The Iron Warrior

by Julie Kagawa

  I took a deep breath and released it slowly. One breath, to decide what I was going to do. To choose where I stood with him now. “What about you?” I asked.

  “I’ll stay behind. Try to slow her down a bit.” He struggled to his feet, gazing around for his sword. He still didn’t look at us, and his next words were choked, barely audible. “It’s the least I can do...for everything I caused. I will face the First Queen myself.”

  Kenzie frowned. “She’ll kill you, Keirran.”

  “I know.” He picked up his sword and let it hang at his side. “But at least I’ll know what side I’m supposed to be on.” He inhaled, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick with self-loathing. “I can’t even begin to apologize, Ethan,” he said. “There’s nothing I can say that will ever make it right. The other courts will call for my death or exile, and they’ll be completely justified. It’s better this way.” He ran a hand down his face. “Tell...tell my parents that I died fighting the First Queen, and that I’m sorry...for everything.”

  He shivered. Raising his head, his gaze went to the sky. “She’s coming,” he whispered. “Go, Ethan. Get out of here.”

  “No,” I growled.

  He looked at me, blue eyes widening with wary surprise. Ignoring him, I glanced down at Kenzie, wondering—hoping—that she thought the same. If she wanted to get out of here, I didn’t know what I was going to do. But she gave me a tiny smile and a nod, making me slump with relief. Gently, I released her and started toward my forgotten swords. Keirran watched me a moment, then shook his head.

  “Ethan, you don’t—”

  “Keirran, once and for all, get your head out of your ass!” Snatching up one of my blades, I whirled on him, furious. “Do you really think I can go back and tell Meghan that I let you die? When we came all this way to find you? When Annwyl died to...” I trailed off. The prince looked like he’d been punched in the stomach and was about to collapse. “We are leaving together,” I told him firmly. “Right now. Screw the Lady—the other rulers will take care of her. I didn’t come here to fight faery queens. I came for you.” I narrowed my gaze and stared the prince down. “And you are going to walk out of here, alive, and you are going to go back to Meghan and beg for forgiveness and hope she doesn’t kick your ass like you deserve. But I’ll be damned if we went through all this hell to bring you back, and you decide to throw yourself at the Lady and get yourself killed!”

  “They’ll never forgive me.”

  “Bullshit,” Kenzie broke in, sounding angry, too. Keirran blinked at her, and she scowled. “This whole time you’ve been waging war against the courts, all your parents have thought about was bringing you home. And not just them, either. Puck, Wolf, Grimalkin, the Thin Man, Razor—” Her voice broke on the last name, and she swiped at her eyes. “They’ve all sacrificed something to bring you back.”

  “More than you deserve,” I added in a cold voice. He didn’t contradict me, and I pointed a sword at him. “So, you don’t get to play martyr, Keirran. Dying is the easy way out. If you’re really sorry, go back to every single person you put through hell and tell them. Don’t let Annwyl’s sacrifice be for nothing.”

  Keirran closed his eyes. “Annwyl,” he finally murmured, and dragged in a shaky breath. “Yes. You’re right. I have...a lot of people I need to apologize to. A lot of things to atone for.” He opened his eyes, and they were bright with grief and regret, but also that stubborn determination I’d seen all too often. “Someday I’ll be worthy of her,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Wherever you are, Annwyl, if you can see me now, I swear I’ll make it right. Let this be the first step.”

  Sheathing his sword, he turned to me, his expression solemn. “I’m with you, Ethan,” he said. “Let’s get out of here, before the Lady arrives.”

  “Too late, I’m afraid,” announced a new voice, somewhere overhead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE FIRST QUEEN

  We spun, looking up, and my heart plummeted.

  The Lady, the First Queen, hovered in the air about thirty feet off the ground. She was no longer the pale, faded-out faery I’d seen in Ireland, colorless and nearly transparent, with the shattered skeleton of wings behind her back. Now she glowed with power, jet-black hair flowing around her, eyes shifting from green to blue to solid black in the light. Her wings were now full and as dark as a raven’s, the feathers giving off faint, metallic shivers as they moved in the breeze. She hovered there like a goddess, an avenging angel, her shifting, multicolored gaze settling on me and Keirran.

