Cold Iron

by Stina Leicht

  “Nels!” Uncle Sakari leapt from the saddle and shouted at the house. He had a bundle in his hand. “Stop this pointless game at once!”

  The mare fell to her knees and then dropped onto her side, breathing in hoarse gasps. Her eyes rolled, showing their whites, and her hooves continued to spasm as if she were still running. Nels’s stomach turned. His mother’s warnings took on a new serious­ness. He looked away. He couldn’t watch the mare kill herself. He wanted to shout to his uncle to command the mare to stop but didn’t. There were Ilta and Sergeant Eriksson to consider.

  “Nels! Come to me right now!”

  The press of domination magic tingled against Nels’s skin as it passed through the air. The shock of it caused a quake of cold fear. His uncle had never gone to such depths to control him before.

  “This is foolish. I know you’re here. The sergeant confessed everything.” Uncle Sakari tossed the bundle into the dirt.

  Nels saw it was a hand.

  “Come to me now, and I may spare your corporal.”

  Scrambling to his feet, Nels felt Ilta tug at his sleeve.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “I have to,” Nels whispered. Every muscle hurt, and the headache was now the worst it’d ever been. Terror spurred his heart into beating ever faster. Pain slammed him with every rapid beat. It was all he could do to step out onto the path leading to the dooryard. “I’m here.”

  Uncle Sakari said, “You shouldn’t have run. It will only make the punishment worse.”

  Shrugging, Nels moved closer at a measured pace.

  His uncle snapped his fingers, and a guardsman that Nels didn’t recognize came forward. He pulled at a rope looped around Sergeant Hurme’s neck. The three other guardsmen who had helped Nels escape stumbled along behind. Each had their hands tied with a rope that stretched from prisoner to prisoner like a chain. Pale and sweating, Sergeant Hurme hissed in agony as the rope joining him with the others yanked at his wrists. His right arm ended in a stump wrapped in a bloody, dripping rag. Still, he held his head high, and his jaw was set.

  “What are you going to do to them?” Nels asked. A knot of dread wrenched his heart.

  “You’ve always seemed a bright-enough boy. It’s time you learned a hard lesson,” Uncle Sakari said. Another wave of domi­nation magic shoved at the morning air.

  “You’re not going to-to kill me?” Nels wasn’t sure why he asked, but he couldn’t help hoping.

  “Why would I need to do anything so artless and clumsy?” Uncle Sakari shook his head. “Lieutenant, remove their bonds and return their weapons. No. Not the sergeant. Leave him.”

  Then Uncle Sakari motioned for Sergeant Hurme and the recently freed guardsmen to approach. “Watch, Nels. Watch and learn.” Uncle Sakari stared each of the men in the eyes for a long moment. The weight of power in the air became unbearable. Then he said, “Gentlemen, there is a traitor among you. Your sergeant. He went against my orders. He led you into a mistake. Redeem yourselves.” He brushed dust from his sleeve. “The first to kill him will be promoted.”

  There came a clatter of swords being drawn. Sergeant Hurme shouted in defiance once before all three swords pierced his body. One of the men twisted his blade free of the sergeant’s chest and then drove it through the sergeant’s neck. The blade bit deep before Nels closed his eyes. Someone screamed. It was Ilta.

  Corporal Eriksson burst from the garden. “No!” He rushed past Nels and went to Sergeant Hurme.

  The sergeant’s body lay at Nels’s feet. Blood stained the dirt everywhere Nels looked. Bright crimson had splashed on the cooling body of the mare, across Nels’s boots, and soaked into the bare earth in a growing puddle. Corporal Eriksson knelt next to the body.

  “He didn’t deserve this,” Corporal Eriksson said.

  Uncle Sakari said, “It’s time to make a decision, corporal.”

  Ilta emerged. Her eyes were wild and unfocused. “Please. Don’t.”

  Saara Korpela rode up to the house at a full gallop. She tugged at her reins, bringing her horse up short and dismounted. Her riding clothes were dusty, and she looked exhausted, if furious. She resembled Ilta in that her snowy hair was thick, long, and curly. Where Ilta’s features were spare and angular, Saara’s were more rounded. “Just what do you think you’re doing, traipsing across my land with a damned army?” Saara’s question shot through the morning like an Acrasian musket ball. “Get those horses out of my corn!”

