The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey) (25 page)

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” he murmured, and though his voice was full of regret, his face was resolved. “It’s better this way. I’ve dragged you both through enough.” Swirling the cloak around himself, he drew up the hood, becoming hidden in shadow. “Take care of Kenzie. And Razor.” He paused, a flicker of agony crossing the stony expression. “If I don’t make it back, tell Annwyl I’m sorry.”

Dammit, Keirran,
I wanted to yell.
Don’t do this.
But my eyes were slipping shut again, and I couldn’t force out the words. The Iron Prince turned, the cloak swishing behind him, and walked silently into the tunnel. I tried moving, shouting after him, but the glamour dragging me under finally overcame my will, and I fell into darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY

EDDIES AND ELEMENTALS

“Master!”

A shrill voice howled right in my ear, jerking me out of the glamour-induced sleep. Mostly awake now, I tried wrenching my eyes open, but sluggishness still dragged at me, and I fought to stay conscious. All the while, the high-pitched gremlin voice buzzed frantically a few inches from my face.

“Master! Master gone! Wake up, funny boy! Wake up!”

I’m trying,
I thought irritably, if only to shut the gremlin up. Memory returned in an instant—Keirran using his glamour to put us to sleep; Keirran standing over me with his cold stranger eyes, then walking down the tunnel to confront the monster alone.

Kenzie shifted against my chest, also coming out of the faery slumber. She mumbled something incoherent. I tried, once more, to force my eyes open, feeling as if they had ten pounds of sand in them.

Then Razor gave an impatient hiss and bit me on the ear.

“OW!”
My eyes flew open, stinging with the sudden pain, and I jerked back. “Dammit, Razor! Ow!” I swatted at the gremlin, but he leaped to Kenzie’s shoulder and hid beneath her hair, peering out at me.

“Boy awake,” he buzzed, sounding suspiciously pleased. “Boy awake now...find Master.”

I groped for the side of my head, gingerly feeling the damage. Yep, there were several holes in my left ear, no larger than pinpricks, thankfully, but they still hurt like hell. My fingers came away smeared with blood.

“Ethan?” Kenzie turned, her voice slurred. She blinked at me sleepily. “What’s going on?” Her gaze drifted to the side of my face, and her eyes shot all the way open. “Are you bleeding? What—”

Puck came into the room, long legs crossing the space in a few strides. “Oy, human!” he barked, sweeping up to the fire. “What’s with the ruckus? It sounds like you’re holding a cat-skinning competition in here. And you’re bleeding.
Again.
” He rolled his eyes. “Geez, I can’t leave you guys alone for a minute. What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” I muttered, dropping my hand. “Razor bit me.”

“What?” Kenzie shot a fierce glare at the Iron faery, who ducked beneath her hair again. “He bit you? Bad gremlin! Why did you bite Ethan?”

I tried to interrupt, to tell her it was a good thing the gremlin woke me up, annoying as it was, but Puck beat me to it.

“Uh, guys?” he asked, looking around the cave. “Where’s Keirran?”

“Master!” wailed Razor, making Kenzie flinch. “Master gone! Find Master!”

I struggled to my feet, shaking the last of the fog from my brain. “Keirran took off,” I said, nodding down the tunnel. “Did the whole faery sleep thing to put us out, said he didn’t want to drag us in anymore.” I glanced at Puck, who looked resigned and annoyed all at once. “How long have we been out?”

“Not long,” Puck said. “Just a few minutes. I had just gotten all nice and comfortable, too, when I heard Buzz Saw screeching and came racing back. Sleepy spells don’t work well on gremlins, I’ve found.” He shook his head and gave the back of the cave a dark look. “So, I guess we know where our impatient princeling is off to, don’t we?”

“Yeah.” I raked a hand through my hair, careful not to touch my ear. “He’s going to face whatever lives down there alone.”

“Oh, that idiot.” Kenzie huffed, surging to her feet. “No, he’s not! Come on, we have to find him.”

She turned and marched determinedly toward the back of the cave, Razor gibbering and bouncing on her shoulder, buzzing encouragements. I wanted to stop her, but she was right; we couldn’t let our idiot friend fight whatever was down there alone, no matter what he said.

Making sure my swords were in place, I followed, silently cursing the prince as we approached the looming mouth of the tunnel, icicles dangling from the edge like giant teeth. It was pitch-black through the gaping hole, and Puck sighed.

