Iron (The Warding Book 1)

by Robin L. Cole

  I snapped to attention. “No, no—not at all. Very interesting stuff here.” I gave her my best endearing smile, complete with batted lashes, but I don’t think she bought it. When she continued to level me with that knowing mother stare, I caved. “Okay, I’m having a hard time getting it.”

  She looked down at the book in her lap, brow furrowed. “I had not considered that. You’ve been a wonderful student. But if you’re finding the material too difficult…”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” I gestured back and forth between the scribbles of my notes and her. “I’m having a hard time getting this whole scenario. You, teaching me about hunting. It just feels weird.”

  That look of mild bemusement continued. “How so?”

  It was hard to find the words, without insulting her. I hedged and picked my words cautiously. “You just don’t seem very fond of hunting, is all.”

  “Well, as a Healer, I am not fond of any violence. I wage my own war against death and injury all too often. To see brave souls putting their lives in such peril by throwing themselves between the monsters and innocents? That upsets me on a level I cannot begin to explain. I wish it were a different world we lived in, one where such valor was not needed.” She got a far-off look in her eyes. Her hands were clenched in a knot, resting on the worn pages of her ancient tome. She sighed. “But I know just how necessary the Hunters are to the safety of both our races.”

  I didn’t need Mairi’s creepy empathy to know she was thinking of a different time and place all together. It raised goosebumps along my arms. “You lost someone.”

  She nodded and looked away. “My son, Arland.”

  I was struck dumb. It had never occurred to me, in all that time, to wonder who Seana had been before the exile. It had shocked me shitless to learn that Gannon had a sister, and even more so to learn that his sibling was Kaine’s wife—but I had never stopped to wonder about her. How had I never taken the time to ask her a single thing about her life before? I mean—how much did I really even know about her? I felt terrible. I fidgeted, torn between curiosity and anguish. “I’m so sorry, I never…”

  “It was many years ago. A lifetime ago, now.” The unbelievable sadness in her expression seemed to age her ten years. It made my heart ache. She said, “I was foolish and headstrong, in my younger years. Arland was the greatest gift to come from that dark time. He brought such joy to my life, such laughter. Moreover, he gave me a reason to find my path in my life.”

  The words pulled themselves out of my throat, slow and coarse. “What happened?”

  “I had only just become a Healer, so we were still very poor. We lived outside of the city, on our own. It was a hard life, but we got by. He was only six when they attacked.” She stopped, blinking hard, and gazed up at the ceiling. I wanted to tell her to stop, to shy away from bearing her pain, but I felt I owed it to her to hear her out. She continued, “Ogres. They had ravaged the countryside, though I had no way of knowing that then. My home stood between them and the nearby city. They came on us in the dead of night. I told Arland to run, but they were so fast. I heard him scream, before the pain of my own injuries overwhelmed me.”

  “Oh, Seana…” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “The High Queen’s men found me. They had been tracking the ogres for some time. I was brought to the palace and cared for by the best Healers in the kingdom. Even so, I was lucky to live; they feared I would not for many days.” She stared down at her hands, which still wrung together in her lap. “I did not feel ‘lucky’ for a long time afterward. I had no hope, no reason to go on.”

  I had no frame of reference for such terrible pain. I wanted to reach out to her; to empathize, somehow. I just didn’t know how. “What did you do?”

  “It was the High Queen who saved me then. She came to me, as I lay lost in grief, my soul withering even as my body healed. She apologized for her failing me as a liege; for not having stopped the monsters before they happened across my home. She knew well that there was no recompense she could make for the loss I had suffered. Her Healers had healed my flesh, and her coffers could rebuild my home bigger and grander than before, but nothing could replace the precious gift I had lost.

  “She may have come to me, at first, as a Queen, but Isobail spoke to me then as an equal; as a mother. She herself had just given birth to Tiernan only weeks earlier. Instead of promising me reparation that would never be enough, she instead offered me something I would have never considered. She asked me to come live at the palace and train under her Master Healer, so that I could serve as nursemaid to her children.”

