The Iron Traitor

“Hey!” I called, turning to the one who had spoken to me. She was halfway into the trunk now, just her face and one arm showing through the bark, glittering black eyes fixed on me. “Wait a second. You can’t just disappear on us now. What’s going on?”



“They are coming,” the dryad whispered as her arm and shoulder vanished, sucked back into the tree. Now only her face showed through the bark. “Run, Ethan Chase.” And she was gone, leaving me staring at a faceless tree trunk. The mist surrounding us coiled tighter, shutting out the rest of the light.



“Ethan,” Annwyl whispered in a choked voice, gazing wide-eyed at something behind me. I spun...



...and came face-to-face with an eyeless hag, floating at the edge of the mist.



My stomach dropped. I leaped back, but the ragged figure with thinning hair and no eyes in its withered face lurched toward me like a puppet whose strings were being yanked. One thin, shriveled hand stretched out to me, long talons flashing like steel as it snagged the front of my shirt, tearing through the cloth. I yelled and grabbed its wrist, trying to pry it loose, but the withered hag was stronger than she looked, because I couldn’t budge her an inch. Her face leaned close to mine, smelling of dust and cobwebs and things in the attic that hadn’t seen the sun in decades. I jerked back, struggling to free myself as her slit of a mouth opened and cold, dead air rushed against my face.



“No time!” The words were a rasp, and her other hand clamped my shoulder, claws digging into my skin. “No time, Ethan Chase! They are coming. But you must understand. You must see this!”



“Get off me!” I snaked my arm beneath the bony elbow and shoved with all my might, and the creepy hag fell back, tearing a hole in my shirt and a few in my skin, as well. She hissed, reaching out again, and I hastily backed up, keeping Annwyl behind me.



“No,” the eyeless thing moaned, sounding despondent. I didn’t care; she was not going to grab me again. “Ethan Chase, wait! You do not understand. I must show you something, before it is too late.”



“Stay right there,” I told it and snatched a stick from the ground, holding it in front of me like I would my swords. “If you have something to tell me, you can say it from there.”



“Ethan,” Annwyl whispered behind me, sounding faint. “It’s the Oracle.”



“What? The Oracle?” The ancient seer of Faery, who’d helped Meghan when she first came to the Nevernever looking for me, who could see the future, or glimpses of it? That Oracle?



I didn’t get a chance to ask. The mist roiled, and suddenly, dark things erupted from the wall of white, rushing toward us from all sides. They looked like shadows, black silhouettes with no defining features except for a pair of glowing yellow eyes. They weren’t human shadows, either; their arms were too long, ending in curved talons, and they moved like huge insects, skittering over the ground. Tendrils of shadow streamed from their heads and backs like inky ribbons, writhing into the air as they closed in, silent as the mist they came out of.



I yelped as one shadow-thing bounded toward me, swiping at it with the branch. It ducked, or rather, it flowed beneath the blow, moving like a spill of ink and coming up on the other side. For an instant, it was right in front of me, bulging yellow eyes inches from my face. But then, before I could even register that I was in trouble, it was gone, leaping away.



Toward the dusty hag floating in the center of the grove. In fact, the whole swarm seemed to be converging on her like a flood of dark water. She hissed, rags billowing as she slashed the air around her, talons flashing. Several of the shadow creatures jerked, then seemed to come apart, fraying into ribbons of darkness that seeped into the ground and disappeared.



But even more of the shadow things got through and piled on the Oracle, clinging to her dusty form like splashes of ink. They didn’t attack; from what I could see, they just grabbed her and hung on. But the shrieks and wails coming from beneath that dark mass made my hair stand on end.



“Ethan,” Annwyl cried, grabbing the back of my shirt. “It’s the Oracle! Please, help her!”



“Are you crazy?” I said, tearing my shirt from her grasp. She gazed back at me, wide-eyed and pleading, and I groaned. “Fine. I don’t know why I’m doing this, but...do you think you can distract them long enough for me to get her away?”



The Summer girl nodded. I sighed, turned to the indistinguishable blot of darkness in the center of the grove and raised my stick. “Right. Rescuing creepy faeries who tried to kill me, again. Why not?”



As I lunged toward the fight, the trees above me groaned. Ancient oak branches swept down, sweeping away dark creatures like a broom, flinging them back. Vines erupted from the ground, coiling around the creatures’ legs and arms, pulling them away. The mass of darkness was peeled aside, and I could see a pile of dirty rags crumpled on the ground.



