CHAPTER NINETEEN

HUMAN

Rain pounded my back, and I opened my eyes.

I lay on my stomach on the hard ground, my cheek pressed against what felt like cobblestones, water soaking my hair and clothes. From my drenched state and the feel of the small, round stones pressing into my face, I must have been lying there for some time. Wincing, I pushed myself to my elbows, peering through the rain to determine where I was.

A green-and-silver garden stretched out before me, lush with vegetation and blurry through the rain. Cobblestone paths twisted around small bushes and shrubs, and larger trees hugged the edges of the high stone wall surrounding it. A few feet away, a marble fountain spilled water into a shallow basin, the sound of trickling water drowned out by the larger deluge.

Around me, the trees shimmered in the rain, thousands of leaves flashing like knives as the wind tossed their branches. At my feet, wires slithered over the ground in strange patterns and curled around tree trunks, glowing like neon signs. Lampposts, glimmering yellow in the twilight, grew right out of the ground and lined the narrow paths. I turned and saw an enormous castle of stone, glass and steel looming above me, spires and towers stabbing at the clouds.

I blinked, trying to take it all in. I was back in the Iron Kingdom. The twisted metallic trees, the wires slithering over the ground, the castle of stone and steel—they couldn’t belong anywhere else. And the rain…my heart skipped a beat, and I turned my face to the sky. The water was clear and pure, not the acidic, flesh-eating rain that had swept through the Iron Realm before Meghan became queen.

But, if that was the case…if I was in the Iron Kingdom…

I took a deep breath, breathing in the cool, damp air, drawing it into myself and holding it there, waiting.

Nothing. No sickness, no pain. I stepped beneath a warped iron tree and placed my palm against the trunk, bracing myself out of habit. The metal was cold and wet beneath my fingers, not burning at all.

I couldn’t help the smile stretching my face as I whirled around, taking in the garden, the estate, everything. Throwing back my head, I raised my arms and howled a victory cry into the rain, hearing it echo off the castle walls. I was in the Iron Kingdom with no amulet, no protection, and I still felt nothing. Iron had no power over me, now. I was human. I had won!

A thunderous bark behind me made me spin around, as a lean, furry creature came bounding toward me out of the rain. For a moment, I thought it was a wolf. Then I saw it was a dog, a huge German shepherd with enormous paws and a thick, shaggy pelt spiked up with rain. It skidded to a stop a few feet from me and growled, lowering its muzzle and baring sharp white fangs.

I smiled and crouched down so that we were at eye level, despite the teeth flashing in my direction. “Hello, Beau,” I greeted quietly. “Nice to see you, too.”

The dog blinked, swiveling its long ears at the sound of my voice. Eyeing me suspiciously, as if it was just beginning to recognize the intruder in the garden, it gave a tentative tail wag.

“Beau!” called a voice, echoing out of the rain, making my heart jump to my throat and pound wildly. I stood as the voice drifted closer. “Where are you, boy? Chasing gremlins again?”

Beau barked happily and turned, bounding in the direction of the voice, splashing noisily through the puddles. And then, she appeared under the gate arch, scanning the courtyard for the missing dog, and I stopped breathing.

Ruling a kingdom hadn’t changed her. She still wore faded jeans and a T-shirt, her pale hair long and unbound. But power glowed around her, and even through the rain, she looked real and solid and larger than life, and completely beautiful. Beau came splashing up to her, and she dropped to her knees, scratching the dog’s ears. Then Beau looked back at me, wagging his tail, and she glanced up. Our eyes met.

We both froze. I saw my name on her lips, but no sound escaped her. Beau looked back and forth between us, whined, and nudged Meghan’s hand, snapping her out of the spell. She rose and walked toward me, uncaring of the rain, until we were inches apart. My heart pounded, and I looked down into the intense sapphire eyes of the Iron Queen.

“Ash.” The word was hesitant, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether I was real or not. “You’re here. How…” She blinked, and her voice became stronger as she took a step back. “No, you can’t…you shouldn’t be here. I told you never to come back. The iron…”

I reached out and took her hand, silencing her. “It can’t hurt me,” I promised. “Not anymore.” She gazed up at me, hope and uncertainty warring in her eyes, and I softly touched her cheek, her tears mingling with the rain. “I said I’d be back,” I told her, “and from now on, I’ll never leave your side. Nothing will keep me from you again.”

