The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

“I know you didn’t,” Keiran murmurs against my hair. “I know you didn’t want this. But you’re not cursed, Lugh. And you won’t face these dreams alone.”

“I couldn’t get out,” I finally manage, ignoring the shade’s continued plea. “I couldn’t get out and I couldn’t hear you. I needed you, Keiran, but I couldn’t find you—”

He hushes me and draws back so I can see his face. I focus on those features I’ve memorized—the curve of his mouth, the thickness of his lashes, and the scars marked in pale lines over his skin. He lets me stare, doesn’t protest when I reach up and run my fingers through his beard. Slowly, so I know he isn’t leaving, he releases me from the hug and instead lifts his hands up to cradle my face. He presses his forehead to mine.

“Lugh,” he says, and there’s a desperate promise in his voice, “Lugh, you’re safe. You’re with me and you’re safe. I will always keep you safe.”

I clutch at his wrists. They’re wide and strong, with hair that tickles against my skin. Those sensations are grounding. I’m here. I’m here, not in the woods. I’m here and alive. I’m not crawling through the undergrowth, bleeding out. The shade strikes again, and another flash of memory rips through me.

We can’t let Igna see us this way. We can’t let her find our body.

Oh, Goddess, that poor bastard was crawling away from home. He knew he wouldn’t live. He knew he’d die alone. But he had to protect his little sister.

Keiran doesn’t complain when my grip tightens to the point of bruising. He merely readjusts his position, nuzzles against my temple, and begins to hum. He’s trying to stay quiet, so the notes are flatter, rougher, and sometimes broken, but I still recognize the song. After this long, I can hear the words in my head though he doesn’t sing them. I focus on what they would sound like, the way the syllables ebb and flow, the way he taught me to pronounce them. Those memories begin to chase away the shade’s. Instead of noticing the trickle of blood flowing down my—Odhrán’s—chest from the sliced neck, I’m standing in a stone circle with my best friend, laughing as he tries to correct my accent, watching the stars overhead when he gives up and sings it for me instead.

Yes, this is a memory I need. These memories with Keiran are the touchstones of my life, the moments that keep the shades from settling permanently inside my head. I wait for the ocean breeze and star shine to fill my mind utterly, replacing the softness of moss beneath my cooling body, before loosening my grip and dropping my hands away completely.

Keiran draws me back down onto the bed and curls around me. A hand strokes through my hair and the other remains tight around my waist. His mother’s lullaby fills our little room with the promise of a brighter morning and I give myself over to it, relaxing against Keiran, and letting the vibration of those notes settle into my skin.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Keiran whispers when my breathing evens out at last.

I could tell him. I don’t think, after all these years, that admitting my magick’s affinity to the dead would drive Keiran from my side. Still, I’ve never told him the true source of my visions. Admitting it means admitting I don’t have control over it, and Keiran, in all his care and kindness, would worry every time he thought I was afflicted. I don’t know how I could meet his eyes if he spent every day of the rest of his life trying to protect me from myself.

“Lugh?”

The unspoken words sit on the back of my tongue, bitter and painful to swallow down. “Too tired,” I lie, hating how easily he hums his understanding and settles in even closer.

“Later then,” Keiran whispers when my breathing evens out at last. “We’ll talk about it later. For now, sleep.”

Keiran’s here now. He’ll protect me. There’s no avoiding what tomorrow must bring, so I give in to my exhaustion and fall asleep with the shade whispering its plea like a ghastly lullaby.

Keiran

The men ride ahead of me, jawing back and forth about the gossip they picked up around town this morning on Lugh’s direction. Our fearless leader balances lightly in his saddle, bright-eyed and attentive to their conversation. There’s no hint of last night’s troubles clinging to him. He shifts effortlessly from ease and good humor to sharp focus, but I wonder what he’s trying to hide behind his eagerness. I don’t like when Lugh keeps secrets, especially from me.

“That many?” Lugh asks, his tone sharp enough to draw my attention back to the conversation at hand.

“I checked. It’s nineteen,” Armel repeats again. “The apothecary delivered all of them and has watched them grow up. She’s been keeping a list of the missing.”

“But so many in six months?” Cybel asks.

“No wonder everyone’s desperate for news,” Drest mutters.

“And why there’s little love for Aage or his supporters here,” Armel says. “Promising aid, only to leave his promise unfulfilled... I marvel how word of his people’s discontent hasn’t reached him by now.”

The mystery of the missing villagers... Of course that’s what they’re talking about. Lugh had been adamant as he sent the men off that they bring him any news they could, even if we couldn’t act on it until after we met with Aage. He may not like leaving unfinished business behind us, but his pragmatism makes me worry less about completing our mission for the war.

“Do you think there’s any chance of finding them?” Cybel asks Lugh. “It’s been so long, I doubt there’s any good signs left for us to track.”

Lugh hums and nods in seeming agreement, but he’s turned his gaze from the path ahead of us to the forest closing in on both sides. The back of my neck prickles, like an icy finger’s tracing over my skin, and I slow Dubh’s pace. The men continue their conversation. Lugh exists independently of them, drifting through the threads of conversation swirling around him as if they’re no more irritating

than spiders’ webs. Under Lugh’s careful hand, Liath’s steps shift from the center of the path toward its edge, until another step forward would take horse and rider off the road and into the verdant growth.

“Seidhr?” Armel calls once he realizes Lugh’s come to a stop on the edge of the path.

Lugh doesn’t look back at any of us, focused on the forest instead. It’s natural for others to underestimate him since they don’t see him like this. They’ve never seen his good humor cut off without warning, how his seeming idleness shifts into something clever and razor-edged and capable of cutting through tattered illusions. In these rare moments, Lugh transforms into something darker, something far deadlier, and I can’t escape the painful reminders that he is Queen Mab’s son, the Prince of War and Chaos. No, the other fae in the Winter Court only see a man barely past the blush of youth sitting astride a pale horse, and they discount him without a second thought.

I know better.