Sunlight flooded the room, glinting on golden sconces and illuminating the subtle patterns in the thick blue rugs. An elegant chaise lounge sat by the windows, while two chairs sat close by the fireplace. An open doorway led to what appeared to be a bright, spacious bedroom; Claire could see a delicate wooden nightstand beside a bed canopied in gauzy white silk near another door she thought might lead to a dressing room.
“Do you like it?” Tuathal asked. “I’d hoped you might… that we might…” He frowned and cleared his throat. “I hope it suffices.”
“It’s beautiful.” Claire glanced up at him. He seemed slightly ill-at-ease, and she wondered why. “What were you going to say?”
His eyes flicked over her face, lingering on her lips, then back up to meet her gaze. He cleared his throat again. “It is customary for a husband and wife to share a suite, but I didn’t want to frighten you.”
Heat suffused Claire’s cheeks, and she looked down for a moment. In truth, she had not considered what might come after the wedding; she imagined only the wedding itself, Tuathal’s brilliant smile and laughing eyes, and a general air of triumphant joy.
The thought of sharing rooms with him wasn’t entirely unpleasant, though. She glanced up at him. “You don’t frighten me.”
“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow. “That’s… good? I think?” His teasing smile made her heart beat faster.
She threaded her fingers through his and felt him relax almost imperceptibly.
“Can we sit down?” she asked.
He led her to the chairs and, with a wave of his hand, started a fire in the fireplace.
Tuathal smiled pensively, his eyes resting on her face. “You don’t look happy, Claire. Do you wish to reconsider?”
“No. I just have so many questions.”
He inclined his head, inviting her to ask.
“I thought I understood why the knife burned you and the kelpie and evaporated the oighear—because iron is incompatible with magic. But human blood is red because of the hemoglobin, which has iron in it, right? And your blood is blue because it has no hemoglobin and no iron, right?
“So if stainless steel has iron in it, why didn’t my blood burn you?” Claire’s frown deepened. “No, that’s not my question. My question is why the iron in my blood did burn the Unseelie when it hadn’t burned you.”
A slow, bemused smile had crept across Tuathal’s face.
“What?” Claire asked.
“Of all the things you might have asked me, you chose that? You never cease to surprise me, Claire.” His gaze drifted from her eyes to her lips, then to her pendant, and down her arm to their clasped hands, their fingers woven together.
He took a breath and said, “It wasn’t the iron in your blood but the steel in your will that burned them. The blood alone would have done nothing. Humans have been killed by oighear weapons before, and some creatures have even eaten humans, as I believe you have heard. No one but you suspected the iron in your blood was responsible… if they even know human blood contains iron, which I doubt. It is bound up chemically and amounts to just a trace—not concentrated enough to be dangerous. You willed—wished, if you prefer—the axe to stop. Your will was clear, pure, and focused. The will of a hero is a powerful force. The iron in your blood was not much to work with, and your skill in clearly forming commands is… problematic, but the circumstances helped you have a very clear vision in that moment. Obviously it was sufficient for the spell, and it used what it had.”
Claire looked surprised, and Tuathal smiled. “Yes. That was you casting your first real magical spell. Remarkably timely it was, and strong, as well. The foinse cumhachta helped a bit. Your second was flinging the blood on the Guard. That one…” He frowned as he thought. “That was brilliant, actually. Even with the foinse cumhachta, I would not have expected your blood to burn so effectively. Did you?”
“Not at all. I was just hoping the iron in my blood would do something.”
The silence between them felt like the breathless hush before a crack of lightning, and then Tuathal chuckled softly, the sound as gentle as his hand on hers. “Perhaps you did not know the strength of your will. You may not have had any idea what would happen, so normally such a spell would have failed to do much of anything. But you were helped by the fact that all of the guard, especially those closest to you, thought something would happen, and they were supplying some quite vivid mental pictures of what it might be. Evidently at least one of them believed the blood would burn, which tied in quite well with your vague hopes about iron. His vision gave form to your wish, and as soon as he began to burn, the others’ visions aligned with what they saw actually happening. Though they didn’t stop there; by the time they reached the healers, some had sparks flying from their wounds and setting bystanders on fire! I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of some other embellishments.
“They credit you with all of that. I expect that for the next millennia I will be seeing tapestries of you shooting fire from your fingertips and routing armies.”
Claire snorted softly. “As if I meant for that to happen!”
“Did you not?” Tuathal raised his eyebrows. “I could not have devised a more complete victory if I’d had weeks to plan it.”
