The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

by M. A. Grant

  Pain is good. Pain helps me focus. I have to keep them out of my head. I have to keep them at bay. Every Samhain, when the veil between worlds is the thinnest, the oldest shades come begging closure, not realizing it’s an impossible task. There are no bodies left to lay to rest. No way of completing their last wishes. When I fail, they have no choice but to stay with me, trapped in my head.

  And there are so many coming toward me now. I can’t fall asleep. Focus. Build up the fire. Heat water. Make a drink. Find constellations. Anything. Anything to stay awake. It’s the best plan I have.

  Slowly, I drop my hands and listen. Out in the darkness, the singing has faded. Maybe she and the others have wandered off in another direction.

  Except, when I open my eyes, a filmy gaze holds mine with the same dark command of a basilisk’s stare. A bony hand skates down my cheek. Where it touches, a deep chill bites in and spreads, sending pins and needles into my jaw, my throat, my temples... I hunch against the pain and try to cradle my head in my hands, but it’s too late. Shadows swirl around me, keeping out of the fire’s light as they wait their turns, whispering all the memories they need to give me. The shade who found me first slides into my mind like an oily shadow and begins rooting around the empty spaces.

  I crane my head over my shoulder and grunt, “Keiran.” He’ll wake up and tell me stories, distract me from their insistent attention.

  A strange coldness runs through me, as if my blood is freezing me from the inside out. The shade’s still there in my head, but it’s reaching out for more. Demanding more, and I don’t know what it wants—

  My muscles lock up when the shade dresses itself in my flesh, wriggling until it fits under my skin.

  “Keiran!” I try again, but it’s strangled, cut off by the shade’s grip on my voice. It flexes its control over me, forces my muscles to move, forces my body to rise and stagger toward the burial mounds.

  “Keir,” I beg one last time, losing my battle to stay here beside him. His name, combined with my desperate need, opens a seam, a vulnerability, in the walls I try to erect against the attack. The shade digs in at that weakest point and pries and—

  Chapter Nine

  Keiran

  I open my eyes only to wake in my burning village. A crushing weight tethers me to the earth. There’s nothing overhead but the endless stretch of stars. Beside me, a fire burns out. The dimming light makes strange shadows rise and fall, reminding me of the hazy shapes of marauding ljósálfar finishing off my people while I watched, helpless to stop them. The flare of panic helps drag me from the memory. I’m not there. I survived that.

  I command my muscles to move, with no response. The cold settles deep into my bones. It takes a lifetime to crack my jaw open enough to speak. “Lugh,” I croak.

  No response from my side.

  “Lugh,” I try again, “please—”

  Lugh seems as sensitive to the arrival of my rare nightmares as he is to his own. He never fails to rouse when I call for him, no matter how exhausted he is. We’re partners in this, dedicated to chasing away the other’s worst fears. To be greeted by silence, with no grunt of acknowledgment and no shift of blankets, is unnatural.

  Concern overrides the dream’s lingering effects. I sit up and ignore the way the world spins with the sudden movement because the bedroll beside me is empty.

  Lugh’s gone.

  A breeze brushes against my back and I shiver, even as my doubts weigh heavy in my gut.

  “Lugh,” I call again, louder this time. Maybe he slipped off to relieve himself.

  Liath and Dubh call back to me. There’s no reason for them to be awake, not when it’s this dark, not when we’ve ridden hard for so many days in a row. They stand close to each other, tails flicking nervously, ears pricked forward, both looking toward the burial mounds in the distance. The smooth handle of the axe steadies me as I abandon my bed and move outside the scant glow cast by the dying fire.

  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.

  Goddess, it hurts. My muscles disobey even the slightest physical demand. My spine screams its protest when I fling myself up too quickly. Keiran’s arm around my waist is blessedly warm, despite the night’s chill. He keeps me from falling, gives me time to rip and tear my way out of the rest of the memories, though they stick to me like spiders’ webs and tickle in the far corners of my mind with every tremor.

  I gasp for air, unable to lose the tang of blood in my mouth, and find his gaze. Steady, strong, and unmoving.

