The Changeling's Fortune (Winter's Blight Book 1)

by K. C. Lannon

  “Huh? The king is dead? That’s… not possible…” Shaking her head and taking another step back, Deirdre stared down at the cuffs; her mind was racing, and now her senses were overloaded as she realized these cuffs were iron. They suddenly seemed like coiled snakes, ready to reach out and grab and bite her. Her throat went dry.

  “We were long gone from the city before any—any attack happened. I was with her,” James protested. “That makes no sense, Iain.”

  “Prove to James you’re not a faery then,” Iain prompted Deirdre knowingly. “Show him you’ve no aversion to iron. Prove you’re not a threat.” As an afterthought, Iain sighed wearily and added, “It’ll be better for you if I don’t have to force them on you. Please.”

  When Deirdre only stared, body and mind paralyzed, he stepped closer toward her. He reached down to grab her arms and cuff them, but she jumped back, her eyes fixed on him.

  “You’re mad,” she hissed, glaring at him. “I wasn’t there. And I didn’t kill the king! I don’t care what Alan told you, but I wouldn’t do anything like that. You’re insane!”

  Iain stared at her wildly. “How’d you know about Alan?” he asked. “How would you know, unless you were working with him?”

  “What the hell is going on?” James asked, nearly shouting. “What do you mean she’s working with Dad?”

  “Watch your mouth.” Iain shot him a look at his language.

  “That’s all you can say?” James was on his feet again. “Unbelievable!”

  Clenching her jaw, Deirdre turned her glare on the cuffs. Why should I be afraid of them? Iron can’t hurt humans! And… maybe I am a faery, but— No, it can’t be true! It just can’t! I’ve lived and grown up as a normal person! More or less anyway. Ugh… what should I do?

  “I still don’t think I’m a faery. But fine.” She held out her wrists to Iain.

  Staying still was harder than she anticipated while he restrained her. She screwed her eyes shut, cringing as the iron nipped and bit at her, growing tighter and tighter by the second, constricting. Iain closed the cuffs around her wrists and lowered them. They began to burn, and she bit down hard on her lip to stifle a cry of pain.

  James noticed, and he stood up, stepping over to her. “Iain, stop! You’re hurting her!”

  Iain said nothing.

  As if struck with a sudden realization, James’s eyes lit up. “That explains it,” he said, addressing her. “That explains your magic at the faery ring. You’ve got to be at least half faery!” He then began to fumble through his backpack, pulling out several books and thumbing through them frantically.

  She softly groaned in pain and aggravation, shooting a glare at James.

  Iain raised an eyebrow, looking incredulously to Deirdre. “I’m surprised you haven’t taken him back yet. Bit of a handful, yeah? I hope he gave you a hard time.”

  She hardly heard him. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead as the sharp, scraping, blistering sensation of the iron began to crawl up her arms and into her shoulders. Along with it, she could hear many small voices whispering about going up and pinching her eyes out. Her chin began to quiver.

  She looked up, about to ask Iain if he didn’t possibly change his mind about this whole handcuff business, when the iron’s voices were drowned by a faint, almost musical sound in the air. It echoed oddly through the ruins, like a bird’s song. She glanced around; it was impossible to tell which way the whistling was coming from.

  Iain had heard it too; he was pulling his firearm from the holster on his belt. James looked up from his reading, noticing what his brother was doing; he promptly dropped the book and gaped stupidly. Iain grabbed his arm and began to walk fast, jerking his head for her to follow. James only protested for a moment before Iain halted him with a venomous look.

  “Stay quiet, both of you.” Iain hissed. “We’ve got to find someplace to hide.”

  “Why?” James asked, so quiet Deirdre could barely hear him.

  “Just listen to me, and hopefully you’ll not find out why.” Iain pointed toward an empty shell of a building on the other side of the street. “We’ll hide there. Hopefully it’ll just pass us over. Unless it’s on the redhead’s side.” He gave her a cheerless smile. “Then we’re all royally screwed.”

