The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey) (29 page)

“Ethan, you don’t—”

“Shut up.” I glared at him. “Don’t make me regret this even more. I know I don’t have to come along. You’re family, and you’ll need someone watching your back.”

A pair of doctors stopped outside the door, gazing into the room at us. Or, more specifically, at me. Their eyes were hard and wary as they whispered to one another, pointed a finger in my direction and walked away down the hall. I wondered if Kenzie’s father had mentioned me and had the sneaking suspicion that they were heading off to find a security guard—or call the police.

“You two better go,” Kenzie said as the doctors left. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Keirran, try not to go attacking any more faery queens, okay?”

Keirran bowed to her. “Goodbye, Mackenzie. I’m very glad to have known you.” His gaze went to the gremlin, perched above her bed, and a sad smile crossed his face. “Take care of Razor for me. It seems he’s chosen himself a new Master.”

Razor blinked at Keirran from atop the shelf, huge eyes gleaming, but he didn’t say anything.

I bent down, smoothed Kenzie’s hair from her face and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around my neck, holding me like she couldn’t bear to let go, and for a moment, I let myself forget everything.

Pulling back, I met those deep brown eyes gazing up at me and stroked her cheek. “I love you,” I whispered, my voice just a murmur between us. No fear, no hesitation; it was just pulled out of me, unable to stay hidden any longer. Her eyes widened, and I kissed her parted lips once more before straightening. “I’ll be back soon,” I promised, wanting to do nothing more than sit back down and hold her until the cops showed up to drag me away. “This won’t take long.”

“Ethan.” Kenzie grabbed my wrist as I turned away. Her eyes were bright as I looked back. “I love you, too, tough guy,” she whispered, turning my heart inside out. “Be careful. And come back to me.”

Footsteps sounded outside in the hall. I glanced up to see the same two doctors enter the room, a uniformed policeman close behind. My stomach dropped, but Keirran, it seemed, was expecting them. He waved a hand at me, I felt a pulse of magic hit my skin, and the world went hazy for a split second. The cop and the doctors blinked and looked around the room in bewilderment, and I realized Keirran had thrown an invisibility spell over me. He jerked his head at the door, slipping around the flabbergasted adults, and left the room. I followed, being careful not to brush against them, until I reached the frame and looked back.

Kenzie’s knowing smile met mine across the room. She nodded and winked, then turned her attention to the doctor that approached, demanding to know where I had gone. She gave a very clueless shrug, and I forced myself to turn away, joining Keirran in the hall.

“Hurry,” he said, sounding breathless and winded. “The spell won’t last long, and I don’t have much strength left. Let’s get this over with so we can both go home.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CATALYST

Another trip into the Between. It took a bit longer this time, passing through a landscape of mist and fog, beneath the ruins of an ancient tower, frozen in time.

When Keirran parted the Veil again, we stood at the top of a hill, looking down on the rolling moors, with no artificial lights to be seen. Overhead, the moon was as full and bright as it had been on our last trip here, when Kenzie had made the bargain with Leanansidhe to get the Sight. I desperately hoped she was all right, and wished, yet again, that she’d never made that bargain. That I could have somehow talked her out of wanting to see the fey for the rest of her life. Look where she’d ended up because of it.

“Come on,” Keirran said and started down the slope, walking toward a familiar cluster of trees in the distance. The cold moor wind howled through the grass and between the rocks, yanking at my clothes and hair. Keirran had given me back my swords, which were strapped to my waist again, and Guro’s amulet lay heavy around my neck, clinking against the iron cross. I found myself thinking that I should’ve left it with Kenzie; maybe if she’d been wearing it in the Summer Court, the lightning bolt would’ve missed her.

Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. I couldn’t do anything about it now. As Kenzie had said, what was done was done, and we couldn’t beat ourselves up for the past.

Easier said than done, at least for me.

There was no faery music when we approached the grove this time. No Summer fey dancing under the light of the full moon. However, the faery ring, the enormous circle of toadstools in the center of the glen, was far from empty. Forgotten surrounded it now, dark and blurred, nearly invisible in the shadows except for their glowing yellow eyes. They parted for us without a sound, bowing their wispy heads as Keirran and I stepped through their ranks and walked toward the figure in the center of the ring.

