The Iron Traitor

My arm throbbed, and I looked down to see my entire right hand and forearm streaked with blood, running in streams down my skin. Keirran saw where I was looking and winced.



“Ethan, I—”



“Forget it,” I said gruffly. “Let’s not think about it, okay? Guro said this was dark magic we were dealing with. I’ll put this behind me if you’ll do the same.”



He nodded, looking relieved. I held out my uninjured hand, which he took without hesitation, and I pulled him to his feet.



Guro waited for us by the fire, his expression grave and weary. He didn’t say anything about our injuries or the way our “shadow sparring” had devolved into an actual fight. I was too ashamed to say anything, feeling as if I’d just failed an important test, but Keirran stepped forward, his face anxious.



“Did...did it work?”



Guro regarded him solemnly, then held out his hand.



The amulet sat in his palm, glittering copper in the dying firelight. But it wasn’t the same. Sure, it looked the same, a small metal disk with a simple leather cord, but it practically glowed with malevolence now. Call me crazy, but I felt like I was staring at a living, breathing, angry thing. All my thoughts about its normality and insignificance disappeared, and I was almost afraid to step close for fear it would leap up and bite me.



“Be careful,” Guro told Keirran, who had shivered and drawn back a step when the amulet was uncovered. “The ating-ating is connected to you now, but not in a good way. It hungers for your life force, for your strength and magic and everything that makes you who you are. It will bestow that power upon its wearer, but you need to be aware that it will continue to draw from you until your strength fails and your magic is gone. I can destroy the ating-ating,” he added, perhaps seeing the look on my face, “but it will have to be done soon. The longer you wait, the stronger it grows and the more damage it can do. If it goes too long, that damage will be permanent.”



I looked at Keirran. He stared at the amulet like it was a venomous snake, curled in Guro’s palm, before taking a deep breath and shaking his head. “No. If this is what it takes to save her, I’ll gladly risk it.”



“It is not forever,” Guro warned. “It will sustain her only as long as you live. How long that will be depends on your own strength, but eventually, you will both perish.”



My blood went cold, but Keirran nodded calmly. “I understand. We’re just buying her time, buying us all time, until we can find a permanent solution.”



And how are we going to do that? I thought. You’ve already been all over the goblin markets, looking for a cure. The only other thing we’ve found is a drug made from the nightmares of children. Annwyl certainly won’t agree to that. What other permanent solution is there?



Guro nodded and held out the disk. Keirran hesitated as if reluctant to touch it, then reached out and deliberately grasped it by the metal face. I saw his jaw tighten, but then he bowed to Guro, turned and walked toward the Summer faery on the blanket.



Kenzie rose and moved aside, watching somberly as the prince knelt beside Annwyl and gently slipped the amulet around her neck, laying the disk over her chest. The blood from his wound spread over the back of his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice, his gaze only for the Summer girl in front of him. Quietly, I walked up to join Kenzie, hoping this would work, that the dark, bloody ritual we’d just participated in wasn’t for nothing. I could see the outline of the blanket through the faery’s body, the flickering amulet on her chest far more real than the fey it was attached to.



Annwyl’s eyes fluttered, then opened—a bright, piercing green—and Keirran smiled.



“Keirran?”



“I’m here,” the prince whispered, his voice slightly choked with emotion, with relief. Taking her hand, he held it in both of his, as Annwyl flickered, becoming solid again. “Welcome back.”



My stomach uncoiled. Kenzie grinned at me, and I smiled, too. For now, at least, things were all right.



But then my arm gave a sharp flare of pain, making me wince. Turning away, I gingerly prodded my wound, judging the severity. It was hard to see with all the blood, but it appeared to be a fairly deep gash right above my elbow.



Kenzie saw what I was doing and gave a sharp gasp. “Oh, Ethan,” she whispered, sounding appalled. “I thought Keirran had hit you, but I didn’t know it was that bad.” Her eyes flashed, and she glared at the prince, as if ready to stalk up and demand what he was thinking. I put a hand out to stop her.



“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s not that bad, and besides...” I hesitated, wondering what she would think of me now. “The one I gave him is worse.”



“What?” She looked at me strangely, then back at Keirran, her eyes widening as she finally saw the blood against his dark shirt. “Ethan, what the hell? What happened out there?”



