The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

She opens her mouth to speak, only to freeze. Lugh makes a hum of confusion and Queen Mab turns to stare off into the distance at one of the walls, as though she’s seeing something beyond it.

“Mother, what was that?” Lugh asks.

She doesn’t bother to look at him. Or at me. Instead, she murmurs, “All who live in my Court must serve their purpose if they wish to stay. In the future, I hope you will react faster against threats to my sons, Keiran. You are both dismissed.”

We watch as she exits the room through one of the side entrances, leaving us alone. Lugh kneels across from me. The back of his hand against my forehead is blessedly cool and I sigh in relief. “Keir, why didn’t you say you needed to go sooner?” he chides.

I stand and clutch at Lugh’s shoulders when the world twists and spins. At least I can’t sense the belt anymore. The moment Queen Mab left the room, its power hid, thank the gods. Lugh slips under my arm and starts walking me toward the doors.

“How bad is it?” he asks.

“It’s not—” His glare stops me. I sigh and gently butt my head against his. “It’s going to be bad,” I admit, wishing he didn’t know me well enough to call me on my attempted lie.

“Let’s get you to bed then.” Instead of reaching out and opening the doors, Lugh kicks one of them viciously until the redcap guard outside obeys the summons. Lugh nudges past him and I try to apologize for Lugh’s rudeness, but can’t manage to thread the words together. They’re all there, but jumbled and out of order.

The Hunt still waits for us, ranged against one of the far walls. Drest’s eyes widen when he spots us and he nudges Armel as he rises from his spot on the floor. Armel swears and rushes to meet us. Cybel doesn’t say anything, but his tight movements convey his displeasure.

“Keir, can you tell me what’s hurting you? We can try to get some medicine from the healers to help,” Lugh asks as the Hunt approaches. “Do you think you’re going to change again?”

No scents assaulting me. No tingling under my skin. I shake my head. “No. Head hurts.”

Lugh nods and his arm around my waist tightens. We’ve done this enough times we both know what’s coming. The symptoms are building too quickly though. The halls of the sídhe keep wavering, drifting away into empty darkness before my eyes. The transformation’s physical consequences are awful, but the coming nightmare will be worse. Of course I’d see it after today’s near failure. It will be fitting punishment to relive that moment, and wake with the knowledge that I almost lost Lugh as well.

“Don’t stop walking yet,” Lugh growls to me. He looks up, probably toward the Hunt, and calls out, “Drest, he’s about to go—”

The whole world goes dark for a long moment and I stumble against Lugh. His arm vanishes from my waist and I begin the slow, confusing fall to the ground, where the memory of my greatest failure welcomes me.

* * *

The stories lie. Dying is not easy. It never has been, and lying here, in this memory, I know it never will be.

I stare up at the stars drifting overhead and wonder how much longer it will be before I slip away.

The smoke has finally begun to clear as the fires die, though here and there, sections of the sky shiver from the heat the ruined houses still give off. Smoldering piles of rubble collapse with muffled thuds that remind me of snow shedding from roofs. By morning, there will be nothing left of our village but ashes and corpses. The fires didn’t burn hot enough to destroy the bodies lying scattered on the ground, cut down and left to rot where they’d taken a final stand. The people of my village lie in the same haphazard fall of wheat or grass mown down in preparation for winter, though their stench warns this is a crop gone to rot too quickly. When I was five, I helped my father gut a deer he shot. I accidentally nicked the guts, a mistake I never made again. That same sickening scent of organs and fouler things hangs in the air, mingling with the cloying coppery tang of blood.

The seeress was right. The fog brought death.

The band of travelers who passed through our village at summer’s end had looked a little different. One had skin as gnarled and craggy as the trees surrounding our village. Another was so tall my father’s head barely reached his shoulder, and he didn’t speak any words I understood. Their leader had a series of strange bumps across his forehead, as though he were a young buck going through his first velvet, and I tried my best not to stare. Despite their unusual appearances, they offered fair prices for some of our extra weapons and they shared news from their journey. I liked them. Felt comfortable around them, especially when they showed me a new way to grip a knife when they caught me staring at their weapons too long. They left quickly, but the seeress said the ljósálfar, the beautiful fae of life and spring, would punish us for breaking our neutrality and trading iron to their cast-off cousins. Our jarl told her we would make amends. We assumed it would be enough. Instead, our enemy slipped in with the fog before we could make a peace offering to them. They assassinated our watch and came for the rest of us.

Father woke first, already grabbing his axe before he understood what the screams meant. “Protect each other,” he ordered us as he ran from our home.

My mother, pale

faced, gripped her seax tightly and watched the door as Halfur and I dressed. He took Father’s sword. I took my hunting knife. Together, we joined the fray.

There were too many of them. The fires had already started. Anyone holding a weapon was struck down. My aunt, throat slit, fell defending my baby cousins, who were sent to meet her soon after. It took three of the ljósálfar to kill my father. My mother screamed like a Valkyrie when she witnessed his death and charged them. When they cut her down, Halfur and I dove in. They grabbed Halfur before he could get in a single swing and beat his head against the stone plinth until there was nothing left. They knocked the knife from my hand and sliced across my back, leaving me to die in the dirt. I managed to get to my feet and took up my father’s axe, but I blocked only one strike before my enemy impaled me on his sword.

The sword edge ground against bone as it pulled free and I fell, lost to the pain. Even when my back and head slammed against the ground, I refused to relinquish the axe.

And still I live.

A horse nickers. My body refuses to rise. All I can do is turn my head to watch a procession of beings trickling out from the darkness of the forest. At their head, a strikingly beautiful woman takes in the carnage. Her black dress blends into her steed’s flanks. She sits with rigid attention, her chest wrapped in a skeletal corset of platemail. The delicate circlet on her brow looks forged from starlight.

“We’re too late,” she announces.

“Ploughing Seelie,” growls the heavy creature who stands beside her mount. His hat is made from a heavy fabric so saturated with blood that it’s turned crimson. The liquid nearly slops over the short brim when he looks around.

“Magic,” I whisper. All the seeress’s stories, her tales shared on dark nights around the crackling fire, have come to life. If my brother were alive, he would marvel with me. There’s no point whispering this revelation to his cooling corpse.