Page 7 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

“Exempt,” she says at last, looking satisfied she’s found the right word.

Exempt from what? I ask myself the question, unsure if Tesha will be able to explain it to me. Knowing a true name gives you power over someone, I’m willing to take a guess.

“So…you can’t use my true name? Even if you wanted to?” I say.

She nods, confirming my theory: the person who does the ritual for the child will learn their true name, but will be unable to use it against them.

I turn my name over, mouthing it to myself. Other than an instinctual sense of ownership, I don’t feel much more.

Lunasworn.

“But what does it mean?” I ask. “I don’t know the Old Tongue.”

“Lunasworn.” When she says it aloud, I feel a small pull at the center of my being, urging me to answer. “It means ‘Sword of the Moon’. It is an old name. Powerful.”

The literal translation means nothing to me at first, a pretty phrase without context. How can I be like a sword? I can barely hold one. And the moon? Other that lighting my nights like every other creature on this earth, I can’t say I’ve ever given it much thought. I was right then, and just like Ruskin’s true name, the meaning is as useful as?—

My train of thought stops in its tracks, giving way to an entirely new one.

His name is very much like mine, isn’t it?

Shield of the Sun. That was what he’d said his name meant. And me: sword of the Moon.

A set of pairs. Two sides of the same coin. It couldn’t be coincidence, could it?

I rise, suddenly wanting out of this stuffy house and this confusing conversation.

“Thank you for your help,” I say to Tesha. She doesn’t seem startled by my sudden goodbye, merely stands to watch me go. I pause at the door, remembering our deal.

“When you need me to repay my side of the bargain?—”

“Tesha will find her,” she says, without a shadow of doubt in her voice.

When I leave the thatched house of the changeling, I can’t help but feel like I’m fleeing something, the exact shape of it shadowy and unknowable to me. But whatever it is keeps chanting a pair of names in my head as I go.

Seeing Dad is what finally chases the names from my mind. He’s got his color back and, apart from the bandage around his head, he’s looking pretty cheerful. He reaches out to me as I come in.

“Nora, I woke and you were gone again. I was worried?—”

“It’s okay, Dad, I just had to check up on something.”

“I told him you’d be back,” Ruth says, her arms crossed and her observant eyes on me. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Yes and no,” I say truthfully. I’ve gotten some answers, but they’ve left me with even more questions.

Ruth lets us stay the night. Her guilt trumps her fear of Albrecht’s men and she can’t bring herself to send us out into the dark. In the morning, before we set off, I pay the healer. She tries to refuse, of course, citing Mom and calling it professional courtesy. I insist, though, and eventually she gratefully accepts the gold. As I hand it over to her, I wonder when I’ll get a chance to make more. Once upon a time I imagined that once I mastered alchemy, I would use my skills to enrich our whole village. Now with me in hiding and my workshop torn to shreds, I wonder if that dream can still be reality. Then the magic I did in Faerie tugs at my memory, and I realize I might not even need my workshop anymore. The tools, the calculations, the carefully hoarded ingredients…in the end, I didn’t need any of them. But I’m not sure how well the magic will work outside of Faerie. There was no way to tell other than to try it—and now certainly wasn’t the time for that. First I need to get Dad home safe. He’s my priority, and everything else—including the questions I have for him about Mom and me as a baby—can wait.

He’s well enough to sit up at the front of the cart with me, and we leave the village as the day starts proper, the swaying of our vehicle lulling me into deep thought. I re-examine what Tesha told me. I tried to keep it from my mind last night, but now in the light of day it seems silly not to question it.

Why would my true name align with his like this? Maybe I’m overthinking it, and all true names refer to weapons and celestial bodies…but somehow I doubt it. Like most things related to Faerie, wording matters, and I can’t help but think this collection of phrases has some important meaning I can’t yet piece together.

Dad puts a comforting hand to my shoulder, pulling me back to the present. He gives me a searching look and I understand. We haven’t talked, not properly, and he must have a million questions.

“Where did you go Nora?” he asks gently. “They said you’d disappeared from the castle. I hoped with all my heart you’d found a way to escape to safety. You were always so clever. But then there were stories…about fae magic and that Ru?—”

“It’s true,” I say, cutting him off before he can say the name. There’s still something about hearing it out loud that’s painful. “I tried to escape on my own, but I failed. I was stuck in a room with guards breaking down the door, moments away from capturing me again. I knew Albrecht would’ve still forced me to marry him, or had me imprisoned. So I had to think quickly. I know it seems crazy, but I made a deal with Blackcoat and?—”

“Nora, look.” Dad interrupts me to point at a group of riders on the road up ahead. My blood runs cold. Even from this distance their uniforms indicate that they’re soldiers—Albrecht’s men. I curse. We should’ve kept off the road, but Parsley is old and I thought she would struggle too much. It was still so early when we set off, and I’d thought we could risk it.

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