Even at my cruelest, I would never sanction the creation or use of iron dust.
The consequences would be horrifying.
A storm brews in my mind as I leave Victor’s quarters.
Thyra was attacked five years ago. Five years for this fucking fae to produce more iron dust. Take it anywhere. Do anything with it. And right under my nose.
Attempting and near-failing to cage my fury, I stride past the anvils and cold fires, only to stop.
Something else Thyra said suddenly registers: The Iron Fae who hurt her brought sweet liquor to trade.
That liquor could only be thistleberry wine. The only sweet liquor produced in the Iron Kingdom.
The metalworker who tried to accost Thyra in this forge the other day reeked of thistleberry wine, but lowborn can’t afford it. If he was being paid in wine for stealing iron from my forge…
Sharply, I detour toward the maze of corridors to the right of the main forge.
I had that lowborn thrown into a cell and vowed to deal with him later.
Well, it’s later.
Quickly reaching the cells, I find the main door open and the room within overly quiet.
There are only three cells, divided by floor-to-ceiling stone walls. Steel bars cover the front of each cell.
The first is empty. So is the second.
But a hand and forearm protrude through thebars of the third, extended at an awkward angle across the floor.
Unmoving.
I don’t need to open the cell to know that he’s dead.
Strangled, it looks like. Up against the front bars. Many hours ago, judging by how cold his skin is. Whatever rope, cord, or weapon was used to choke him must have been taken away.
But a glint of silver catches my eye.
Within the man’s extended hand, I spy the edge of a coin.
Another fucking coin.
A Frost coin had struck me in the back during the fight at the village—a coin that was somehow at the location of Thyra’s father’s assassination. Then an Ember coin had rolled out of the pocket of the assassin who tried to kill Thyra.
Now, it takes me a glance to recognize the markings of an Iron coin, clutched in the hand of this murder victim.
If I suspected Mother before, I’m certain now that she’s connected to these deaths. Whatever fae she’s sending to do her bidding—the man who hurt Thyra with iron dust, the lowborn assassin who killed Thyra’s father, and whoever killed this man—she has remained many steps ahead of me.
Too many steps.
And now she plans a public celebration where the kingdom’s most powerful highborn will be in attendance.
Hadrian said she’ll strike hard, but it will be worse than that.
She’ll strike to kill.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Thyra
