Page 67 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

“For you to take the trials,” Ruskin says. He takes Evanthe’s hand, standing up. “I have faith you’ll pass them, of course. But as a safeguard, would it not be better to wait until you’re ready to inscribe your name? Then I will strike mine from the stone.”

Evanthe seems to think this over, then inclines her head. “Very well.”

Ruskin steps back, positioning himself beside me as Evanthe kneels in front of the founding stone. She lays her hands on either side of Ruskin’s true name, still glowing like sunlight, and bows her head.

There’s silence. I almost hold my breath, and when I glance up at Ruskin, I see he’s barely breathing too, his face taut with tension and his eyes fixed on his mother. He’s worried, and I want to offer up a word of comfort, but then the stone lets loose a pulse of power that steals the air from my lungs, and Evanthe cries out.

Ruskin flinches, but otherwise doesn’t move, just listens intently as she starts speaking rapidly, her eyes closed and hands still splayed on the stone.

“No, please…it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I wanted. There’s another path…is that the path?”

It means nothing to me, but Evanthe sounds sorrowful one moment, terrified the next. I reach for Ruskin’s hand and feel grateful when his large, warm fingers enclose mine.

“Don’t worry,” he says, sounding far from relaxed himself. “This is part of the process. The stone has to test her, to see if she’s worthy.”

“What kind of test?” I whisper.

“It will test her power, but her mind too. It likes to play tricks, show you things you fear or hate…it wants to know the strength of your will.” It immediately makes me think of Cebba’s labyrinth, full of mind-bending apparitions. I wonder if this is where she got the idea from.

“It did that with you?” I ask quietly, aware that for once it’s not appropriate to ask too many questions and I’m probably approaching my limit.

“Yes,” he says.

“Lucan? Lucan, where are you?” Evanthe sobs, her whole upper body shaking now. “You shouldn’t have left me. Everything…everything is so wrong since you left…”

I look away. I understand now why only the ruling family witness this. It’s too personal, too exposed for the person who would be monarch.

The volume of Evanthe’s voice steadily rises, throwing out phrases that make no sense to me at all. She even recites words in a language I don’t know, which I assume is the old tongue.

Ruskin shifts, and his hand tightens in mine.

“Something’s wrong,” he says. “It shouldn’t take this long.”

I can tell he’s right. Evanthe looks increasingly frail against the solid mass of black stone. Maybe she and Ruskin misjudged. Maybe she isn’t yet strong enough to pass the trials.

The ground beneath us begins to shake.

At first I think it’s coming from the stone—just another pulse of its power. But the motion is coming from beneath us, rising up. Instinctively, I grab hold of Ruskin, as my ears fill with the rumble of an entire building trembling.

“Mother!” Ruskin begins to move towards Evanthe, but he doesn’t reach her before she’s thrown backwards, hitting the ground with her arms still outstretched like she’s been physically shoved away from the stone. She opens her eyes, bewildered, as Ruskin starts to pull her up, and I notice the names on the stone flicker and disappear, leaving the surface blank like before.

“We need to get out of here,” he says to both of us as a crack appears in one of the columns at the edge of the circle.

Coming from high up above in the palace, I hear the distant sound of screams.

We sprint back to the exit, both fae having to slow down so I can keep up with them. Once we’re back on ground level, we follow the sounds of disaster, leading us straight towards the dining hall.

When we reach it, the orchard is bleeding iron.

Chapter 21

Ican see it thirty yards from me, vast, ugly tendrils snaking around to block off every exit, until I can barely catch a glimpse of the dining hall beyond. The fae have learned to flee quickly by now, lords and ladies hurtling past me as I sprint in the other direction—towards the source.

“Get back!” I scream at the iron as if it can hear me. It simply plunges deeper into the palace, forcing me against a wall as a sharp tip of the metal flies past.

“Eleanor!”

I look up to spot Ruskin and Evanthe on the other side of the corridor. We’re separated now, divided by the iron and the streams of fae trying to outrun it. I see one fae lord throw himself into an alcove, out of the tendril’s direct path, but it’s like it knows he’s there, sprouting a sudden offshoot that heads right for him. He scrabbles against the stone of the alcove wall, desperately looking for a way out. I’m already calling on my magic, but I’m not fast enough, and the shoot crushes him against the wall. He screams and writhes against the pressure as it tears him apart.

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