Page 55 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

I stare at Halima’s blade, somehow knowing that’s what transported me to that cursed place. But not literally—no. I was always still here. Still myself. I only went there in my mind, became someone else, lived a few terrible minutes of their life.

“What did you see?” Halima demands.

I find my voice.

“There were hills, and black smoke from the magic, and fae, dead, everywhere. It was so awful…but I knew I had to keep going, no matter how much it cost me.”

Halima’s eyes narrow.

“These hills, did they have purple flowers on them?”

I stare at her, confused by the question, but I search back to that terrible vision…

“Yes,” I say, recalling the blooms that were trampled into the earth all around me.

Halima nods. “The battle of Amethyn Valley. It was one of the worst massacres during the Great Divide.”

She stands and walks over to where I threw her sword, picking it up.

“Do you remember what I told you about this blade?”

I concentrate, straining my memory, grateful for the excuse to think about anything other than the images still battering their way into my mind.

“It was your mother’s,” I say, as understanding began to dawn.

“Yes. She was a warrior who fought in the war. Both my parents were.”

“You think I tapped into her memory?” I ask, bewildered.

“I think you tapped into the memory of the blade.”

“The metal,” I breathe.

“It seems you can do more than move it around,” she says, eyeing me with curiosity. “What else have you done?”

“I’ve used it to listen—if I focus on a piece of metal, even one that’s far away from me, I can pick up on noise from nearby, and sense people near it. But this…the war happened centuries ago, didn’t it? How could I have witnessed it?”

“Major magical events leave their mark on objects,” Halima says with a shrug. “You can read metal, tell its location, who or what is near it. Why not also the things it’s touched, the blood it has shed?”

“But it was like I was in your mom’s head. The metal couldn’t have told me what she was thinking.”

“My mother comes from a long line of warriors. They have a ceremony that forges a special connection between them and their weapon if they make sure the first blood it draws is their own. Remember what I was saying about your blade being an extension of you? They use magic to make that literal.”

“It was so real,” I say, blinking back tears at the intensity of it.

“It is still real for many of the fae who lived it. Time does not heal all wounds,” she says darkly, before sheathing her sword. “I think we’ve done enough today.”

I look up at her, surprised.

“You disarmed me. Hardly an easy thing. That’s enough for one day. You’ll have more training, but I’m satisfied with your progress for now.”

We walk back through the palace towards my room. Right now, I’m glad for Halima’s aversion to chitchat. After what I’ve just experienced, I don’t really feel like talking much.

It’s one thing to have the war described to me. It’s a totally different thing seeing it—smelling and hearing it. I shudder as it creeps into my mind once more. I understand better now why Halima would swear on her sword to keep peace in the Seelie Kingdom at any cost, why she’s been so nervous about contact with the Unseelie Court. If I were fae, I would also do everything in my power to avoid ever returning to that time. The brutality of it, the horror, must have left a deep scar running through this world, and yet Halima is the only one I’ve ever really heard mention it. I wonder if you’d want to remember such a time, besides putting up the odd statue in a square that’s now overrun with iron.

The iron. It comes to me now, why this new discovery about my powers is significant.

If I can read the memories of metal, find out where it’s been, then I can use this to work out where the iron is coming from.

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