The queen said nothing, waiting patiently for him to continue.
Gareth tried to untangle his knotted thoughts. “Why do they call me the Shield? Why do I get to wear the armor tonight, and not Guy or Grian?”
There was no mistaking the sadness in his mother’s eyes. “It is your birthright, son. Not theirs.”
Why did she look so melancholy? Why should she be sad for him, rather than his brothers? Today was supposed to be a day of celebration, not mourning. “I don’t understand.”
“You will, princeling. Tonight is an auspicious night. You must prepare yourself.”
“How?”
She took a step forward, cupping her hand against his cheek. His mother had never been a particularly affectionate woman. As a legionnaire herself, she usually wore armor, which didn’t make for the most comfortable hug. Plus, there was always the risk of getting stabbed by one of the plethora of weapons she carried, not the least of which was the Queenblade, a dual-edged longsword strapped to her back. In size and strength, it was rivalled only by her husband’s Foehammer.
Gareth leaned into her touch, feeling oddly comforted by it. There was something special about a mother’s touch. He wondered why it had taken him so long to realize that.
She peered at him through a waterfall of dark hair. “When you face the truth, stare back at it and don’t blink. If you can do that, you will be fine.”
She patted his cheek again before turning and departing the way she’d arrived, leaving Gareth to stare at his reflection once more.
Gareth was holding back a huge smile, but it was like a holey dam trying to resist a deluge. Finally, it broke through, and he let himself grin amongst the slaps on his armor, the shouts of “Shield! Shield! Shield!” and all the other attention he was getting as he marched through the banquet hall.
His brothers were already there, sitting in places of honor at the head table. Guy’s eyes met his, slightly narrowed but otherwise hiding his thoughts behind a mask of concentration. Grian, on the other hand, openly glared at him, spraying juices as he bit into a large ham shank.
Gareth tried to control his warring emotions, but they clanked swords against shields in the pit of his stomach, which had become a battlefield. Why were his brothers acting so strange? And why were his parents so subdued? Usually by now his father would be throwing back mugs of ale and singing bawdy marching songs. Instead, he played with his beard, his eyes empty and vacant.
And then there was his mother. Typically she would be reprimanding his brothers for eating too fast or too messily, tugging their ears and pinching their arms. She just sat there, unmoving, so still she might’ve been a statue of a great warrior queen. That sad look remained on her face, the same one he’d seen in his dressing room. Did I do something wrong? Gareth wondered.
He noticed the placement of his own seat of honor. In the center, slightly raised, higher even than the king’s and queen’s chairs. He frowned when his mother pulled it back slightly, gesturing for him to sit. All the attention, all the shouts and back-slapping, suddenly felt like a great weight on his shoulders. And that question continued to echo through his mind:
Why me why me why me?
Feeling numb, he sat down and his mother’s strong arm pushed his chair in, until the table kissed his armor.
Grian kicked him under the table. Guy reached over and lightly touched his hand before withdrawing rapidly as if he’d been burned.
“Now that all my sons are here,” the queen said. “We may feast! Eat up, none of this food shall go to waste on this night!”
The attention turned away from the head table as mugs were filled to the brim with ale, and food was passed around. Grian reached for a jug of ale, but the queen slapped his hand, filling his mug with water flavored with gingerroot instead. Gareth grinned at Guy, and his brother attempted to return the gesture. Perhaps things were going back to normal, after all.
For a while, Gareth was lost in the smells and flavors of the most magnificent feast he’d ever laid eyes on. There was quail stuffed with spinach and cloves, roast mutton crusted with finely crushed breadcrumbs, smoked trout drizzled with lemon and thyme. There was even an entire wild hog, an apple stuffed in its open maw. The bread was sweet and warm, the mashed potatoes creamy and garlicky, the roasted vegetables—carrot and zucchini and eggplant—just soft enough to eat, swimming in butter so fresh it must’ve been churned that very morning.
