The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

My pelt sloughs off and I stagger upright. Cybel reaches Lugh’s side and takes Prince Lyne. Lugh reaches for me and I fall against him. He grunts against my weight, bracing his legs a little wider to help him balance my bulk. My head pounds, my joints ache, and my muscles twitch and shiver as they try to knit themselves back to their normal shape. The colors are still too bright, the stench in the air too intense. It makes my stomach churn and I whimper as bile rises in my throat.

Lugh reaches up and tugs gently at the back of my head, urging me to bury my face against his neck. It’s awkward, this angle. He’s so much shorter than me. But I sigh and relax against him because this is who we are—an Unseelie prince and his berserkir—and the physical backlash I suffer for channeling the queen’s magick is always outweighed by feeling him pressed against me, safe and sound.

Lugh. Child turned man, who never lost his joy and who burns brighter than the sun. Who smells of horseflesh and leather and dirt and the rosemary oil he uses to keep his nightmares at bay. Who waits for me to relax against him before asking, “Home?”

When we return to the sídhe, Queen Mab will skin me alive. Both her sons wounded, Prince Lyne seriously enough he’s gone ashen and keeps a hand pressed to his chest as if he’s holding his pain in. But if we go home, it means warm baths with herbs that will make our bodies hurt less and good food and a soft bed where I can sleep off the damage of the transition. Home means curling up beside Lugh and listening to him breathe, of being able to sleep through the night because I can hear proof of his life.

I nod against his skin and force the word out past the burning ache in my throat. “Home.”

Chapter Three

Keiran

I’m amazed Prince Lyne has survived long enough to reach the sídhe. The blade that pierced his shoulder under his plate armor wasn’t iron, but during the ride back, he’d clutched at his chest and unleashed a cry of pain so deep, it cut through my blurry thoughts and raised goose bumps on my skin. Poisoning is still an option—an ugly, lethal option—and Lugh’s beside himself with worry. He keeps looking from his brother to me, openly torn in his desire to aid us both, but incapable of it. As much as I want to curl up in a dark, quiet place and sleep off the lingering sensations of the bear’s actions in battle, doing so would force Lugh to choose between helping his brother or me. So I grit my teeth, ignore the prickles in my muscles, and follow them down the winding hallways.

Lugh tries to help Prince Lyne, while the Hunt sticks close to me, prepared to intervene if my transformation sickness grows worse. At some point, Bridget, Prince Lyne’s personal attendant, finds us. Shortly after her arrival, Nickgut, Queen Mab’s captain of the redcap guard, meets us in one of the intersections. His message stalls when he sees us, but a single, cutting look from Prince Lyne has him refocused a second later. “The queen awaits your report in the throne room,” he says. He leaves Lugh and Prince Lyne alone, asking me for the rundown of what happened instead, and nodding as I recount the attack as factually as I can.

Neither of us can look away when Bridget finally removes Prince Lyne’s breastplate. He stumbles when the armor comes free, a fresh gush of blood darkens his stained shirt, and Lugh grabs hold of him before he falls. For the first time since we arrived back in the sídhe, our retinue halts. Prince Lyne stands in the center of the hallway, sweaty, pale, and breathing heavily, while Lugh murmurs to him. After a moment, he straightens and Lugh’s expression tightens.

“Roark,” he says, louder this time, as if he’s tired of arguing, “you’re bleeding.”

“Report to Mother,” Prince Lyne snaps and begins walking again.

Lugh spares me a single, frustrated look before rushing after his brother. “You were stabbed. Your shoulder needs attention. Bridget, talk to him. Tell him how much blood he’s lost. Roark, please—”

Nickgut sucks in a breath at my side and I recognize where we are. Wittingly or not, Prince Lyne’s brought us to the intersection of the halls outside the throne room. He seems confused to find himself here and misses the regal figure standing in the doorway beside a pair of cowering guards.

“Roark Tahm Lyne,” Queen Mab calls.

The rest of us freeze, not from the force of her glamour, which bites through the air, but from the rigid pronunciation of each syllable of his name. Even Lugh draws up short to look at her.

Prince Lyne continues on his way. Bridget follows after him a moment later with her head ducked low in deference to her monarch.

“It was a trap,” he tells his mother in passing. “He wasn’t there.”

“You’re injured.” She turns and extends a hand toward the throne room. “I have healers waiting. Come.”

Prince Lyne’s fist clenches around the timepiece he hasn’t let go of since he left the stables. “Lugh and Keiran will explain,” he says.

I shut my eyes and wince. Gods protect us, this will not go well. Judging from the silence, no one was prepared for such a reaction. I wait for the worst of my nausea to subside before I risk opening my eyes. The queen still waits in the doorway, her features shrouded by shadow as she looks down the hall where Prince Lyne retreated.

Lugh turns to face her. “Mother,” he begins cautiously.

Queen Mab lifts a hand and the temperature around us drops further. Lugh coughs as he takes his next breath and doesn’t speak again.

“Lugh. Keiran. Come,” she orders and turns her back without another word.

At my back, the Hunt shifts their weight. Cybel steps forward and starts to open his mouth. I cut him off before he says something he’ll regret. “We’ll be fine,” I lie.

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” Cybel murmurs to me.

My body screams its agreement. The belt burns with a dull heat at my waist as my anxiety threatens to wake its power once again. If I don’t rest soon or, worse, if I have to fight down any strong emotions before I can collect myself, the transformation’s physical impact will linger, as though the bear’s trying to crawl its way out from under my skin any moment I let down my guard.

“It won’t take long,” I whisper back to him. I can’t drag my gaze away from Lugh’s back, from the hard line of his spine as he prepares to follow his mother, and from the way his fingers tap against his thigh in a show of his nervousness. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

“One of us will be waiting,” Cybel says.

I want to argue, really I do, but Lugh’s already moving and I won’t let him face her alone. He looks up when I reach his side and I wish I could wipe away the lines of doubt pinching his brow. “Keir, you should—”