Iron Gates Book Novels & Stories

Chapter 7: The Iron Fortress The Vane Estate didn’t look like a home; it looked like a cathedral carved out of the mountain itself. Huge spans of dark slate and reinforced glass clung to the cliffside, illuminated by soft blue floodlights that cut through the mountain mist. As the SUV approached the massive iron gates, Maya saw the shimmer of a high-tech security grid—and something else. A faint, silver hum in the air that made the hair on her arms stand up. "Wards," Cillian muttered, his voice sounding slightly clearer as they crossed the threshold. "The Silver Moonstone might be gone, but the foundations of this place were laid with the blood of my ancestors. It blunts the transformation.

Romy Pov I was standing on the upper landing, the cold iron railing biting into my palms as I stared down at the black-and-white marble of the great entrance. I held a book, some leather-bound history of the Northern territories, but I hadn’t turned a page in forty minutes. My mind was a mess of exit routes and the lingering, phantom heat of Rowan’s touch from the night before. The heavy front doors groaned open and two men entered.

​The Ninth Peak did not feel like a conqueror. It felt like a corpse. The silver engine had gone cold, its internal mechanisms seizing up as the last of the mercury and amber resonance bled into the debris of the High Archive. The Iron Grove, once the glowing lungs of the University, had turned a brittle, ashy grey. Without the Great Hammer’s heartbeat, the very air in the corridors grew thin and tasted of ancient dust.

I could feel the exact moment the pipe split into smaller veins, reaching up through the floorboards of the textile mills, wrapping around the massive blast furnaces, connecting to the radiators in the towering, freezing tenements. Millions of people were touching this network, or standing inches from it, entirely unaware that the iron had a memory. I didn't project anger. I didn't project a weapon. I thought of Elias. I thought of the thirty-five-year-old Anchor sitting in the archive of the founding ground, his silver band glowing with infinite patience. I thought of the absolute, unshatterable quiet of the eastern valleys. I took a deep breath, and I pushed that quiet straight into the ve

David looked at Oren and said courteously, his eyes full of smiles. Oren could not stand David’s gaze. So, he quickly changed the topic and asked, “Master David, what is this stupid rock?” “This stupid rock is called the Nine Turning Star Iron,” David answered. “Nine Turning Star Iron? What’s that? What uses does it have?” “Hmm, how should I say this? To put it simply, it’s a very precious metal. There are a lot of uses for it. You can increase the attack and defense for your weapon if you incorporate the iron into it.”

“Well, that could be a problem because silver acts as a protection from magic, nickel is fine, and wrought iron works as a conductor.” “Davis, hey, Davis. In your dealings with security, have you come across any information about what they make the bars in here of?” “Not exactly how they were made. But cold-wrought iron is the core of the bars and silver coats them. But I don’t remember a nickel content. I would imagine there are some within the bars’ make up. I’m not a blacksmith or metalworker.” Davis sat up, figuring that pretending to be asleep would just continue to be a failed path toward actually being asleep.

How they were able to grow here, I didn’t know, but I almost wept with relief at the sight of them after seeing nothing but dead plants and brown sand for nearly a week. Then there was the palace itself, because holy shit, the palace... It was called the Iron Castle due to the fact they’d plated the outside stones with sheets of pure iron. Despite how dry the land was, Donnelly was definitely one rich kingdom to afford a castle like this. It was easily three times larger than ours at home, suffused with at least two dozen towers and a keep in the center that rose above everything else. The moat surrounding it was twice as wide as any I’d ever seen before. And the drawbridge that began to low

Ilyria, Miasma and Thassa paused at the iron and gold gates. The Gates of Perception they were called. Ilyria had never been this close to them. As a child she had been told they were enchanted. Any person wishing to see the Mogul had to pass the test of the Gates of Perception. Those who did not come with noble intentions would be incinerated as they passed through.

The spiral mark the same that had branded David and nearly turned the ritual crawled through the stone like veins. John paused before a rock face. “This is it,” he said, voice hushed. “The gate.” The stone door in front of us was massive. Iron-banded, heavy as fear. Engraved with the old sigils: runes, spirals, twisted roots. The key Micah gave Daniel resonated in his hand Daniel slipped it into a rusty lock. It turned with a hiss, the gate grinding open. Beyond was darkness deeper than any sky.