By the time dessert came, Gareth felt like a stuffed hen bulging against his armor. Grian was half-groaning, half-laughing, holding his stomach. Guy, on the other hand, had taken small nibbles of everything, but left most of the food uneaten on his plate.
“You’ve got grease stains on your armor,” Grian said, pointing at Gareth’s chest.
Gareth looked down to find his plate as shiny and pristine as ever. Grian laughed. “What a fool! It should be me wearing that armor, not you.”
Gareth was about to fire an insult back, but suddenly Guy was out of his chair, brushing past him, and grabbing Grian by the shoulders, throwing him back, chair and all. He toppled over, crying out as he slammed against the floor. And then Guy was on him, pounding away, raining blows down with the force of a summer storm.
The clamor of the feast dropped to silence in an instant as forks froze midway to mouth and conversations were cut off in midsentence.
It had all happened so fast Gareth could only gawk as his father sighed, pushing back his chair slowly. Grian had managed to shove Guy to the side, and now the two were wrestling amongst breadcrumbs, trying to gain the upper hand. The king reached down with both large hands, grabbing each of his sons by their collars, not unlike a cat picking up a kitten by the scruff of its neck.
He held them aloft, and Gareth waited for the reprimand, for that booming voice to scold them, to demand better from princes of the realm. To his surprise, however, the king only sighed again, placing them back on their feet. He said nothing, returning to his chair beside his wife, who reached over to hold his hand, her melancholy expression now mirrored on her husband’s face.
Stunned into silence and obedience, Grian and Guy took their seats, staring at their plates.
Once again, the noise of the banquet hall returned to normal as conversations resumed, silverware clanked against plates, and ale splashed into mugs.
“What was that?” Gareth hissed at Guy.
His brother said nothing, shaking his head.
Gareth turned to Grian, who met his eyes. “Sorry I called you a fool,” Grian said.
“I don’t care about that,” Gareth said. He gestured to Guy, who was playing with a chocolate-covered strawberry on his plate.
Grian shrugged. He seemed as surprised by the entire exchange as Gareth. He had a small cut on his face and the skin beneath one eye was beginning to bruise. “Don’t worry him,” he said, loud enough for them both to hear. “He’s just a fun killer.” He snatched a square of frosted cake and drizzled honey on it.
Gareth sometimes wished he could be more like Grian, able to separate individual events into piles, examining each one at a time. Instead he just felt overwhelmed by all that had happened today, a day that was still far from over.
He twisted back to Guy, but his brother was gone.
Long after the food had been cleared away, Gareth finally spotted his brother sitting beside their cousin, Hardy. Their heads were pressed close together and they seemed to be arguing about something.
Gareth had the urge to get up and demand to know what they were talking about, but Grian stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Look!” he said. “Guy was right.”
Gareth followed his brother’s gaze to where a train of newcomers were silently entering the room. The king clapped his hands and said, “At last,” and then began gesturing for a space to be cleared between the tables.
Soon a large area had been vacated, which was soon filled by half a dozen forest dwellers. Orians, Gareth thought. He knew that most who lived within the bounds of the iron forest had a
t least some ore running through their veins, but these were pure Orians, their forest dweller blood never having mixed with that of humans. There weren’t many like them anymore, perhaps a hundred or less. The armor they channeled was of the highest quality, and they were also responsible for maintaining the castle’s defenses.
There was something about them that made it almost impossible to look away, something captivating. For one, their hair was different than that of humans, silkier and naturally imbued with a myriad of colors—silver and lilac and amber and jade. Their eyes were also different, spectacular shades of gold and silver; like cats they shone in the dark and allowed them to see at night. The armor they wore might’ve been works of art, channeled to fit like a second skin.
“Who’s she?” Grian asked, pointing at an Orian woman on one side. She had long silver hair and eyes as golden as the noonday sun. She wore battle armor with a tall bow strapped to her back. Her face was so still and expressionless it might’ve been a mask she wore.
