Page 98 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

“You won’t get far with this plan,” Maidar grunts, eyeing the trio warily. “This here is Lisinder’s kin. Attack them and you’re done in this court.”

“I think you underestimate exactly how much Seelie scum is hated in this place, old man,” Kasgill says, holding up a strange glass sphere. I squint at it, trying to make out whatever’s swirling inside. It obviously means something to Maidar, because his eyes widen.

“A moon orb? How did you?—”

The antlered fae cracks Maidar across the face with her club, sending him stumbling into the side of the mountain. I draw my sword, outraged.

“Oh, you definitely shouldn’t have done that,” I say.

She smiles at me and raises her club to strike Maidar once again.

I charge at her, prompting her redheaded friend to step forward and swipe at me. Kasgill sprints past us all, making a beeline for Ruskin. The redhead takes a swinging start to bring his club around towards my chest, but the run up helps me see it coming and, even exhausted from my mountain experiment, I manage to dredge up enough magic to hold my sword steady, meeting the club with a solid parry so that it winds up impaling itself of my blade. I take the opportunity to yank it from his hands, tossing it over the low wall that marks the edge of the mountain. I think with satisfaction about it smashing into smithereens upon impact.

Maidar is doing his best to defend himself against the antlered woman, but she is younger and faster, dodging his attempt to ram her with his curling horns. She responds by smacking him again and again with the club.

A shattering sound catches my attention before I can take her on next, and I glance over my shoulder to see Ruskin and Kasgill, swords held defensively across from one another. The sphere Kasgill was carrying—a moon orb, Maidar called it—lies broken at Ruskin’s feet. Purple fog rises up out of it, hovering in front of Ruskin before being whipped away on the wind. Kasgill looks disconcertingly pleased with himself, and that sends a spike of fear through me.

Ruskin stiffens, every muscle tightening, then he crashes his sword so hard against Kasgill’s blade that both weapons go flying. Kasgill looks stunned, and for a moment, and my first thought is that whatever the sphere was meant to do simply hasn’t worked.

Then Ruskin leaps forwards and rips Kasgill’s throat out.

It’s so quick and brutal that I can’t grasp at first exactly how it happened, but I realize that Ruskin must’ve pinned Kasgill with one hand, claws digging into his chest, and slashed his talons across Kasgill’s throat with the other. Blood slowly pools beneath Kasgill’s neck, his expression frozen in surprise.

The antlered fae screams, seeing her friend go down, and Ruskin’s head jerks towards the noise. He sniffs the air, and when I see his face, I think my own heart stops beating for a moment.

The person looking back at us isn’t Ruskin.

His pupils are all but gone, the tiniest slits of black in too-bright eyes. His lips are pulled back into a growl and his claws shine with blood, his sword lying discarded behind him. I wonder in that moment if he even remembers how to use it, because this creature is one of pure instinct and bloodlust. Whatever was in that purple fog has driven all reason from him. Ruskin isn’t a fae anymore, but a beast.

He throws himself towards the antlered woman. She raises her club, hitting him in the chest, but it seems to do nothing. He simply roars in fury, before batting her away from him with such force that she’s thrown against the wall that edges the path. Her head hits the stone with a sickening crack and her eyes fall closed before her body drops to the ground, dead. The redheaded fae sets off running, trying to put as much distance between him and Ruskin as possible. But whatever the spell has changed in Ruskin makes him fast too. He chases the redhead down like a predator toying with its prey, before getting close enough to drag two sets of claw marks straight down the back of the fleeing man. The redhead staggers, then falls forward onto his face.

Ruskin stands over him for a moment, seemingly admiring his work, before he turns to look back at us. There isn’t a hint of recognition in his eyes.

“Maidar,” I say, my voice low, so as not to provoke Ruskin. “What is this? What did that orb do?”

“The moon orb,” Maidar rasps, struggling after his beating, “is meant to unleash the power of the moon on your Unseelie blood. It’s an old and banned piece of magic. Unseelie warriors used to inhale them before battle. That idiot must’ve not known how potent it can be.”

“And how do you stop its effects?” I ask, still not taking my eyes off Ruskin. He’s watching us with the same kind of look the manticore had, right before it tried to maul me.

“You can’t,” Maidar says gravely. “You have to wait for it to wear off.”

Ruskin charges at us, sprinting up the slope with a growl.

“Maidar, run,” I say. The old fae stares at me.

“What about?—”

“Run!” I scream as Ruskin closes the gap between us—ten, then five yards.

The old Unseelie obeys me this time, scrambling up the slope as fast as his bruises and broken bones will allow him.

I don’t have enough magic left to fight Ruskin, and even then I don’t think I’d be any kind of match against such primal fury. I only have one thing left in my arsenal.

I step forward and hold up my hand.

“That’s enough, Solskir.”

Ruskin stops four feet from me, pulled up short by my use of his true name. I try to hold my hand steady, but it won’t stop trembling. Ruskin growls again, looking confused, but still angry.

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