The Iron Hunt
Page 26
I wanted to keep arguing with him, but I looked down and found the text on the Wild Hunt. I almost laughed when I read the title. It felt like a lifetime since I had seen it, another Maxine Kiss.
I rolled up my sleeves, getting an eyeful of Zee’s tattooed backside as I sat down on a stack of encyclopedias. I opened up the book, inhaling the scent of old leather, and within moments found the handwritten note I had started reading only days before.
It is of us, I read, this hunt, this wild raging hunt that takes upon itself the nature of an Age, and destroys so that others may be reborn. It is why, I think, the leader of the hunt must so frequently change, because Ages change, and what defines one era cannot be relied upon to characterize the next. A new voice is required, a new heart.
The hunt is defined by hearts, for good or ill. We have learned that lesson in the most brutal ways imaginable, and we will learn it once more. We have no choice. This fearful omen, so deep in our memory it has become sunk in human blood, has opened and closed, again and again. Faster now, like the hum of wings. And when it stops, we shall fall.
We cannot begin again. Risks will be involved. But it is as Tacitus said, “No enemy can withstand a vision that is strange and, so to speak, diabolical; for in all battles, the eyes are overcome first.”
The eyes are overcome first. Yes. Or perhaps . . . just maybe . . . the eyes will be opened first. And with them opened . . . hope. We must have hope, and faith. We must. No one is more terrible than the leader of the hunt. No one is more feared. Her desire is her outcome. Her wish is the command.
And so her heart must be strong. The end of the world sleeps within her breast. The wyrms who will devour themselves in darkness.
I read the page twice, unable to help myself, those words sinking into me like each letter was made of heat. I felt terrified, exhilarated. Lost.
I looked up and found Jack watching me. Grant was still in the kitchen, out of sight.
“I’m scared,” I confessed to the old man. “Where do I go from here?”
“Forward,” he said loftily. “As your mother and Jeannie would have wanted. With strength and honor and goodness. ”
“Old Wolf,” I said. “It’s not that easy. The prison is crumbling. The world as we know it is going to end. And I’m the last, Jack. I believe it now. When the veil comes down—” I stopped myself, thinking of my grandmother, feeling her hands, hearing her beneath the backdrop of wild sky and wind.
You dig deep inside that heart of yours and push the cutters back. You take care of what you can, when you can, but you don’t give up.
Don’t give up. Don’t.
I gritted my teeth and met Jack’s gaze. “There’s something inside me. I felt it, when I fought Ahsen. It was hungry. It was strong. It wanted death. And if I keep fighting, if I can’t control it . . .”
I could not continue. I had tried not to think of it. It . . . Nameless, formless. The more I remembered, the more I felt a creaking inside my chest, like a door pushing open— and a presence inside, peering into my mind with a cold, hungry eye.
We are one, said that quiet voice.
No, I told it. Never.
Jack stood, stepping around books and pushing aside paperwork. He crouched in front of me. He held my hands, very carefully, and said, “The world is shaped by hearts. Look deep. Trust yourself, Maxine. Trust, like your mother trusted you. Like your grandmother, and every woman who has come before, who trusted her daughter to stay true. Don’t listen to what your eyes tell you. Check here.” He laid his hand over his heart. “Like the storybooks say.”
“That won’t stop the walls from falling.”
“No,” he said kindly, “but you’ll have the right kinds of friends at your back when they do.”
Jack kissed my hand, but when he tried to stand, I held him.
“You’re mine,” I whispered, full of wonder. “Grandpa Wolf. Meddling Man.”
His smile deepened, and he pressed my hands to his wrinkled cheek. “I have always been so, even before you were born.”
And that was enough. That was all I needed.