A Kingdom of Iron & Wine : New Adult Fantasy Romance (The Ironworld Series Book 1)

by Candace Osmond

  The impossibility of the notion clashed with my rational mind. The words she spoke… felt true. As if she were peeling away layers of secrets with every syllable. My eyes rimmed with wetness. “But what would someone want with me? I don’t even know how to wield it. The… Sight. And everything I’ve ever seen it’s from the past. I can’t predict the future.”

  Julie began to pace. “Maybe you just don’t know how. Maybe whoever hired Evaine knows how to use you–”

  “Use me?”

  My best friend’s face became stricken with regret. “Oh, Av’, I didn’t mean….”

  “Yeah, you did,” I said, lowering my gaze to the floor as I let it sink in. “You meant it because it’s true. Which means…”

  Lattie placed a delicate, long-fingered hand on my shoulder as she looked at me with pity. “There’s a powerful Fae after you,” she finished.

  “When we first met, you said you weren’t following me. You were following the shadows. You were following Evaine.” Desperation flowed in my veins, and I begged the universe for a different reason. That this was all some sort of coincidence.

  She suddenly seemed nervous. “Yes, I was hunting one night and saw Evaine speaking to someone in the shadows near the edge of the Matton Forest. The other person was heavily cloaked, and I couldn’t see them. But they were discussing the Therians and Ironworld. I’d never been, and the Therians had existed long before my time. I’d never seen one before. I was curious, so… I followed her.”

  “And what was she doing?” I pressed. “What did you find?”

  Lattie’s bug-like eyes darted back and forth between us, and her slender throat bobbed with a nervous swallow. “You. I found you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “No, no!” Lattie squeaked in her terrifying but musical voice as she sat on Julie’s shoulder and read the book in her lap. She threw a pointed finger at the page. “That’s all wrong.”

  Julie slammed the book shut and slapped it on top of a teetering pile we’d already read through the last few days. “That’s what you’ve said about all of them!”

  Lattie fluttered in the air and hovered over the coffee table that sat between us. “It’s all just mortal myth and speculation. Have you no actual libraries?”

  “Not like in Faerie,” Julie replied and plucked another from the pile of unread texts on the floor. She’d pulled everything she could find about Oracles from the public library and used bookstores and hauled it all home for us to study.

  I gnawed at my thumbnail; the dark green polish long chipped away. “Do you think Moya could help us?”

  “Moya?” Lattie perked up. “The sea witch?”

  Julie shot her a look. “She’s not like that anymore, and you know it.”

  “What am I missing here?” I asked.

  Julie sighed and adjusted herself into an upright position. “Moya’s… old.”

  “Ancient,” Lattie added with a guffaw.

  Julie narrowed her eyes at the creature. “No one actually knows how old she really is. She existed in a time that predates–” She shrugged. “All of us. Some say she’s as old as the sea itself.”

  “So, she’s not really Fae?”

  “Oh, she is,” Julie said with certainty. “The story is that she crawled out of the ocean centuries ago, running from her father the King of the Seas, from all the horrible things he made her do and became part of the Summer Territory after pledging herself to the Summer Lord.”

  “Pledging? So, they’re together?”

  “No, no,” Lattie chimed in. “It’s not like that. The Summer Lord loves only one. The Lady of Summer. But…” Her black eyes flitted to Julie. The fact that they both knew these details told me it was a tale widely known amongst their kind.

  Julie leaned forward with a sigh; her hands wrung together on her lap. “The Lady of Summer disappeared the night of their union. The Lord has been searching for her ever since to make his territory whole. But it’s been years, and no one’s seen so much as a trace of her.”

  A chill crawled over my skin. What a wicked, cruel world they all came from. But it wasn’t much different from my mortal one. There’s always pain and loss. But this particular loss, the Lady of summer’s disappearance, seemed to bring about a tangible sadness.

  “I knew,” I said, veering away from the topic. “Some part of me could tell that Moya was ancient. I could see it in her eyes.”