“Prince Keirran.” The Lady’s low, throaty voice sounded faintly horrified as we stepped before her, hordes of Forgotten watching from the edge of the ring. The faery’s shifting eyes barely glanced at me, going wide at the sight of the Iron Prince. “What has happened to you? You feel...empty. Fading. Like my own people.”

“Do you remember Annwyl?” Keirran asked, his voice cold. “Do you remember what your people did to her? She started to Fade, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

“What have you done?” the Lady whispered. Keirran gave a grim smile.

“Annwyl wears an amulet now that ties us together, and my glamour sustains her, though it won’t for much longer.” He narrowed his gaze at the Forgotten Queen. “I find it ironic that I’m going to die, killed by the Forgotten, when all I wanted was to save your people.”

“No,” the Lady said, one hand going to her chest. “Prince Keirran, there was another way. I made a bargain with Mr. Dust to provide us with the glamour we needed to survive. You could have done the same.”

“That wasn’t an option,” I snapped.

“Really, Ethan Chase?” the Lady said, turning on me. I stepped back; she looked seriously pissed. “And this is better?” She gestured to Keirran, who didn’t move. “You would let him die, corrupt his soul, to save a few mortal children?”

“Corrupt his...what?” My stomach went cold. The Forgotten Queen gave me a disgusted look.

“You do not know, do you? The magic on the other end of...whatever he is attached to is not only draining his glamour, his strength and his memories. It is taking his very essence, what makes him who he is. He is mostly human. It is taking his soul.” She turned to Keirran as I stood there, reeling. “That is what is keeping your girl alive, Prince Keirran. She has a piece of your soul imprisoned in that amulet, and as long as she lives, you will never get it back.”

Guro,
I thought, feeling like I’d been punched.
What the hell? Did you know? Is that what you were trying to tell me?

I looked at Keirran, wondering what he thought of this, but the Iron Prince only shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he muttered, his voice resigned. “Annwyl can’t go home. We’ll both die soon enough. If the amulet is taking my soul, she’s welcome to it.”

“No, Prince Keirran,” the Lady almost whispered. “There is yet another way.”

He looked at her. Wary, I stepped closer, eyeing the Forgotten on all sides, not trusting them or their queen. The Lady ignored me, gliding closer to Keirran, until she stood just a few feet from us. Keirran’s face was blank; he’d slipped into the cold stranger persona, not giving me or the Lady anything, even as she reached out to him.

“The exiles and the Forgotten are very similar, Iron Prince,” the Forgotten Queen said, gesturing around at the horde of dark, shadowy fey. “The courts have been cruel to us both, dooming the exiles to Fade into oblivion, expecting the Forgotten to do the same. We are both only trying to survive a world without magic. But it is not the Faery realms that are responsible for our disappearance. It is man.

“Mankind has forgotten us,” the Lady went on as Keirran continued to regard her without expression. “Many years ago, when I was young, the fey were feared and respected by mortals. They worshipped us, prayed to us, made sacrifices in our name. Not one human doubted the existence of the Good Neighbors, and those that did were quickly reminded what would happen if they forgot.

“But now—” the Lady made a hopeless, weary gesture “—we are all but gone from their minds. Our stories have been sanitized and made into children’s tales. The Nevernever still exists on the dreams and fears of mortals, but even it grows smaller with each passing year. For those cut off from the dreamworld, we cannot help but Fade into nothing.”

“I know that.” Keirran’s voice was hard and expressionless. “Everyone in Faery knows that. There’s nothing we can do about mankind’s disbelief.”

The Lady smiled then, and it sent a chill crawling down my back.

“But there is,” she intoned. “There is a way to open man’s eyes to us once again. The Veil between Faery and the mortal world keeps us hidden. Keeps humans blind to the Nevernever and all the creatures who live there. It separates the two worlds so they can never meet.” She raised a thin, pale hand, opening an empty fist. “If the Veil were suddenly...gone, the mortal realm and the Nevernever would merge. The hidden world would no longer be invisible to humans, and once they see us again, truly See us, their belief will save all exiles and Forgotten from the Fade.”

“No fucking way!” My outburst made her blink, and I clenched my fists, imagining a world where the fey ran wild, unrestrained. “That wouldn’t be salvation—that would be chaos! Complete and utter madness. People would die, go crazy. There’d be worldwide panic.”

“Yes,” the Forgotten Queen agreed. “Panic, and fear, and belief. The humans would respect us again, or at the very least, they would have to believe what their eyes told them. That the fey are real, that we exist. The Nevernever would grow strong once more, exiles would no longer be in danger of Fading, and we would at last be remembered.”

