Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(117)

There was only one solution to this problem. It was staring her straight in the face. Fear gripped her, so strong she could barely breathe. She was stronger, she reminded herself. She was always stronger.

She had to get him back. There was no other way.

Her voice came out cold. “Bring the cows.”

A shocked silence fell. The Iron Dogs looked around, bewildered.

“You can’t,” Savannah recoiled. “For him? You would manifest for him?”

“Hugh was abandoned by everyone in his life.” Her words rang out. “His parents, his teacher, his surrogate father. They all threw him away. He trusted us. He sacrificed himself to save us. This is his home. I’m his wife. I will not abandon him. Bring the cows.”





Elara stood on the wall. The fires had been lit, fighting back the night. On the field, remnants of the mrog force mulled about, confused. Stoyan was right. Most of them eventually walked off into the wilderness. She had no idea how long the magic wave would last, but tech would kill them, she was sure of it. There was too much magic in their bodies to survive the tech.

The moon had risen.

In the bailey, sigils were being drawn with chalk and salt. Dugas presided over it. He was wearing his white robe. On the walls and in the bailey the Departed waited, wearing white. A line of cows stood waiting, each decorated with sigils drawn in white, dedicated to her. Fifteen total. That would do.

“Don’t do this,” Savannah said, her voice pleading. “You have everything you want. Just let Nez have him. It solves all of our problems.”

“No.”

“Elara…”

“Do you remember that night?” she asked. She didn’t have to specify which night. It was always the first night, the night she was reborn.

“Of course I remember.”

“You said then that loyalty was the only thing we had. Before friendship, before love, before wealth, there is loyalty.”

Savannah didn’t answer.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Elara said. “I have to bring him back.”

Savannah opened her arms and wrapped them around her. “You poor child,” the witch whispered.

Elara rested her head on Savannah’s shoulder, the way she had done when she was little and for a moment she was ten years old again, frightened and alone on that first night.

“You poor sweet girl. You can do this, you hear? You can hold it at bay. Don’t surrender to it. Don’t let it devour you.” Her voice broke. “You’re stronger than it. You hear me? You grip it and you make it obey. Don’t forget who you are.”

“I won’t,” Elara promised. She believed it. She had no choice. Any doubt and she would lose.

Savannah let her go, looked at her, and brushed the stray hair off Elara’s face. There were tears in her eyes. “It’s time then.”

Elara walked down the stairs to the bailey.

Dugas pulled out a curved knife covered with sigils.

Stoyan and Lamar moved to stand next to her.

“What’s going on right now?” Lamar asked quietly.

“I’m going to manifest,” she said.

“Why does the druid have a knife?” Lamar asked.

“Because tonight he isn’t a druid. Defend the castle while I’m gone. That’s your order.”

Stoyan opened his mouth, but she walked away from them and stepped into the ring of sigils.

A low chant rose from the Departed, gaining strength. She felt her magic stir in response.

“Go inside,” Savannah told the Iron Dogs. “You don’t want to be here for this.”

Lamar began to protest.

“Go inside,” Elara told them. “Please.”

The centurions walked away.

A bare-footed child led the first cow to Dugas and walked away. The beast looked at Elara with liquid brown eyes, trusting. Guilt twisted her. She clenched her teeth and reached deep inside herself, into the place where her magic waited behind a locked door.

Dugas chanted, his face turning savage. The curved knife flashed, catching the light of the fires. Bright red blood splashed across his white robe.

Power punched Elara, catapulting her through the door straight into the depths of her magic to the cold presence that waited for her there. Ancient as the stars, powerful beyond measure, too complex for a human to understand, yet single-minded in its ferocity. It waited for her, no longer a frozen iceberg, but a pool of celestial water.

She sank into it, fueled by the magic of the sacrifice. The liquid closed over her head, submerging her, and she let it flood her with its magic…

The universe opened like a flower, its secrets hers for the taking.





Hanging off a torture rack wasn’t the funnest thing he had ever done, Hugh decided. Nez’s helpers twisted his arms before chaining him and his ligaments whined at him, the pain constant and difficult to ignore.

He hung in Nez’s HQ, a room in a large pre-Shift building, presumably somewhere in Rooster Point, although he couldn’t be sure. They had dragged him here in the dark. The only thing he remembered clearly was passing the shell of a Matador, dented and ripped as if something with big teeth had taken it in its jaws and bit. The Departed’s handiwork. Somehow the cockroach had survived it.

Several metal braziers full of flames lit the room. Most of Rooster Point had been abandoned for so long, nobody bothered to install fey lanterns, and Nez had to resort to an old-school dungeon. Aside from braziers, there wasn’t much to it. Supplies thrown here and there, typical jetsam and flotsam of the Legion on the move. Chains, undead collars, crates of equipment, m-scanners designed to record residual magic signatures, were all pushed against the walls.