“How…?” she whispered, but I bent down and kissed her, cutting off any protests. She gasped, and her arms slid around my waist, pulling us together. I hugged her close, wanting to feel her against my body, to prove that this was real. I was in the Iron Realm, and Meghan was in my arms. Beau barked and danced around us, and the rain poured down, drenching us completely, but we felt no urge to move for a long, long time.

* * *

WHEN I AWOKE NEXT, I was afraid to open my eyes, afraid even to move. Blackness pressed against my lids, and I kept them shut, fearful that when I opened my eyes, everything would have disappeared. I would be back at the Testing Grounds, the Guardian looming over me, its booming voice telling me I had failed. Or worse, that this was all a dream, and I had yet to complete the tests at all.

Very cautiously, I peeked through my lids, bracing myself, half expecting to see the stone walls of the castle, to feel a sudden stab of pain as my mind caught up to reality.

A white-walled room greeted me as I opened my eyes, hazy curtains drawn across a large glass window on the opposite wall. Sunlight slanted in through the crack, spilling across the carpeted floor, touching a pile of damp clothes lying in a heap next to the bed. The bed I was lying in. I blinked, memories of the previous night beginning to surface like wisps of smoke, foggy and unreal.

There was a sigh behind me, and something shifted against my back.

Carefully, afraid that this entire scene might shatter into reality, I turned. Meghan lay beside me under the covers, her eyes closed, her pale hair spilling over her face. I took a slow, ragged breath to calm my racing heart, taking a moment just to watch her. It was real. This was real. I gently brushed her hair from her cheek and watched her stir under my fingers, opening her eyes. Her smile brightened the whole room.

“I was afraid it was a dream,” she whispered.

“You have no idea how desperately I was hoping it wasn’t.” Cupping the back of her neck, I drew her close and kissed her again. She trailed her fingers over my bare chest, and I shivered, almost frightened by how much I loved this girl. But then, I’d gone to the End of the World, endured trials no creature should ever face, for her. I would do it again if I had to.

And compared to that, the question on my mind should’ve been easy. But as Meghan pulled back to look at me, I found my mind had gone blank, and I was more nervous than I had been in all my years as a Winter prince.

The question stayed on my mind as we lingered under the covers for the rest of the morning, feeling lazy and content and reluctant to leave each other’s arms. It continued to plague me when we finally got up in the middle of the afternoon, after the servants knocked meekly on the door asking if we were all right. Meghan ordered them to bring dry clothing, and I slipped into dark jeans and a T-shirt, feeling strange and slightly awkward in human clothes. I fidgeted, still pondering how I was going to ask her. It made my stomach twist every time I thought of it.

“Hey.” Meghan’s fingers on my arm nearly made me jump out of my skin. She smiled up at me, though her eyes were puzzled. “You seem awfully nervous this morning. Is something wrong?”

Now or never, Ash. I took a deep breath. “No,” I replied, turning to her, “nothing’s wrong, but I did want to ask you something. Come here a moment.”

Taking both her hands, I backed away to the middle of the floor, to an open space in front of the curtains. She followed, still wearing a bemused expression, and I paused a moment to gather my thoughts.

“I don’t…know how it’s done in your world,” I began, as she tilted her head at me. “I’ve seen it before…but, I’m not sure how to ask. It never really comes up in the Winter Court.”

Meghan blinked, frowning slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I know my role here,” I continued. “Whatever happens, I’m still your knight, and nothing will change that. You are queen of this realm, and I have no desire to rule. That said, I want to do this human thing right. I’ll still be at your side, fighting your enemies, standing with you no matter what comes at us. But I’m no longer satisfied with just being your knight and protector. I want something more.” I stopped and took a deep breath, then slowly released her hands, stepped back and sank to one knee. “What I’m trying to ask is…Meghan Chase, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

Meghan’s eyes got big and round, then a brilliant smile broke over her face. The rest of the day passed in a blur, faces flashing by, unimportant, excitement and disbelief thick on the air. All I remembered clearly was that one moment, that one simple word that would change my life forever.

“Yes.”

* * *

THE WEDDING OF THE IRON QUEEN turned out to be much more extravagant than either of us expected. Marriage within fey society was almost unheard of—the most famous joining was Oberon and Titania’s, and they were from the same court. Even I had no idea why the two Summer monarchs chose to wed, but I suspected it involved power, much like everything else. But once it was announced that the Iron Queen was getting married to the former prince of the Winter Court, the news sent the entire Nevernever into an uproar. The other courts were scrambling over one another to find out what was going on. Rumors began to surface, spreading like wildfire: Meghan and I were making a bid for power, the Iron Realm was trying to gain more territory, I was a spy sent by Mab to join Iron with the Winter Court against Summer. None of the other rulers were pleased with the marriage. Oberon even tried to stop the wedding, stating that the laws of Summer and Winter forbade a marriage between courts. Of course, when Meghan heard this, she calmly told the Summer monarch that, as Queen of the Iron Realm, she could do what she pleased within her own land. Nor was I a prince of Winter any longer, so he could take his laws and sit on them.