  Nels’s uncle didn’t pause. He turned his attention to Saara as if nothing unusual had happened. “I am here to escort His Grace home. As his uncle, it is my duty to see him safely to the palace and return him to his father. The troops are a necessity to assure his safety,” Uncle Sakari said. “Much has happened, as you can see. I would not have His Grace risk his life a second time.” He motioned to the guardsmen.

  Nels moved backward as the soldiers closed. Saara stepped between. She laid a hand on the first guardsman’s arm, and he halted as if punched. Then his eyes rolled back, and he dropped to the ground. The second guardsman froze in place.

  Uncle Sakari gasped. “What did you—”

  “Anyone else want to push me?” Saara asked. Her voice was edged steel. “I was being polite, but I’m done with that. So, let’s be clear. I’m perfectly capable of killing the lot of you.”

  Silence stretched across the dooryard. The fallen guardsman stirred with a moan. No one else moved. Nels waited and listened to insects, birds, and Ilta’s sniffles.

  Saara stared at Uncle Sakari in disdain but spoke to Nels. “Take Ilta inside, boy. Get her comfortable, and make her a cup of tea. Stay with her until she drinks all of it, do you hear?”

  Nels looked from his uncle to Saara and then to Ilta. Ilta appeared to be in shock. “But—”

  “Just get her inside,” Saara said. “I need to talk to your uncle. In private.”

  Nodding, Nels took Ilta by the hand. “Come on.” The girl followed him without seeing or resisting. She seemed to be in a trance. When they reached the porch steps, he had to lead her up one step at a time. Saara didn’t resume talking until the door clicked shut behind them. Curiosity getting the better of him, Nels stopped there. Her voice carried through the glass panes in the front of the house.

  “Don’t lie to me. We both know he’s not the crown prince any more. What do you want with him?”

  At the reminder, the ache of disgrace was reborn in Nels’s throat. His vision blurred. So many dead. All my fault. All for nothing.

  “My poor brother will be struck to the floor with grief. Such a tragedy.”

  “An embarrassment, more like. Which will smart less, you think? A dead son? Or a soldier son with a pulse? It occurs to me that it’d be mighty helpful of the Acrasians to murder him. Damned fine reason to send General Bohinen and the others south, conveniently removing all support for certain weapons proposals,” Saara said. “Granting the military power is dangerous, after all.”

  Proposals? What weapons proposals? Nels frowned.

  “Only, he didn’t die as planned, did he? How much more power will the military have with a prince in their ranks? Particularly a prince who isn’t influenced by your spells.”

  Nels felt a surge of relief. Oh. It was more evidence that he possessed some form of magic—if from his mother’s side of the family.

  Ilta tugged free, took a deep breath, and then blinked. She seemed to be recovering from her fit. He heard her mutter something he didn’t quite understand, but he caught the last of it.

  “Don’t, Gran,” Ilta whispered. “Please don’t tell him.”

  “Why are you saying such things?” Uncle Sakari asked. “We’re here to protect Nels. Not—”

  “I’m the Silmaillia, not some fool you can spell with court speech. Stay that honeyed wolf’s tongue and listen to me.”

  Ilta laid a hand on Nels’s arm. “This isn’t for you to hear.” Her eyes were still distant, but she seemed more herself.

  “I don’t care,” Nels whispered
back, and shrugged her off.

  “We should go to the kitchen,” Ilta said. “You’re supposed to make tea.”

  “Be quiet.” He’d missed his uncle’s response.

  “That boy’s head holds more value than a prop for a crown, you hear me?” Saara asked. “He must live.”

  Nels felt his mouth fall open.

  “What do you mean, old woman?” Uncle Sakari asked, all semblance of civility stripped from his tone.

  “Wasn’t I plain enough? The Acrasians are on a holy crusade. They won’t be reasoned with, charmed, or bought. The humans aren’t going to stop until every kainen bearing magic is dead.”

  “I don’t understand what—”

  “Let me make it simple for you, then. Kill that boy, and you kill Eledore’s future.”

  Ilta grew more insistent, pulling Nels away from the windows, but again he yanked free.