Darting in, I slammed into a cloud of frigid cold that nearly took my breath away. My skin prickled, and my breath billowed in front of me as I reached down and grabbed a limp, shriveled arm among the pile of rags.



“No!” The arm came to life, bony fingers clamping on to my wrist, startling me. I jerked, failing to free my arm, and looked down. The Oracle’s withered, eyeless face peered up at me from the ground, mouth gaping open. Around us, the shadow beings fought the vines holding them back, slithering through the coils like snakes, their chill coating everything with frost.



“Dammit, let go!” I tried wrenching my arm back, tried to drag her out, away from the shadows closing in on all sides. “Will you stop? I’m trying to help you!”



“No,” she whispered again, her voice faint. “Listen. It is too late for me, Ethan Chase. The darkness has come, as I foresaw it would. This is my fate—you cannot stop it. But you must...see...this....”



The shadow creatures had almost freed themselves; several pressed forward, grabbing the Oracle again, covering her like ratty blankets. I snarled and hit at them with the branch, but they either slithered aside or accepted the blows, making no sound as they piled on the Oracle again. None of them retaliated against me, though the air grew painfully cold. In horror, I saw a corner of the Oracle’s rags, fluttering as though caught in a breeze, tear away and vanish into one of the shadow creatures. Right into it, like it had been sucked down a black hole. And then I felt that faint, sluggish pulling sensation coming from all around us, and I knew what these creatures were.



Forgotten. Of a kind I’d never seen before, but there was no mistaking what they were doing. Sucking away her magic and glamour, just like the rest of their kind. Draining away her life and her essence, and if I didn’t get her out of here now, she would be sapped away to nothing.



I yanked backward, trying to drag the Oracle away, but somehow her other hand reached through the swirling mass of darkness and touched the side of my head.



There was a stab of pain, like she had sunk those steely talons right into my mind, and a flash of something white across my vision. And for just a moment, I saw him.



Keirran. Covered in blood, staring down at something on the ground, his face full of grief and horror. Another flash, and I saw what he was staring at.



No. My mind went blank with shock. No.



The grip on my arm was released. Reeling, I fell backward, and the Oracle vanished beneath the pile of strange Forgotten. Scrambling upright, I lunged forward, yelling, kicking, beating them with my stick, until the dark mass of Forgotten finally drew back. Panting, pushing the last of the creatures away, I gazed down at the spot where the old faery had been.



A few dusty rags lay in the grass at my feet, fluttering like paper. The Oracle, whoever she had been, was gone.



Behind me, Annwyl made a strangled noise and sank to her knees. I backed toward her, glaring at the Forgotten, who surrounded us in a dark ring, their eyes glowing yellow in the gloom. But they didn’t attack. Silently, they drew away into the mist and faded from view. The fog broke apart, sunlight streamed into the grove, and everything was normal again.



My arms were shaking, and it was questionable whether my legs would continue to hold me up. I dropped the stick and leaned against a trunk, uncaring that it might be a dryad’s tree. That vision, that split-second flash the Oracle had shown me—it couldn’t be true. I refused to believe it. Of course, if it was true, then it certainly would explain some of the reactions I was getting from Meghan, the courts, the Thin Man, everyone. I understood Meghan’s fear now. I understood a lot more than I wanted to.



“I can’t believe the Oracle is...gone,” Annwyl whispered after a moment.



I didn’t reply. Truthfully, I wasn’t thinking of the Oracle. I was still reeling from the load of bricks she’d dropped on my head, unable to stop seeing it. The vision. Keirran covered in blood, staring at something on the ground at his feet. His face a mask of grief, despair and horror. And in the grass...a body, blood pooling from its chest, gazing sightlessly up at him.



Me.



Part II



CHAPTER TEN



THE FADE



I was going to die.



That was what Meghan was so afraid of. She knew. She knew something was going to kill me, and Keirran would be there when it happened. Was this the prophecy everyone was so worried about? How would it happen? Would Keirran and I end up fighting something too strong for us, something vicious and powerful, and it would end up killing me? Or had he just found me lying there in the grass? I hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse of him in the vision, but I did remember the blood streaking his face and arms, though I wasn’t sure if it was his or an enemy’s. We might have been in a fight; in that brief flash, I couldn’t remember if he had his sword out. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember if I had my swords out.



I didn’t know, and at that moment, I didn’t really care how that vision had come to pass, only that it had. Would. I had just seen my own death. I was going to die, and Keirran would be there when it happened.



“Ethan?”



Annwyl rose and came hesitantly forward, her green eyes concerned. “You’re white as a sheet,” she remarked. “And you’re shaking. What did the Oracle show you?”