Page 18 of The Iron Vow

At my side, Ash gave a start. He had seen it, too.

“That’s it,” he muttered. “The heart of the Nightmare.” With a grimace, he reached back and tore a cat off his shoulders. “We kill it, the rest of these things will die.”

“You hope,” Puck broke in, dancing around leaping, flailing cats. “I’m not sure anything in this twisted place makes sense, ice-boy. But it’s a better plan than what we’ve got now, which is trying not to become chew toys—ow! That isnota good place for kitty claws.”

I ducked a reeking orange cat, feeling its talons catch strands of my hair as it flew by, and contemplated the distance between us and the Grimalkin look-alike. A literal carpet of writhing, undead felines stood between us.

Then Nyx slashed three cats apart and, in the half second that she was clear, leaped straight up into the air, drawing back her arm. Her crescent blade left her hand, spinning in a lethal circle, and flew at the gray cat seated on the giant skull. It happened in the space of a blink, but at the last second the gray cat sprang out of the way, and the moonlight blade passed over the skull before vanishing in a shiver of light, returning to its owner.

The undead Grimalkin curled its muzzle back in a hiss, baring yellow fangs, and the throngs of cats around us retreated. Turning, they clawed and swarmed and writhed their way back to the gray cat, before flowing over him and the skull like a carpet of ants. Both the gray cat and the bony head vanished into the mound, which started to writhe and surge.

“Oh, great,” Puck muttered, watching the mound of dead cats wriggle over each other, yowling. “What horrible thing is going to happen now?”

The skull emerged as the cats peeled back from it. Slowly, it rose off the ground, still attached to the mound of writhing felines, which twisted and formed into the shape of the giant cat. Its body composed of the hundreds of drowned smaller creatures clinging to each other with claws and teeth, the huge feline turned toward us once more and opened its bony jaws in a wail.

“Oh, come on, how does this keep getting worse?” Puck groaned. “Could we have the horde of tiny undead cats back, please?”

The Nightmare lunged. It didn’t move like a normal cat, more like a mix between a feline and a snake, its body distending to unnatural lengths as it came at us. A limb slashed at Keirran, who cut it from the air, severing it. Immediately, the dead cats that made up the leg scattered and darted back to the body, before being swallowed by the writhing mass once more. Keirran shook his head as he backed away.

“No good. This will take forever if we have to kill them one at a time.”

Nyx’s blades flashed, and three more cats fell from the whole, but the spaces were instantly filled in by the others, making her frown. “He’s right. There has to be a way to take them out all at once.”

All at once. I clenched a fist, reaching for my magic, feeling the emptiness around me. Nothing there. I pushed deeper, searching inside myself, digging farther than I ever had before. I was half fey, and Queen of the Iron Realm. There had to be something left.

Deep within, power flickered to life. The very last of my magic, buried so deep it was woven into my essence. If I used it here, there would truly be nothing left. I would be more human than faery, unable to use glamour at all, until I was back in the Nevernever.

So be it. We have to defeat this monster. I will do whatever it takes.

Reaching down, I took hold of that magic, pulling it into the open. It hurt as I tore it loose, like I had ripped it out of my soul, but I dragged it free and shaped it into what I wanted. The air around me crackled as lightning and energy sparked into existence. I caught Ash’s sharp look, his expression of surprise and alarm, but ignored it as I raised my arm, lightning snapping in my fingers, and narrowed my gaze at the Nightmare beast.

The giant cat screamed, crouching down to attack, the dead cats that made up its body all staring at me with glassy white eyes. I set my jaw, then hurled the strand of lightning and magic at the charging Nightmare.

The bolt struck the creature in the chest, ripping through it in an explosion of dead cats. The skull let out a shriek, falling to the earth, as dozens of rotted, burned bodies flew through the air, scattering in the grass. As the huge body melted away, wailing and yowling, I could see the gray cat in the very center, single eye blazing with fury as its protective cocoon vanished. It glared at me and hissed, just as Keirran lunged through the massacre of squirming cats and sliced the head from its neck with one swipe of his blade.

My legs gave out as the last vestiges of strength keeping me upright vanished. I sank to my knees in the grass, unable to catch my breath, seeing darkness crawling along the edges of my vision. The hundreds of screaming, howling cats shuddered and collapsed to the mud, becoming lifeless bodies that began to steam. Tendrils of darkness rose into the air, and I could suddenly feel the glamour coming off the vanishing Nightmares. It flowed around me, wriggling like worms against my skin and tainted with fear, despair, and fury. The glamour of the Nightmare King. For a moment, I wondered if I could absorb it and use the magic of Evenfall and the Elder Nightmares, but then I remembered the chilling visage of the Winter King staring down at me, and shuddered. The Nightmare glamour flowed past me and dissolved on the wind.

“Meghan!”

I looked up, and Ash was suddenly there, eyes bright with concern as he knelt in front of me. He looked a bit stronger, I noted in relief, though that thought faded as his hands gripped my shoulders, silver eyes boring into mine.

“What happened?” he asked, his gaze concerned and the tiniest bit angry. “Are you all right? That wasn’t your normal magic.”

“I’m fine, Ash.” I put a hand on his arm, feeling it shake with either fear or anger. “I’m sorry. I know I told everyone to conserve what little magic we have, but I am queen—it’s my responsibility to keep everyone safe.”

The grip on my shoulders tightened, not painfully, but firm. “Not at the expense of your own life,” he snapped. “If you have nothing left, no magic at all, you could start to Fade like the rest of us.”

“I’m part human,” I told him. “I’m not going to Fade.”

“It still might’ve killed you, princess.” Surprisingly, even Puck sounded slightly angry with me, green eyes narrowed as he gazed down at us. “And we are in a place where the biggest problem isn’t the freaky Nightmare monsters—though they’re pretty nasty, too—the biggest problem is that we’ve run out of glamour, there’s no way to get more—for us, at least—and everything we run into is trying to ruin our day. Fading is a very real possibility for some of us, and that is stressful enough without your best friends making the stupidly brave decision that they have to save everyone. That goes for you, too, ice-boy.” He shot a wry glance at my husband. “This place is awful enough without having to worry about people Fading away or dying on me, and you are all too virtuous for your own damn good.”

Ash raised a brow. “I seem to remember someone very recently commenting that saving the world was a good way to kick the bucket,” he said.

“Right. And I am very happy that we didn’t have to, after all. So, can weallagree not to do the stupid Ultimate Noble Sacrifice thing unless the world is about to explode?”

Ash looked at me. I sighed, letting my shoulders slump. “You’re right,” I told them both. I put a hand on Ash’s chest, feeling his heart race beneath his shirt. “I’m sorry. We can’t be reckless here. The rest of Faery is counting on us.”

“A wise decision, Iron Queen,” said a slow, familiar voice, and my heart leaped. “I myself have never understood this party’s willingness to throw their lives away at the drop of a hat.”

---