The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

by M. A. Grant

  And a trap it surely is.

  Smith, Lugh, his older brothers, and I stand at the head of the battalion beside the queen. After so long riding with the Hunt, standing horseless on the edge of a battlefield feels wrong. Our three hundred troops—fifty of my Sluagh and the rest from the Unseelie ranks—wait impatiently for a command to attack. At Queen Mab’s orders, the few Seelie troops Princess Aislinn could spare remain in the sídhe with Sebastian. Due to the iron weapons involved in tonight’s battle, Queen Mab wanted the Sluagh to accompany her forces, hoping to even the odds a bit more. My warriors didn’t argue her request. They know we only have one chance to succeed in this and are eager to kill the usurper.

  Prince Lyne, who watches in silence from Lugh’s side, is far more cautious than his fighters. The furrow between his brows grows deeper and deeper the longer he takes in the scene. We must share the same doubts. We had wanted to fan out to surround the encampment. However, once we leave our forested hill, we have to cross a narrow expanse of beach. Goodfellow’s forces will see us coming. Taking them by surprise will be nearly impossible. Prince Lyne knows this. He’s a tactician. Brilliant, cold, and levelheaded, his battle prowess is legendary in the sídhe. Yet, in an ominous sign for the coming clash, he hesitates.

  His mother will not. Queen Mab, dressed in chain mail and holding ice daggers, stands within a circle of her redcap guards. There was no question of her leading this attack. She’s always been a fighter. She spilled blood to escape the Seelie Court and establish her own in a new seat of power. She led skirmishes to defend her lands until her Court was formally recognized by the Pantheon. She led the Unseelie and Pantheon forces to prevent the death of the Green Man in the first Faerie Civil War. Observing her now, seeing how her piercing gaze flicks over the assembled forces before returning to Goodfellow’s tent, I understand how her legacy has survived. She is a wolf, a predator undeterred from her prey, and her unmitigated fury has found an outlet at last.

  She flicks a knife toward Prince Lyne. “No mercy, Roark.”

  “Yes, Mother,” he says. He glances past Lugh to me. “Keiran?”

  My Sluagh press forward. I nod and Prince Lyne lifts a hand. Behind us, the small army shifts. The rustle of their chain and leather armor—lighter and quieter for the surprise assault—melds with the ocean’s surf. Kermode’s and Thorburn’s warriors breathe at my back.

  When I went to camp to gather forces, I told them what Queen Mab promised. They understand what our success here means to their people. They understand how badly I need to prove myself, and their support is unwavering. I pray the gods are on my side tonight too.

  Roark’s hand drops and we run down from cover and onto the clear, open battlefield of the beach. My warriors break ahead of the regimented redcap soldiers Prince Lyne leads and I run with them, fear and panic and exhilaration lending me speed. Lugh’s at my side, his sword drawn.

  Goodfellow’s men scramble the moment our rush rises over the sea’s sound. They grab the nearest weapons—swords, axes, and spears—and turn to face us. My warriors crash into them and it begins. The belt stings from the familiar panicked rush when I bury an axe into the neck of the first man to stand against me. I rip it free, blood spattering, and turn to meet the next attack. Lugh spins with me, protecting my back, and his sword rings as he hits out against a metal-banded shield. At the sound, we reverse again. He finishes the soldier I was trying to kill, while I hammer at the shield, throwing all my strength behind each blow. The wood of the shield cracks and splinters. The man holding it finally cries out when I break through it and bury an axe in his arm. I step to the side, pulling his arm away from his chest, and open him up for the swift stab Lugh delivers.

  It’s a small triumph in the midst of the slaughter raging around us. Our fighters—bloodied and injured—continue doggedly to fight. The Unseelie redcaps fare worse. Some of Goodfellow’s men use the iron weapons to their advantage, darting about the battlefield to land small cuts or pricks with their weapons, ensuring iron poisoning without having to engage in a true fight.

