Page 3 of The Iron Vow

My hands shook. For so long now, I had felt the pulse of glamour in the very land around me. As a queen of Faery, I was connected to the Nevernever in ways that even the normal fey couldn’t comprehend. I had forgotten what it was like...to be a normal human.

“So, what does this mean?” I asked. “We can’t go back—if we open the portal again, the Nightmare King could wake up.”

“No,” Ash agreed. “We can’t go back. We have to keep going, find the Nightmare King, and end the threat he represents. One way or another.”

“It will not be as easy as that.” On the rock, Grimalkin raised his head, blinking slowly. “Evenfall has been cut off from the glamour of the real world and the Nevernever,” the cat explained. “I am not even sure how the realm has survived this long and not Faded away, much less the Evenfey themselves. But there is no natural glamour here, which means you will not be able to draw on the land to heal yourselves or fuel your powers. How do you propose to face the many Nightmares you will encounter, much less the Nightmare King himself?”

With a crunch of boots against rock, another figure stepped forward, firelight washing over his features. Silver hair and ice-blue eyes glimmered as Keirran, my son and the King of the Forgotten, melted out of the shadows to stand before us. Like his father, he was tall and graceful, with the pointed ears and sharp beauty of the fey, though his human blood softened his features somewhat.

“Nyx is returning,” he said, gazing at the mouth of the cave. Puck rose quickly to his feet. I caught the flash of relief on his face, a surge of emotion he wasn’t able to hide.

There was a ripple of moonlight at the cave entrance, and a slender figure dressed in black leather armor seemed to materialize from nothing. The Evenfey assassin glided noiselessly across the cavern, pale hair and yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Not long ago, we had all thought Nyx to be a Forgotten, those faeries whose names and stories had faded from everyone’s memories. Now, though, we knew the truth. Nyx was an Evenfaery. Evenfall, this nightmarish, magic-barren world, had once been her home.

“The Elder Nightmare is gone,” she told us. “It left the edge of the forest and headed into the swamps. I don’t think it’s coming back.”

Keirran nodded. “Good.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “This is going to be hard enough without those monsters stalking us everywhere.” His blue eyes regarded the Evenfaery and softened with sympathy and concern. “Are you all right, Nyx?”

“No.” The Evenfaery shook her head. “Forgive me, your majesty, I am not. My memories of home are scattered, and some are just beginning to return, but...” Her gaze strayed to the mouth of the cave, and a haunted expression crossed her features. “Evenfall was not like this when I left. This is not the world I remember.”

Puck moved quietly behind the assassin and slipped his arms around her waist. For once, his eyes were serious as he leaned in. “I know what it’s like to be banished from home,” he told her solemnly. “But I can’t imagine coming back to the Nevernever and finding it...likethis.”

Nyx sighed, and one of her hands rose to rest over Puck’s. “I had hope...for a moment,” she murmured. “When the seal was broken and I remembered what had happened, I had hope that maybe Evenfall had endured, even after all this time. But deep down, I knew that was foolish. Evenfall...” She shook her head. “It is still lost to me. My home is still gone.”

My jaw tightened. What had been done to the Evenfey was unforgivable. Nyx had been robbed of her memories, her world, and almost her entire existence because of what the Lady had done eons ago. And the worst part was, Nyx was right. We couldn’t fix this. To unseal Evenfall was to release the Nightmare King on the Nevernever and the rest of the world.

“Maybe we could talk to him.” Keirran sounded hopeful. “The Nightmare King. I know he’s been asleep for a long time, and I know he wants revenge on the Nevernever, but if we could reason with him, maybe we could come to some sort of understanding.”

“An understanding?” Grimalkin sniffed, fixing a bright gold gaze on all of us. “The Nightmare King is lost to madness,” he said. “You saw him, did you not? In the final battle below InSite? Even asleep and half-mad, he spoke to you through his Nightmare creature and warned of what would happen when he awoke. Do you not remember what he said?”