  My jaw hung open. “Wait, you mean you raised that wack—the High King?”

  She nodded. “He and his brother both. Their mother was a wonderful woman; kind and strong, but often enraptured in the matters of state. I was their governess, as well as their personal Healer, from the cradle onward. Though nothing could ever replace Arland in my heart, raising them was a pleasure and a privilege.”

  I was floored. There was just so much I did not know, so much I had never so much as guessed at, hidden in the pasts of these people. I could have lived among them for a dozen years and I never would have expected such a bombshell revelation. Suddenly all my loudly exclaimed defamations of the Nutjob King echoed back at me. “What happened to him? How did he get to be…?”

  “Tiernan was very different as a child. We were so close, he and I. Even then, he was mercurial and often taken by strange fancies. One moment he was a sweet, loving little boy who ran to me with every new discovery. A pretty stone or a flower in full bloom—oh, how such things lit up his face with a smile!” She smiled at the memory; a sad, sweet smile that made me want to hug her. “When he was like that, he was utterly enchanting; the perfect little Prince, full of joy and curiosity. He loved me like a mother, and I came to love him like the son I had lost.

  “But there was a darkness in him as well. Overwhelming sadness would overtake him with no warning, or a terrible rage would fill every inch of his tiny body. At first, those terrible spells would only last a heartbeat, and everyone said it was just the temperament of a child—but I feared it was something much worse. Soon he was withdrawing from all around him when the moods overtook him, including me. He would rave about the monsters lurking in the shadows, saying we were all out to hurt him. He would spend long nights awake, screaming with terrors. It was terrible to watch. After his brother was born, the bad times came more and more often, lasting longer and longer.

  “Those were very difficult years for all who lived in the palace. He seemed to grow out of it with time, though the joyful innocence of the child I raised was long gone. He became a quiet, reserved young man and many thanked the gods that he had outgrown his childish temper. I have long wondered if he had only learned to hide his sickness from those closest to him, but no one listened to my fears before it was too late. By then, the High Queen had passed and the throne was his. When I had held him as a babe, I had hoped he would be as great a King as his mother was a Queen, but somewhere along the way, I lost him too.” She finally looked back up at me. A tear escaped and trickled down her cheek but it was quickly wiped away. “He was supposed to be a better man.”

  I didn’t know which she wept for more: her lost child or the surrogate she had seen turn so very dark. I bit my lower lip. To hear my great, faceless nemesis had once been a happy go lucky child playing amongst the flowers was hard. Seeing Seana’s heartbreak was even harder. How it must have hurt her, to be cast aside in the shadow of growing madness. Her little idiosyncrasies started falling into place in my mind, making a strange sort of sense now that I could see a little bit more of the bigger picture. “Is that why you’ve been teaching me, even though you don’t want me out there risking my life? So that I can help stop Tiernan?”

  Looking into her eyes was like staring into a pool of still, deep water. Even shimmering with tears, they exuded a primordial compassion that enveloped me. “I do all that I do in Arland’s memory. If I co
uld have my way I would never see another innocent die, especially as a victim of Tiernan’s neglectful rule. While I may not be pleased to see you, a lovely, talented young woman, staining her hands with blood, I understand that these are desperate times. I would rather see you well prepared for what lies ahead of you on this path, rather than railing against the unfairness of a fate that cannot be avoided.” She cleared her throat and wiped at one eye daintily. Her nose was reddened and her eyes glassy, but the naked glimpse I had gotten of her scarred soul well hidden once more. “Now. Shall we continue?”

  I nodded, throat tight. How could I refuse her, after what I had just learned? I tried my best to be an attentive student for the rest of the afternoon. I was listening to her describe—far too graphically—a particular breed of swamp-dwelling troll and their hallucinogenic skin secretions when Gannon appeared in the doorway.

  I looked up from the notebook that was once again spread open in my lap, my heart instantly ratcheting up to third gear. He looked exhausted, more so than I had ever seen him before. Deep shadows hung beneath his eyes. He watched Seana, who was absorbed in the passage she was reading, for a moment. His eyes flitted over to me and the sorrow in them hit me like a brick.

