The Iron Warrior
Page 58

“What I must, Ethan Chase.” The Thin Man wrenched his arm from my grasp. “You heard the Iron Prince. You heard the confession from his own lips. He is not going to stop, and if we let him live, he will destroy the Veil with the First Queen. I waited this long in the hopes that the Summer girl would be able to reach him, but now that she cannot, our course is clear. The Iron Prince must die.” His pale gaze shifted to me. “And you must kill him.”
My stomach dropped. “No,” I rasped, glaring at the Thin Man. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“But I can, Ethan Chase,” said a smooth, feminine voice behind us.
A streak of lightning shot from the air, slamming into Keirran as he straightened, flinging him back. Annwyl cried out as he struck the ground several yards away, and I whirled to see Titania the Summer Queen striding forward, her lips curled in a savage grin.
“Prince Keirran,” Titania called, eager and unmerciful, as Keirran staggered to his feet, wind and dust whipping around him. His eyes glowed as he glared at the Summer Queen. “I have been waiting for you. We have unfinished business, you and I.” She raised her hand, and a swirl of black clouds appeared overhead, flickering and deadly. “You will not escape me a second time. If the Chase boy will not end your life, then I will!”
“No, you will not!” A blast of snow and frigid air, and Queen Mab appeared, grabbing Titania’s arm before she could bring it down. “You will not slay any of my kin!” Mab hissed at the other queen through bared teeth. A squad of Winter knights appeared, marching toward Keirran with ice spears raised, as Titania spun on Mab. “I will not allow it!” the Winter Queen snarled. “The Iron Prince is not yours to destroy!”
“How dare you!” The Summer monarch wrenched her arm back, eyes flashing, and the two faeries faced off in the center of the field, glamour swirling around them.
Okay, this was getting nuts. I winced, afraid the two queens would lay into each other right then and possibly blow the entire camp to smithereens in the process, but Keirran threw up an arm, and a flash of light shot from his fingertips, spearing into the air and turning everything white for a split second. The ground started to shake, and a hedge of thorns and bramble clawed its way up from the ground, forming a spiny, bristling wall between us and Keirran. In the time it took for me to blink, the barrier shuddered and turned to iron, blackened and poisonous, and still crawling toward us over the ground. The knights halted, falling back from the creeping metal barrier with alarmed cries, and thankfully caused enough of a distraction to stop the queens from attacking each other right then.
The sounds of battle faded. Panting, I looked around. From what I could see, the fighting had nearly stopped, and most of the Forgotten army was in the process of fleeing. I wondered if the beam of light Keirran had thrown up was some sort of retreat signal. I looked around at the carnage left behind—churned ground, blasted trees, ice daggers sticking out of everything—and felt my heart pound. Where was Kenzie? She had, very wisely, gotten out of the way when Keirran attacked, but then everything had gone insane, and I’d lost sight of her. Had she gotten caught in the cross fire? I’d never forgive myself if she’d been hurt, again.
“Kenzie!” I called, looking around wildly. A few yards away, Annwyl stared at the wall of thorns, her gaze unreadable. Mab was ordering her knights to tear it down while Titania glared sullenly. I didn’t see the Thin Man anywhere, but he was the least of my worries. “Kenzie!” I yelled again. “Can you hear me? Where are you?”
“Here.” She emerged from behind a stack of crates, looking pale and shaken, her hair tossed by the wind, but otherwise fine. Relief flared, and I caught her as she rushed up, crushing her to me.
“You okay?” I whispered into her hair, and she nodded, though her heart was pounding wildly beneath her shirt. I relaxed with a sigh. “You didn’t jump in,” I murmured, surprised. “I thought for sure you would tackle Keirran or try to talk him down.” Kenzie grimaced.
“Well, last time I tried, I got slammed in the back with a lightning bolt and spent four months in the hospital,” she answered in a shaky voice. “And with all the lightning and wind and ice flying around, I figured it would be better to let the guy who’s immune to it all handle it this time.” She squeezed my waist. “Though you did nearly give me a heart attack once or twice, with all those near misses. He really was trying to kill you.” Her voice broke, and she pulled away, shaking with anger...or grief. “Keirran has gone completely dark side on us, hasn’t he?” she whispered, gazing at the bramble wall, where the knights had almost hacked it down. I knew they wouldn’t find him on the other side, that he was already gone. Kenzie’s eyes glimmered, and she shook her head. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. Anger, guilt and despair burned my insides, making me feel sick. Keirran wouldn’t listen to us; we hadn’t been able to reach him. Not even Annwyl had been able to get through, and she had been our final hope. What chance did we have of convincing the prince to destroy the amulet? We couldn’t even keep him from trying to kill us all.
“Master,” Razor whimpered on Kenzie’s shoulder. “Master bad. Master bad.”
“Ethan Chase,” the Thin Man said, appearing beside us and making Razor hiss. His pale eyes were sympathetic but stern. “I think you know what you have to do now. The next time you see the Iron Prince, you must kill him.
“We tried, my boy,” he continued gently, as I stiffened in protest. “The Summer girl tried...and failed. The Iron Prince will not hear us. He will not destroy the amulet of his own free will. And the stakes are too high to allow this to continue. You heard what the prince said. About the Lady. About the Veil.” He looked at what was left of the bramble wall, his face grim. “She intends to destroy it for good. And she will use the Iron Prince to accomplish her goal. As long as he lives, the courts will not be able to stop her. Not when they are so busy fighting among themselves. This attack will not be the last. The Forgotten can strike anywhere, at any time. And each time they do, each time the First Queen sends them through the Veil, she destabilizes it a little more. That has been her plan all along, I believe. Using the Iron Prince and the war to weaken the barrier, until she shatters it completely.” The Thin Man turned back to me, his voice hard. “Once the queen rallies her forces, the prince will lead them through again. We must stop him before that happens. We must go into the Between and kill him ourselves.”
“No,” Annwyl whispered. She had drifted close and was staring at us with glazed green eyes, her face slack with horror. “Ethan Chase, please,” she said, looking at me. “I can reach him. Let me try again.”
“There is no time to try again!” the Thin Man snapped. “The Iron Prince must be stopped. Look at the damage he has caused, the lives he took, in a single night! He is using the full extent of his power, and we cannot hold back any longer. Your feelings for him will doom us all.”
“Annwyl,” Kenzie said, still pressed close to me. “I don’t want to accept it, either, but...maybe he’s right. Keirran might be gone. I mean, if Ethan wasn’t immune to glamour now, he would’ve killed him. Again. How many chances can we afford to give him?”