Regardless, the actual wedding was an enormous affair, with representatives from all three courts present. Meghan’s human family would not be there, of course. I doubt any of them would’ve survived with their sanity intact, but I agreed to a smaller private ceremony with her family in the human world. I didn’t really see the point of two weddings, but Meghan insisted her family would see her married as well, so I had no choice but to concede.

The real wedding was held in the wyldwood, as the other courts couldn’t venture into the Iron Realm without poisoning themselves. And within a grove carpeted in wildflowers, where three courts of Faery gathered beneath the trunk of a truly massive tree, Meghan and I were wed before Summer, Winter, Iron and the entire Nevernever.

Human weddings have nothing on fey weddings, at least not the ones I’ve seen over the years. I wore the black-and-silver uniform of a Winter prince, as I had when I first saw Meghan at Elysium, so long ago. Though I was no longer part of the Unseelie Court, I wanted everyone to remember that I was still Ash, that I still belonged here, in the Nevernever. Mab and the Winter Court stood behind me, and I could feel their chill against my back, the frost coating the flowers around me. On the opposite side, Oberon, Titania and the Summer Court loomed tall and proud, glaring at Winter over the aisle separating them. And surrounding us all, the Iron fey, the third court of Faery, looked on. Gremlins and wood nymphs scampered through the grass and the trees, snarling and hissing at each other. Iron knights, their armor polished to a blinding metallic sheen, stood at attention down the aisle, opposite the sidhe knights of the Summer and Winter courts, awaiting the procession. For a moment, I marveled at the impossibility of it all; not long ago, the Iron fey were the deadliest threat the Nevernever had seen, and no one would tolerate them to live, much less share space within the wyldwood. But gazing around at the gathered faces of Summer, Winter and Iron, I felt a flicker of hope. It had taken a determined, half-human Summer princess and an ancient prophecy to mend the rift between the three courts, but she had done it. It would be hard, and it would take a lot of work, but maybe we could live in peace with each other, after all.

Movement in the crowd caught my attention. Directly opposite me, on the Seelie side, a familiar redhead poked his head from the crowd and saluted, giving me a devilish grin. I suppressed a wince. Puck and I hadn’t spoken much since the wedding announcement, and though he’d never show it, I suspected this day was going to be hard for him. I also had the sneaking suspicion that the Great Prankster had a few surprises in store for us, and that the after-party was going to get a little wild. I hoped that, whatever happened, the party wouldn’t turn into a riot and then a bloodbath.

But when the music started, I forgot about all of that. I didn’t think of the crowd and the courts and their endless squabbles. I didn’t see Puck and Mab, Oberon and Titania, or the Iron fey. I didn’t see anyone but her.

Meghan was stunning in her long white gown, bright gray embroidery scattered about like stars, catching the light. Her hair had been pinned up beneath the veil, with a few wispy, silver-blond strands hanging down to brush her bare shoulders. A satin train billowed behind her, a rippling river of white, carried over the grass by a trio of packrats. Her adoptive human father, Paul, stood beside her, his young-old face beaming with pride and a little fear. As the trumpets blared and the knights raised their swords, the faeries around us howled, raising their voices in a joyful cacophony, the tumult echoing over the trees and making the air shiver. As my bride-to-be drew closer, our eyes met through the veil, and I nearly stopped breathing. This was it. This was really happening.

I couldn’t keep the smile from my face as she reached the front, taking her place at my side. Meghan smiled back, and for a moment, we just stood there, lost in each other’s gaze. The howling fey, the stares of Summer, Winter and Iron, the blaring trumpets, all that faded away until it was just me and Meghan and nothing else.

Then Grimalkin leaped onto the old stump between us and sighed.

“I still do not see the point of my presiding over this ridiculous spectacle, but very well.” The cait sith yawned and sat down. “Of all the favors I have granted, this is by far the most tiresome. Shall we get it over with then?” Grimalkin sat up straighter and raised his voice, somehow being heard over the crowd. “We are gathered today,” he began in a lofty tone, “to witness the joining of these two in the completely useless, ostentatious ceremony of marriage. For reasons beyond me, they have decided to make their love official, and—”

“Grimalkin.” Meghan sighed, though she wore a faint, exasperated smile. “Just this once, could you please not be an ass?”