“Ethan.” Guro’s voice stopped me from answering, which was good because I had no clue how to reply. I walked up, and without a word, he handed me a first-aid kit. Not the tiny, plastic kind, either. This was pretty heavy-duty. Kenzie padded up behind me, took the kit from my hands and knelt to open it. After a moment of rifling through the contents, she pointed to the ground beside her. I sat obediently.



“What will you do now?” Guro asked, watching us as Kenzie tended to my wounded arm. I let her hold out my elbow and push back the sleeve, wiping the blood away. After everything we’d gone through, she had done this so often it was almost routine.



“I don’t know,” I admitted, clenching my jaw as Kenzie dabbed at the cut itself with what felt like a peroxide square. That or a strip of acid. “I guess we’ll be searching for that ‘permanent solution’ Keirran was talking about.” I sucked in a breath as peroxide seeped into the gash, making my whole arm burn. Kenzie murmured an apology. “Though I really have no idea where we can find one,” I breathed. “There’s no way to really stop it unless she goes back home.”



Guro didn’t reply, but Kenzie piped up, as if it was obvious. “So send her home.”



“She can’t go home,” I told her. “Titania banished her from the Nevernever, for being ‘too pretty.’ That’s why she’s in exile.”



“But exile isn’t permanent, right?” Kenzie said, picking up a roll of gauze and unwinding it deftly. “If Titania lifted her banishment, couldn’t she go back?”



“Yeah, but...” I trailed off as I thought about it. There was no real reason Annwyl couldn’t return to the Nevernever, none, except for Titania. The Queen of the Summer Court was as vain and fickle as she was powerful and dangerous, but Annwyl hadn’t exactly done anything wrong. Her banishment was likely done on a whim, and if it had been a whim, then maybe if we reasoned with the Summer Queen...



I groaned. “I’m not going to like what we’re going to do next, am I?”



“Nope,” Kenzie said cheerfully, winding gauze around my arm. “You’re going to hate it. And we’ll probably have to hear you whine about how much you hate it the entire trip.”



I frowned at her. “I don’t whine !”



She raised an eyebrow at me, and I snorted. Guro sighed.



“I don’t like this, Ethan,” he said, making me cringe. “But I understand that this is something you must do, whatever it is. Just one warning.” His eyes narrowed, and he glanced behind us at Keirran. “Be careful around that one,” he said in a lower voice. “You saw what happened tonight. It was not only your darkness rising to the surface. And anger is not the only emotion that can force us to consider terrible things. There is only so much a soul can take before it is broken.”



The image of my body lying on the ground, Keirran standing over it with a bloody sword, flickered to mind, and I shoved it back. “I’ll be careful, Guro,” I promised. “Thank you for everything.”



I helped him load the stuff back in his car, carrying things one-handed as my arm still hurt like hell. I hoped I hadn’t hurt Keirran too badly with that stab to the ribs. True, he’d drawn first blood, but I shouldn’t have let it get that far. I’d known what I’d been doing every second of that fight, and it wasn’t a case of me just trying to defend myself; I’d really wanted to hurt him.



“Call me if you need anything,” Guro said, opening the front door of his SUV. “Anytime, day or night. And Ethan...?”



“Yes, Guro?”



His dark gaze met mine. “You can’t save everyone,” he said in a gentle voice. “Sometimes, you have to make the decision to let them go.”



I watched as he drove away, waited until the vehicle turned a corner and vanished from sight, then hurried back to the group.



His words haunted me with every step.



* * *



Kenzie met me at the edge of the glade, alone.



“Where are the other two?” I asked, looking past her to the clearing, quite empty of faeries and half fey. She rolled her eyes.



“They went off to do their own thing,” she said, putting emphasis and air quotes on the word thing. “Keirran got Annwyl on her feet, but then she noticed he was hurt, so off they went to ‘patch him up,’ as she put it.” She turned and pointed with a finger. “They’re in that clump of trees over there, but I wouldn’t recommend checking on them just yet.”



“Believe me, I have no intention at all.”



She grinned, then slipped her arms around my waist, snuggling close with a sigh. My heart jumped, and I wrapped my arms around her as she laid her head on my chest.



“You freaked me out a little back there, tough guy,” Kenzie admitted as her fingers began their maddening circles in the small of my back. “For a second, I really thought you and Keirran would end up killing each other.”



“Yeah,” I muttered, resting my chin atop her head, not knowing what to say. I could blame Guro’s magic, but those feelings of anger and betrayal toward Keirran were already there, just buried deep. I wondered what Keirran had been feeling when he attacked, when his sword had cut into my arm and drawn blood. “I don’t know what happened.”