  “My dear prince,” the Lady said, her voice soft, soothing. “I believe you are confused. Did I hear you speak of leaving? Now? When we are so close, one step away from achieving what we had planned?”

  “Yes.” Keirran’s tone was firm as he stepped forward, gazing up at her. “I’m done, my lady,” he said. “No more fighting. No more killing. I won’t be your instrument of war any longer.”

  She cocked her head. “The war is nearly done, Prince Keirran. Once the Veil falls and mortals are able to see us, the fighting will be long forgotten. We can start over, a new beginning with new rules. A world in which humans actually fear and believe in us as they should, where the Nevernever will grow strong once more, and faeries will never again Fade into nothingness.” Her face softened as she gave Keirran a sympathetic look. “You could have saved your Summer girl, had the boy only gotten here sooner.”

  Keirran’s jaw tightened, his eyes turning dangerous. The First Queen held up a finger. “One more death,” she whispered, “that is all I ask of you, Keirran. One death to save thousands, an entire world. Look around you, Prince. Look at what is at stake.”

  She raised her arms, indicating the courtyard. I glanced up and saw hundreds of yellow eyes peering at me from atop the courtyard walls. A whole army of silent Forgotten, gazing down at us. A chill raced up my back, and I stepped closer to Kenzie, raising my sword. Keirran stared up at the Forgotten, his expression a mix of sorrow and guilt.

  “We have come so far,” the Lady whispered. “So very far. We have survived being forgotten, a war, having the memory of us purged from the Nevernever. We have clung to existence by a thread, and now the instrument of our salvation is standing right there.” The long, elegant finger suddenly pointed right at me. “Kill him, Prince,” she urged, as I tensed. “Once more. For the future of us all. Your hands are already stained with his blood. It should not matter now.” Keirran hesitated, and the Lady’s voice grew triumphant. “You cannot escape destiny, Prince,” she said. “This is what was prophesied from the beginning. This is what you were always fated to do.”

  “Fate?”

  Keirran looked up at the queen, and a hard smile twisted his lips. “You speak of that so easily, as if I have no choice in the matter,” he said. “But you knew about the amulet, and what it was doing to me. I was soulless and empty, and your magic kept me alive even as it filled me with anger toward the courts and everything they had done. I was easy to manipulate, but even then, I knew I had a choice. Even though I believed in your cause and wanted to save the Forgotten, I knew I didn’t have to wage war on the other courts. I chose to become the enemy. Just as I have a choice right now.”

  He drew his sword, giving me the briefest of looks before turning back to the Lady. “I have much to answer for,” he said in a pained voice, “but I finally know where I stand, and it’s with my family. If you want Ethan, or anyone in the Nevernever, you’ll have to get past me.”

  The First Queen’s eyes shifted completely to black.

  “As you wish, Prince Keirran,” she said in a deadly calm voice. “I am sorry that it has come to this. But the Veil will fall tonight. And if I must spill your blood as well as his, then so be it. It will be a small price to pay for our salvation.”

  She swept her wings forward. I felt a blast of wind toss my hair, just as a flurry of b
lack feathers sped toward us like darts. I grabbed Kenzie, shielding her with my body, and Keirran flung out an arm with a burst of Winter glamour. The feathers veered away with a hiss, sticking into the walls and stones, glittering like shards of onyx.

  Crap.

  “Kenzie,” I warned, and she nodded. As Keirran sent a small blizzard of ice daggers toward the queen, she broke away and sprinted toward the wall. To the statue where the barely visible form of the Thin Man still sprawled under the rock.

  Good. Get out of sight, Kenzie. This is going to be ugly. I turned back, raising my sword, as the Lady’s wings swept down, and Keirran’s ice daggers shattered against them. She laughed.

  “You are not the only one with multiple glamours, my dear prince,” the Lady mocked, rising higher into the air. Around us, the Forgotten were a silent audience, watching the battle with glowing yellow eyes. The queen held up her hands, ice and lightning swirling between her fingers. “Before there was a Summer and Winter court, before Arcadia and Tir Na Nog, I ruled the Nevernever! Both Summer and Winter bow to me, as will you all, in the end!”