  Deirdre stumbled as she followed him, her whole body feeling stiff and brittle, the hot pain turning into a piercing sensation that dug into and through her bones. The iron’s voices were louder now, talking about paralyzing her once they got to the back of her neck. Or maybe crushing her spine instead.

  She shivered, trying to fight back tears of panic as the veins on her wrists and arms began to turn from blue to black.

  I can’t handle this. I can’t handle this!

  As soon as they ducked inside the empty building, hiding behind a fallen pillar, she threw pride to the winds and begged Iain, “Please take these off, please. I can’t stand it anymore!” He shushed her, but she continued, “I don’t care if I’m a faery or half faery or anything! Just take them off! Please! They’ll break me!”

  “Just be quiet!” he hissed. He sounded more scared than angry. The whistling sound came again, along with the booming sound of large, off-pace footsteps getting closer.

  She hardly noticed, shoving the handcuffs in his face. “I won’t be quiet until you take them off!”

  Seething, he pulled out the key and unlocked the cuffs. If he hadn’t taken them to put them back on his belt, she would have flung them as far as possible, regardless of whoever or whatever heard or saw them. Letting out a sigh of relief, she leaned back against the ruined pillar, shutting her eyes, hugging her hands and wrists under her arms as if they were cold. Her entire body was shaking.

  Now the loud thudding echoed through the empty building; she opened her eyes, looking around, seeing nothing but the dark, dusty ruins, light flooding in from the entrance behind them on the other side of the pillar. The thudding sound came once more; she turned and slowly rose up on her knees, peeking over the top of the pillar. James did the same, despite Iain hissing at the both of them to get down.

  The thudding was the same as last night, when they saw the one-eyed monster.

  Please don’t let it be a Fachan. Please, please…

  The thudding grew louder still, making the pebbles on the ground quake and light dust fall from the ceiling. Then, through the wide, empty doorway and the ruined, large, glassless windows surrounding it, a creature lumbered into view, hopping on its only leg, its large eye fixed dead ahead, away from them.

  She and James both recognized it, and he whispered just before she could, “It’s a Fachan.”

  The creature was not moving. Its large hand clenched the thick chain; the metal was splattered with blood. Its pupil began to swivel around, though apparently not spotting them. She held her breath, lowering farther until she could barely see over the pillar. James was kneeling still, watching it; Iain had his gun in both hands, ready.

  The Fachan then sniffed loudly, its large red eye going still, then abruptly fixing on them. She sucked in her breath, unable to even blink with terror, though an unhelpful thought popped into her head: this is what a frog must feel like when it locked eyes with a snake.

  The monster then bared its enormous teeth, raising its chain whip; promptly Iain swung his gun around and fired at it. He shot it in its gigantic eye, making it howl with pain and recoil.

  “Run!” Iain shouted.

  Deirdre jumped up, pulling on James’s elbow—it was like pulling on a sack of cement. He was pale and frozen, staring at the staggering monster, his limbs locked in place.

  “James, up! Move!” Iain grabbed him under the arm and hauled him up, and they began to make for the exit, James moving as easily as a sailor just stepping off a boat.

  The Fachan’s eye narrowed and fixed on the boys—fixed on Iain. It swung its powerful arm around, the chain whistling through the air. Deirdre’s cry of warning was muted by it slicing through a stone pillar, whipping toward him. Iain shoved Jam
es away and dropped to the ground, but not quite fast enough; the Fachan swung low enough to graze Iain’s back, cutting it open quite neatly. James finally seemed to come to his senses, his eyes wide and alert with panic as he tried to scurry over and help his brother back to his feet. The Fachan swung its arm around again, opening its mouth expectantly, widening its gleaming eye.

  It’s ignoring me, Deirdre thought in the weird moment that she stood there, seeing everything as if watching something unreal. I could turn and go. It’s just after Iain. I could leave them…

  Gritting her teeth, Deirdre dropped her pack, pulled out her knife from its place on the side of her belt, flicked the blade out, and ran for the monster, screaming. She leaped and dug the knife down on the top of its one large foot, pushing with all her weight and strength. The creature yelped, more in surprise than in pain, and it jumped back, taking her knife with it, wedged deep in its flesh.