  Julie brightened. “I bet she could help, too. Better than the fairy tales we’re wasting our time with here.” She scowled at the piles of old texts strewn about. “I’ll call her.” She snapped her fingers, and a puff of black smoke drifted upward. She noted my slack-jawed stare. “It’s a spell, of sorts. A call out. If Moya’s on the Ironworld side of the realm, then she’ll hear it and know to come.”

  “Only on this side?” I chewed at my nearly non-existent thumbnail. It looked so jarring against my otherwise normal nails. But gnawing at it had become a new habit of late. A coping mechanism while I processed the lightning-speed of events that changed my life before my eyes.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” she replied sadly. “My magic doesn’t reach all the way to Faerie.”

  Something like remorse hung in her tone, and my heart ached for my best friend. For her loss. She was born into a world that rejected her before she even got a chance to live. I couldn’t imagine feeling like that. Like… knowing where you come from but having no place there.

  Before I could say anything, a long, slender leg stepped into the room… out of thin air. Moya. Her entire body, clad in a lovely midnight teal dress–the same color as her eyes–slicked to her body like liquid silk. Black mesh covered her arms beneath the coppery pink waves that cascaded down over them.

  My jaw hung open. “Okay, how do you do that?”

  “I open the fabric of space and time and walk through it,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  “Of course.” I nodded, my hand over my mouth, trying my best to pretend what she said didn’t blow my freaky mortal mind.

  She turned to Julie, and her forehead crinkled. “You called? Everything okay? Did you hear anything about Umbra?”

  “It’s Evaine,” Julie told her. “It appears she’s been hired to capture Avery.”

  “What would someone of that caliber want with a small mortal girl?”

  I cringed at the description. Was that how they saw me? I supposed I might have seemed fragile, useless… new. Compared to their powerful, immortal selves. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be small.

  Lattie hovered in the middle of our little circle. “Avery is an Oracle.”

  Moya pinched her brows at the tiny fairy. I piped up. “Oh, this is Lattie.”

  The sea maiden didn’t even comment on Lattie’s presence and gawked at me. “A mortal Seer? Are you certain?”

  “No, not at all,” I said with a jitter. “We have no proof.”

  “Av’,” Julie tipped her head. “Come on… ”

  “Well, we don’t.” I crossed my arms.

  Moya took a seat at our modest kitchen table and draped one long leg over the other, revealing a small slit in her dress. “I know little about Oracles or Seers.” Her polished gold nails clicked on the table. “But I know someone who can help.”

  “Oliver?” Julie quipped and paced between us.

  “He’s been alive since before the Great War.”

  “Great War?” I asked. The new information swirled in my head.

  “Yes, long before I left the sea, Faerie was nearly destroyed by a massive, internal war. Creatures of all kinds wanted to have an equal stake in the lands, but the High Fae wouldn’t have it. They killed anyone that they didn’t drive away. I’ve only heard stories of the ancient time, but Oliver was there. If anyone had information about an Oracle, it would be him.”

  I exchanged an equally confused glance with Lattie and asked them, “Who’s Oliver?”

  Julie folded her arms with a smile. “Are you ready to see more of my secret world?”

&
nbsp; ***

  More of her secret world translated to a rickety old cottage deep in the woods. But not my woods, not a forest from Ironworld. I’d watched as Moya pinched the invisible fabric of time and opened a seam of sorts for us to step through. Immediately, the air was different. Lighter. Filled with the static of magic. The moon shone above, but its light reached father, deeper.

  “What is this place?” I asked. My neck craned so I could see as much as I could while we headed for the cottage.

  “Another one of those pockets I told you about,” Moya replied. “Oliver’s home exists here as a safe haven for displaced Fae in Ironworld to seek help.”

  “Help?”

  At my other side, Julie added, “Oliver’s a Healer. Treats both Fae and mortals alike.”

  The cottage itself was clumsily made of mismatched stones, stacked and held together with mud and other strange things. An overly patched roof made of sticks and sheets of thick bark hung down over the corners. Covering one of the glassless windows on one side. A fire raged inside; I could see its burning glow through the few cut-outs in the walls.

