Crown of Iron

Chapter Eight

Panic rises in Anya's throat as the knife digs further into her side. She can feel the cold metal blade against her skin as it cuts through the thin fabric of her gown as if it were made of paper.

"Ah, ah, ah," the stranger tuts in her ear. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. You've got something I want."

Anya closes her eyes, trying to calm herself long enough that her magic will respond to her will. She can almost feel it pacing inside of her like a restless, caged animal, desperately trying to escape in a frenzied panic. She isn't even certain if she could call upon it without burning down the entire forest and everything in it.

She should've listened to Elias. She should've been more careful.

"Lorcan." She tries to hide the way her breath shudders, the way she still chokes on the scent of rot and wet earth that rolls off of him in waves. He can't know that she's afraid, can't know that she's trying to buy Tiarnán enough time to escape.

"Someone's done her research," Lorcan croons in her ear, and she shivers at the sensation of his breath on the nape of her neck, hot and wet, and reeking of rotten leaves. "You're a very tricky woman to find, Anya LaSair. Did you know that? You are positively covered in wards and shields. The spell work is..." He inhales long and slow, nose half buried in her hair. "Exquisite."

Confusion breaks through her panic for the briefest of moments. She shoves it down deep within her, refusing to let it show on her face.

"Well," she says, keeping her voice steady, "now you have me." Every word she utters seems to come out of nowhere, manifesting on her tongue just seconds before she speaks them; she's grasping at straws, buying as much time as she possibly can.

"So, I do." Lorcan keeps the knife beneath her ribs as he steps out in front of her. His pale skin is littered with scars, and dark black eyes scan her from head to toe, the echo of a smile upon thin lips. Time has been a cruel mistress to him; he is all skin and bone as though he had been worn down to his bare essences, like waves pounding at a cliff until it dissolved into sand. He is more predator than man; a wolf in tattered rags and shrouded in rot. "It wasn't easy."

"Forgive me if I don't offer my sympathies."

A low, soft laugh escapes him, but it's hardly reassuring. Dread gnaws at her like a starving beast, sending shivers rippling down her spine. Every bone in her body is screaming at her to run but she can't. Her feet won't move, won't even consider stepping away from Tiarnán's limp body until she knows he's safe or...

Until he's dead.

"Let my brother go," says Anya, forcing herself to meet Lorcan's eyes. Immediately, nausea builds in the back of her throat. His gaze seems to bore into her, cutting straight through down into her core like she's made of paper. Perhaps to him, she is. Magic rolls off of Lorcan in pulsating waves that threaten to drown her in their filthy stench. She feels like she's being smothered every time she comes up for air, his magic forcing her down deep inside of her where she can't even feel it.

The man before her gestures his free hand behind him at Tiarnán's body. "I'm not stopping him," he says, "but do not think I care if he survives."

Anger flares inside of her chest. Her own life matters little to her, but her brother's? Anya has only ever put her family before herself; gave Tiarnán her food when they didn't have enough to go around, spent hours patching her clothes and shoes back together just so Brigid would have a coat for winter, protected her siblings from the ire of nobles who hated those with Etrian blood.

She wants to attack him in a blind rage, wants to strike him down for holding her above her own kin, but she has had practice with smiling through gritted teeth and telling sweet, cloying lies to those with the power to have her killed. She has faced Justiciars with their blades covered in the blood of her fellow mages, and she had convinced them that she was nothing, small and innocent and unthreatening.