“I was bluffing.” Claire smiled, remembering the fierce, joyous relief of seeing the Unseelie forces disappear.
“Are you sure?”
Claire blinked. “Um… yes? I remembered what worked with the naiad. I tried to look confident. I figured that creatures that live a thousand years don’t live so long if they’re reckless. You don’t live that long by taking risks you don’t understand. I thought I’d make him decide that caution was the best part of valor.”
Tuathal smiled. “And you’re sure you were bluffing? Perhaps you only thought you were. Your courage is even more magnificent, if you did not believe you could win. But I think you were mistaken and only believed yourself to be bluffing.” At her confused look, he said, “You did rout the entire Unseelie army by the power of your blood and the strength of your will, though we had been at war for half a century. Even my father’s magic could not drive back the Unseelie so thoroughly. I believe Taibhseach was right to fear you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What would I have done?”
Tuathal grinned. “How could I possibly guess? But I certainly believed you when you threatened him.”
“You did?” Her voice rose in surprise.
“It felt, through the foinse cumhachta, like the truest thing you’ve ever said.” His eyes shone with pride. “I believe you could have followed through on your threat, but neither Taibhseach nor I can imagine what it might look like.”
She laughed. “So I’m unpredictable? I thought you knew exactly what I was going to do.”
“Not at all. Only we Fae are predictable. My kind does not change as you do, hour by hour becoming someone new.”
She glanced at him, half-expecting to see mockery in his gaze, but he smiled back at her, his expression showing only gentle admiration. The setting sun lit the room with a warm pink-gold glow.
“I do have other questions,” she said at last. With a wave of his hand, Tuathal lit the sconces along the wall and brightened the fire so that light and shadows danced over the walls.
At her hesitation, the king glanced at her with an enquiring look.
“How exactly did you get captured, anyway? Your palace isn’t near the border. I had to walk for ages, and then I fell in a river and a water woman—the naiad—almost ate me, and when I surfaced I was somewhere else far distant.”
The king chuckled softly. “Réidh? Oh, she must have liked you, if she let you go.”
“I’m not so sure. I think she thought I looked tasty.”
“Indeed. She’s one of my more dangerous subjects, but she’s hardly evil. She hasn’t eaten a human since my grandfather was young. Of course, I don’t know that she’s come across a human since then, either.”
Claire studied his face in the dim light. “Did you mean to sidestep my question, or are you always so difficult to pin down?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “If you must know, I walked.”
“What? Did you let yourself be captured?” I knew it! she thought. “Why?”
He licked his lips and glanced away. “I was buying time.”
“Time for what?”
“For you.”
She narrowed her eyes and stared at him, trying to see past the elegant planes of his face and the distracting lightning flash in his eyes, the slippery words and ever-present amusement that curved his lips in a sardonic smile.
“I’m serious, Tuathal. I want to know. How did you get captured?” Something inside her felt like it was burning, digging, twisting her heart into a knot, knowing she was about to hear something she could not bear. She didn’t want to know, not at all.
“I made a bet, Claire.” His voice was soft and clear, threading through her veins like molten gold. “Taibhseach wanted the foinse cumhachta, and it could not, it must not, fall into his hands. He would have used it not only to conquer the Seelie, but perhaps even to break the barrier between the human world and Faerie. He has no authority to enter your world; the right to enter the human world belongs to the Seelie crown and is inherent in the foinse cumhachta wielded by Seelie monarchs. If he captured it, not only all of Seelie but all of the human world would suffer.
“But we were losing the war. We could hold the border no longer, and I had no partner to wield the foinse cumhachta to its full potential.
“I gave you your part of the foinse cumhachta when you helped me defeat the rats, the Unseelie vanguard. But I did not endow it with all the power it might hold; you were not yet ready, and I needed the power for other conflicts.
“I left it with you because it would help protect you, and it seemed to affect you in a way that is difficult to explain. It helped you become more you, the you that you were always meant to be. The bright, shining Iron Queen.
“When you came to my infirmary, the war had reached a critical moment, and all appeared to be lost. And yet you appeared, pulled through the veil between worlds by the power of your own will and by the protection of the foinse cumhachta, which knew that of all places in all worlds, my infirmary was the very safest place for you to go.
“And so, seeing the opportunity to hide the rest of my power, including the right and authority to enter the human world, where Tiabhseach would never find it, I put it all into the foinse cumhachta, and I hid it from all who sought it, even from myself, though I kept the memory that you had possessed it. Then I sent you back with it to your world, where Taibhseach could not reach.
