The Iron Knight (34 page)

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

T
HAT 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.

A frantic beeping dragged me out of a comfortable sleep. Groggily, I raised myself up, being careful not to disturb Meghan, and reached for the phone on the end table. The glowing blue numbers on the screen proclaimed it 2:12 a.m., and that Glitch was going to die for waking me up like this.

I pressed the button, put the phone to my ear and growled: “Someone better be dead.”

“Sorry, highness.” Glitch’s voice hissed in my ear, whispering loudly. “But we have a problem. Is the queen still asleep?”

I was instantly awake. “Yes,” I murmured, throwing back the covers and rising from the bed. The Iron Queen was a somewhat heavy sleeper, often exhausted by the demands of ruling a kingdom, and tended to be cranky when woken up in the middle of the night. After getting snarled at several times for a middle-of-the-night emergency, Glitch started directing all midnight problems to me. Between us, we were usually able to handle the situation before the queen knew something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” I asked, shrugging into my clothes
while still pressing the phone to my ear with a shoulder. Glitch gave a half angry, half fearful sigh.

“Kierran has run off again.”

“What?”

“His room was empty, and we think he managed to slip over the wall. I have four squads out looking for him, but I thought you should know your son has pulled another vanishing act.”

I groaned and scrubbed a hand across my face. “Get the gliders ready. I’ll be right there.”

G
LITCH MET ME
on the highest tower, the lightning in his hair snapping angrily, his purple eyes glowing in the darkness.

“We’ve already searched his usual hideouts,” he informed me as I came up. “He’s not in any of them, and we’ve been looking since midnight. We think he managed to get out of the city this time.”

“How did he get over the wall?” I asked, glowering at the first lieutenant, who grimaced.

“One of the gliders is missing,” he said, and I growled a curse. Kierran, blue-eyed and silver-haired, was nearly eight in human years, and had just enough faery blood to make him as troublesome as a phouka. From the time he could walk, the household staff had been unable to keep up with him. Nimble as a squirrel, he scaled the walls, climbed out windows and perched on the highest towers, grinning in delight while everyone scrambled about to coax him down. His daring and curiosity only increased with age, and if you told him he
could not
do something, you pretty much ensured that he was going to try.

His mother was going to kill me.

Glitch looked faintly ashamed. “He was asking about them
this morning. I should’ve picked up on it then. Any idea where he might’ve gone?”

Thinking back, I sighed. Kierran had been obsessed with the other territories of late, asking about the Summer and Winter courts and the wyldwood. That afternoon, we had been practicing archery in the courtyard, and he’d asked what type of things I had hunted. When I told him about the dangerous creatures in the wyldwood, about giants and chimeras and wyverns that could rip you apart or swallow you whole, he’d almost glowed with excitement.

“Will you take me hunting someday, Father? In the wyldwood?”

I looked at him. He gazed back innocently, diamond-blue eyes sparkling beneath long silver bangs, gripping his bow tightly in both hands. The tips of his pointed ears peeked out of his hair, a constant reminder that he wasn’t quite human. That the blood of the Iron Queen flowed through him, making him faster, stronger, more daring than a normal child. He had already demonstrated a talent for glamour, and he picked up archery and sword fighting faster than he had a right to. Still, he was only eight, still a child, and innocent to the dangers of the rest of Faery.

“When you’re older,” I told him. “Not yet. But when you’re ready, I’ll take you.”

He grinned, lighting up his whole face. “Promise?”

“Yes.” I knelt beside him and straightened out the bow, pointing it the right way. “Now, try to hit the target again.”

He giggled, apparently satisfied, and didn’t bring it up again. And I didn’t give it another thought the rest of the afternoon. I should’ve known better.

“I have an idea.” I sighed, and whistled for one of the gliders hanging from the wall. It turned its insectlike head and buzzed sleepily. “Have the knights search the wyldwood,
particularly around the borders of the courts. And let’s hope he’s not found his way into Tir Na Nog.”

“The other courts won’t like it,” Glitch muttered. “We’re not really supposed to go into the wyldwood without their permission.”

“This is my son.” I fixed him with a piercing glare, and he looked away. “I don’t care if we have to tear up the entire wyldwood. I want him found, is that understood?”

“Yes, sire.”

I nodded curtly and stepped to the edge of the balcony, spreading my arms. The glider spiraled down from the wall and crawled up my back, unfurling its wings. I looked back at Glitch, watching us solemnly, and sighed.

“Wake the queen,” I told him. “Tell her the situation. This is something she needs to know right away.” He winced, and I didn’t envy him the job. “Tell her I’ll be back with Kierran soon.”

And with that, I pushed myself off the edge and swooped into empty space. The air currents caught the glider’s wings, bearing us aloft, and we soared in the direction of the wyldwood.

I
DIDN’T HAVE TO SEARCH FAR
. Only a few miles after I crossed the border of the Iron Realm and entered the wyldwood, I spotted the glint of a glider’s wing in the moonlight and pushed my own glider to land nearby. Leaving the two iron creatures to buzz at each other excitedly, I clicked on a flash-light and studied the ground around the landing site. Despite my human vision, centuries of hunting and tracking through the wyldwood could not be forgotten in a few short years, and I soon found a set of small footprints, leading off into the tangled undergrowth. Grimly, praying nothing would find him before I did, I followed.

