Page 53 of The Iron Vow

He returned the slightly pained smile. “Maybe we should have listened to Puck when he was talking about earplugs.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Ash murmured. “Then you’llreallyneed earplugs.”

I chuckled and closed my eyes, relaxing into the warmth of family. Even here, in this twisted nightmare world, Ash and Keirran were my two bright spots. My reasons to keep going.

The dream flickered into my mind, images replaying like a movie trailer. The keep at the top of the mountain. The long spiraling staircase. The mysterious shadow figure who kept just out of sight. I had been in Faery long enough to know a vision when I saw it. Something important waited at the top of that staircase, and someone wanted us to find it.

We just had to get past a shrieking, unkillable monster first.

Resolve settled through me. Setting my jaw, I eased out of Ash’s embrace and stood, ignoring the moment of vertigo to stand on my own. “Call everyone together,” I said, as both Ash and Keirran rose as well. “There’s something I have to tell everyone.”

“You had a dream?” Puck asked a few minutes later. “You mean, you were dreaming inside a dream?” His forehead scrunched, the flames of the campfire casting eerie shadows across his face. “Yeah, I’m not gonna think too hard about that or my brain will never untangle.”

“I think it was more of a vision,” I corrected him. “I definitely felt a presence leading me through the castle. There is something at the top of the keep, on the highest floor of the highest tower. When we reach the Wailing One’s lair, that’s where we have to go.”

“And are you sure this presence is on our side?” Varyn asked. “Not that I’m doubting you,” he added, raising his hands. “But what if it’s the Wailing One? We’re going into the Nightmare’s lair—it could be setting a trap for us.”

“It wasn’t the Nightmare,” Keirran said, and everyone glanced at him. He hovered a few feet away, leaning against a stalagmite with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. “The Wailing One can’t plan that far ahead,” he told us. “It’s far too volatile to have any semblance of clear thought or planning. It is nothing but grief and rage, and even its thoughts are...scattered.” He looked away, narrowing his eyes, as if hearing something the rest of us could not. “Even now,” he muttered, “I can feel her. The Nightmare she sent after us took a lot out of her, but she’ll start crying again soon. As soon as she regains her voices, she’ll be just as dangerous as before. But she doesn’t have the capacity for traps.”

“If it was not the Wailing One,” Ash murmured, “what was it?”

“The Nightmare King,” Other Nyx said.

Her tone was quietly confident, as if she had no doubt that she was right. “He is still fighting for us,” she went on. “Even though he dreams, even though we are not real, he still wants us to live. Perhaps he can sense the presence of those who are real within his dream. It would make sense that he would reach out to you, a queen of Faery, to help his dream survive.”

Beside me, Ash shook his head. “That is not the Nightmare King I have seen,” he said, his eyes shadowed with memory. “That is not the voice who spoke to us in the Nevernever, right before we came to Evenfall. On that day, the Nightmare King spoke of vengeance and destruction. He had gone mad with his rage. That is why we came to Evenfall, to stop him. Because if he wakes up, it could mean the end for both Evenfall and the Nevernever.”

“But...that makes no sense,” Varyn broke in. “If the king has gone mad, then why are we traveling all the way to the palace to see him? Why are we risking our lives to seek him out? If he will not hear us, what is the point of any of this?”

“He will hear us,” Other Nyx said firmly. “We will be able to reach him. He is angry, and he grieves his world and his people, but in my entire existence of living in this nightmare, I have never doubted the king.”

Grimalkin sauntered into the firelight, leaping onto a nearby stone. “The storm is lessening,” he said, gazing around the fire. “I believe the rain is letting up. If you are all finished having your pointless mortal conversations, perhaps we can move on.”

“I am very much in favor of that,” Gilleas said. “Listening to this babble is becoming tiresome, as is scraping my head against every low-hanging stalactite in this cavern.”

“Another reason I am very happy to be a cat.” Grim yawned and turned away, waving his tail. “The passageway is against the far right corner,” he said. “I anticipate it will still take several minutes for everyone to actually arrive at the correct location. I will await you when you are ready.”

I stood, and the others rose with me. “All right,” I said. “This is the final leg of the journey. We know what we’re dealing with, and what we have to do. Is everyone ready?”

“Not particularly,” Puck said in a cheerful voice. “But when has that ever stopped us before? Oh yeah, never. It’s never stopped us before.”

“Even when it should have,” said Nyx with a sigh.

We followed Grimalkin through a series of winding, narrow passageways, ducking stalactites and squeezing through tunnels that made me glad no one in the group was claustrophobic. The Wailing One remained eerily silent, which was both a relief for my aching ear and a constant worry as to when she would start up again. I kept glancing back at Keirran, but he marched doggedly forward, never complaining or lagging behind. Once, he did startle and go for his sword, as if a figure had just appeared beside him out of nowhere. But he quickly wrenched his gaze away and continued, keeping his eyes straight ahead and not looking down any adjacent tunnels.

Finally, I saw a lessening of the darkness ahead. We left the caves, emerging onto a narrow ledge with a sheer drop over the side of the mountain. Icy wind, still laced with rain and tears, tugged at my hair. And ahead of us, across a misty divide, a stark castle of broken stone rose up from the clouds, looming against the darkness.

“The Howling Keep,” Gilleas breathed behind us. “Sometimes known as the Tower of Sorrows. I have read about it many times, but I never thought I would see it with my own eyes. It is...breathtaking and terrifying at the same time.”

“You think our wailing friend is home?” Puck wondered.

“If she is, I don’t see her,” Nyx said, gazing up at the surrounding peaks. “Or hear her, which is even more troubling. We should try to reach the keep in case she spots us. If the Nightmare does attack, I would rather face her in a castle than on a crumbling mountain pass over nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a smart idea.”

With the wind howling eerily through the crags, we made our way toward the castle, eventually finding ourselves on a steep path to the shattered gates at the top. Small streams trickled down the path and flowed over the rocks, turning the air bitter and acrid.

“Almost there,” Varyn muttered, craning his neck to gaze up at the towers, rising to an impossible height above us. “Relatively, anyway.” His gaze slid to me. “You said we have to get to the top floor of the highest tower?”

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