The cat twitched an ear. I could sense he was secretly amused. “I make no promises, Iron Queen.” He sniffed, and looked at me. “You have your own vows, then?”

We both nodded.

“Thank the heavens.” Under Meghan’s glare, he blinked and nodded sagely. “Very well. Let us get on with it. You may proceed when ready, prince.”

I reached for Meghan’s hand, exhaling slowly as I made my oath. “Meghan Chase,” I began, gazing into her eyes, “from this day forth, I vow to be your husband and your knight, to stand with you when no others will, to protect you and your kingdom with everything I have for the rest of my life. I swear I will be faithful, and I will love you until the very last breath leaves my body. Because you have more than my heart and my mind—you also own my soul.”

Meghan gave me a brilliant smile, her eyes going misty behind the veil. “Ash,” she murmured, and even though she didn’t say it out loud, I heard the echo of my True Name in her voice. “It’s because of you that I can be here today. You have always been there, never wavering, protecting me with no thought for yourself. You’ve been my teacher, my knight and my only love. Now, it’s my turn to make that promise.” She squeezed my hand, her voice soft but never faltering. “Today, I vow that we will never be apart again. I promise that I will be forever by your side, and I will be ready to face everything the world has to offer us.”

“Very touching,” remarked Grimalkin, scratching behind an ear. We both ignored him, and he sat up with a sniff. “Well, then. Shall we end this exercise ad nauseam? If there are any here who object to this joining, let them speak now or forever hold their peace. And if you do object, please have a valid reason for the objection so I do not have to stay here while you debate the problem.”

I could sense the rulers of both courts wanting to say something, arguments and objections ready to burst forth. But what could they offer? I wasn’t part of the Winter Court, a mere mortal, and Meghan was a queen. There was nothing they could say that was a valid argument. Grimalkin knew it as well, for after only a moment or two of strained silence, he stood up and raised his voice.

“Then let it be known, before these witnesses and the courts, that these two are joined forever as husband and wife, and let no force in the mortal world or Faery tear them apart. I now present to you the Queen and Consort of the Iron Court.” He yawned and looked at us affectionately. “I suppose now is the part where you kiss the—well, never mind, then.”

I had already raised Meghan’s veil and drawn her close. And beneath the great tree, in the midst of a roaring, hooting faery crowd, I kissed my new bride until everything around us faded away.

* * *

TIME PASSED, and I slowly adjusted to life in the Iron Court. I became used to the gremlins scurrying around the castle, trailing Meghan like faithful dogs yet still managing to wreck havoc where they passed. I no longer went for my sword when a squad of Iron knights approached Meghan. The curious, suspicious stares when I passed grew less and less frequent, until I became just another presence in the castle.

The Iron fey, I discovered, were a much more structured group than the faeries of Summer and Winter. Except for the ever-chaotic gremlins, they welcomed order, understood rank and hierarchy and the chain of command. I was prince consort to their queen, second only to Meghan herself: therefore, I was to be obeyed. Even Glitch, Meghan’s First Lieutenant, rarely questioned me. And the Iron knights obeyed my orders without fail. It was strange, not having to constantly watch my back for fear someone might stick a knife in it. Of course, there were always squabbles and politics within the Iron Court, as there were in any court of Faery. But for the most part, the fey here were more straightforward and businesslike, not seeking to trap me in a deadly game of words just for the fun of it.

Once I figured that out, I began to appreciate the Iron Realm a lot more.

Especially when, as a mortal, I could do things I never would’ve dreamed of doing as a fey.

Not long after the wedding, I awoke alone in the bed, with light coming from the room adjacent to us—Meghan’s office. Rising, I wandered into the room to find Meghan sitting at her desk with the small, flat screen she carried around like a tablet. It was a truly foreign device to me; with a mere touch of the screen’s face, she could pull up “files” and “email,” make pictures bigger or smaller, or whisk them away with a flick of her hand. I, of course, thought it was Iron glamour that allowed such magic, though when I mentioned this to Diode, a hacker elf in charge of the castle’s computer systems, he laughed so hysterically he couldn’t answer me, and I left in annoyance.

“Hey,” I murmured, slipping my arms around her from behind. “What are you doing?”