  Queen Mab notices. Her blades are deadly, but she wields her magick with even greater devastation. Soldiers flash freeze, only to be smashed into pieces by redcaps as they rush by. Smith works near her side, casting out hexes that turn soldiers into pillars of ash. Sometimes his attacks only land partially, and someone’s scream will cut off as half their body drifts away from the rest of their collapsing corpse. Prince Lyne defends both his mother and his husband, though most of his jagged ice sets up defensive walls around Smith.

  We continue to push into the camp, past the first wall of tents, then the second. We’re within sight of Goodfellow’s tent when he emerges, unbothered by our threatening presence. His soldiers retreat behind him, and the discord of the fight dies. He examines what remains of our small army with a faint smile. Lugh winces and mouths something to himself, but Goodfellow doesn’t notice. When he finds Queen Mab in our midst, his unnerving expression changes, twists his face with unnatural glee.

  “You came,” he whispers to her across the expanse, and lifts a hand in her direction.

  Thorned vines rip from the ground around us. Some of my warriors are too close to them and the vines wrap around their legs, twisting them to the ground, or ripping up and out through their chests. One comes for me. Lugh gets to it first, his movements fluid, but slower than normal, leaving his cheek torn open from an errant thorn as he slashes it down. Prince Sláine shouts something from behind us and walls of earth rise up, deflecting the newest vines.

  Goodfellow doesn’t seem to mind the failed attack. He glances over his shoulder and orders, “Fire.”

  Archers.

  My stomach drops out. Rather than shift, I grab Lugh and drag him to my chest, turning my back to Goodfellow and bracing for the pain. Arrows whisper as they fall. Worse, I see more of Goodfellow’s troops running down the beach from a distant hiding place to cut us off from escape. The trap’s been sprung, just as we knew it would.

  Smith blazes alight. His hair flutters in the calm air and his skin casts shadows around us. He lifts his hands up and braces a leg back as if he could hold something back—

  Overhead, the arrows sizzle and vanish into clouds of dust as they hit the shield he built.

  “Retreat!” Prince Lyne calls, ignoring his mother, who stands there, staring at Goodfellow with an unreadable expression. Roark spins to indicate the direction to our troops, only to see the second wave of soldiers coming toward us. He transforms before my eyes. No signs of fear or fury, nothing on his face but ancient resignation.

  Prince Sláine also recognizes the danger. He creates new earthen walls to slow the enemy’s progress, but the tragedy will play out, even if we escape. Our dead lie on the beach with no hope of retrieval. Many of the redcaps drag up their wounded compatriots in an effort to bring them to safety, while others use their swords to offer faster, more merciful ends. My Sluagh gather around me, bristling with weapons and shields they’ve gathered from the fallen.

  Another volley of arrows hits Smith’s shield. Prince Lyne grasps his shoulder without flinching, and shakes him. “Retreat,” he orders.

  Smith doesn’t move. He can’t because Queen Mab can’t look away from Goodfellow, can’t step away and admit her defeat at his hands. The Knight must protect his queen, even when she would rather die than retreat.

  I release Lugh and push him toward his mother. “Make her leave,” I command.

  He shakes his head and forces himself to look away from Goodfellow.

  “Lugh!”

  At the sound of his name, he nods and rushes away from me. Between the efforts of her two sons, she begins to withdraw. Smith and Lugh and Prince Lyne force her and the Unseelie soldiers to move faster, to get to safety before Prince Sláine tires and drops the protective walls he’s built. The Sluagh and I hurry after them. Goodfellow follows us, his pace sedate, and his face bright with horr
ific pride. We’re nearly to the woods, nearly to freedom, when I look over my shoulder and see him stretch his arms toward us.

  The blast of his magick drops Smith and the princes to the ground. Even Queen Mab stumbles and loses hold of one of her daggers. The ice shatters against the frozen beach. She recovers, notices her fallen sons and her Knight, who shakes his head and tries to rise, only to fail.

  “You can’t escape me,” Goodfellow calls as he continues his inexorable progress across the beach. The walls holding back the rest of his troops fell when Prince Sláine’s control faltered, and the legion of fighters surges behind him, waiting for the command to finish us. “I’ve followed your path for centuries, until this moment. I am born to unite the Courts, and with your death, I will restore true balance to Faerie.”