A few miles in, the tracks took on an ominous cast, as something large and heavy joined the smaller prints through the forest. Stalking them. Soon after that, the stride between the prints lengthened, stretching out to a run, joined by snapped branches and twigs, and my blood ran cold. When I found his bow, broken and splintered, dread squeezed my chest until I could hardly breathe, and I started to run.

A scream shattered the stillness of the night. It turned my blood to ice, and I charged blindly in that direction, drawing my sword as I went. The icy fey weapon seared my hands with cold, but I was too far gone to notice.

“Kierran!” I shouted, bursting through the undergrowth.

A roar answered me. Something huge and terrible clung to a tree a few yards away, beating batlike wings for leverage and clawing at the branches. Its body was bony and leonine, with blood-red fur and a matted black mane. Its long tail ended in a spiky ball, bristling like a huge sea urchin and leaving spines in the adjacent trees as it thrashed in frustration.

High overhead, a small, bright figure pressed back into the limbs of the tree, trying to scramble higher, away from the vicious beast swiping at him a few feet away. His tearful blue eyes met mine, but his cry was drowned out by the bellowing of the monster below.

“Hey!” I roared, and two burning red eyes snapped to me. “Get away from him now!”

The manticore howled and leaped off the tree, landing with a booming crash on the ground. Lashing its tail, it stalked toward me, its shockingly human face pulled into an animalistic snarl, baring pointed teeth. I gripped the sword, ignoring the numbing chill that spread up my arm, and took a deep breath.

The manticore lunged, hooked talons swiping at my face, jaws gaping to tear into my throat. I dodged, lashing out
with the sword, cutting a gash in the monster’s shoulder. It screamed, an oddly human wail, and spun with blazing red eyes. Its tail flicked out, almost too quick to see, and I felt something thwap against my legs.

Blinding pain came seconds later, nearly dropping me to my knees. I reached down with one hand and felt the long black spines of the manticore’s tail sunk deep into my leg. Knowing it would continue to pump venom into me the longer I left it, I grasped the spine and ripped it away, clenching my jaw to keep from screaming. The spine was barbed at the end, and tore a gaping hole in my leg, but manticore venom would quickly paralyze and kill its victim if left in the body.

Overhead, Kierran cried out in terror. The manticore growled and stalked closer to me, red eyes glowing in the darkness.

I could feel the poison burning its way through my leg, and fought to remain steady on my feet, watching as the monster circled me, twitching its deadly tail. Waiting for the venom to take effect. Casually, it flicked its tail again, and I felt another barb slam into my shoulder, making me gasp. I didn’t have much time left. Numbness was creeping through my leg, and soon my arm would follow. But I had to save Kierran. I would at least make sure Kierran got home safe.

Feigning weakness, I staggered and fell to my knees, letting the tip of my blade strike the earth. It was what the manticore was waiting for. The monster sprang at me with a howl, going in for the kill, jaws gaping. I fell backward, bringing my sword up as the manticore lunged over me, sinking my blade deep into its shaggy chest.

The creature screamed and collapsed on top of me, pinning me to the earth. Its body smelled of blood and rotten meat. I tried shoving it off as it twitched and kicked in its death throes, but it was too heavy and I was in too much pain to
move it. And so I lay there, pinned under a dead manticore, knowing I probably wouldn’t walk away from this. I could feel the venom working its way through my leg, the spine still piercing my shoulder. Ash the Winter prince would have healed from such wounds, his fey body instinctively drawing in glamour to throw off the sickness, repairing itself with an unending supply of magic. But I was only mortal, and had no such power.

As I fought for consciousness, I became aware of Kierran, grunting and crying as he tried pulling the dead manticore off me. “Get up,” I heard him sniffle. “Father, get up.”

“Kierran,” I called softly, but he didn’t seem to hear me. I tried again, but a shout echoed through the trees, and Kierran jerked his head up. “Over here!” he cried, waving both arms. “Glitch, we’re over here!”

Familiar voices surrounded us. Glitch’s voice, frantic and angry. The clanking of the Iron knights as they pulled the manticore away. Kierran’s sobs as he tried explaining what had happened. I tried answering the questions that buzzed around my head, but my voice was as numb as the rest of me, and the shapes crowding my vision were blurry and indistinct.

“That leg looks pretty bad,” I heard someone murmur to Glitch as they bent over me. “We’ll try to save it, but he
is
a mortal, after all.”

“Do what you can,” Glitch muttered back. “I’m just glad we found him alive. The queen is not going to be happy.”

Their voices became garbled after that, blending into the background. Eventually, sounds, people, voices, all blurred together like ink, and turned into darkness.

I
THOUGHT
I
WOULD DIE
, but I lived.

My leg was never the same. The venom had damaged it too badly. Luckily for me, the barb in my shoulder had passed
clean through and come out the other side, leaving nothing behind but a puckering scar. But forever after that fight, I walked with a limp, and if I stood on the leg too long or put too much weight on it, it would give out from under me. The sparring matches with Glitch and the knights came to a halt, and I had to lean on a cane when traveling or walking any distance.

I didn’t mind … too much. I still had my son, my wife and my health, though that last fight demonstrated yet again how fragile mortality was. A fact Meghan made painfully clear once I was on my feet again. The Iron Queen had been livid, blue eyes flashing as she ripped into me, demanding to know what I’d been thinking, going into the wyldwood alone.