I did. I remembered that terrible moment when the hulking form of the Elder Nightmare turned, and I was suddenly staring into the eyes of something more ancient than I could comprehend.

“I will destroy all.”Even asleep, the Nightmare King had made the ground tremble with his words.“All dreams will die. This nightmare I find myself trapped in will finally end. I hear the ripples of the world above. I hear the voices calling. The screams, the anger, they pull me from this dream. Soon, I will be among them. Soon, all will know my rage. All will be darkness, and the ones who betrayed us will know nothing but terror. Wait for me, dreams. I will be there, soon.”

“If the Nightmare King wakes,” Grimalkin went on, “there will be no reasoning with him. That Nightmare King wants only to destroy and cover the world in darkness. I am afraid that, should you meet him in the waking world, he will not hear you.”

“So, the only solution is to kill him.” Keirran did not sound happy.

“That, or find a way to keep him from waking up,” Ash said. “Whatever we decide, we are going to have to find him, regardless. Nyx, is there someone who might know where the king is? Did Evenfall have a court?”

“It did,” Nyx replied slowly. “Not in the sense that Summer and Winter have courts, but the king did rule Evenfall from his castle in the Forest of Mist.”

“The Forest of Mist?” Puck repeated, and wrinkled his nose. “Typically, anything withmistin its description is either on some other weird plane of existence that doesn’t conform to normal space or is an absolute pain in the ass to find.”

“Have you ever been there, Nyx?” Keirran asked.

Nyx frowned. “Yes,” she said, as if memories were just starting to return. “I believe... I was at the castle a lot. I’m sorry, I am just starting to remember my life in Evenfall before the Lady, and some things are coming back slowly.” The assassin seemed to ponder the situation before she gave a solemn nod. “We need to find the Nightmare King,” she said. “That is the only certainty I know. I can guide you to the Forest of Mist to look for the castle, but I think it could be a long way. There is no guarantee the king will be there, but it is our best lead.”

“That sounds like a plan,” I said, and glanced out of the cave, where darkness still shrouded the land in night. “I would suggest we wait until daylight, but I’m guessing the sun never rises in a realm of nightmares.”

“You are very astute, your majesty,” Nyx said, and Puck groaned.

“Oh, I just love it when there’s no sun,” he muttered, and blew out a gusty breath before looking up with a wide grin. “Okay, well, since we don’t have to wait for a morning that will never arrive, I suppose there’s nothing left but to get on with it.”

“How has Evenfall survived with literally no glamour?” Keirran wondered as we followed Nyx through a forest that looked like every horror movie set in a dark, creepy wood. Skeletal trunks crowded us, branches and twigs reaching out like claws, snagging hair and clothes. The sky overhead was pitch-black, but the spaces between the trunks were lit with a flat gray light, outlining silhouettes and eerie shapes in the trees. I lost count of the times I thought I saw a figure in the corner of my vision, only to find nothing there when I turned my head. It wasnot, I decided,like being in the wyldwood, the great tangle of forest surrounding the Faery courts. The wyldwood was dim and murky, with vivid splashes of color against a perpetual gray backdrop. It, too, played tricks on your eyes, making you see movement or figures that might or might not really be there. But walking through the wyldwood felt...surrealwas the best way to describe it. Like you were in a dream. The wyldwood was alive; it was dangerous, beautiful, and forced you to pay attention to it.

This place felt dead. Lifeless.

“I don’t know,” Nyx replied in answer to Keirran’s question. “When the Lady and her circle closed the way to Evenfall, they also erased it from everyone’s memories. They intended for the realm to Fade, along with the Nightmare King and every Evenfaery who lived here. Itshouldhave Faded away. Without glamour to sustain it, I don’t know how the realm survived.” She gazed around at the haunting forest, a pained look crossing her face. “This...is all wrong,” she murmured. “I am glad to be home, that Evenfall still exists, but...it shouldn’t be here. The Evenfey shouldn’t be here. We should have Faded long ago.”

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