Julie Kagawa - The Iron Knight

He turned swiftly and trotted away, melting into the shadows and the trees. Grimalkin watched him go and turned to us.

“I have brought you as far as I can,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet, plumed tail waving. “The final few steps are up to you.” His gaze narrowed, watching us grimly. “Both of you.”

A coil of mist curled across the place where Grimalkin sat, and he was gone.

Puck crossed his arms, gazing past the edge of the valley into the darkness and thorns. “Yep.” He sighed. “A really, really nasty monster, indeed.”

I gazed into the hollow, watching the mist writhe through the thorns, creating shadows and dragons where there was nothing. Silence hung thick on the air; not a peaceful, serene silence, but the silence of a tomb, or the aftermath of a battle, where death and darkness thrived and the living had no place. I could hear the whispers of hate and fear that hissed through the brambles, ghosts on the wind. I could hear them call my name.

Something in me recoiled, reluctant to set foot in that dark valley. It was waiting for me, somewhere beyond the mist. Still watching.

Filled with a foreboding I couldn’t explain, I drew back, then stopped, angry with myself. Why this sudden fear? Fear meant nothing to me. Fear was the knowledge of pain, the awareness that you could be hurt, that you could die. That was all it came down to. I knew pain. Intimately. I’d welcomed it at times, because it meant I could still feel, that I wasn’t completely frozen. What more could anything do to my body that I hadn’t already lived through?

Nodding to Puck, I drew my sword and stepped into the hollow, feeling the mist coil around me as we slipped into the fog.

A gray shroud enveloped us instantly, lit by a flat, even glow that somehow managed to darken everything. Nothing moved in the hollow; all life had been swallowed by the thick black briars that sprang up everywhere, choking everything out. The ground beneath us was wet and spongy, though the writhing layer of mist made it impossible to see what we were stepping on.

As I moved through the brambles, my sword held up and ready, I began to sense the wrongness of the valley, right below my feet. The ground pulsed with hate and blood and despair; I could feel it clawing at me, the darkness of this place. I could feel my Unseelie nature rise up in response, cold, ruthless and angry.

“This place is cursed,” Puck muttered as I struggled to control myself, to stifle the darkness rising within. “We need to find this seer and get out of here, soon.”

“Ash,” something whispered through the brambles, raising the hair on my neck. I whirled, but no one was there.

“Ice-boy?” Puck stepped forward, eyes narrowed in concern. “Ash. You all right?”

And, for just a moment, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to take my sword and plunge it deep into his chest, to watch the light fade from his eyes right before he crumpled at my feet. Turning away, I struggled to compose myself, to stifle the cold rage ebbing through me. The demon inside was stirring, unwilling to hold back any longer, and the core of the rage was directed, like a spearhead, at Puck.

“Ash,” the voice whispered again, and I looked up.

Several yards away, barely visible through the mist, a ghostly, glowing figure walked through a space between the briars, catching my eye and then vanishing from sight. My breath caught in my throat.

Forgetting Puck, forgetting everything that had brought us here, I followed the figure into the mist. Voices hissed at me through the brambles, faint and incomprehensible, though every so often I heard them whisper my name. I caught glimpses of the lone figure through the branches, always walking away from me, just out of reach. Somewhere in the mist, I heard Puck call my name as he tried to follow, but I ignored him. Ahead of me, the thorns finally thinned, and the ghostly figure strode purposefully forward, never glancing back. It turned a corner, and I hurried to catch up ….

The brambles fell away, and I found myself in a small clearing, thick briars hemming me in on either side. Before me, rising out of the mist, a bleached-white skeleton lay sprawled in the mud and stagnant water of the clearing. The skeleton was huge, an enormous reptilian creature with thick hind legs and a long, powerful tail. Wingbones lay folded beneath it, snapped and broken, and the huge jaws were open in a last, silent roar.

I started to shake. Not with fear, but with complete, all-consuming fury, and despair burned my throat like bile. I knew this place. I recognized where we were at last. It was here, on this spot, that Puck, Ariella and I had fought and killed a monstrous wyvern, slaying it but losing one of our own in the process. This was the hollow where Ariella died. This was the place where I’d vowed to kill Puck. It had all started right here.

It would end here, as well.

“Ash!” Footsteps splashed behind me, as Puck came into the clearing and stumbled to a halt, panting. “Dammit, iceboy, what’s gotten into you? Next time, give me a heads-up that you’re taking off. Don’t leave a guy standing in a creepy, mist-filled hollow of death all by himself.”

“Do you know where we are?” I asked softly, not turning around. I felt his puzzlement, then heard his sudden intake of breath as he realized. I gripped my sword and spun slowly to face him, feeling darkness spread through me like a rush of ink. The Unseelie demon was fully awake now, the icy barrier that held it at bay shattered. Memories rose up, fresh and painful: the hunt, the chase into the hollow at Puck’s insistence, the roar of the monster as it charged with lethal speed. Rage and despair swirled around me; whether mine or the memories of this dark place, I didn’t know. Nor did I care. Meeting Puck’s eyes, I started forward.

“Ash,” Puck said, backing away, his eyes wary and hooded, “wait. What are you doing?”

“I told you.” I advanced steadily, calmly, the sword heavy in my hand. “I warned you that it would be soon. It’s time, Puck. Today.”

“Not now.” He paled, and drew his daggers. I didn’t stop, and he circled with me, his weapons held up and ready. “Ash, get a hold of yourself,” he said, almost pleading. “We can’t do this now. You’re not here for her. ”

“Look at where we are!” I roared, sweeping my blade toward the bleached skeleton in the mud. “If not now, when? This is the place, Puck! This is the place she died. I lost Ariella right here. Because of you! ” My voice broke, and I sucked in a breath as Puck stared at me with wide eyes. I’d never said those words to him; it was always an unspoken feud that drove us to fight each other. We both knew the reason, but I’d never accused Puck out loud, until now.

“You know I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Puck’s voice shook as we continued to circle each other, blades bare and glittering in the faint light. “I loved her, too, prince.”

“Not like me.” I couldn’t stop myself now. The rage was a cold, all-consuming fire, fed from the darkness of the earth, from the grief and hate and painful memories that had seeped into this spot. “And that doesn’t change the fact that her death is on your head. If I’d killed you when we first met, like I was supposed to, she would still be alive!”

“You don’t think I know that?” Puck was shouting now, green eyes feverish. “You don’t think I regret what I did, every single day? You lost Ariella, but I lost you both! Believe it or not, I was kind of a mess, too, Ash. It got to a point where I actually looked forward to our random duels, because that was the only time I could talk to you. When you were freaking trying to kill me!”

“Don’t compare your loss to mine,” I snarled. “You have no idea what I went through, what you caused.”