.

  “Magic,” I whisper. All the seeress’s stories, her tales shared on dark nights around the crackling fire, have come to life. If my brother were alive, he would marvel with me. There’s no point whispering this revelation to his cooling corpse.

  “Mother, there!”

  The soft thump of someone dropping lightly from a horse. Footsteps. I strain to lift my head, but a moment later, a cool hand presses against my shoulder and a pair of hazel eyes fill my vision. “He’s alive,” the boy calls to the woman in black.

  She tugs the reins of her horse, exasperation twisting the line of her mouth. “Lugh, darling, leave the human alone.”

  The boy—Lugh—tilts his head and inspects me, fingers skimming the edge of my wound. I hiss against my will. I don’t want him to see my weakness. I’m nearly double his size, old enough I was supposed to go on my first raid this coming summer. He’s a child in comparison, and I doubt he’s faced any hardships in life. His hair reminds me of burnished copper. His leggings are soft deerskin, his shirt a delicate white fabric that billows over his arms, covered in a leather jerkin even our jarl couldn’t have afforded. He’s delicate, a wisp of a boy. Beautiful. Life will crush him under its foot and never even notice.

  “You’re kind, aren’t you?” he asks. “My brothers pick on me sometimes. Well, Sláine does. Roark usually ignores me unless he’s bored. It’d be nice to have someone kind around. You don’t think you’d get sick of me, do you?”

  My throat’s too dry to croak out any words.

  “I don’t think you will either.” His hand darts to my forehead and he frowns a little. “You have a fever. We have very good healers in the sídhe. They’ll help you. Just don’t let them give you any of their elderflower wine. I was sick for a week afterward, even if it did break my fever. I wish they’d let me burn up instead.” My fingers twitch on the handle of my axe and he glances down at it. “Oh, don’t worry. We can bring it with us. You just have to promise to not touch anyone with it. Do you need me to get anything else for you?”

  Somehow, I shake my head. His smile is broad and infectious and despite the chill settling into my bones as I bleed out, the corners of my mouth turn up in response.

  He pats my shoulder. “Let me handle this.”

  I have no idea what he means.

  He stands and turns back to the party. “Mother, I like him. May I keep him?”

  The woman shakes her head. “Lugh, he’s dying. Put him out of his misery.”

  The boy stands his ground. “He’s not dead yet. He said he wants to come home with us. He promised to be my friend too. Please, Mother?”

  His mother heaves a deep sigh and hands her reins to the creature at her side. She slides from the horse in an effortless movement that makes her dress flutter like a flock of ravens and her plate rattle like bones. She joins her son and appraises me with cool eyes. No matter her appearance, she is not human but the realization doesn’t frighten me. She doesn’t smile when she asks, “Do you wish to come away with us, human child?”

  Lugh vibrates anxiously at her side, silently urging me to say something. If she were alive, the seeress would warn me against making deals with these folk, the cousins of the monsters who destroyed my world. If my father were alive, he would remind me that a man should not make a promise lightly. If my brother were alive, he would urge me to be kind to this strange boy. But they’re all dead. I’m the only one left and I don’t want to die alone. Perhaps there’s a reason the gods want me to live. And perhaps I’ll find it if I go with Lugh.

  “I do.” I force the words out. The effort leaves black spots in the edges of my vision.

  She bends down and her son mimics her. Side by side, the few similarities between them sharpen. The same cheekbones. Eyebrows.

  “Who did this?” she asks quietly.

  “Ljósálfar,” I whisper.

  “Light elves... The Seelie did this?” Lugh asks her, surprised.

  She frowns, but I don’t think it’s meant for me. She rises again, dusting her dress off even though she didn’t dirty it. “He’s your responsibility,” she warns Lugh. “You have to find a way to get him home. I would suggest speed, darling, since he doesn’t look like he has much blood left in him.”

  I nearly collapse when Lugh helps me to my feet. We struggle for balance, this short boy whose head only comes up to my stomach steadying me. His face is screwed up in an expression of fierce concentration. No one steps in to help us. This is a test of some kind.

  He helps me onto his horse’s back and leaves me to slump against its neck. The pain of my wounds barely registers over the continuous ache swallowing my entire body. He wraps my father’s axe in another blanket and straps it in place before vaulting up behind me.

  “I’ll ride fast,” he promises. “Can you hold on long enough?”

  I thread my fingers into the horse’s mane and give a weak nod. He clucks and the horse spins away from the rest of the procession.

  “Straight home, Lugh,” his mother calls as we ride away. Lugh doesn’t glance back when she continues, “Cybel, follow them.”

  The world darkens with every hit of hooves against the ground, every jostle of movement. Lugh whispers behind me, but I don’t understand what he’s saying. The forest weaves and shifts before us, as if the trees themselves jump out of our way. Then the earth opens up and swallows us and there’s nothing but darkness and cold, and I wonder what stories will be told about this night—

  * * *

  “Keiran, wake up.”

  I follow Lugh’s voice out of the memory eagerly. I knew he’d find me. I knew he’d help me. The stench of death lingers when I crack my eyes open at last, though it fades with every slow breath I take. What’s worse than the phantom stench is the gaping wound left by the loss of my family. No matter how many times I relive those final moments, I can never stop what’s to come. It’s grown harder to remember the little details, like the color of my mother’s hair or the length of my father’s beard. They become impressions instead, and I wonder if they’ll fade completely someday.

  Lugh leans over me, his eyes crinkled with worry and his lower lip swollen from how much he’s been chewing on it. I grunt and reach out for him, using him as a touchstone of
what I haven’t yet lost. He smiles and his fingers tangle with mine atop the blankets.

  “Easy,” he warns. “You’ve been out for a while.”

  We’re in my room. A fire’s going and Lugh’s wrapped me up to combat the chills rattling through me. There’s no sign of the Hunt; he must have sent them off once I was settled. He doesn’t release my hand, but he does reach to the nearby table to collect the waiting cup. I struggle to sit up and manage a few sips when he holds it to my lips. The sensation of cool water slipping down my throat cuts through the last of the memories and wets my mouth enough I can manage to croak out, “How long?”

  He makes a face and sets the cup aside. “Almost a day. We weren’t sure when you were going to wake up, but after you started twitching in your sleep, I figured you’d finally started dreaming and I might be able to get you out of it.”

  “Thank you.”

  His thumb skims over my skin. “The village again?”

  “Yes.”

  My eyes burn. I blink a few times, but it does little to relieve the heated pressure. Not tears then. Exhaustion.

  Lugh notices. “Go back to sleep,” he urges. “A lot’s happened already and we’ll be here for a while longer before Mother makes a decision.”

  “Something happened?”

  “Several somethings. I’ll tell you later. Right now, you need to sleep and get better.” He doesn’t pull his hand away to lean back in his chair. Instead, he scoots closer to the bed and settles in more comfortably. “I’ll stay here for now. If you start dreaming again, I’ll wake you up, okay?”

  The blankets are soft, the fire is warm, and Lugh will be here when I wake up again. “Okay, Lugh,” I agree. “Okay.”

  Chapter Four

  Lugh

  The ambush in the Wylds destroys any hope I had of our Hunt escaping the sídhe quickly. Days later, I’m sitting in Mother’s chambers, listening to her and Roark plan an invasion of the Summer Court. They’ve been at it for three hours and I’ve been a silent observer the entire time. All I have to show for my efforts is a cold cup of tea and a headache from keeping Mother’s shades out of my mind.