The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

When I pry my eyes open, the battlefield has transformed. Goodfellow’s forces scatter, some running in the direction he orders, others attempting to flee. Keiran helps me up from the ground. His mouth moves and I latch on to the rise and fall of his voice, but his words are gibberish. A swath of withered corpses and an uncontrolled pillar of ice are near the place I last saw Sláine and Roark. And shades—

They cover the battlefield like fog, called here by my magick. There are so many of them, they form a hidden, secret army passing amidst the living without their knowledge. No matter how many times I blink, I can’t find a stationary point to fix on. There’s too much movement, too much distraction, so much my head pounds and threatens to split.

“Lugh!” Keiran yells.

I see it now. The veil between reality and Tír na nÓg gone stiff and solid. An impenetrable wall of the dead claw at it, unable to pass through. They howl and clamber over each other in an effort to slip through, only to fail and plummet back into the writhing mass below. The balance of life and death itself has been upset by Goodfellow. But now, with the Green Man’s rebirth, with Goodfellow’s first victim here to confront him and set right its death, there’s a sliver of hope.

I cling to it in defiance. There’s so little to hold close now.

The snow swirls while dark shapes skim over blood-drenched snow. Weapons clash, bodies fall, translucent figures rise, and the final effort for victory rolls over the field.

Our breath clouds as the temperature drops lower and lower, and the melting snow begins to harden again into patches of crimson ice. I try to breathe slower to avoid the bite in my throat, but it does little good. Roark’s glamour is unstoppable, reaching into the clouds above to unleash gales studded with ice. And there, underneath Roark’s power, Sláine’s creeps through the earth itself. The ground yawns open to swallow swathes of Goodfellow’s soldiers, closing up and leaving no sign of their presence.

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Goodfellow commands his army forward to protect his retreat, but the barricade he erects with their bodies won’t last long. The battle with Mother drained the last of his stolen power. Now that the Triumvirate took hold with her death, there’s nothing he can do to stop our new power.

“He’s trying to run,” Keiran warns.

Please, the draugr whispers from the shadows of my memory. Let us rest.

If Goodfellow escapes, the shades will be trapped here, moving among us, when they should be at rest. They’ll never reach Tír na nÓg and their blight will continue to infect the land. If Goodfellow escapes and uses his power to steal and warp the magick of others in his next attempt to take control, this place will belong to the dead alone. The only hope for our Court, for Keiran and my future, for the balance my mother died to protect, is to eliminate the threat once and for all.

“We finish this now,” I growl.

Keiran moves with me, step for step, as we skid through the gruesome slurry after him, barely able to keep our feet. This is the moment we’ve been heading toward our entire lives. Since I found Keiran in that burned-out village and saw his fearlessness, I knew he would lead me to my destiny. It’s here amidst the mud and corpses.

Our movement catches Goodfellow’s eye. He spins on us when he reaches an open space in the field, his sword to the ready. His face contorts with rage. He will not fall easily.

Keiran steps in front of me on instinct when Goodfellow flings a hand at us. A single vine wraps itself around the haft of the axe. Goodfellow can conjure nothing else. His strength is gone, reduced to nothing now that the blood magick’s run its course.

Soon, I promise the draugr. Soon you can rest.

I dart around Keiran, stealing a long seax from his belt on the way. My sword has more reach, but it’s buried in the gore where I fell from Liath’s back, and there’s no time to waste.

Goodfellow meets me halfway. I deflect his blow with the seax, adjusting for the angry strength of his swing and letting his momentum swing me out of reach again. He corrects and attacks again. Another block. Keiran destroys the vine and rips his axe free. He rushes to join me and—

A dark shape passes between me and Goodfellow, obscuring my vision utterly. I can’t get the seax up fast enough after the shade passes. Goodfellow’s hit flings the blade away. His swinging reversal hisses as it cuts the air. I dart to the side, scrambling against the sloppy ground. The blade lands inches from my foot. Move back. Faster. Dance out of reach until Keiran arrives and we can finish this together—

Something moves in the edge of my vision and I duck, only to feel the cool trail of a shade’s fingers through my hair. Not Goodfellow. Which means—

Keiran shouts and the blade is there. I twist, arching my back and clawing to maintain my balance despite screaming, contorted muscles. The iron edge scrapes over the mail on my chest, but doesn’t sink through. I try to twist back up, but my balance is off. There’s no time to recover.

The fall is slow and accidental. The knowledge of what’s coming doesn’t lessen the impact of my back against the ground, doesn’t silence the rattle of chain mail. Goodfellow lunges, confident in his final attack, in his ability to destroy the Triumvirate.

Fury crests, burning through my chest and veins like the spread of iron.

Face me, the draugr rages.

Goodfellow moves in for the kill. Only now, when he’s too close to pull away, to deny what he’s about to see, do I breathe out and drop the last barriers I’d set in my mind. I unleash the draugr on its child and pray the paths beyond the veil open at last for both of them.

Keiran

We are not Aage and Breoca. We are not. Gods above, don’t make me watch him die.

My father’s axe, so familiar and comfortable in my hands, isn’t balanced for throwing. I ready it anyway. Goodfellow does not get to take Lugh from me. He can take my crown, but he cannot take my heart. I will not allow him to.

They’re alone in that bubble of space. Lugh lays on his back, crimson mud smeared over his cheek, staring up at Goodfellow defiantly. It’s the lindworm over again.