The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

It’s colder here. Winds come in unexpected fits and gusts from no discernible direction. With the fire at my back, the only illumination granted comes from the moon and stars. The fields stretch out like a mirrored lake touched with the first hint of frost. Lugh’s trail is easy enough to spot. The grass he’s crossed through leaves a dark smudge twisting away from camp. Grabbing my other weapons or my boots will take too long. I need to find him now. I step out into the grass and follow after him. Running’s impossible; I’ll lose sight of the path in the darkness. Every moment spent watching his trail, every moment spent apart when I know in my heart he wouldn’t abandon me like this, wouldn’t leave unless something was horribly wrong, is a test from the gods. Once I have Lugh back safe in my arms, I’ll risk cursing them for their cruelty. For now, all I can do is pray for his safety and track his steps.

The trail weaves off course as I near the base of the first burial mound. Lugh circled around to the other side. No wonder I couldn’t see him from our camp.

The back of my neck prickles and the sense of being watched grows as I ease my way around the ancient monument. Whatever’s waiting for me is powerful, ancient, and distressed enough that every instinct urges me to reach for the belt and transform. Instead, I tighten my grip on the axe. If I use Queen Mab’s magick now, I might be useful to Lugh, but afterward, I’ll be of no use to anyone. If he’s been injured, if we have to escape quickly... I can’t risk his safety to grant myself better peace of mind before running headlong into this battle.

Four tentative steps bring me around the smooth curve of the mound. Every expectation I had prepared myself for, every creature I conjured from the depths of my mind, is shattered by the sight of the lone figure standing there. Lugh’s head is tipped up to the sky overhead and his back and shoulders contort and flex, fighting an invisible foe.

“Lugh,” I call, raising the axe.

Nothing. I have to close the distance between us. Keep enough space I can move if this is a trap.

“Lugh.”

A spasm wracks him. He bows backwards, twists unnaturally, and his skin shivers the way mine does during the transformation. Like there’s a trapped animal underneath, fighting to escape.

Two more steps bring me to his side. His profile is illuminated by the pale shine of moonlight. His eyes have rolled back and flicker here and there, chasing something, making the whites catch the light. A dark spot mars his pale shirt. Blood. Not from a wound, bless Frigg, but from the dark trail trickling from his nose down to the curve of his lip and farther to his chin. Each drop hangs there for a moment before releasing and adding to the stain.

Fuck. I drop the axe to keep the iron away from him, and reach out to grasp his shoulders. A vicious recoil of magick lashes out. The response reminds me of the time Dubh lost his footing in deep snow. I was so panicked about keeping him from injury that I threw myself off his back. I hadn’t looked first though, and nearly went over the edge of a sharp incline. I scrabbled in that moment of weightlessness and grabbed hold of frozen branches. They cut my hands to bits, but holding on to them instead of tumbling the rest of the way was my only choice. Holding Lugh now, bellowing through the pain when his icy skin burns me through his thin shirt, is like that moment. Cling to what matters because the alternative is incomprehensible.

“Wake up,” I order, shaking him. “Wake up, damn it!”

The wind howls around us, furious and sibilant, as if a chorus of voices were hissing threats. Unnatural. Lugh contorts against me, his muscles reacting without conscious thought, and there’s nothing but his hideous, blank stare and—

I haul him against me, cradling his head and pressing his face into the curve of my neck, and hold him there. I ignore the twitches. I ignore the way his skin roils under my touch. I ignore it all, and keep whispering the same plea to him over and over again. “Come back to me, Lugh. You promised we’d always be together. Come back to me.”

I’m nearly hoarse from

repeating it when the wind finally dies. The night stills and the silence is more terrifying than the ghostly whispers I thought I heard moments ago. Lugh’s twisted away in my arms, his back arched like a hoop, his ability to stay upright dependent on my stubborn hold. I’ll never let him fall. I can’t tell if he’s still breathing.

I rub a thumb against his spine and ask one final time, “Come back.” Then there’s nothing else to do but wait.

Lugh

Come back to me, Lugh.

I know this voice, though it’s rough and broken with an emotion I can’t place. It’s the sound of home and it shelters me from the tidal wave of memories long enough to surface and come back to myself.

The shadow man who slit this incarnation’s throat doesn’t hear the call. He continues to bathe in my blood, rubbing it into his skin with careful sweeps of his hands. I recognize his routine by now. It begins with his patient pursuit—through coaxing, charm, or the careful cultivation of fear—and ends like this. With a victim clinging to his betrayal as they die, bleeding out into his eager hands, and watching him rub the proof of his crime into his skin. I’ve lived and died over and over, through time, through space, with my body aching and stinging from the cuts I’ve endured across all these lives.

Blades and blades and more blades, of varying sizes and shapes, some with sharp, keen edges that never falter during their first cut through my flesh, and others with edges so dull he has to push and tug to cut deeply enough to call the blood the surface. Those are the worst because the shades’ memories are filled with bursts of panic and, worse, hope that escape may be possible. At the end, the world seems to waver and my limbs grow heavy with a strange weakness, as though this man steals more than my life. And then the next shade’s memory rises to claim me, and it begins anew.

“Stop him,” the shades whisper as they stand over my body and watch each scene play out.

He’s been preying in the Wylds for longer than I’ve been alive. He is the reason the shades haunt these woods and fields, why they seek me out in these lands where I am supposed to be safe. He’s the nexus of the magickal imbalance I’ve felt and even when I wake from this, his haunting presence will remain, stuck in my head with all the other pieces I’ve collected tonight.

Come back to me.

No matter the memory, I can never see his face. The shades have tried to help. They clamber over each other to reach my body first and slip their way under my skin, wriggling around until they fit and can move me like a puppet through this phantasmagoria. No matter what they do, their attacker remains obscured from my sight. I need to see him. I need to catch a single glance. If I can do that, I can tell Aage. Maybe he will be able to stop this man. I need to ensure we stop him because after this night, every murder the shadow man commits will be blood on my hands as well.

All this time wandering these lands, building my legend, becoming a figure worthy of the title...it’s all for nothing if more innocent lives are lost. I have no desire to craft a legend as bloodied as Mother’s, or to allow anyone else to follow in her footsteps.

The shades sense my determination and howl their approval. They wrap me in their bony arms and grip me tight to their exposed ribs, keeping me tethered here instead of chasing after the next memory. They never meant to cause me pain or suffering. They needed someone to hear them. They needed me to understand.

Come back.

Keiran.

The shades know him. They’ve watched us traveling together. They whisper to each other and then turn to me. “Go back,” they command.