A Gilded Iron Blade (San Amaro Investigations Book 3)

  A GILDED IRON BLADE

  KAI BUTLER

  Copyright © 2022 by Kai Butler

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Content Warning: Death of a loved one.

  Cover art by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs.

  Beta reading by Amy Pittel at LesCourt Author Services.

  Editing by Susie Selva at LesCourt Author Services.

  Proofreading by Meghan Macko.

  Proofreading by Kate Wood.

  For J. Thank you for all that you do.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Kai Butler

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Also By Kai Butler

  ALSO BY KAI BUTLER

  San Amaro Investigations

  Wormwood Summer (audio by Greg Tremblay)

  The Oak Wood Throne (audio by Greg Tremblay)

  A Gilded Iron Blade

  A Shattered Silver Crown

  Imperial Space Regency Novels

  The Earl and the Executive

  The Barony Bet

  The Inconvenient Count

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  CHAPTER ONE

  I walked down the hallway, observing the quiet of the house.

  For the first time since I’d taken custody of it, I didn’t sense anything with me. There was no spirit occupying the wood. My constant companion was gone.

  It was peaceful. After the battle we had just experienced, it was refreshing to have a place that was my own. I could hear Nick’s soft snores from upstairs. He was just as tired as I was and had fallen asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

  There was a light on in the library, and I headed toward it. My body ached, and my spirit felt heavy, but I finally knew who I was. I was the Windrose. For better or for worse, I was the fulcrum on which the four courts rested. On my watch, there would be no war. The monarchs would have to bow to my very human desire for peace.

  Rubbing at my eyes, I held in a yawn. Fighting off an entire invading army from the Dark Realm and then growing the World Tree had left me with the sort of bone-deep exhaustion that gave princesses in fairy tales the ability to sleep for a hundred years.

  Nick would have to fight off a dragon and a castle filled with thorns in order to rescue me. At the thought of him in blinding silver armor, sword in hand, probably with a trusty sidekick who told jokes to make him more palatable to modern audiences, I grinned.

  Reaching the library, I expected to walk in, turn off the light, and return to my handsome boyfriend asleep in my bed.

  There was someone in one of the chairs.

  “Hey, kid,” Malcolm said. “Took you long enough.”

  “You’re alive?” My voice was ripped from my chest, an empty howl of anger and fury.

  The fire that resided in my vessel ate upward as though it was going to come out through my throat like I was some fire-breathing monster. Nick wouldn’t come rescue me from the dragon. By the time he found me, I would be the dragon.

  “In a sense,” Malcolm said. “You’d better sit down.”

  Malcolm’s white hair had gone iridescent, and the lines on his face had smoothed out some, although he still looked old enough to be cast as wizened in some fantasy movie that needed a wizard. His mahogany skin seemed to gleam with some internal light. In his lap, he held one of the Autumn King’s massive tomes. He looked exactly the same as I remembered and also so different that I grabbed hold of the nearest piece of furniture to keep myself upright.

  I held onto the chair with both hands, glaring at him with such fury that I was sure my eyes had gone red. Underneath my fingers, the old leather armchair smoked. At the smell of burning skin, I looked down and pried my hands loose.

  There were ten perfect fingerprints branded into the leather. Malcolm’s eyebrows rose, two sharp arcs of concern. Every time I’d seen him, he looked composed as though he always knew what he was going to say.

  Okay, yeah, the burning stuff with my bare hands thing was concerning. With confidence I didn’t have, I took a seat in the chair. The leather was still warm from where the fire inside me had clawed out and burned what I’m sure was a very expensive piece of furniture.

  “I saw your body. You were dead.”

  His eyes wrinkled in the corners, and he gave a rueful nod. “Well, my body died—”

  “But you didn’t?” I took a deep breath, but the oxygen only seemed to feed the flames eating away inside me.

  “No,” Malcolm said. “I’m sorry you had to go through all this alone. But it was necessary.”

  For a moment, I stared at him. I felt so many things, and none of them were good.

  At one point, I had believed he was my friend. He had been kind when I had needed kindness.

  We’d shared drinks and gossip together. He’d given me advice and been there when my late nights turned into early mornings. And all of that, every kindness, every act of friendship, everything that had made me think he was a good guy, someone I could trust, all of it was a lie.

  “You were just using me. I was just a pawn to you. This whole time you wanted me to be the next Windrose.” I searched his face, wanting him to deny it, but he grimaced.