  I sat up straighter. Seana paused, giving him a puzzled look.

  His gaze dropped to the floor. He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. If what I had learned in his company over the past few months was true, he did that when he was uncomfortable. Not a good sign. He cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, ladies.”

  He was hesitating. Gannon. Hesitating. That went against everything I knew to be true about the universe. Doubly not good.

  Seana closed her book and set it down on the end table at her side. I could see that crease in her brow as she frowned, the healer’s gears already turning in her head. “That’s quite all right. How can I help you?”

  “I’m here for Caitlin.”

  In that moment, I wanted to throw up. A million horrible, grisly things flashed through my head: my father coming home after work to find my mother slumped over in a puddle of blood at the kitchen table; my sister, decapitated in some dark back alley; Jenni’s mutilated body being found in the dumpster behind Gilroy’s. The panic must have shown on my face. He held up his hands, as if he was warding off my crazy. “No one has been hurt.”

  I let out a gasp of relief. That news was good—but it could only mean one thing. He had come to update me on the hunt for Texas Pete. My heart kicked into high gear, now for a completely different reason. Everything felt floaty and weird; my head spinning. I gripped my notebook so tightly that the metal spiral bit grooves into my fingers. Why wasn’t he looking triumphant? Or battle hungry? Or even smugly satisfied, like he was about most things? He had solved the mystery, saved my sanity, and possibly even my life. Where the hell was that cockiness?

  Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. The urge to throw up my bacon and eggs intensified.

  I stared at his stricken face until he finally broke. “Liam is gone.”

  “Gone?” The word was a whisper that wanted to be hysterics.

  He nodded. “Yes. Gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone? Gone from the city? The state? Are we talking, took a midnight train going anywhere gone?”

  My feeble attempt at humor was lost on him but my rising hysteria was not. I loathed the sympathy I saw in his gaze. “Gone from this earth. You were right. He crossed back over the Veil, to our world.”

  He didn’t have to say anything else. I already knew where he would go, now that he knew both who and where I was. Tiernan would pay highly for information on the last Warder. Gannon had done all he could, trapped on this side as he was. Until I found the Lynx—even if I had begged him to pick up the search, to stop that creature from ratting me out to the king—there was nothing else he could do now. Still, I had to try. “There has to be something you can do. Can’t you send someone to stop him?”

  The look I drew from both Seana and Gannon was an odd one. They both looked at me like I had lost my mind. Had I suggested something bizarre? It didn’t seem all that strange to me. They got their leads on the Lynx from a source. I didn’t know much about the shadowy network of informants that seemed to be at their beck and call and, to be honest, I had never really wanted to know. If they had some sort of crazy fae mafia connections, it was all the better that I kept my nose out of it—until now.

  When I said as much, Gannon just shook his head. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Kaine would never ask that of them. This is not their fight.”

  Something hot and bitter roiled in my belly. I could almost feel the burn of bile in the back of my throat. “But if that bastard tells the king about me, he’s going to come after me. Kaine promised to stop the King from finding out about me. You need to tell him about this. We can’t just give up now!”

  The quiet bit into me like a knife. Seana was looking down at her lap, refusing to meet my eyes. Gannon’s jaw ticked, a sure sign of anger, though whether with me or something else, I couldn’t tell. A long moment passed before he said, “Kaine is aware of Liam and his return across the Veil. He considers his end of the pact satisfied.”

  “Like hell it is!” I was on my feet, notebook and pen falling to the floor. My hands were balled into fists and I was five feet and four inches of righteous fury. “I’ll show him ‘satisfied!’”

  I pushed past Gannon and made it less than two feet past him into the hallway before he caught me by the arm. “Caitlin, don’t do this.”

  “Let go!” I yanked my arm away. He fell back a step. I was quivering with rage. “You promised me. You promised me you would find him.”

  He jerked his head to the side, as if I had slapped him. Good. “I tried.”