Gareth immediately recognized her. “Gwendolyn Storm,” he said. He remembered a day a year or so ago when it was his turn to hold court with his father while he sat on the iron throne. The very woman he was looking at now had entered the room with a message for the king. She was a royal messenger. Though most communications were sent using inkreed stream, she was responsible for the most important messages, those for a king’s ears only, which she carried not on scroll or parchment, but in her own mind, repeating the words out loud. His father had introduced her to him, and he’d been so dumbstruck by her beauty that his words had become stuck in his throat.
Grian’s eyes darted to his. “You’ve met her?”
“Aye. She’s a royal messenger. They say she’s a thousand years old.”
His brother scoffed. “Orians don’t live that long.”
“Well, she was around for the Dragon Massacre. I heard her talking to Father about it.”
“That was eight decades ago.”
“Well, she was there. And she’s skinmarked.”
“What?”
“Aye, it’s true. Father told me.”
“I thought only Beorn Stonesledge bore a mark of power?”
Gareth shook his head. “She bears the heromark. She’s saved hundreds of lives, or so they say.”
“Ore,” Grian whispered, almost reverently.
Before they could say another word, the show started. Lanterns were dimmed, fireplaces were shaded. Shadows danced across wall and ceiling. Gareth glanced at Guy, who was still sitting next to Hardy, but then was quickly drawn back to the Orians.
It started slow, with one of them, a male with jade hair and silver eyes, extending a single finger toward the royal table. From the tip of his finger, a shoot began to grow. It was in the shape of a tiny tree trunk, but formed entirely from ore. Though Gareth couldn’t begin to comprehend how he did it, he knew this was the art of channeling, an ancient skill mastered by the Orians centuries ago, long before the Crimeans first discovered the Four Kingdoms and began to mix with the forest dwellers. It was said the Orians were one with the large ore deposits beneath Ironwood, that they could feel them at all times, drawing them forth when desired.
Gareth watched in awe as the trunk of ore grew branches and then leaves, becoming a tree in miniature. Grian appeared to be equally mesmerized, leaning forward without ever taking his eyes off the Orians. The others began to channel too, and soon there was an entire forest, which they began to fill with ore panthers leaping from branch to branch and ore hawks soaring overhead. Next, they created humans and Orians clad in gleaming ore, marching through the wood, arriving at a city, which sprang up from their fingers, seeming to flow forth like liquid before hardening into walls and buildings and a castle. No, Gareth thought. Not a castle. Ferria. Our home. They are creating Ironwood and Ferria.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gareth noticed that one Orian had not yet participated in the creation, had not channeled a single drop of ore or even moved. Gwendolyn Storm was a statue, her golden eyes taking it all in.
As Gareth watched her, she finally stepped forward, using a single graceful motion to draw her bow over her head and an arrow from her satchel. She aimed the bow directly at Gareth.
He flinched, but she had already moved on, changing her target to the forest of ore suspended before her. With a crisp twang! she loosed the arrow, which stopped in midair over the forest, before changing, stretching, growing leathery wings, a scaled hide, a spiked tail, and a maw full of razor-sharp teeth. A dragon! Gareth thought.
The dragon swooped over the forest, tongues of red-hot ore shooting from its mouth, melting the trees into gnarled lumps. Other dragons soon joined the first, hunting the legionnaires, herding them into groups, destroying them in bunches.
The Dragon Massacre, Gareth realized. They were recreating it from their own memories. They had all been there, Gwendolyn Storm included. They had all survived it. As young as they looked, any of them might’ve been a century old.
The counterattack began in earnest, with ore hawks clawing at the dragons, ore panthers biting the Calypsians, legionnaires using sword, bow, and hammer to fight back, to defend their lands, their people, their iron city.
Inch by inch, the southerners were driven back, defeated.
And yet it didn’t feel like victory, the lumps of melted ore oozing liquid iron.