  Queen Mab doesn’t respond. Instead, her gaze alights on me and the belt sings.

  “Change,” she commands.

  The Sluagh will stay to defend me after, as will Lugh. I can’t change now. They’ll die if I do. I fight the belt’s sharp obedience. I shake my head and biting pinpricks of sensation crawl under my skin, the threat of fur about to break loose.

  “Keir,” Lugh begs from his mother’s side, “don’t!”

  Queen Mab’s eyes are cruel. She lifts a finger toward me. “Now.”

  I scream as the transformation takes me, a concentrated, bitter swell of magick, and the bear breaks loose.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Keiran

  I don’t know how we escaped that beach and returned to the sídhe. I know my Sluagh fell to protect me. I know Lugh tried to defend me and, in turn, the bear tried to defend him. And I know Goodfellow was just past the line of fighters, looking at me with disgust and a hint of fear. I wanted to rip out his throat. I rushed toward him and his fear grew so great, there was no doubt I would finish him this time—

  Then weightlessness. Cold. A jagged landing sending all my earlier injuries screaming in a discordant chorus of agony. I drifted in that hazy sea as hands found me, held me, and carried me away.

  Now, the sídhe’s familiar walls close in around me. Lugh whispers a litany of prayers to the Goddess, to the gods, as he helps me stagger on to our chambers. My blood leaks from too many wounds to count, too many wounds to examine for fear of the pain I’ll feel, and I can feel its wetness soaking into his clothes and hair.

  Down the hall, a hob watches our approach with worry.

  “Bridget,” Smith calls from my other side, “we need help.”

  She’s kind. Her fingers skim my back and shoulders and when I hiss, she declares me too injured for a tunic. She brings loose trousers that don’t hurt once they’re on and a pair of soft boots to keep the earth’s coolness from soaking into my feet.

  “He needs a healer,” she warns Lugh, as though I’m not standing right here. She presses the back of a delicate hand to my skin and frowns. “What do you normally give him to break the fever?”

  Lugh rattles off a list of herbs. I ignore him. I ignore the surviving Sluagh fighters who follow like silent shadows at our backs. I focus on Smith, who strides down the halls beside us. He wipes absently at his bleeding nose with a chain mail sleeve, smearing blood over his upper lip.

  “Is he okay?” Smith keeps asking Lugh.

  Bridget slows her pace to offer Smith a handkerchief. I seize the moment and set my feet against the ground. Lugh struggles to adjust, but can’t budge me.

  Bridget, who has continued on now that Smith’s mess has been addressed, comes to a stop in the hall ahead of us.

  I glare at Smith, who stuffs the handkerchief away and watches me back with new wariness.

  “Take me to her,” I tell him.

  He blanches. “You need—”

  “Take me to her!”

  Lugh jerks against me, shocked by my vehemence. Smith’s lips press together tightly, but he nods. He doesn’t dare look at me when he reaches out a hand and presses it to the wall of the sídhe. The sídhe obeys, and he pushes open a newly formed door for us. I step out of Lugh’s arms, and enter the war room, leaving bloody boot prints in my wake.

  Queen Mab can’t hide her shock when we appear from the door in what used to be a solid wall. Seb has his hands pressed to Prince Sláine’s and the wounds there begin to heal. Smith closes the door behind us. It vanishes a moment later and he slinks to Prince Lyne’s side. The middle son is at his mother’s shoulder, arrested mid-argument by our arrival.

  “You dare use me against my own people?” I rasp, fixing my rage on Queen Mab, and Queen Mab alone. This is her doing, and she will bear the weight of this night’s tragedy.

  Prince Lyne stands straighter, though he doesn’t move away from the queen.

  “They are not your people,” she says. “Your people died at the hands of ljósálfar, as you should have. A human like you cannot dare to claim—”

  Her cool indifference sends fire raging through my veins. For the first time since taking on the belt, I give in to my anger and slam my closed fist down on her table. The blow fills this empty space like a thunderclap and the queen’s words die in her throat.

  “I am Thegn of the Iron Crown,” I growl. I rip off the belt and hurl it toward her, free at last. It hits the polished wood in front of her with a sickening splat that sprays her and Prince Lyne with fine droplets of blood.