“Later, for a brief time, I thought we had an opportunity to make headway in the war. I was weary beyond words, and I thought, for a short time, that we might be able to end the war, if only I had the power that I had stored in the foinse cumhachta. You refused to give it back.” He frowned thoughtfully. “No, that’s not right. You did not remember you had it, and could not give it back. It was hidden even from you. This was, I think a good thing, though at the time I nearly despaired. I suspect now that the appearance of opportunity was a trick, a trap to draw me out with the foinse cumhacha. And you were not yet ready—the foinse cumhachta itself helped you grow and protected you.”
“Is it sentient? You speak of it as if it has thoughts and opinions.”
“Not exactly. But sometimes it acts as if it were sentient. It seems to like certain people more than others and approves some plans more than others. Perhaps this is the subconscious of the one or two who wield it, or perhaps it is also others who have in the past or will in the future wield it. After all, time—well, actually everything—is a bit complicated when it comes to magic.”
Claire eyed his sharp features, the clever way he had not exactly answered her question. It was all very clear and concise, and yet… not entirely informative.
“But how did you come to be captured, Tuathal?” she said softly.
“I told you. I walked.” His grin was sharp and almost, but not quite, bitter. “I walked out into Unseelie lands and shouted for Taibhseach by name until all his many spies slithered and flew to whisper in his ear that the mad king of the Seelie was screaming to be captured.” His eyes glinted. “I like to think I was a bit more dignified than they reported, but I did want to make an impression.”
“But why?! Why, Tuathal?” Claire’s voice cracked. “Didn’t you know what he would do?”
Tuathal’s frost-colored eyebrows raised. “Not exactly, of course, but I had the general idea. I was buying time, as I said. If he crossed the border by force, he’d capture me on my land, and then it would be only a very short time until he captured all Seelie lands. He would know that we were weak and that we could not defend the border. If I walked into his domain, shouting my defiance to the skies, he would wonder what treachery I planned, and he would be cautious. Especially since I did not have the foinse cumhachta! He would wonder where it was, and when it might appear as part of a cunning trap. The war had already lasted for a human lifetime, and he could be patient a little longer for the sake of caution.
“I knew he would search me. Unseelie magic is deep and dark and cold. I knew it would ooze like poison through my veins, invading the deepest parts of my mind and searching my memories for the foinse cumhachta. So when you would not give it to me, I knew I would face him. It was a gamble, to be sure, but I was desperate and I could think of nothing else. So I hid the foinse cumhachta from all who might look, and I hid my mind within the foinse cumhachta within you. I left myself only the tiniest whisper of sanity, just enough to remember the next step of the plan, to walk into Unseelie land. I erased the memory of the foinse cumhachta from my own mind—what it was, what it looked like, and where I hid it. So when Taibhseach sent his magic coursing through me, there was nothing for him to find.” Tuathal’s voice hardened. “And thus I bought time.”
The air was not enough to fill Claire’s lungs, and she gasped at the terrible brilliance and audacity of Tuathal’s plan. “So it was a bluff,” she whispered. “You pretended the Seelie were stronger than they were to make him hesitate.”
He looked faintly pleased. “Indeed. You, my Iron Queen, did something rather similar, if I understand correctly.”
“But you… but…” Claire closed her eyes, and the stinking hole in which she had found Tuathal rose in her mind, dark and hopeless. “How did you hope to get out? You said you didn’t think I’d come.”
He smiled and bent to kiss her fingers, one by one. “I hoped you would come.”
“But you said you didn’t think I would.”
“I didn’t think you would come. But I hoped you would.” He glanced at her, and, seeing her bafflement, said softly, “My hope in who you might become was stronger than my fear of Taibhseach.”
Claire could not look away from his eyes, bright as lightning across the night sky.
“Besides, it isn’t as if I had many other choices.” Tuathal smiled, pressing his cheek against their entwined fingers. “If I gave you enough time, and the foinse cumhachta enough time to work in you, perhaps you would become the hero we needed.”
“You believed in me.” The immensity of his faith in her made her heart swell.
“I still do.”
“Why did you play the role of villain?”
“I had to work within the framework you gave me. You wished to be the hero and defeat the villain. I played the villain to protect you. You faced me, and defeated me, rather than facing Taibhseach—at least at first, before you had become your true, heroic self.”
Claire shuddered at the thought of facing Taibhseach as the child she had been. “You let me hate you.”
“I had to. Only a human could slip through Taibhseach’s magical defenses to rescue Fintan, even with Faolan’s help. I distracted Taibhseach as well, and when you and Fintan escaped the prison, I doubled back and retrieved Faolan and Riagan.” At her questioning look, he said, “Riagan, the little green fairy.”