  Bitterness welled up in my throat. “Yeah, well, that’s not good enough.”

  He didn’t try to stop me again as I stormed down the hall. Livid was too shy a word to describe the rage that coursed through me. I was damn near shaking with that rage as I took the stairs at a machine gun pace. I was already having a knock-down-drag-out fight with Kaine in my head when I threw open the door to his study. I barely managed to keep a grip on the doorknob to prevent it from slamming into the wall. My teeth were clenched, my shoulders heaving in time with my breath.

  Kaine was seated in front of his desk, for once, in a chair facing a merrily crackling fire. He had a book in his lap, which he looked up from slowly, not the least bit ruffled by my hell-hath-no-fury entrance. He closed it and let it rest on one knee. “Can I help you?”

  Oh, that smug motherfucker. I was ready to spit nails and he was looking at me with the detachment of a psychologist dealing with a delusional patient. This was going to get ugly. It took every last shred of willpower I had in my body to gently close the door behind me, rather than breaking it clear off the hinges. I clasped my hands behind my back so he wouldn’t see them shake. “Gannon told me Liam has crossed back over.”

  Kaine inclined his head, frowning in an oh-so-proper approximation of shame. “Yes. I am very sorry he was unable to locate him before he left this realm.”

  “Sorry is nice, but it won’t keep me alive once your High King knows I exist.” He did not deny my claim. His silence only made my blood burn hotter. God damn, it was hard to keep my temper. I wanted to rant and rave and throw his goddamned book into the fireplace, but instead I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “You have friends here, fae friends who have been helping you. I need you to send someone back there, to try and stop him before my life is put in even greater danger. Please.”

  He looked back to the fire, lips pursed. My heart fluttered with hope for the briefest of moments before a curt shake of his head smashed it to the ground. “I cannot ask any who aid us here to risk their life.” Maybe blood-curdling rage was the cure to his freaky fae wiles, because there was no inkling of attraction in me when that vibrant turquoise gaze met mine. “Our allies here are c
itizens of my realm; commoners who wished to live their lives out among humans. They are not warriors. To ask any of them to cross paths with a Guardian, even a disgraced one, would be far too dangerous.”

  I let my head loll back, my eyes locked on the ceiling as I took a long, slow breath. Put that way, I couldn’t very well protest without looking like the most heartless bitch ever. Still; I wanted nothing more than to knock that demeaning calm right off his face. I didn’t care what sort of noble blood he had or how important he was back in his home world—here, he was a smug dick.

  “I am sorry, Caitlin. Gannon feels terrible, to have gotten so close, only to have his quarry slip away at the last moment.”

  “And what happens when we find the Lynx? If I get you home, will you let Gannon go after that asshole?” My mind was once again whirling, wondering how I could possibly step up the search, when we had had such little success for so long. If I could only find him, if I could somehow get them home soon, perhaps there was still a chance Texas Pete would be intercepted before my fate was sealed…

  “No.”

  I stared at him, open-mouthed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What?” I sputtered. “What do you mean ‘no’? Why the fuck not?”

  Again, that cool, detached gaze as he stomped on my hopes. “Gannon will have other duties once we are returned. I cannot spare him.”

  “But we had a deal!”

  He spread his hands. “I have fulfilled my part of the bargain we struck.”

  “Are you kidding me?” My voice had risen to a screech. There was a damn good chance everyone in the house could hear my hysterics, but I didn’t give a rat’s ass. “You swore you’d protect me! You swore that you’d keep the King from finding out about me!”

  “By hunting the troll down and making sure he could not tell the High King about your Gift, yes.”

  My mouth snapped shut so fast I nearly bit through my tongue. Those were the exact words I had spoken. I could remember him repeating them back to me, as clear as day. Suddenly, Seana’s warning made the most awful kind of sense. At the time, I had taken her advice as caution against angering their sovereign lord. Now I realized there had been so much more weight to those words. The troll was dead. He could no longer tell the High King anything. I had never considered he would employ another to do his dirty work—and our pact had made no mention of friends.