  She flung out her arms, and a maelstrom erupted around us. Tornado winds shrieked, lightning flickered, ice and rock fragments spun madly in a circle, sparking off each other. Half-blinded, I raised my arm, searching for Keirran. Though the wind yanked savagely at my hair and clothes, and I felt the charge of electricity raising the hair on my skin, nothing actually touched me, not even the frozen shards and pebbles swirling through the air. Though Keirran was a different story.

  I spotted the prince and lurched toward him, just as a pair of lightning bolts streaked down, catching him in a deadly cross fire. Keirran cried out, arching back in agony, then collapsed to his knees on the flagstones.

  I lunged at the prince, managing to put myself between him and a razor chunk of ice spinning toward his head. It zipped past me, close enough to make my ear burn with cold, and went spinning off as I huddled over him.

  “Keirran.” I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, trying to see the damage. He was panting, smoke curling off his back, his face tight with pain. Wind shrieked around us, lightning flickered, and debris flew everywhere, but it was calmer in the center of the storm. I hunched closer to my nephew, sword drawn to deflect any sharp objects that came at him, trying to protect us both.

  “It’s no good,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “She’s too strong. This isn’t even half of her power. She was...a queen of Faery, after all.” He looked up at me, blue eyes full of pain and regret. “You can still...run, Ethan. Her glamour can’t touch you now...but if she orders the Forgotten to attack...”

  “Shut up,” I told him, and smacked down a rock streaking for his head. “I’m still breathing, so it’s not over yet. We’re getting out of here...somehow.” Glancing desperately around, I saw that the Forgotten had edged closer, many dropping from the wall to the flagstones below. A black swarm waiting at the edge of the courtyard.

  Abruptly, the wind sputtered and died. The lightning flickered out, the ice shards and rocks dropped to the ground with faint clinks, bouncing away or shattering on the rock. I straightened, still standing over Keirran, as the First Queen cocked her head, regarding me with cold black eyes.

  “Ethan Chase.” Her voice was no longer soft or soothing; now it was merely annoyed. “You are either the luckiest or most stubborn mortal I have met in my long existence. How many times must I kill you for it to take? You just will not die like you should.”

  I smirked, raising my sword and stepping in front of Keirran. “People keep telling me that. I guess I’m just that cockroach you can’t get rid of.”

  She sent a dozen gleaming thorns at me, foot-long and deadly sharp. I stepped back to protect Keirran, and the barbs curved around us, flying into a couple Forgotten instead. They jerked and writhed away into shadow, and the First Queen scowled.

  “Very well, Ethan Chase. I was going to give you a quick death, but you refuse to cooperate. Therefore...” She raised her arms and soared higher into the air. “You can be torn to pieces by my Forgotten. You and the prince both. Kill them!” she shouted at the swarm of fey around us. “Rip them apart! Spill their blood across the stones, and let the Veil finally fall!”

  The black mass of Forgotten leaped from the walls, pouring into the courtyard and sliding toward us like ink. I spun as Keirran lurched to his feet and raised his sword. For a moment, standing back to back with the Iron Prince, surrounded by Forgotten in a place of power, I had a surreal flash of déjà vu. The last time this had happened, Keirran had turned around and run a sword through my middle.

  “Ethan.” His voice was quiet, just like last time. I tensed and forced a raspy chuckle.

  “Keirran, if you’re about to stab me, I swear I’m going to claw my way out of the grave and drag you back with me.”

  “No.” A shiver went through him, and he took a deep breath. “Just...thank you. And, I’m sorry. For everything. I just... I wish I could talk to my parents one more time.” He shifted back and raised his sword, his voice going hard. “But I’ll be proud to die fighting beside you.”

  I grimaced. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” But...it looked pretty hopeless from where I was standing. There were a ton of Forgotten, in the courtyard, on the walls, with even more sliding into view. Even with Keirran’s help, I couldn’t fight that many. Though I’d give them a hell of a hard time before I went down.