  We stepped up onto the lopsided front porch, and it moaned under our weight. Strings and spits of various things dried all around. Herbs and flowers and strips of what looked like some sort of meat.

  Moya didn’t even knock, and we stepped inside the warmth of Oliver’s cottage. Scents of freshly baked bread, brewing concoctions, and what smelled like stew immediately hit my nose. The items drying and curing outside were nothing compared to what I found inside the home. More of it hung from the thick wooden beams in the ceiling, over handrails, along the hearth that sat snuggled in a wall above a firepit. Over the flames, a giant black cauldron steamed and bubbled with something. Probably that stew I smelled.

  A figure emerged from the next room, and I tried my best not to gasp as I gawked at them. At their pure otherworldliness.

  “Nice of you to knock,” he grumped in a deep bellow. A tall man–no… a troll–stomped over to the cauldron and dumped something inside. I didn’t know how he avoided everything that hung from the ceiling, but he did. His gargantuan height weaved in and out of obstacles without even paying attention. As if he knew exactly where every single herb or piece of jerky hung. He dusted off his thick hands and grumbled under his breath as he peered at Moya and Julie, then noted my presence. “Who’s this?”

  “A friend of ours from Ironworld,” Moya replied. “She needs your help.”

  “Does she have payment?” he grumped and pulled out a sizable handmade chair from the table. It scraped across the floor, and I swear the whole cottage moaned as he set his weight on it.

  “Oliver,” Julie scolded mockingly and circled the table. With both palms placed on it, she leaned forward and eyed him with a smirk. “She’s my best friend.” The corner of her mouth turned up even more. “And an Oracle.”

  “An Oracle?” a voice–no… two voices, layered on top of one another like an echo–cooed in my ear. My head whipped around, but no one was there. I felt the delicate touch of a hand caress my shoulder. “A mortal Seer? We’ve not seen one for a long time.”

  I stepped toward Julie, my breath frozen in my chest. I searched in the cottage’s dimness for the sources of the voices. But only swift shadows moved along the edge of the candlelight that filled the room.

  Julie laughed. “It’s okay, Av’. Aya, Brie?”

  Two figures stepped out of the darkness along the wall. Similar to Moya in shape and features, but their appearance was starkly different. Hair of navy ink pinned back neatly in thick braids, skin of a blue-gray pallor. I mean, what skin I could see next to the tight strips of multi-colored leather that covered their lithe bodies. Weapons of all sorts–arrows and hooks and tiny daggers–were discreetly strapped to their torsos, arms, thighs. But those eyes, two pairs of wide, curious eyes, gawked at me, and I shuddered under their milky stare. Like the eyes of the dead.

  Julie pressed up against my side. “This is Aya and Brie, Moya’s sisters.”

  “The Shades,” Lattie whispered in awe.

  “Shades?” The word rasped from me.

  “We’re untethered to this world.” The identical sisters smiled widely as each one flanked me, sizing me up and down, sniffing my hair, noting everything from my clothes to the old Converses on my feet to the chunky jewelry I wore. As if they’d never seen a human before.

  “Uh, hello,” I said to them and recoiled as one got a little too close to my face. I realized they had no scent, no breath that I could feel. They produced no sound as their leather boots walked over loose floorboards. “I’m Avery Quinn.”

  “I apologize for my sisters’ strange behavior,” Moya said and tugged at their sleeves, motioning for them to back off. “They’re new to this world. To your world,” she added.

  “We’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a mortal face to face,” one sister spoke, and I wondered how anyone could tell which was which. “Only from afar.”

  “And never able to ask them questions,” the other said.

  “Like what is a toaster?”

  “What is the purpose of a balloon?”

  “Enough,” Oliver grumbled from over the vat of stew he now stirred. His massive size turned and stood before me. Two beady eyes tucked away in folds of his peachy-gray skin peered at me from over a stubby, thick nose. “So, you’re an Oracle?”

  “Apparent Oracle,” I corrected and ignored Julie’s eye roll. “I’m hoping you can tell me more about it.”

  Everyone took seats around the room. Oliver by the fire on a rickety wooden stool that disappeared beneath his vast body. “That depends,” he replied. “What type of Oracle are you?”