Gareth felt like crying, and though Grian tried to hide it, he could see the way his eyes sparkled with unshed tears too.
Gwendolyn Storm raised her hands and the scene began to drain away, returning to wherever it was channeled from. “Ironclad sons,” she said. “Our history is your history. Our lives are your lives. Our truth is your truth.” Though her eyes were dry and fierce, her words full of power and strength, Gareth saw the pain that lanced her face. In that moment, on that face, he realized that pain came in many forms, sometimes born from anger rather than sorrow. “And now, for one, the quest begins. May Orion illuminate you on this night of nights.”
Her cat-like eyes darted away and then she was gone, naught but a blur as she darted from the hall.
“Heromarked,” Grian whispered.
Gareth could only nod in agreement.
“Speech!” someone shouted, and the lights were rekindled, the fireplaces restoked. Gareth blinked, the images he’d witnessed fading before his eyes. However, he knew they would forever be burned in his memory.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, the king stood, raising an iron mug in the air, ale sloshing over the sides. All around the room, people stood, lifting their own drinks. Gareth recognized them all. There were legionnaires in full battle armor—Korger Morgan and Fran Porter and Boris Sneed. There were friends of the family like the royal baker, Sweeney Bon, and close relatives like Hardy Ironclad, his cousin, a man grown already. And on and on, smiling faces, people he’d known his entire life. People he cared about more than anyone in the world.
Gareth tried to stand, too, but his mother pushed down on his shoulder to keep him in his chair. It felt strange sitting when everyone else was on their feet.
He flinched when another hand settled on his shoulder; Guy had returned to his seat. He wore a grim smile.
“We are gathered here today to celebrate the lives of my three sons!” the king said. Cheers. Clinked mugs. “They arrived on the same day eight years ago, and now they are fast becoming men.”
At that, the three brothers couldn’t help but to share looks of pride. Even Grian seemed to forget his anger at Guy for a moment.
The king continued. “Grian arrived third, but he shall never be last.” Grian beamed, squirming under the weight of the stares, trying to hide behind his mug. “And he’ll always be late!” the king added, drawing a smattering of laughter.
“My firstborn was Gareth.”
“The Shield!” someone cried, one of the legionnaires—Cormac Resin.
“Aye. The Shield. Like my brother was before him.” His eyes rose to the iron ceiling, lingering there as he said, “Ma
y Coren forever ride through the Great Forest of Orion.”
“What do you mean, ‘like your brother’?” Gareth blurted out. His face reddened as his father and everyone else in the great hall looked at him. “I mean, I—I thought his nickname was Thunder,” he stammered, barely getting the words out.
The king’s eyes were made of iron. “Yes, it was. The Shield is no nickname. It is your title, as it was once his. Your burden, your calling to bear.” As if that explained everything, he turned back to the audience. “My second son was Guy, your eastern prince, your heir to the realm, your future king and protector.”
Gareth blinked, stunned into silence, trying to decipher the words his ears had just heard. Trying to make sense of the senseless.
Beside him, Guy stood, his eyes meeting Gareth’s for a stark moment before passing on and roaming across the room, the eastern sigil seeming to grow larger on his breast.
“Long live the king! Long live the king!” the people chanted.
When you face the truth, stare back at it and don’t blink. If you can do that, you will be fine.
Gareth’s head was in his hands when his mother’s words came back to him. The truth? What does that even mean? That Guy was always meant to be king, and me the Shield? And what is the Shield supposed to do anyway?
After his father’s speech had ended, the three brothers were whisked away, split up, as they would each be going on a separate “quest” for the final portion of their name day celebration. Gareth had been left alone at the castle’s western entrance. Well, not completely alone. Chaperoning him was Beorn Stonesledge himself, the ironmarked, his hulking frame resting against the wall, his battering-ram elbows on his boulder-like knees. Gareth was sitting on the ground, still clad in full armor, his stomach roiling with having overeaten at the feast.