The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

He hates hearing those stories. I think it’s why he tries to distract the Sluagh by reciting old legends and quests at the nightly, community-wide gatherings. His efforts at humility only make the people love him more, something I understand intimately. When I hear his voice lifting over the sounds of open campfires and watch the crowd as they react to his recitations, I wonder if my love for him will cause my chest to split open and expose my heart to the world. It wouldn’t be a hardship if it did happen. I’ve no shame about the depth of my devotion.

Keiran’s admired, loved even, and most see him as the burgeoning thegn leading his people into the Winter Court’s lands to face down Queen Mab. Excited whispers already drift around him when he walks past fires and training areas. The huscarls have shared how he’ll face my mother and demand equality in exchange for the Sluagh’s support against Goodfellow. That’s always been the plan, one Keiran staunchly upholds in public. He shoulders his people’s expectations like he was born to carry the weight; he never falters, he never breaks, he never shows any sign of doubt. But no one else gets to see him at night in the privacy of our tent.

They don’t realize how little he’s eating. They never notice how he seems afraid of his berserkir belt now, but can’t stand being parted from it. They don’t hear him whispering his fears about facing my mother into the darkness, purging himself of those gnawing worries before he can close his eyes to doze for a few hours. Those moments are ours.

Never is that clearer than this morning, when I stand close to him as we stare out at the waves and listen to the camp behind us being torn down and packed up. I’m the only one who can look at him in this faint light and see the tension in the line of his mouth or the set of his shoulders. I’m the only one who can step closer, until we’re pressed against each other, and lend him the strength and tranquility to breathe until some of those fears abate.

He’s been nervous since we woke. The last group of fighters making up the bulk of our Northern army arrived last night. We’re hundreds strong, already rivaling the Winter Court’s army, and Kermode’s and Thorburn’s forces have yet to meet us in the heart of Mother’s lands. It’s not the overwhelming odds I promised Roark and Mother, nor the routing force we agreed so long ago that we needed to defeat the Summer Court, but it’s the only army we might coax to fight with us against this new threat. None of us expected Goodfellow’s coup. His actions have changed everything, and I need to get home to warn Mother of the enemy she’s about to face. My desire to destroy Goodfellow seems enough to placate the draugr, who hasn’t woken on our ride north. There’s a chance it recognizes my efforts to avenge it, though I fear its peace is due more to the promise of the war’s coming destruction.

Destruction Keiran can’t stop worrying about, since he asks, “Do you think they’re ready?”

“Those coming with us are.”

“I’m worried about the rest,” Keiran admits. “Not our warriors.”

“It’s not a long journey to Járnhelm,” I remind him. “The villagers are well supplied. Besides, the likelihood of Goodfellow traveling so far out of his way to attack a defensive settlement is slim. You know that. It’s why Voll is sending them there.”

He grunts in acknowledgment, which is the best I’m going to get right now. Until he receives news that the villagers who aren’t fighting have found safety behind the massive walls of Járnhelm, the most ancient fortress in Voll’s territory, he won’t stop worrying. Still, my reassurance must have helped because a moment later he asks, “Did you send your raven?”

“Yes. Hopefully we’ll know if she received our message by tonight.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Now it’s my turn to worry. “It’s Yule, so the sealing spell she cast will weaken as our power ebbs. If the raven’s message doesn’t reach her, we’ll have to try scrying. Honestly, I’m not sure what we’ll find until we get there.”

For some reason, that comment makes Keiran smile. He glances down at me and the warmth in his gaze alone makes me forget the wind’s bite. “What’s so funny?” I ask.

“It seems everything we do works that way,” he says. “We ride, we find some strange quest, we’re woefully unprepared, we somehow defeat a monster, and we go home to feast and tell stories about it until the next time.”

“When you put it that way, I guess there’s nothing special this time. We ride to war, kill Goodfellow, go home, and feast. The stories should write themselves.”

Keiran’s smile fades. “They may have to.”

“Don’t,” I warn him. “I have no intention of dying, and the Horned King is no good unless he has a poet to spread his legend.”

“And what will you do when your poet must leave you?” he asks quietly.

The waves rise and spill over the shoreline, tugging greedily at strands of seaweed. One by one, those dark, drifting ribbons are plucked away and vanish into the retreating water, gone from my sight.

“I will go with him, of course,” I promise.

Keiran hums and nudges me with his shoulder. At least he finally turns away from the sea. I draw my cloak tighter around me and pick my way over the rocky shore after him, hoping we’re almost ready to depart. To my right, near the frozen spindrift, a nervous movement catches my eye.

“Give me a moment, Keir,” I call, just as Cybel, Resnik, and Voll come to the top of the natural breakwall and gesture for us to join them.

The shade waiting for me is young and difficult to make out against the backdrop of the surf and sky. “Need something?” I ask him.

He reaches out a hand to me. Too new to know how to speak yet, it seems. The thought of digging through his memories this early isn’t pleasant, but he seems anxious for assistance.

“Lugh, do you need me to stay?” Keiran asks.

I wave off his concerned question, not wanting to distract him from his duties and not a jot afraid of the spirit in front of me. I hold out my hand in offering, and watch as he stretches to make contact.

My efforts to work with the shades in the Wylds have made it easier to control the initial surge of memories and to communicate with them in more than broken thoughts or desperate pleas.

What do you need me to see? I ask.

Simple, homespun clothes and a short, well-maintained sword. His father’s, passed on after his death. He swore his fealty to Keiran on it. I’m in the hall, my knee pressed to the floor, my sword held in offering, my mouth moving over my plea to let me follow him into battle, to die with honor so I can feast beside my dead father and mother as promised by the gods. Keiran’s exhausted smile removes all fear of the war to come, and his gentle, “You will fight in my army and, gods willing, you shall see your parents’ faces when you wake,” leaves me at peace.