“You know, this reminds me of a time,” he remarked, tossing a ball of faery fire in front of us, revealing a narrow corridor that plunged into shadow, “when ice-boy and I were trapped in an underground crypt together, and he decided to go down another passageway without me. Ran into a horde of tomb guardians and had to play hit-and-run until I could catch up.” He scrunched up his face. “Oh, wait. No, that was me. Stupid tomb guardians and their scorpions. Regardless, does that remind you of anyone?” He snorted and continued before we could answer. “Also, does anyone ever consider the consequences of their actions? For instance, what will ice-boy do to me if his kid gets himself eaten by a giant frost worm or something? He’ll probably try to hunt me down, war will break out between Winter and Iron, and everyone will put the blame on me. But
noooooo,
no one ever thinks of that.”

The tunnel continued deep into the earth. Sometimes it leveled out; sometimes it was so steep we were almost sliding down the ice-covered floor. The faery light threw strange, flickering shadows over the wall, sparkling off crystals and translucent blue-and-green icicles. My breath writhed in front of me, but I wasn’t as cold as I knew I should be, thanks to the lingering effects of the flamefruit, I supposed. I was still plenty cold, but it wasn’t unbearable. I just hoped we could get out of here before it wore off.

The tunnel finally opened into a massive ice cavern, huge pillars extending up into the darkness. The whole place had a frozen blue-white tint, and it was so frigid I could actually see my breath crystallize into hair-thin shards and drift to the floor.

Puck sent more balls of faery fire into the huge cavern, where they bobbed spastically overhead and gave off a strobe-light effect, making my head hurt. The cavern was a maze of pillars, stalactites and ice boulders, and the dancing shadows made it hard to see what was open space and what was a wall.

“Well,” Puck said, his voice echoing into the vastness, “if I was a big nasty giant ice monster, this is where I’d live.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, squinting into the wheeling lights and darkness. “Let’s just hope we can find Keirran before he finds it.”

Somewhere in the distance, there was a splintering crash, like a hundred glasses smashing at once.

Puck grimaced. “Too late.”

We hurried into the shadows, following the noise, which was hard as it echoed off everything around us. But as we went farther into the cave, we could hear more shattering noises against the rocks and pillars. Puck took the lead, and we sprinted after him, doing our best not to slip, until we turned a bend and came to the edge of an open arena. Crystal stalagmites were scattered about the floor, especially in the middle, but everything else was smooth, glittering ice. Like this was a perfectly flat lake that had frozen over.

In the center, a black-cloaked figure danced and spun amid a flurry of other things that swirled around him. They looked like whirlwinds that had picked up bits of ice and stone and were spinning them in a tight circle. A pair of glowing blue eyes shone from the center of the whirlwinds as they darted around the figure in the middle of the lake.

“Master!” Razor shrieked, his voice ringing through the chamber.

Instantly, several of the whirlwind things broke off, turned and came spinning toward us, making Razor yelp and dive into Kenzie’s hair. I cursed and drew my weapons.

“Kenzie, get back,” I called, hoping she wouldn’t argue this time. She ducked behind a boulder without a sound. The whirlwind things came closer, moving swiftly across the ice, the sound of shrieking wind echoing through the chamber. I narrowed my eyes as it hissed around me, yanking at my hair and clothes. We stood between a cluster of pillars and stalagmites, caging us in on either side, so the only way to Kenzie was through me and Puck. And that was not going to happen.

I brought up my swords as Puck stepped forward and flourished his daggers.

“Well, here they come.” The Summer faery shot me a glance and grinned. “Know anything about ice eddies, kid?”

“No.”

“Probably for the best. Aim for the middle, watch out for flying rocks and don’t drop your swords.”

The ice eddies swirled in, whipping the air into a frenzy. One came at me, a cyclone of rocks, pebbles and razor bits of ice. Something struck my arm, tearing a stinging gash across my skin. I smacked down a rock with one blade and lashed out with the other, slicing through the middle of the whirlwind. There was a rush of wind, and the debris spinning around it clattered to the ground. More pressed forward, surrounding me, until I was trapped in the eye of a deadly hurricane. Ice and rock careened around me as I kept moving, kept my weapons spinning in a circle of my own. Rubble clanged off the blades, making my hair stand up, but more stuff hit the swords than me. Most of the time. A pebble struck me in the head once, and I felt a warm trickle creep down my face, stinging one eye. Angrily, I ripped the sword through the offending whirlwind, and the eddy collapsed like a stack of dominoes.

“Whoops! Crap.” Puck leaped away, holding a single dagger before him. “Head’s up, kid!” he called as the eddy he’d been fighting now turned on me, a dagger whipping through the air in deadly circles. I ducked Puck’s blade, scrambling back before it sliced my head open, wincing as a shard of ice stabbed me in the arm.