  “Him? He’s a defect. My brother should’ve had him smothered at birth. Twins are an ill omen. Henrik should’ve counted himself happy with the girl. Better a girl on the throne than a changeling.”

  Nels curled a fist around old rage and shame. It had been made clear to him in a myriad of small ways, from the time he could first understand, that he owed his life to a foreign midwife—a midwife who’d traveled to Eledore with the queen’s retinue.

  “Damn you,” he gasped through this teeth. I’m not a changeling.

  “Stop it,” Saara said.

  For an instant, Nels wondered whether she’d spoken to him or his uncle. He moved closer to the window and heard a sigh.

  “Do as I tell you. You may yet have a country to rule when all is done. Ignore my warnings and pay with more than your life. Henrik learned better than to cross the fates. He was a fool to try. You’re no different. The only distinction now is the number of people who will pay for your arrogance.”

  SIX

  “Are you warm enough?” Uncle Sakari asked.

  Nels nodded, careful not to remove his gaze from the road ahead. He didn’t even want to glimpse his uncle’s expression. The false smile pinned to Nels’s lips locked down his hatred but didn’t stop his stomach from rebelling. I must control myself. Ilta was watching—he knew it without checking. At the moment, she kept her mare behind Saara’s, but if he turned his head just so, he’d catch a glimpse of bright blond curls.

  “That coat can’t be very warm. You should’ve accepted my cloak,” Uncle Sakari said. He’d been sickeningly attentive for the entire journey to Jalokivi. The reason why rode on a dapple gray mare five feet to Nels’s left. Saara sat in the saddle with her chin held high and her eyes fixed to the way ahead and, Nels assumed, the future. He hadn’t told her that he’d overheard her predictions. To his knowledge, no one other than Ilta knew. He still didn’t understand why Ilta hadn’t wanted him to hear. Saara’s words gave him hope that everything might be all right after all. He might even be at peace with his new status if it weren’t for his uncle, but with each false declaration of concern, Nels’s shoulders tightened until the dull tension became a constant ache. For the moment, I must pretend he is sincere, and that he rescued me without provocation. For the moment, I must pretend I didn’t notice Saara check every morsel of food and every cup before it touched my lips.

  For the moment.

  The journey home had been a slow one—made even more tedious by his uncle’s cloying concerns. An early winter storm had blasted the last of the leaves from the trees and coated the roads in snow and ice. Soon, the mountain roads would be impassable, and the river would freeze solid, isolating the capital for two mono­tonous months. Normally, that would mean weeks of parties, ice skating, skiing, and other winter amusements, but Nels wouldn’t be attending any of the usual social events. Soldiers didn’t consort with society, even soldiers of high birth. He took comfort in the fact that there was only a narrow chance of his seeing the royal catacombs. A soldier, like a serf, even one with little magic, was probably considered too useful a resource to discard.

  Soldiers have the advantage of being free, at least.

  He remembered the myriad of social restrictions and honor codes that Corporal Petri Eriksson had set him to memorizing. Well, relatively free, anyway.

  The only thing preventing complete misery was Ilta. Her sympathetic smiles and the faces she made behind Uncle Sakari’s back had kept Nels from grinding his teeth flat. Curious, he wanted to chat more with her. Unfortunately, no matter how often he arranged to be where she was, Saara would appear, casting an impenetrable barrier of herbal lessons or demands for assistance. He wondered at the reason. Is it because I’m now a soldier, and Ilta is to be a healer? The thought set his chest to aching like a bruise. He hadn’t heard of any such taboo, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. He hadn’t associated with healers before, and he was only just now being taught the confines of a soldier’s life.

  Over the past few weeks, Corporal Eriksson had begun to rectify that lack. There was a great deal to commit to memory before the initiation—long passages of history about the Old Ones, the appropriate charms, and protections. Thanks to Eriksson’s tutelage, Nels now understood why soldiers were required to bury the dead. He also had begun to learn why there was so much fear surrounding blood and death. According to soldiers’ lore, the Old Ones didn’t walk alone. Still, no one had seen revenants in centuries. Therefore, Nels found it difficult to focus on demons and restless dead. It was hard to believe in such things when he had other, more important concerns. Concerns with the living.

  What will Father say?