“There is no way to destroy the Veil,” Keirran said flatly.

“Oh, my dear prince,” the Lady whispered. “You and the courts are not as old as I. You have forgotten the way to tear it apart. It has never been done before, because the catalyst has not been born into this world...until now.”

“Catalyst?” I didn’t like where this was going. My heart was pounding against my ribs, and a cold chill was creeping up my back. I looked at Keirran, wondering if we could get out of here, but he stood unmoving in the Lady’s shadow, his eyes blank.

The Lady’s voice went low, soft and terrifying. “To tear the Veil asunder,” she crooned, as if reciting something from memory, “on the night of the full moon, one must stand at the site of an ancient power and sacrifice the life of a mortal with the Sight, one who is bound by blood to all courts of Faery. Kin to Summer, Winter and now Iron. With this sacrifice, the Veil will lift, and mortals will be able to see the hidden world, by the blood of the One. Sibling, brother-in-law...” She looked right at me with depthless black eyes. “Uncle.”

No.
My hands were shaking, and I took a staggering step back, looking around. The Forgotten were closing in on us, stepping across the toadstools into the circle, glowing eyes fastened on me. My stomach turned.
Me.
They wanted me. I was the sacrifice. The mortal whose blood tied him to all three courts. The one who would usher in an age of madness and chaos and terror, when all humans suddenly realized the fey were real.

Screw that.

I drew my swords with a raspy screech as Keirran did the same. I whirled to face the horde, standing back-to-back with Keirran, as the Forgotten glided closer. So many of them. But I wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Ethan Chase.” From the corner of my eye, I saw that the Lady had drifted back. “I must apologize to you once more. I am saddened that you must die for the rest of us to live, but know that your sacrifice will save thousands of lives. The fey will no longer live in fear. Exiles, Forgotten, even the Nevernever...we will all live on because of you.”

The Forgotten were nearly on us, a silent, deadly swarm, and the Lady’s words had faded into jumbled background noise. “Keirran,” I muttered, reaching for that calm, that eerie peace I got right before battle. The Iron Prince stood rigid at my back, not moving a muscle. “What’s it look like on your side? Can we fight our way through?”

“Ethan?”

His voice was strange, almost choked. A shiver went through him, and I glanced back, frowning. “What?”

“I’m sorry.”

He turned, just as I did, and ran me through with his sword.

Sound cut out. Movement faded around us. My mouth gaped open, but nothing escaped but a strangled gasp. Keirran, standing very close, stared over my shoulder, one arm around my neck, the other near my gut. I looked down to see his hand gripping the sword hilt, held flush against my stomach.

No. This...couldn’t be real; the blade didn’t even hurt that much. I looked up at Keirran, still staring at the horizon over my shoulder, and tried to say something. But my voice was frozen inside me.

“Keir...ran.” Even that was excruciatingly difficult, and a warm stream of blood ran down my neck from my mouth.
“Why?”
Keirran closed his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered and ripped the blade from my stomach.
That
brought on the pain I knew I should be feeling, a blaze of agony erupting from my middle, like the ribbons of blood arching into the air. I grabbed my stomach, feeling warmth spill over my fingers, making them slick. I glanced down to see my hands completely covered in red.

This isn’t happening.
The ground swayed beneath me. I fell to my knees, seeing blackness crawl along the edge of my vision. Looking up, I saw Keirran gazing down on me, the Lady standing behind him. His face was tormented, but as I watched, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, Keirran was gone. The cold stranger stared down at me, his face a mask of stone.

“Goodbye, Ethan,” he whispered, and the Lady put a hand on his shoulder and turned him away. I tried calling out, but the world tilted, and I collapsed, seeing only a skewed view of the distant horizon, shrinking rapidly at the end of a tunnel. Somewhere far away, I thought I heard hoofbeats, a faint rumble getting steadily closer.

Then the tunnel closed, the blackness flooded in and I knew nothing more.

* * * * *

If you love Julie Kagawa’s cinematic writing, unforgettable characters and unique worlds, turn the page to read an exclusive excerpt from her next novel, THE FOREVER SONG, Book 3 of the thrilling
BLOOD OF EDEN
dystopian trilogy. Coming May 2014 from Harlequin TEEN.