Claire closed her eyes and swallowed regret. “Thank you.”
He smiled.
“You terrified me.”
“Well, that didn’t last,” he said in a soft voice, and her cheeks warmed. “As you rose to the challenge, I loved you more, because you were more yourself. And thus I gave you more power over me. When I asked for the foinse cumhachta back, it was all I could do not to vanish when you cried out that I should leave. But the need for the foinse cumhachta gave me strength. I hoped so desperately that you would give it to me, and that I could use it to defeat Taibhseach. But you would not.”
“I should have. Why didn’t you simply take it when I fainted?” She searched his face.
“I couldn’t. Partly because I had hidden it already, even from myself; though I knew you had it, I could not see it or search it out. More importantly, because…” He frowned thoughtfully. “I think it did not want to be taken from you. I had left it with you, with some power, to help you grow into the hero I knew you could be. The foinse cumhachta is not really the pendant, you know. The pendant is a symbol, a mostly-physical representation of a magical phenomenon that is difficult to describe—a particular type of royal Seelie power, authority, trust, and cooperation. In the intervening time, the foinse cumhachta seemed to have decided that it liked you, for lack of a better description. It did not want to be taken; even if I could have taken it by force (and I’m not sure that I could have, although it acknowledged the legitimacy of my claim to it), it would have been wrong to do so, as well as likely futile.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, finally giving voice to the question that had lurked at the back of her mind since the moment she had realized she possessed the foinse cumhachta. “Why did you hope I would walk into Taibhseach’s trap if you knew he wanted the foinse cumhachta? Why weren’t you afraid he would just kill me and take it?” Her voice shook.
Tuathal inhaled sharply. “Claire!” he breathed. “Do you truly think so little of me? Do you think I risked you so easily?”
“I…” She brushed at sudden, unwelcome tears. “No, I know you felt you had to. I’m not angry, Tuathal. I just want to understand.”
He brushed his fingers over her cheek with infinite tenderness, his fingertips trailing down her jawline to her lips. “The foinse cumhachta was the greatest protection possible. I hid it, Claire. It could not be found. Taibhseach could have killed you, perhaps, but even if he had ripped the pendant from your body, he would not have possessed the foinse cumhachta.” At her confused look, he said, “The pendant is but a symbol, a representation, of the foinse cumhachta. It could not be found, for it was within you all the time. The pendant was invested with some power, yes, but the foinse cumhachta is not merely a little bronze token to be taken so easily.
“Taibhseach and his forces could not perceive that you had it, much less how to take it from you. They could see only your actions, your courage, and your mercy, and from that they imagined that you might be the hero they feared. But they could not know, and dared not challenge you. They were right to fear you.”
“I had to give it to you willingly, didn’t I?” Claire closed her eyes, remembering. “It was your mind. That’s why it made you sane again, didn’t it?”
“I hid my mind within the foinse cumhachta, yes, though they are not one and the same. And yes, I entrusted it to you.”
“What would have happened if I’d died before I gave it back to you?”
“The foinse cumhachta would remain hidden forever. Perhaps it would die.” Tuathal frowned, his expression pensive. “I did consider that possibility. Yet, terrifying as it was, it was still better than Taibhseach obtaining it. At least the boundary between Faerie and the human world would not be breached.”
A sick horror spread through her, and she caught her breath. “And you have been mad forever.”
Tuathal shrugged almost carelessly. “Oh, not forever. Even we Fae eventually reach the end of our days. Besides, I doubt Taibhseach would have kept me around indefinitely. Once he had secured his rule over the Seelie, I imagine he would have disposed of me, foinse cumhachta still undiscovered.” He smiled and pressed a kiss to her temple, then let his cheek rest against hers. “It was a risk I was willing to take. You bear no guilt for that, Claire.”
“I should have given it to you when you asked for it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. In retrospect, I don’t know that the opportunity was as good as I hoped at the time, and anyway, if you had, then you wouldn’t have become my Iron Queen.” His cheek curved against hers, and she realized he was grinning fiercely. “It was worth the cost and more.”
“I love you, Tuathal.” The words were true, but they were not enough, and she turned to let her lips brush his cheekbone, tasting the warmth and magic of him, the starlight on snow, the electric power in his veins.
His smile widened. “And I, you.” His lips met hers like lightning across a cloudless sky, bright and triumphant.
THE END
I wrote a fun little bonus chapter which you can get free by joining my newsletter! Honestly, it’s just a fun little bit of cute fluffiness (not part of the main story). I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy it too! Click here to get it free!