  “Keir,” I start and his arm tightens around me, like he wants to hold me even closer. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of, and I want to linger and enjoy it—

  Wait. Nausea, delayed after my fevered escape, hits with a vengeance. I wriggle in Keiran’s grip and push away from his chest until he releases me. My legs can’t hold my weight yet, but that’s okay. Falling down makes it easier to crawl a short distance away and vomit. I spill my guts into the grass, coughing on the stinging bile, and spitting so I don’t choke on the saliva dripping down my chin. Each muscular contraction leaves me shivering as the shades abandon my body, no longer in need of a weakened host. Their work is done. Their memories remain stuck in my head, jagged like shattered glass and just as dangerous to handle. Distanced from those moments now and thinking back to other shades I’ve put to rest, the similarities are impossible to ignore.

  I should have seen it. The killer’s been here so long, has taken so many, and I never even noticed. I failed the people who counted on me to offer them guidance and protection.

  There’s no controlling my body when the memory of every death I relived tonight hits a final time, a punishment for skirting too close to the subject again. At least the onslaught of memories is easier to escape now. They pass a heartbeat later when I don’t try to cling to them, or am no longer forced to suffer through them. As they too slip off into the darkness after their shades, I take a deep inhalation. It’s unsteady and I have to spit one last time so I don’t feel like I’m drowning. Even after, everything tastes of copper.

  So much blood. All of that blood, over and over.

  A strange, pained noise comes from my left. I jerk and glance over, only to find Keiran kneeling beside me. He doesn’t reach for me. Such stupid, self-imposed rules. Instead, I reach for him, needing the press of his body against mine to remind me that I’m safe and corporeal. That I’m not just another shade forced to watch life pass by while I remain and wither.

  “Keir,” I say, immensely grateful he understands everything I can’t explain.

  He grabs hold of my hand and uses it to drag me up against him. The world rights itself in his arms. I bury my face against him, reveling in the rise and fall of his chest. Slowly, I match our breathing and cling tighter, imagining we could even synchronize our heartbeats. Maybe we do. He holds me there until my knees begin to ache and my fingers go numb and then he holds me longer.

  I’m far past exhaustion, ready to drift off to sleep at any second, when his chest vibrates beneath my cheek from his low question, “What did you see?”

  That wakes me right up. I stare at the soft weave of his shirt and wonder how long I can fake being too tired to explain myself.

  He sighs and clasps a hand around the back of my head. His fingers press through my hair and he rubs small, soft circles against my scalp until I melt against him. Once I’m pliant and unguarded, he tries again.

  “Lugh, what did you see? It’s not just luck, us ending up in these places. You did see something in your nightmare, didn’t you? You received a message of some kind?”

  “What would you say if I did?”

  He gives a half chuckle. “That I’m a damn good storyteller.” When I don’t laugh with him though, he falls silent.

  I don’t dare risk glancing up at him and seeing his expression.

  “Lugh,” he coaxes, “I’ve always wondered if it were true. The stories I tell... I’m probably wrong most of the time, but it’s what I imagine happens to you. That you get visions.”

  “You’re wrong.” Not visions. Memories. I should tell him now. I could explain so he understands. Instead, all I manage is, “The reality of it isn’t as heroic as you make it sound.”

  “I speak what I see,” he says.

  It’s quiet, too gentle for this place of tombs and death. His honesty flusters me and I’m achi
ngly aware of how close we are, how warm his skin is against mine, and I have to pull away before I ruin us. He lets me go, but his fingertips linger over my skin, a subtle reminder that I am choosing this separation, not him.

  “They’re not visions,” I explain from a safer distance away. “I wish they were. They’re...visitations.”

  I can’t meet his gaze after admitting the truth. Instead, I inspect my clothes. The shirt is a disgusting mess that should be burned, and my breeches will need a good wash if they’re to survive.

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  The calm, even tone of his voice is what gives me the courage to continue. “Some deaths aren’t clean. They go against nature or leave incomplete works behind and I... Sometimes I see the shades they create and they ask me for help—”

  “Shades,” he interrupts. “Meaning spirits of the dead. And they came to you tonight?” When he goes quiet, I finally dare a glance his way. He’s glaring at the ground, expression dark and furious, and when he speaks again, I hear the bear’s growl in his words. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No. Not intentionally. They were trying to warn me.”

  “What kind of warning requires them to possess you?”

  That’s what’s bothering him so deeply? “Keir,” I murmur, “they aren’t possessing me.”

  “What else would you call it?” he snaps back. “You clearly weren’t in control of your body.”

  “There were too many of them and it... I was overwhelmed.”

  “Nothing should make you feel so out of control. That’s not right, Lugh. It’s not right.” His voice breaks a little on the emphatic statement. His hand presses on his shirt, just on the edge of the berserkir belt.