She paused a moment, resting her head against my arm, then reached up and pulled a pair of thin white wires from her ears. “Checking the itinerary for the day. Seems the Cog Dwarves have been having trouble with disappearances in the Undercity. I’ll have to get Glitch to see what’s going on down there. Diode wants me to ban all gremlins from the security rooms, saying he can’t think with them running around getting into everything.” She sighed and leaned back in the chair, lacing an arm around my neck while the other hand still held the tablet. “And there are a ton of requests from the northern territories, saying knights from the Winter Court are causing trouble, harassing the locals on this side of the border. Looks like Mab and I need to have a talk. That’s going to be a fun conversation.”

She sighed and laid the tablet flat on the desk. I stared at the words flashing across the screen, a completely foreign vocabulary to me, even if I understood the language. Meghan glanced up at me, and a mischievous smile crossed her face.

“Here.” Rising, she plucked the screen off the desktop and shoved it toward me. “Take it. I’ll show you how it works.”

I balked, taking a step backward, eyeing the tablet as if it was a venomous snake. “Why?”

“Ash, you’re human now.” Meghan smiled and continued to hold the screen toward me. “You don’t have to be afraid of this anymore. It can’t hurt you.”

“I don’t have Iron glamour,” I told her. “It won’t work for me.”

She laughed. “You don’t need glamour to work this. It’s not magic, just technology. Anyone can use it. Now, come on.” She waggled it in my direction. “Just give it a try.”

I sighed. Very cautiously, I reached out and took it, still half expecting to feel a searing pain in my hands as my flesh reacted to the metal. When nothing happened, I held it gingerly in both hands and stared at the screen, not knowing what to do.

Meghan slipped beside me, watching over my shoulder. “Touch the screen here,” she ordered softly, demonstrating with graceful fingers. “See? You can access files here, pull up pictures, make them bigger like this. Try it.”

I did, and to my surprise, the tablet responded to my clumsy attempts, working exactly as it had for Meghan. I dragged a picture onto the screen, made it bigger, shrank it and whisked it away, feeling a foolish grin creep across my face. I discovered an entire library within the files of this strange device, more books than I had thought possible, all contained in this tiny screen. With the touch of a finger, music filled the air, one of the thousands of songs Meghan had “downloaded” from the “web.” I must’ve played with the thing for at least twenty minutes, before Meghan laughingly took it back, saying she still had work to do.

“See, now,” she told me, as I reluctantly gave it up, “being human isn’t all bad, is it?”

I watched as she sat down and began working again, fingers flying across the screen, eyes half-closed in concentration. Eventually, she became aware of me staring at her and looked up, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “Yes?”

“I want one,” I told her simply. She laughed and this time, I grinned back.

* * *

THAT WAS THE BEGINNING.

Humanity didn’t come easily for me, or all at once. I still missed my glamour, the easy way my body used to move, the quickness and the strength of my Unseelie heritage. To keep up my skills, Glitch and I would spar daily in the training yard as the Iron knights looked on, and though I remembered how to wield a sword, I never seemed to move fast enough. The maneuvers that used to be second nature were extremely difficult to impossible now. True, I had been fighting for a very long time, and my experience was such that none of the knights could touch me in a one-on-one match. But I lost to Glitch more often than not, and it was frustrating. I had been better once.

My physical limitations weren’t my only worries. I was often plagued with nightmares of my past, where I would wake in the night gasping, covered in cold sweat, ghostly faces ebbing into reality. Voices haunted my sleep, accusing, hateful voices, demanding to know why I was happy when they had died. My dreams were filled with blood and darkness, and there were many nights when I couldn’t sleep, staring at the ceiling, waiting for dawn. Gradually, however, the nightmares diminished, as I began to forget that part of my life and focus on my new one. The dreams never ceased completely, but the demon at the heart of those nightmares wasn’t me any longer. I was no longer Ash the Unseelie prince. I had moved on.

But, every once in a great while, I would have the surreal feeling that I was missing something. That my life with Meghan wasn’t what it appeared to be. That I had forgotten something important. I would shake it off, convincing myself I was simply adjusting to being human, but it always returned, taunting me, a memory keeping just out of reach.

Regardless, time moved on in the Iron Realm. Meghan ruled without opposition, maneuvering the labyrinth of fey politics as if she had been born for it. I immersed myself in technology; laptops, cell phones, computer games, software. And gradually, I grew accustomed to being human, slowly forgetting my faery side—my glamour, speed and strength—until I couldn’t remember what it felt like at all.