Free Iron's Prophecy by Julie Kagawa Page A

below the surface, to wade out to where the oracle floated above the water. But the pool was only an inch deep, after all, because the water didn’t even come past my ankles, barely soaking the hem of my jeans as I walked out to the middle of the pool. The water barely rippled as I passed, maintaining its near-perfect glassiness even when my footsteps broke the surface. By the time I reached the oracle, waiting in the center, the pool had returned to absolute calm once more.
    The oracle’s eyeless holes scanned my face. “Are you certain this is what you wish?” she asked, as if this was the last formal courtesy she had to get out of the way. “You cannot unsee what you are about to discover.”
    “I’m sure,” I said.
    She nodded once. “Then look down, Iron Queen. Look straight down, into the water.”
    I looked down.
    My reflection stared back at me, perfectly clear. I felt like I was standing on a piece of glass or a giant mirror, rather then the surface of a pool. But, then I stared past my image, past my head, to where the ceiling of the grotto should’ve been reflected in the water’s surface.
    The brambly ceiling of the chamber now blazed with stars, and a full silver moon beamed down from a cloudless sky.
    Startled, I looked up. The shadowy grotto had disappeared. A puddle still soaked my feet, but I now stood in the middle of a grassy field, gentle hills rolling away on either side. In the distance, at the bottom of a slope, fluffy white creatures moved through the grass like stray clouds, and their faint baas drifted to me over the breeze.
    “Where am I?” I asked, turning in a slow circle. A hint of dust and decay abruptly caught in my throat and sent the sheep bolting over the hills in terror.
    “The mortal realm,” the oracle whispered, appearing behind me. “Ireland, I believe it is called now. The birthplace of many of our kind.”
    I was about to ask what we were doing in Ireland, when another scent on the wind made me stop, my heart jumping to my throat. It was faint, but I recognized it immediately; live through enough war and battles, and the smell becomes impossible to ignore.
    Blood.
    I followed the direction of the breeze and saw a lone figure several yards away, standing beneath the light of the moon. His back was to me, but I could see he was tall and lean, his loose silver hair gleaming in the darkness, tossed gently by the wind. He stood in the middle of a ring of toadstools, huge white bulbous things that formed a near-perfect circle around him.
    As I approached, my heart began a strange thud in my chest. The figure didn’t turn around, his attention focused on the ground at his feet. As I got closer, I saw the sword, curved and graceful, held loosely in one hand. The blade and the arm that held it were stained with blood, dark streaks all the way past his elbow.
    As I drew close, the figure turned, and I gasped.
    I couldn’t see his face; it was blurry and indistinct, his features hidden as if in a fog. But I knew him; I recognized him as surely as I knew my own shadow, my own heartbeat. Bright, tall, achingly handsome, even if I could not see his face. I sensed piercing, icy-blue eyes, somewhere in the haze between us, felt him smile at me.
    My son. This is my son .
    And he was covered in blood. It stained his hands, his arms, was splattered in large streaks across his chest. My heart gave a violent lurch, thinking he was fatally wounded, dying perhaps. Was this what the oracle wanted to show me? Was this the grief she was talking about, the death of my child? But how could that be, when he was standing right there, and I could still feel his smile, directed at me?
    Then I realized the blood was not his own.
    And I saw what was lying in the grass before us.
    The world seemed to stop for a moment. My legs shook, and I sank to my knees, unable to hold myself up any longer. No, this couldn’t be. This was a cruel joke, a nightmare.
    A body lay at my son’s feet, sprawled on its