The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

I point at Mother. “She did.”

“Enough,” Mother whispers. “You shall speak no more.”

She trembles. From rage or sorrow or fear, I don’t know. I don’t care. After so long carrying this weight, the sudden absence of it leaves me empty.

“Do you know what the Sluagh call me?” I ask her. “Of course not. They couldn’t possibly compare to the grandeur of the Courts, so you never bothered with them. I am their Horned King. The speaker for their gods. You cannot stop my mouth. Your empire is built from bone and blood and now you find it cannot bear your weight. The gods have sent you a reckoning, and he nearly killed us all tonight.”

Sláine taps his fingers on the table, watching Mother’s reaction, the mask of her eerie calm. “If we survive this war,” he says slowly, “the Courts must change, or others like Goodfellow will rise again. Surely our institutions can be built without such bloodshed.”

“Shut up.” We both jerk at Roark’s harsh warning. He’s stepped out of Smith’s grasp. His head’s bowed and his fists clench at his sides. “This Court was built from a rebellion. It grew from death itself, and that will never change, no matter how much we may wish it could.” He finally looks up and his pale eyes blaze with a pain I’ve never seen, a pain he’s never let me see before. “Both of you stand here and criticize, yet you have enjoyed full lives because of the blood on Mother’s hands. On my hands.” His voice cracks. “And now you intend to abandon us. To walk away and pretend you didn’t help to create this. Fine. Leave. We don’t need you.”

Like Mother, Roark draws his glamour up and he lets us see him do it. The pain on his face is there one moment and hidden away the next. He straightens, sets his shoulders, and the bite of his icy magick has nothing on his voice when he states, “Freedom isn’t given. There is always a cost to it. The only people who believe otherwise are naïfs or fools, and neither have a place in my army.”

“Your army?” Sláine scoffs. “I thought it would take her longer to earn your forgiveness.”

Roark’s beyond Sláine’s jibes now, untouchable to his petty taunts. “This isn’t about forgiveness, Sláine. If it were, you and Mother would be on equal ground.”

Sláine stands, furious, and I recognize the set of his shoulders. The bitterest wars are those between brothers. “You consider me as guilty as the woman who stole you off the ice and pretended you were hers?” Sláine demands, his voice rising when Roark’s composure doesn’t break.

Mine does. My glamour fails and I’m no longer the Horned King. I’m just Lugh, Roark’s little brother.

“What?” My feeble question lands against my brothers with the weight of iron-tipped arrows. Sláine pales, Roark’s glamour shivers, and I reach for Keiran on instinct, only to be met with empty air.

“Lugh,” Sláine rasps, “I didn’t mean to—”

“Coward,” Roark snaps, “don’t you dare lie to him now.”

“Roark, what is he talking about?”

Smith’s eyes narrow as he watches Roark and the room fills with the buzzing heat of the ley line’s magick. I wonder just ho

w much of that power he’s channeling into my brother right now, how much strength Roark requires to be able to wear his flawless mask when he takes a breath and tries to right a falling world for me.

“Smith isn’t the first ley line host Mother sought,” he says calmly. “She found one before him. A baby with uncontrollable powers who had been left to die outside the village where he was born. The Green Man’s loss had left both Courts weak, and she hoped by bringing the child home, the Winter Court would rise to greater heights.”

“But you can’t channel ley lines,” I blurt out. Roark’s unusual, too powerful, too perfect, the only one of us who can cast fire, but he’s my brother. I would know if he was something else, something like Smith—

“Not directly,” Roark agrees. “But I can share Smith’s power. Shape it. Like knows like, it would seem.”

Mother hasn’t moved. Hasn’t spoken or looked away. She’s a statue, an observer to this moment, and I hate her for it. “You wanted to use him?” I ask her, pointing at Roark. “You wanted to use a child to secure your throne?”

“It didn’t work,” she states, her voice hollow. “The sídhe transformed him and his magick. He was no longer a host. He was useless.”

Roark winces despite her lack of inflection and I step toward him, only to have Smith hold up a hand in warning. Any trace of kindness in his face is gone, replaced with hard edges and a strength I know he’s wearing for Roark’s sake alone.

I hold up my own hands to show him I mean no harm, which makes the ley line calm a little. “Roark,” I say, and I’m amazed when he looks at me. “Have you always known?”

“No,” Sláine says for him. His eyes are red-rimmed with unshed tears. “Only I did.”

Another blow. At least this one knocks my thoughts about, helps slide pieces into perspective. “So you never really hated us?”

“I thought I did,” Sláine admits.

“Stop,” Roark tells him quietly. “You are our brother. I remember what you were like before you tried to prove yourself worthy of your title. You never hated me, or Lugh. You hated her. You have every right to, and later, you can tell her off and walk away for good. But you can’t yet.” My brother squares his shoulders and addresses us both with a softness I’ve never seen from him. “This isn’t about our family anymore. This is about protecting the fae who trust their lives and safety to us. This is about putting faith in something bigger than ourselves. About making a choice we won’t regret if we survive. I know what I’ve chosen. I can’t decide for you.” He looks to me, the brother I’ve always admired, tired, broken, but steady. The pillar of our Triumvirate. He always has been, no matter what Mother’s claimed over the centuries. As long as Roark remains, our Court will stand.

“I can’t stay,” I tell him, hating the roughness in my voice. “You’re the best of us, Roark, but I can’t stay at your side.”

He offers me the ghost of a smile. “I don’t remember asking you to.”