Page 3 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

What I’ve said has robbed the words from dozens of mouths. Even the wind seems to die down until not a single leaf quakes.

Rian finally breaks the silence by grabbing my shoulder. “Immortal Iyre approached you in the woods? You vow to this?”

“Tamarac.” It’s our boyhood word for complete honesty with one another. I spit out another line of blood. “I’ll swear by whatever god you name that it was her. She appeared in human form but then dropped her glamour. She confessed with her own glowing lips who she was.”

The crowd lets out gasps, and someone wails.

“Release him.” Rian signals to the guards, who let me go. Then his eyes dart to Maximan, the gruff guard who’s been in the Golden Sentinels even longer than Rian’s been alive. “Maximan. Take some men to search the woods.”

“Don’t bother searching for Iyre,” I say. “She’s gone. She cut a portal in the air and stepped through it as easily as crossing a threshold.”

Lord Gideon Valvere murmurs to Rian’s grandmother, Lady Eleonora. “It will be chaos in the streets when this news reaches Duren. We must make haste before the riots begin.”

Already, the crowd erupts into chaos, faces pale with terror as people shove past one another, scrambling for their carriages. Wheels creak and horses snort, hooves striking the ground as drivers whip the reins, desperate to flee to Duren and warn their families before it’s too late.

My eyes latch onto one of the only figures remaining behind: Lady Suri. Her russet arms are foldedtightly over her small chest. Her usual sunshine smile has vanished, and now her face is as stark as the night sky.

She drops to her knees next to Rian and grips my arm tightly.

“But where is Sabine, Wolf?”

Again, that name.Sabine. Who are they all so worried about? I told them that Immortal Iyre walks the earth, heralding the Third Return of the Fae, and they seem more concerned with a stranger.

I shake my head. “Did you hear what I said, my lady? The fae are waking. Immortal Iyre has risen from a thousand-year slumber, and we have no idea which of the other ten have also risen. Truth be told, we’re lucky it’s only Iyre. If it had been Woudix, or Meric, or Vale himself?—”

Suri lays into me with an open palm slap to my right cheek.

Her walnut brown cheeks are flushed, her eyes sparking furiously. “I heard you plain as day, Wolf Bowborn! Did you not hearme? Where is Sabine?”

“Lady Suri, calm yourself.” Rian grips her hand to keep her from slapping me again, but she shoves him away.

“She’s my friend!” Suri cries. “And she was your fiancée until an hour ago, Rian!”

“Fiancée?” I spit out the word like sour grapes. It’s so preposterous that I almost laugh. “Rian has no fiancée.”

As soon as I say the words, however, a pain in the back of my head throbs.

Suri explodes at me, “Right, because you took her for your own! You promised to keep her safe! You said you’d put your own life above hers! So where is she?”

I couldn’t be more stunned if Immortal Artain himself had shot me with a gold-tipped arrow.My ownfiancée?By the gods, I don’t have a fiancée. I’ve barely even slept with the same woman twice. My eyes dart between Suri and Rian, waiting for one of them to break and admit this is some twisted farce, when it’s the last time anyone should be joking.

They remain speechless.

I say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lady Suri.”

Suri launches herself at me, shaking me hard enough to throttle a rabbit. “Youbastard! You said you’d love her until the end of days!”

Her voice is so laden with pain that it breaks through my irritation. My lips part, uncertain. She must be confused. Gone mad with fear at the fae’s awakening, maybe. But her conviction clearly isn’t in question, and it softens something in me to see a woman so violently committed to a falsehood.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I wish there was something I could tell you. But I know no woman named Sabine?—”

At the same time, shooting pain stabs through my heart until I have to double over and brace my hand against my knees.

Rian hauls Suri off me, taking the blows that were meant for me as she flails against him. “Let me go! You’re no better, Rian! You were an ass to her!”

Rian’s heard enough insults in his life that he doesn’t even flinch. “Lady Suri, stop. Lady—calm yourself, woman!” He plants her firmly on the grass. “Think about what Wolf is saying.”

Suri still struggles, more insults poised on the tip of her tongue, but then a dawning realization crosses her face.

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