“Ow! Dammit, Puck!” I raised my sword, knocking the dagger away as it came at my face again. The screech of metal on metal sent a chill up my spine. “Can you
not
make things worse sometimes?”

“What? I never make things worse,” Puck replied, stepping forward to deal with another eddy swooshing in from the side. “I make things more
interesting.
”

“Yeah, my foot is about to have an interesting encounter with your ass.”

Puck laughed. “Ice-boy’s been saying the same thing for years, kid. Good luck.”

The dagger sliced down, narrowly missing me. As it spun for my head again, I swung my sword at it, putting all my strength into the blow. The two blades met in a screech of sparks as I knocked the dagger free of the whirlwind and lashed out with my second sword, cutting through the middle of the chaos.

As the wind disintegrated, I turned to help Puck, only to see him do a weird, crazy dance that took him through the swirling eddy and out the other side. As he did, his dagger flashed, and the thing collapsed into a scattered pile of rock and ice.

“Well, that was fun,” Puck announced. Kenzie came out from behind the boulder, holding Puck’s wayward dagger. He took it with a wink. “Appreciate it, human. Nothing more embarrassing than being skewered with your own weapon, right? Well, shall we go help the prince?”

By the time we reached the center of the lake, however, the eddies surrounding Keirran were nothing more than chunks of stone and ice. The Iron Prince stood with his sword out, the last eddy disintegrating at his feet. His eyes were hard, the glowing blue-white of the cold stranger I was beginning to hate. As we came up, his gaze flicked to mine, and that eerie glow vanished, though his face remained blank.

But Kenzie marched right up to the motionless prince and, shocking both of us, shoved him in the chest, knocking him off balance. He stumbled back, barely catching himself, his blank, cold expression shifting to astonishment.

“That was stupid, Keirran,” Kenzie said, glaring at the prince, while Razor buzzed and nodded from her shoulder. “What were you thinking? You think you can do this alone? You think we would
let
you just walk out on us? After everything we did to get here? And don’t start with that crap about wanting to keep us safe. You should know by now that excuse isn’t going to fly.” She stepped closer, the tiny form bristling with rage. “And if you
ever
use glamour on me again the way you did my parents, I’m going to kick you so hard Annwyl will feel it through that necklace, I swear.”

“Bad!” Razor spoke up, watching Keirran from the curtain of Kenzie’s hair. “Bad Master! No leave! Bad.”

Wow, even the gremlin was pissed at Keirran. I was going to say something as well, but Kenzie and Razor seemed to be handling it, so I just stood back and watched the show. Keirran grimaced, holding up his hands and taking a step back from the onslaught.

“All right, all right,” he said, his expression caught between annoyance and resignation. “I understand. You’ve made your point, Mackenzie.” He sighed, shaking his head. “It seems I’m stuck with all of you, whether I want it or not.”

“Damn right you are,” Kenzie snapped, Razor buzzing in agreement. “Don’t forget it again.”

Keirran blinked, giving me a knowing look. I just shrugged.
Yep, that’s my girlfriend. And I’m not going to step in front of her for you, either. You’re on your own.

“Well,” Puck said cheerfully, lacing his hands behind his head. “Now that we’ve all kissed and made up, maybe we should focus on what we came for. Namely, the big nasty you all are supposed to fight.”

I looked around the cavern. “Where?” I asked, my voice echoing through the vast open space. “This is a dead end. It looks like something might’ve lived here once, but it’s empty now.”

“Yes,” Keirran agreed, his voice hard again. “There aren’t any more tunnels. This is the lowest level of the cave, and those eddies are the only things I’ve seen. This was a waste of time. Whatever lived here is long gone.”

“Au contraire,” Puck said, lifting a finger. “You’re just not looking in the right direction.”

And he pointed straight down, into the frozen lake.

Below our feet, cracked, blurred and distorted by the ice, an enormous shadow lay stretched out on the bottom of the lake. It was probably close to fifty feet long, and though it was hard to see from this distance, I thought I could make out thick stumpy legs, massive shoulders and a broad, armored head. I couldn’t tell if it was dead, frozen or just sleeping, but I did know one thing: it was huge.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. Puck shook his head.

“Nope. There’s your spirit of the Frozen Wood, right there. So, can we go home now? I was going to say how impossible this task was, but I figured it would be better to let you see it for yourself. Obviously, waking that big guy up would be a bad... Uh, Prince, what are you doing?”