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “There are different types?”

  Oliver chuckled quietly. “What are the signs?”

  “Just… flashes.” I shook my head at the thought. “Weird dreams. Most are blurry, and I fill in the blanks with my imagination.”

  “But what sort of things do you see, specifically?”

  “A flash of a wing–a leathery bat wing. Blue grass. Pink sandy beaches. The sharp tips of a castle over trees. Strange tiny creatures.” I looked to Lattie for help.

  Lattie sighed indifferently, “Ly Ergs, Batta’s.” She waved her hand and fluttered around a flank of meat curing over a fire. “Yet she’s never actually seen any of it with her own eyes.”

  “But everything I see,” my throat was dry, “It’s all so murky. Like I’m only getting the bits that manage to seep through.”

  “Interesting.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully between his finger and thumb. “There may be a mental block. Most likely because you’re mortal. I have a way you can open your eye, though.”

  He stood and fetched a small wooden box from a high-up ledge and opened it on the table to reveal a collection of glass tubes and leather satchels filled with various things.

  “Actually… ” I stole a glance at Moya and Julie. “Is there a way to do the opposite? To close the eye?” They all stared blankly at me. “I don’t want to be used as a tool. Or worse, a weapon.”

  The Shades gasped in unison from the corner. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s a gift you were born with.”

  I guffawed. “A gift?”

  Julie stood and came to my side as she addressed her friends. “How can we learn more about it? Like, how can we help Avery? Right now, she has no clue how to manage her ability.”

  Oliver considered for a moment. “The only mortal Seer I’ve ever known lived hundreds of years ago. And the Seelie king kept him tucked tightly under his wing the whole time. But we all knew he saw things no one else could, so much so that….”

  He almost seemed to regret his words.

  “What?” I asked anxiously. “What happened to him?”

  The troll mulled it over with a grumble under his breath. “It drove him mad. The visions.” At my wide-eyed expression, he added, “But the king pushed the Seer. Too much, too far. Mortal minds are delicate things, and yo
u can’t force magic through them like that. Your ability seems to come naturally, when it wants, and when you allow it. If you nourish your gift, it will nourish you.”

  I folded my arms tightly to mask the quick rise and fall of my chest. “So, I have no choice but to embrace it?”

  “Is there a way we can find out who might be seeking Avery and why?” Julie pried.

  He picked at the flank of juicy meat hanging by the fire and shooed Lattie away from it. “If it’s Evaine who’s been hired to fetch her, then only a higher Fae would be behind it, could afford the price to hire her. So, it’s a Lord or the mad queen.”

  An icy feeling touched the bottom of my gut. “You guys said the last Oracle predicted the war, right?” A resounding nod. “And they also saved the Seelie king?”

  “Yes,” Moya replied softly, already catching on to where I was going. Her deep-sea stare fixed on me. “Among other things.”

  “Then it’s possible… the mad queen….” I could barely say the words.

  An audible gasp bounced around the room. But, as shocked as they may have sounded, only looks of pity stared back at me. The poor, naïve, mortal girl with an evil fairy queen after her. They felt the truth I edged at.

  A moment of silence filled the room. But then Moya stood from where she sat.

  “Lattie, you spy around the Summer lands and listen for any whispers of a war brewing. Oliver, get in touch with your contact that surrounds the Winter borders and see if they know anything.” She turned to her sisters. “Aya, Brie. You both know what to do.” I shuddered at the thought of what exactly it was they did. “I’ll head to the Seelie Court now to see what I can find.”

  Then she turned to Julie and me with an overly enthusiastic smile that failed to comfort me the way I knew she thought it would. “And Avery. I suggest you stay put in Ironworld. Don’t make any sudden changes to your routine. If Queen Mabry is after you and Evaine spies for her, then we don’t want to tip her off that you’re privy to her plans. Stay home as much as you can. I’ll prepare some wards to place around your apartment.” She gripped my upper arms and peered into my eyes to urge her words. “Don’t go anywhere alone. Stay away from the shadows. Understand?”