  “It’s the job, kid—”

  “I’m not your kid.” I gritted my teeth and took a long breath through my nose. “You were using me.”

  I felt as though I could hear shattering glass like someone had stepped on a wine glass and then ground down on the shards until all that was left was powder.

  “Yes,” Malcolm admitted. “I was using you.”

  The words sat between us, hard and impossible for me to swallow. I half expected him to deny it.

  I wanted him to deny it. Instead, he told me the truth, confirming my worst fears. There it was. He had been using me, preparing me to take on this terrible job.

  “The only reason you ever became my friend was so I would take over for you.” I was testing the words out, trying them on for size. It was like I had pulled on a shirt that had fit me once and now was so tight it squeezed me around the neck and arms. I couldn’t breathe with it on.


  “No,” Malcolm said. “At first, I didn’t even know who you were. I just thought you were some kid who’d moved into my building. A little bit too brash, a little bit too full of himself.”

  “No,” I contradicted him. “You would have only moved to Las Vistas because of me. Why else would you want an apartment in the worst building in town?”

  “Oh, kid,” Malcolm shook his head. “I had that apartment long before you moved in. You think you’re the only one who fell in love with a human?”

  His eyes flicked toward the hallway. He knew about Nick. The look in his eyes was something familiar. Once, I had mistaken it for kindness and allowed myself to believe that someone might actually want to be my friend. Now, I knew better.

  “Right,” I said, my tone dripping with disdain. “Sure. I could totally see you falling in love with some human and moving to Jeffrey’s crappy apartment building for that.”

  Smiling softly, Malcolm said, “Did you think the Windrose always lived in San Amaro?”

  Frowning, I squinted at him. “Are you saying you were the only Windrose to live here?”

  “My predecessor would move between courts with the season. She thought the best way to keep an eye on the monarchs was by being close.”

  For a moment, I pictured it. It would be a very clear way of reminding the monarchs who they bowed their heads to. In any given season, even when that monarch was ascendant, the Windrose would be there, a reminder that peace was in balance. Not a single king or queen could get any violent ideas with the Windrose there, looking over their shoulder.

  “So you moved to San Amaro for love?” I moved my jaw from side to side as though I could stretch out some of the tension I felt. I was surprised that the amount of pressure I was putting on them didn’t flatten my molars.

  “You don’t have to believe me,” Malcolm said. “After Patty died, I kept the door there because it was the one place left where I saw people on the regular. And then you moved in. Kid—”

  “Stop.” I held up a hand. “Don’t try to con me, Malcolm.”

  Nodding, Malcolm let go of the storytelling. When he spoke, I didn’t see the story spinning out from him like a movie playing between us. “When you moved in, I thought you were a normal human. It was only after I got to know you and saw your magic that I realized what you were.”

  “And what was that?” I asked.

  “A changeling.” Malcolm tilted his head and looked me up and down. “Whoever cast that spell on you, making you look human? They were good. Beyond good. They wanted to make sure no one ever found out you were fae.”

  My lip raised in a sneer. “And you wanted to use the present that had landed in your lap.”

  “It’s in our nature.” Malcolm’s words hit me in the gut.

  “It’s not in my nature.” The words were practically a snarl, and I forced down the anger before it got the better of me.

  “You thought we were friends.” Malcolm waited for me to nod. “I did too.”

  “You just said you were using me.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. “Friends don’t use each other.”

  “I thought if you had been raised outside the courts that you would make a good Windrose. But you were too young. Barely more than a crècheling. I thought we would have years to get to know each other, for me to decide—”

  “If I was good enough.”

  I shook my head, squeezing my eyes tight. Even with my eyes closed, the world glowed as though I was in front of a campfire. I couldn’t tell if it was the embers still burning in my chest or if it was the anger that rose like bile in my throat.

  “Why are you here if you’re dead?”

  “Because you and me, we’re connected now.” Malcolm leaned forward, and he seemed to search the air for the cane that was now mine.

  I thrust myself to my feet so quickly my chair scratched the floor behind me as it moved. “What are you talking about?”

  “All the Windroses are connected. The rest of us are tethered to you, here to give you advice, here to tell the truth of the past. The monarchs—”

  “So you’re going to follow me around forever?” I could see it now, me, with my foster mother Shannon and Malcolm backseat driving for the rest of my life.

