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By Root 608 0

clearly, as if the memory had lingered in his flesh and she had glimpsed it like a ghost image on an X ray. Even his greatsword was not enough to keep so many feydrim away. They swarmed over the brave Embarran, dragging him down, knocking him unconscious. Only they did not kill him. Instead they fell back as a figure strode into the chamber, clad in a bloodred gown, a smile on her pale face. It was Lady Kyrene, who had been Grace's first teacher as a witch, and who had traded her living heart for one of iron. Kyrene knelt, taking something small and dark, and pressing it deep into a wound in Durge's left side. He cried out, a sound of despair and agony, only by the time his eyes opened, the others were gone. He couldn't have known what they had done to him, why they let him survive.

“They wanted to turn him into a traitor,” Grace said, and it felt like a splinter of metal had pierced her own heart. “Only they wanted to do it without us knowing.”

“Yes,” the old woman said above her. “But his heart is far stronger than they believed. Evil always underestimates the power of good—that is its greatest weakness. All this while, he has resisted.”

“Then he can keep resisting it,” Grace said, grasping for hope.

The forest queen shook her head. “He is mortal, daughter. Even a man so strong as he cannot resist forever. Soon now, the splinter will reach his heart.”

Grace could barely speak the words. “What will happen when it does?”

The old woman met her eyes. “His heart will turn to ice, and he will become the willing slave of the Lord of Winter—the one whom you call the Pale King.”

A moan escaped Grace. “I have to get it out of him. I have to operate before it's too late.”

“It's already too late, daughter. He should have perished that night. It is only the enchantment of the splinter that has kept him alive. If you remove it, he will die.”

Grace couldn't believe it. She wouldn't. Except she had to. She wiped tears from her cheeks and looked up. “You do it, then. You can help him with your magic.”

“I fear that is not so,” the forest queen said, sorrow on her wizened visage. “Iron is a thing whose touch none of us can bear. I have no power over it.”

Anger boiled up in Grace, and she seized on it as she stood, because it was so much easier to endure than despair. “I came here to find Trifkin Mossberry and the Little People. I wanted to ask them for help in standing against the Pale King, and I found you. But you're no help at all. You don't even care. You ran away from the world to hide here in your forest, and now I can see why. Your magic is old and weak and useless.”

For a moment, anger touched the old woman's face, and her eyes blazed like the noonday sun. It was a terrible sight, but such was Grace's own rage that she did not flinch.

At last the forest queen shook her head, and her eyes dimmed. “Perhaps you are right, perhaps we have grown too distant from the world outside. Yet you are wrong if you think we do not care. Quellior is brash and foolish, but he was right—if you cannot stop the Lord of Winter from riding forth, summer will never come again. And while we cannot stand beside you in the way you hoped, perhaps I can help you discover a way to help yourself.” She met Grace's eyes. “You seek a key, do you not, one that can aid you in the war you must fight? Sit in the chair that is forbidden to all others, and the key shall be revealed to you.”

It wasn't enough, Grace wanted to say. She wanted the Little People to fight beside her when the Rune Gate opened. And she wanted Durge to be solid and whole, to be there for her as he always was. All the same, Grace felt her anger melting. She turned away.

“Do not lose all hope, daughter,” the old woman said behind her. “The splinter has not yet reached his heart. You will yet have time with your knight before the end.” Her voice was receding now. “Farewell. And remember the chair.”

Grace turned around, but the gold light filled the forest, and she couldn't see the old woman. Then the light dimmed, and she turned back to see a silver snake slither up against Durge's