The Iron Daughter (The Iron Fey #2)
Julie Kagawa
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
The Winter Court
The Iron King stood before me, magnificent in his beauty, silver hair whipping about like an unruly waterfall. His long black coat billowed behind him, accenting the pale, angular face and translucent skin, the blue-green veins glowing beneath the surface. Lightning flickered in the depths of his jet-black eyes, and the steel tentacles running the length of his spine and shoulders coiled around him like a cloak of wings, glinting in the light. Like an avenging angel, he floated toward me, hand outstretched, a sad, tender smile on his lips.
I stepped forward to meet him as the iron cables wrapped gently around me, drawing me close. “Meghan Chase,” Machina murmured, running a hand through my hair. I shivered, keeping my hands at my sides as the tentacles caressed my skin. “You have come. What is it you want?”
I frowned. What did I want? What had I come for? “My brother,” I answered, remembering. “You kidnapped my brother, Ethan, to draw me here. I want him back.”
“No.” Machina shook his head, moving closer. “You did not come for your brother, Meghan Chase. Nor did you come for the Unseelie prince you claim to love. You came here for one thing only. Power.”
My head throbbed and I tried backing away, but the cables held me fast. “No,” I muttered, struggling against the iron net. “This…this is wrong. This isn’t how it went.”
“Show me, then.” Machina opened his arms wide. “How was it ‘supposed’ to go? What did you come here to do? Show me, Meghan Chase.”
“No!”
“Show me!”
Something throbbed in my hand: the beating pulse of the Witchwood arrow. With a yell, I raised my arm and drove the sharpened point through Machina’s chest, sinking the arrow into his heart.
Machina staggered back, giving me a look of shocked horror. Only it wasn’t Machina anymore but a faery prince with midnight hair and bright silver eyes. Lean and dangerous, silhouetted all in black, his hand went to the sword at his belt before he realized it was too late. He swayed, fighting to stay on his feet, and I bit down a scream.
“Meghan,” Ash whispered, a thin line of red trickling from his mouth. His hands clutched at the arrow in his chest as he fell to his knees, pale gaze beseeching mine. “Why?”
Shaking, I raised my hands and saw they were covered in glistening crimson, running rivulets down my arms, dripping to the ground. Below the slick coating, things wiggled beneath my skin, pushing up through the surface, like leeches in blood. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should be terrified, appalled, majorly grossed out. I wasn’t. I felt powerful, powerful and strong, as if electricity surged beneath my skin, as if I could do anything I wanted and no one could stop me.
I looked down at the Unseelie prince and sneered at the pathetic figure. Could I really have loved such a weakling once upon a time?
“Meghan.” Ash knelt there, the life fading from him bit by bit, even as he struggled to hold on. For a brief moment, I admired his stubborn tenacity, but it wouldn’t save him in the end. “What about your brother?” he pleaded. “And your family? They’re waiting for you to come home.”
Iron cables unfurled from my back and shoulders, spreading around me like glittering wings. Gazing down at the Unseelie prince, helpless before me, I gave him a patient smile.
“I am home.”
The cables slashed down in a silver blur, slamming into the faery’s chest and staking him to the ground. Ash jerked, his mouth gaping silently, before his head lolled back and he shattered like crystal on concrete.
Surrounded by the glittering remains of the Unseelie prince, I threw back my head and laughed, and it turned into a ragged scream as I wrenched myself awake.
MY NAME IS Meghan Chase.
I’ve been in the palace of the Winter fey for a while now. How long exactly? I don’t know. Time doesn’t flow right in this place. While I’ve been stuck in the Nevernever, the outside world, the mortal world, has gone on without me. If I ever get out of here, if I ever make it home, I might find a hundred years have passed while I was gone, like Rip van Winkle, and all my family and friends are long dead.