  “No,” I said firmly. “I don’t want that—”

  “You don’t have a choice, kid. The only reason you got a reprieve until now was because I had bound my spirit to the World Tree.” Malcolm stared at me.

  Blinking at him, I had to open my mouth twice before I could think of a response. “You what?”

  “Two hundred years ago, I could sense the great tree dying. I bound its spirit to me so that it wouldn’t die until I did. I thought that would give me enough time to save it, but…”

  “A serial killer got to you first,” I said. “So why didn’t the tree die with you?”

  “Because—”

  Before he could finish, I filled in the blank. “Because you can’t die. Because your spirit is bound to mine.”

  “It’s part of the mantle. Our service is for our entire lives, and when our lives are given, our wisdom must remain.” Malcolm’s words were court language. “I tried to tell you.”

  “What?” I frowned at him. “How were you trying to tell me?”

  “Did you think some tree knew how to make eggs and bacon? Or knew how to clean up after all the messes you dragged across my beautiful floors?” Malcolm’s gaze was unimpressed, his lips pressed tightly together.

  “Are you kidding me? That was you?” Suddenly, I was replaying everything I had done in the house since I had inherited it last summer. I sputtered. “I was naked in this house. I had sex in this house.”

  Holding up his hand, Malcolm patted the air and shook his head. “Trust me, I didn’t want to see that either. I made myself scarce.”

  “But you were still here.” It was like watching a movie of my entire life, all the gross things I did when I thought I was alone. Every time I had jerked off in bed, thinking about Nick and his warm mouth, every time I clipped my toenails or drank milk straight from the bottle, all of those times Malcolm had been watching.

  My face was probably making an expression suggesting I did some pretty weird stuff on my own. Malcolm’s frown was unimpressed.

  “Kid, trust me, I got a move on anytime it looked like you and your beau were… getting intimate.” He leaned back.

  “Malcolm,” I said, my voice serious. His words had brought me back to the important part of our conversation. “I need you to really hear me on this. I will never trust you again. You were my friend, but you were only using me to make sure you had an heir.”

  “You’re walking in a dark wood,” Malcolm said. “You know there are wolves around you, and it’s getting cold. You’re going to have to build a fire. You want to survive. You need to find a weapon if you don’t want those wolves to catch you unawares when the sun goes down, and you’re just a man, alone in a dark forest. Then, you find a case of matches on the ground, maybe some water, and a sharp knife. Maybe you ask, who left these for me? Is this a trap? But, in the end, you don’t leave any tool you can use just lying there on the ground.”

  The words pooled between us, and I could see the forest, the dark trees, and Malcolm’s very real fear. The metaphor wasn’t subtle, but it rang with truth. Even after only a few months as the Windrose, I understood what he worried about.

  He had been the only thing standing between the four kingdoms and war. Even if he didn’t care about the human realm, that war would kill so many fae.

  Then it would spill into the human realm, and they might think they were prepared to fight the fae, but the fae were vicious, and their magic would tear my world apart.

  “In this metaphor,”—I kept my voice even—“I’m the box of matches? The sharp knife you found on the ground?”

  “You don’t leave a tool lying around when you might need it someday,” Malcolm said.

  “Now I’m a tool?” I laced my fingers together, pressing them between
my knees. Heat burned between my palms as though I was cupping a piece of lit charcoal. I felt it burning through my skin, the physical pain equal to the emotional pain of finding out who Malcolm really was and what he thought of me.

  “Not just a tool. I liked you too, kid,” Malcolm said. “But you saw Puck and what he did here. You know the kinds of people who are without a court. There used to be more of us who would move between the courts, no pledge of fealty to keep us bound. By the time I met you… it was just the two of us.”

  “You’re tied to me. The other Windroses too.” Staring at my hands, my skin remained unblistered despite the blue flames I felt simmering under my skin. Any moment now, they were going to break free, and with all the oxygen in the room, everything would burn. “So I don’t have any say in whether you’re here or not.”

  “We come when you need us. When you think you need us.”

  “So if I don’t need you, you’re gone?” I looked up at him. His words were a cool bucket of water on the rage that seared inside me.

  There was a frown on his face, and he said, “Kid—Parker, there are things I need to tell you—”

  “I don’t need you. Leave.” The words felt like a cheese grater against my skin. I was rending myself on them.

  One moment, Malcolm was there, his mouth open to say something, his brilliant green eyes wide.