  It growled at her, eye flashing. Rather than feeling afraid, she felt like her insides were on fire. The sky began to darken, as though night was falling.

  She looked at it squarely in its glowing, bloodshot eye, shouting, “Drop your whip and leave us alone, you bloody freak!”

  In response, it just raised the chain, ready to strike again. Her hands felt aflame again, and she suddenly felt like that chain—soaked with blood both dried hard and dripping hot—was the source of all her troubles.

  Not noticing it was dark as night, she pointed at the Fachan. “Drop that chain. NOW!”

  For a split second the monster seemed to sneer. Then its eye widened in alarm as the tips of its fingers began to go black, and the chain began to rust. It held up its fist dumbly, staring as the chain turned brown, starting to corrode, while the blackness crept up its fingers and into its fist. There was the distinct, pungent smell of rotting flesh.

  Letting out a howl of fear, the Fachan dropped the chain but did not miss a beat—it twisted and lunged mouth-first, its jaws open wide, teeth bared, reaching for her.

  Fear only sharpened her anger, and even as she jumped out of the way, she screamed at it, “Leave! LEAVE US ALONE!”

  The Fachan, pushing itself back up, gurgled in horror as the rotten blackness erupted all over its body. It turned to charge her again, but a dark shadow fell over its large eye, completely blinding it. It still lunged, biting at her, but missed by a yard. Deirdre stumbled back, still hot with anger but beginning to shake, wishing this was all over.

  Obediently the rotten patches spread, quick as lightning; the Fachan barely had time to writhe or cry out in pain before even its eye decayed. It let out one last breath, hollow, rank, and weak, then it lay before them, a corpse both new and rotted.

  Deirdre stared at it for a moment; as her body began to cool, she spotted the knife, still in the creature’s foot, completely unaffected by the decaying. She reached down, her head and vision reeling, and pulled it out—it slid out quite easily—and she returned to her pack, cleaning the little blood from the blade on the bottom of it. Beginning to feel cold and heavy, she slid her knife back in its sheath. Looking up, she saw James and Iain, standing, retreated to the other side of the street. The darkness was lifting fast, and she could see that even Iain’s swarthy face was pale, his eyes wide, staring at her as if she were going to spontaneously explode any second.

  Beginning to sway where she stood, she pointed at them, saying in a slightly slurred voice, “You know, I think I really am a faery.”

  Before either of them could respond, her legs gave out from under her, and she fell to the ground. Her last thought was realizing that her mouth was hanging open dumbly, but she was too tired to shut it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The brothers had carried Deirdre away from the corpse of the Fachan and to a more secure location; at least Iain had claimed the abandoned, ivy-choked, rusted double-decker bus was a prime location to rest for a while, though James thought he was only trying to make him feel safer. James did not protest, eager to leave the carnage behind. He had been waiting to see magic like that in action his entire life, but he found he wasn’t as keen on lingering around the aftermath.

  They had decided to stay there for the night. James’s sleep was fitful, but he knew his brother’s sleep was even worse, if he had slept at all. Iain had sat on the bus’s steps with his firearm at the ready, keeping watch for most of the night while James and Deirdre slept. Even when James had gotten up to take his turn, Iain had only partially agreed and had stayed close and watchful, leaning against the driver’s seat on the floor.

  That morning, Deirdre had still barely stirred. Iain and James sat across from each other on the nearly gutted bus seats, quiet. James knew that, like him, Iain was wondering if she would ever recover.

  “Do you think she’ll be okay?” James asked, twisting his fingers together anxiously.

  Iain nodded. “She probably just wore herself out. Nothing a good, long rest won’t cure.”

  As James looked at Deirdre lying still and gently breathing on the floor where they’d moved her (one of James’s extra sweaters serving as a pillow) and then to his blank-faced, bloodstained older brother hunkered across from him, James truly longed for one moment to be back in his city, in his home, in his own bed.

  I want to go home.