  My chest heaves, stretching the wounds on my back, which gape and weep blood onto her pristine floors. All the bear’s power dwells in me, has always dwelt in me, and I channel it now as I face her. “I am no one’s puppet.”

  Shifting behind me. My Sluagh gather at my back, a weary wall of support against the royal family of the Winter Court. Six of my warriors left. Only six.

  Gods, so much loss. So much waste, and there’s no trace of remorse in Queen Mab’s perfect features. This will never end.

  I lift a hand and point at her. Exhaustion creeps into my voice, but I don’t let my words waver. “My warriors paid your price with their blood. There is nothing left to prove. Your promise is owed us. If you survive this war, we’ll collect.”

  The temperature drops and I smile bitterly against her show of temper. She brings out the worst in me, but I am her equal now. I have no reason to hide my hatred of her any longer.

  Lugh steps closer and urges quietly, “Let’s go.”

  My Sluagh listen to him and start to leave. Lugh turns to go with them, until I press my fingertips against his chest. “Not you.”

  I regret it immediately. Lugh’s face contorts with panic, so I drag him close and kiss his forehead. It’s an apology, an attempt to soothe him and assure him of his place at my side. “Finish this, seidhr. Tomorrow we dine together with our fallen friends in the golden hall.”

  It’s all I can promise him. A grim proposal when he deserves so much better, but he understands. He laughs, a horrible, wet, choked sound, and nods. “Yes,” he whispers. “Tomorrow we will. Go ahead, Keir. I’ll be at camp soon.”

  Lugh

  Keiran’s offered me his heart and what’s left of his future before my family. I could never deny him. I want to kiss him, to tell him how much I love him, to mourn with him on our last night, but there’s not time. This moment can’t last. I’m surprised by who decides to interrupt us though.

  Seb rises from his place at Sláine’s side and crosses to join us. “I’ll make sure they get back to the camp safely. Finny can open a door for us,” he tells me.

  From his place by Roark, Smith frowns. At least he doesn’t argue with Seb, whose glamour covers Keiran and his warriors like a blanket. I want to cry in relief when I feel the Green Man’s magick working on them, on me, as it begins the healing process in earnest.

  “Thank you,” I tell him, and he gives me a wan smile before leading them out of the room. Keiran doesn’t look back at me as he leaves. He doesn’t have to. We are inviolate. Nothing will separate us no
w, and he knows it.

  The sound of the door scraping shut behind him reminds me of a crypt being closed. A burial of sorts. Too fitting, considering what I’m about to say. I square my shoulders and don my glamour. I weave it as tightly as I dare, focusing on using it as a protective wall against my family instead of a symbolic mask. I know the antlers are smaller, simpler than what I’ve worn in the past, and bleached white. My hood is deeper and darker than ever, offering me shelter from their prying eyes.

  I turn to find my family watching me. Sláine seems surprised, Roark distressed, if Smith’s steadying hand against his back is any sign. Only Mother remains severe and aloof as always.

  “Our people will not fight for you,” I declare.

  My words ring around the chamber. Perhaps this is why Keiran stands in front of crowds and regales them with stories. There’s a kind of magick in the act.

  It’s Mother who breaks the silence. Of course it is. She lifts a dark brow and asks, “Our?”

  “Yes. My thegn’s people and, therefore, mine.”

  “Enough of this, Lugh,” she snaps. She turns back to Roark, exposing the pale column of her neck and the curve of her cheek. It’s not a movement to signal surrender, just a sign of how little she considers me a threat. “Your loyalty to that human was amusing when you were a boy. You’ve outgrown it.”

  The draugr, still furious I fought its hold during our battle with Goodfellow, growls its rage at Mother’s show of pride instead. This time, I don’t tell it to shut up. I agree with it, and in its surprise, it allows me to continue uncontested. “No,” I tell my mother. “I’ve outgrown your Court.”

  Before I can blink, Mother’s on her feet, lashing out with a hex. If not for Roark’s swift jostling of her arm, it would have landed. Instead, it strikes the wall behind me and ice clicks and forms over the stone.