Page 59 of The Iron Vow

I slashed through an enemy and turned to find there was only one left. A body stepped toward me, tall and lean, with long metallic hair and depthless black eyes. A cloak of writhing silver cables spread from his shoulders and down his back. I hadn’t seen him in ages, but I knew him instantly.

“Iron Queen,” Machina the Iron King whispered. “An empty title. The Iron fey are mine. You merely stole them. You are nothing but a pretender.”

I parried an iron cable that came slashing at my head, but was forced back as several more snaked around me. “A pretender,” the Iron King repeated, walking steadily forward, those silver cables writhing in a hypnotic, mesmerizing pattern. “What are you without your glamour?” he whispered. “Without your knight? Without that power?Mypower.” A tentacle lashed at me; I raised my sword and knocked it aside. “You are nothing,” Machina went on. “You are merely human. A thief with stolen magic. You can do nothing without glamour. Look around you, child. Girl. Where are you now?Whoare you?”

The cable came at me again. I raised my free hand and snatched it from the air, drawing a shocked look from the tall faery before me. Taking one step forward, I drove my sword into his center, ignoring the tentacles as they flailed wildly around us. Machina stared down at me, raising a long-fingered hand to gingerly touch the sword hilt in his chest.

“I am the Iron Queen,” I told him simply, as his features blurred to water, and the Iron King collapsed into a puddle at my feet.

I rushed through him to the pool. Pressing both palms to the marble lip, I stared into the depths, searching for Keirran. The overwhelming bitterness stung my eyes, making them water and tear; I scrubbed at them angrily and kept looking.

A face appeared in the water, staring up at me. It rose swiftly toward the surface, making me step back as a figure broke through the water and stood before me.

“Do you hate me, Iron Queen?” Annwyl whispered, lifting sorrowful green eyes to mine. “Do you despise me for stealing Keirran away? For causing him to turn against his court and family? Or do you hate yourself, for not being able to help him?” Her gaze narrowed, a spark of anger flickering across her face for just a moment. “You and the Winter prince defied all the laws of Faery that stated you could not be together. Why couldn’t it work for us? Why was your love more important than ours?”

Guilt tore at me, but I gripped my sword and tensed to lunge.I will not stand here arguing with shadows. Not when Keirran is lying on the bottom of that pool.

A sword suddenly exploded from the water behind Annwyl, and she jerked up, eyes going wide, as the point pierced her chest. Her mouth opened, and she rippled into water and collapsed, as Keirran burst from the pool in a spray of tears and lunged to the side.

My heart stood still. Coughing and gasping, Keirran slumped against the rim, water pouring off him in waves. I grabbed his arm, dragged him from the pool, and knelt with him on the floor, holding him steady as he coughed and hacked and emptied water from his mouth and nose.

“Keirran,” I said, once the violent expulsions had calmed somewhat. “Are you all right?”

He retched, dragging a palm down his face. “Eyes...burning,” he gritted out. “Feels like I just ground a bunch of salt into my face. Can’t see anything.”

“Breathe,” I told him, and he sucked in several deep, shuddering breaths. As he did, I noticed one of his hands, clutched tightly around what looked like a glass ball. “Keirran,” I said, touching the back of his hand. “Is this...?”

He coughed once more and tried opening his eyes. I winced at how red they were. “I don’t know,” he rasped, holding it up. “I found it at the bottom of the pool. Thought I might drown before I discovered what was down there.”

Understanding dawned. “You let yourself be taken,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I heard you calling me, but...it was hard enough keeping my focus on what I had to do. If I let my guard down for just a moment, I might’ve done what Annwyl wanted, which was to join her on the other side. Wherever that was.”

My stomach tightened to the point of pain. “I’m glad you didn’t listen.”

“It was tempting,” he confessed, and ran a hand down his face. “Seeing her again, even though I knew she wasn’t real...thepainfelt real. Real enough to consider letting it all go.” His brow furrowed. “But Annwyl is gone. If I let myself be haunted by her, it’s going to consume me.” He raised his head, regarding the pool, the water flowing steadily over the sides, and his gaze hardened. “Besides, the real Annwyl would never have asked me to do that. I promised her I would live, and I still have a lot of things to set right. The least I can do is try to fix the atrocities the Lady left behind.”

I released my breath in a puff. “Show me what you found.”

He held up his hand, turning it over to reveal what lay in his grasp. It was...a snow globe, or something very similar. The clear crystal ball had flecks of white drifting through the glass like a miniature blizzard. “I looked as long as I could, but I didn’t find anything else.”

I took the globe from him, turning it over and back in my hand. The second I did, the snow swirled frantically, and faces began appearing in the glass, blinking into existence and fading away. There and gone far too quickly to see. The litany of faces continued, all different, all vanishing in a fraction of a blink. A wail arose from the tiny globe, hundreds of voices all screaming out at once. A cry of agony from countless fey that no longer existed.

An answering wail rang out horrifyingly close, and the tower beneath us trembled with the sound of beating wings.

“The Wailing One. She’s coming.” Keirran and I leaped to our feet as the huge, dark form of the Elder Nightmare rose into the air just beyond the edge of the tower. The faces in its wings screamed at us, as did the female head, but the male head’s jaws opened, an ominous red glow blooming at the back of its throat. There was no cover at the top of the tower, and only a sheer plunge straight down to the last floor. As the column of fire swept forward, I turned and slammed into Keirran, knocking us both into the pool of tears.

The water closed over my head, and I held my breath, hearing the muffled roar of flames above me. In my hand, the globe pulsed like a heartbeat, and instead of muffling the screams, the water seemed to amplify them. A maelstrom of noise swirling around us, shrieking and howling in my ears.

To defeat a named Elder Nightmare, you must destroy the essence. The core that represents what it is.

The king’s regret. That was what I held in my hands. His grief at not being able to save his people, a sorrow so great it had taken form and turned into a Nightmare. I could feel the steady throb of the globe in my fingers, the vibrations of the voices shrieking around me. I cradled the globe in both hands.

I understand. I accept your sorrow and your grief. It will become part of me, but it will not consume me. And when we finally meet, I will understand a little more.

I brought my hands together, crushing the globe and the glass.

The shards sliced into me, cutting my palms and fingers, which burned like they were on fire. A howl rose from the shattered globe, louder than anything I had heard before, making the water vibrate around us.

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