  The thought was fleeting, gone in an instant.

  Iain’s breathing hitched in pain, shaking James from his thoughts. He watched Iain twist around in his seat and start shrugging out of his jacket. James went over to help. At first Iain pulled away, but then he relented. Under the jacket, Iain’s undershirt was torn and caked with blood.

  “Sick!” James exclaimed with both disgust and awe. “He got you good. It’ll probably look cool, though, as a scar.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “We ought to have mended this last night though,” James commented, making a face. “Now it’s all crusty and gross.”

  “There’s a kit in my bag. Just slap a bandage over it, will you?” Iain asked shakily.

  James remarked that a bandage wouldn’t do much to stave off infection and that there was no telling how many microbes were crusted onto the Fachan’s chain and that he really should seek a medical professional instead of his brother to help him. He’d read books on different types of bacteria.

  After a minute of arguing back and forth, James convinced his brother to at least let him rinse the wound with water from his canteen first. Iain gripped the seat in front of him, knuckles blanching, as James poured the whole of his water bottle onto Iain’s back. James hissed in sympathy, though his brother made no sound.

  “How did Prance—how did he die?”

  Iain stared unblinkingly at the seat in front of him. He began to pick absently at the ragged fabric, James’s question seemingly going unheard.

  James’s stomach dropped. “It wasn’t because of me, was it?”

  “That monster killed him.” His voice was flat. When James began to ask again if he was the reason, Iain interrupted him. His voice sounded clearer, and his eyes were more present. “He knew what he signed on for by joining the Iron Guard. We all did. That type of thinking has no purpose, and it isn’t productive. Understand?”

  James nodded, his throat tightening. Iain sounded just like their father. Normally, such a comparison would make James worry, but this time he was glad. It was exactly what he needed to hear in the moment.

  “Philip—he told me something about Dad.” Iain twisted around to face him, leaning forward so that they were at eye level. “I don’t see a point in hiding it from you. You deserve to know.”

  James listened carefully as Iain told him everything he knew, everything that Philip had told him about Boyd and their father and about how Deirdre was implicated in the attack as well. As he listened, James produced his notebook and began to write every detail down to keep track of everything.

  “You’re… taking this well,” Iain commented, watching him closely. “Keep in mind that we don’t know anything for certain. It’s all h
earsay.”

  James nodded. He knew he should probably be more shocked or disturbed at the accusations thrown at his own father, but he had always felt he was able to see their father with more clarity than Iain, even though Iain was able to understand people in a way that baffled James.

  “What are you going to do about it?” James asked.

  “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it,” Iain admitted quietly.

  Deirdre murmured something unintelligible from the floor, and Iain’s openness was snuffed out instantly. He straightened up, on his guard again. His hand went to the cuffs at his belt instinctively.

  James was at her side in an instant, hoping she was finally waking. He knelt beside her and waited, willing her to be all right.

  Iain was staring at him.

  “That iron, um, really does hurt her,” James mentioned. “She wasn’t lying about that.”

  “I know.” Iain sighed. He left the cuffs alone, thinking better of it. “But how else am I going to get her back to the city?”

  James leaped from the floor, stepping in front of Deirdre’s sleeping form as if to hide her from view. “We’re not going back,” he said. “We’ve made it on our own this far. She has to find her family.”

  “I have orders to follow. Whether General Callaghan is committing treason or not, it’s not just his orders I’m meant to follow. The whole Iron Guard thinks she’s partly responsible, and I can’t just ignore that.”

  “I’m not going back. I have nothing— I have no reason to go back.”

  Iain bowed his head. “Listen, I know things weren’t that great sometimes, but things will be better now. I promise. The city’s our home, yeah? It’s where we belong.”

  “You think we belong there, with Dad?” James asked, his voice rising. “With the Iron Wardens, the people who chased Mum’s family out of the city? With Elaine?” He knew the last name stung more than it was intended to but pressed on. “Name one time anyone in Neo-London made us feel like we belonged or treated us kindly or brought anything good into our lives. Go on.”