  Kenzie, I thought with a pang of regret. I couldn’t see her through the press of Forgotten, but I desperately hoped she was safe. Go home. Go home, and be safe. Things are going to get crazy after tonight, but I know you’ll be okay. You’re too smart to let them beat you. And if you see my parents, tell them I’m sorry I couldn’t come home.

  The Forgotten crept closer, just a few feet away now. I felt the tension surrounding us, saw the swarm getting ready to lunge, and took a deep, final breath.

  “Stop!”

  A new voice rang out, clear and strong with authority, making everything freeze. Stunned, I looked toward the corner where the voice originated and saw the Thin Man on his feet, one slender hand braced on Kenzie’s shoulder as she stood beside him. His pale eyes swept over the Forgotten and narrowed.

  “Stop this!” he hissed again. “All of you! This is madness! This is not what you want!”

  “You,” muttered the First Queen, as the Forgotten, shockingly and as one, turned to face him. “I know you.”

  “Yes,” the Thin Man agreed. “You know me. You’ve all seen me before, in Phaed. And I know you.” His gaze swept the crowd. “All of you. Even now, when you have been twisted nearly beyond recognition, I know you.” He shook his head, his voice sympathetic. “Forgotten, hear me. Is this truly what you want? Going to war, fighting the other courts, killing for her? Dying for her? Do you really believe she has your best interests at heart? Look at what she has done to you all. What she has turned you into.”

  The Forgotten were silent, their whole attention riveted to the Thin Man. A few shuffled uneasily, but the rest just stared at him, unblinking. The Thin Man stepped away from Kenzie and walked a few paces forward, still glaring around at the horde.

  “You were happy in Phaed,” he said. “Content to know nothing, to return quietly to the Nevernever until you could be reborn again. And then, she awoke and convinced you that her ideals were your own.” His voice hardened. “They are not. You were never like that! And now, you are nothing but pawns in her quest for power! She will—”

  He jerked, throwing his head back, as a storm of razor feathers slammed into him from behind, ripping through his chest with coils of mist. Kenzie gasped, and the Forgotten straightened as the Thin Man swayed on his feet, mouth open midsentence. Slowly, he came apart, fraying at the edges, and collapsed to his knees, before he finally disintegrated into mist. A breeze stirred the courtyard, and the coils of what used to be the ancient
mayor of Phaed vanished into the wind.

  “You were always a thorn in my side,” the Lady said into the shocked silence. “You will question me no more.” Looking over the still frozen crowd, she smiled. “Your mayor is gone,” she called, triumphant. “I am your queen and have always been your queen! Obey me, Forgotten. There is no one left to follow, no one who will lead you to victory but I.”

  “Yes, there is!”

  Keirran’s voice made me jump. The Iron Prince stepped forward, raising his voice to the crowd. “Forgotten!” he cried. “Rally to me! You’ve followed me into battle, obeyed my commands and trusted me with your lives. Follow me now! We can cease this fighting, put an end to this war. I swear, I will not let you Fade away, but destroying the Veil is not the answer. You’ve been used by the First Queen. She has turned you against your own kind, but if we stand together, we can put a stop to this for good!”

  “Silence, traitor!” the First Queen hissed, and sent a flurry of razor feathers at him. I quickly lunged forward, and they went spinning aside. “The Forgotten are mine,” the queen spat at Keirran. “You have no claim, Iron Prince! You have not been forgotten by the courts. You are in no danger of Fading away. You do not need the emotions and belief of mortals just to stay alive, to exist! I will lead the Forgotten to a new age, an age where all mortals will fear us, believe in us! An age where the courts are no more, where there is only one queen of the Nevernever, and that will be me! Forgotten!” she cried, sweeping her hand down. “Kill them! The Iron Prince and the mortals! Kill them all!”

  I tensed, but the Forgotten didn’t move. They stared at her, golden eyes unblinking. The First Queen frowned, gazing around in confusion. Keirran stepped forward again.

  “It seems the Forgotten do not share your views after all, my lady,” he said in a quiet voice, as the queen’s expression shifted to fury. “Perhaps if you had truly listened to them, you would have known what they really wanted. But I am sorry that it has come to this.”