  The stench of sewage and coal smoke reached his nose long before he sighted Jalokivi’s granite walls sparkling on the tree-crowned hill. Inns and alehouses lined the road, and ever-larger numbers of common folk retreated from the path as his uncle the Duke, Nels, the Silmaillia, and the Duke’s two hundred mounted Royal Guard rode past.

  At least the headaches that had plagued him for a week had finally receded. Yet sharp thoughts pricked at the tender insides of Nels’s skull. I’m not even worthy of a healer anymore. He heard a cough and turned to look behind him. It was Corporal Eriksson. His eyes shot a warning to Nels’s right.

  “Is something wrong?” Uncle Sakari asked.

  Uncle is watching, Nels thought. You’re brooding. Stop it. For the hundredth time that day, he pushed the fur-trimmed sleeves of his coat up to his elbows. The material crept back over his ­knuckles with the rhythm of Loimuta’s gait. He considered binding the sleeves up but knew what it would look like if he tried. Leave it be. Don’t show Uncle that he’s getting to you. “Thank you for having the braid removed from Captain Karpanen’s coat,” Nels said. He tried not to smile when Uncle Sakari twitched at the dead man’s name.

  “A private’s uniform would’ve been more suitable,” Uncle Sakari said. “Imagine. Wearing used soldier’s clothes.” The air of disgust was apparent when he used the word “soldier.” “But there wasn’t time to have one made. Your father is very concerned. He was most insistent upon the promptness of your return.”

  Nels gritted his teeth. Bad enough that I’m returning in disgrace, but as a private? It was only another of Uncle’s games. Ignore him. The anonymity of the uniform proved of some use. There were no outbursts of shock or grief as the column rode past. Reminding himself that Ilta was near, he was able to concentrate on keeping his chin up and his breathing even. By the time they reached the first city gate, Nels’s stomach swarmed like an entire unkindness of ravens. He wasn’t sure if he was hungry or wanted to be sick. Since they hadn’t stopped for lunch, it was probably a combination of both. What will Father say?

  Is he really my father?

  A lieutenant of the Royal Guard approached Uncle Sakari, and after a whispered consultation, the lieutenant moved to the front of the line, muttering orders. Two guardsmen remained behind, and another dashed ahead with what Nels assumed was a message to the palace. As Loimuta’s hooves clattered on Jalokivi’s narrow, cobbled streets, Nels was overwhelmed by a feeling of unease. It was h
ard to remember to breathe. The brightly painted buildings, the red, green, yellow, and blue doors and windows that had once seemed cheerful and friendly, only served to hide the city’s judging face behind a garish carnival mask.

  The Nels who rode through Market Square two months ago is dead. Who am I now?

  Changeling. Defect.

  The column reached the palace gate, and the lieutenant barked a halt. A guardsman waited at the open portcullis, and Nels recog­nized the private who had ridden ahead by his auburn hair and square face. The private approached the lieutenant, and the lieutenant, in turn, passed along his message to Uncle Sakari. Risking a glimpse at his uncle, Nels studied the full mouth nestled between the brown moustache and goatee. He couldn’t read his uncle’s expression. Nels turned away, pushing back the captain’s hat and leaning forward to peer through the portcullis, but the courtyard was empty.

  “You are to proceed directly to your apartments. We’ll supper in my rooms tonight and then discuss—”

  Nels’s heart stumbled and pitched into his stomach. “We aren’t going to see Father?” He winced as his voice cracked. How could I sound so calm when I killed Lucian and not now?

  “Your audience is scheduled for tomorrow,” Uncle Sakari said. His eyes were hard. Cold.

  Defect. Changeling, Nels thought, reading his uncle’s scorn. “You said Father was concerned.”

  Uncle Sakari shrugged. “He is aware we have arrived safely and is, therefore, much relieved. He is in the chapter house with the Council of Nobles and cannot be disturbed.”

  On impulse, Nels kicked Loimuta’s sides, urging him through the cluster of Royal Guardsmen.

  “What do you think you are you doing?” Uncle Sakari asked.

  The lieutenant maneuvered into Loimuta’s path, and Loimuta reared, kicking the lieutenant’s mount in the chest. Organized lines shattered into a confusion of shrieking horses. The lieutenant’s gelding hesitated, and Loimuta bolted past.