The Iron Knight (The Iron Fey 4)

Glamoured and invisible, I turned my steps in the direction of a smal shanty on the edge of the woods.

The Samhain festival arrived at the Winter Court, and with it the gifts and favors and goodwil blessings for the Winter Queen. Mab was extremely pleased with my gift that year; a dark-haired baby boy, and the look on Rowan's face when I presented the child to her was unfor-gettable. The boy grew up, healthy and strong, in the Winter Court, never questioning his past or his heritage, becoming a favorite pet of the queen. Eventual y, when he got a little older and weaker and not so handsome anymore, Mab placed him in an endless sleep and encased him in ice, freezing him as he was forever. And so the bargain made in the snow the night of his birth was fulfil ed.

“Enough!”

Slammed back into the present, I lurched away from the Guardian, the faces of the lives I had destroyed staring at me from the shadows of the room. Hitting the wall , I squeezed my eyes shut, but I could not escape the memories, the accusing eyes, boring into me. The screams and wails, the stench of burning wood, the blood and terror and sorrow and death; I remembered it all as if it was yesterday.

“No more,” I whispered, my face stil turned to the wall, feeling wetness against my skin. My teeth were clenched so hard my jaw ached. “No more. I can't…remember…the things I've done. I don't want to remember.”

“You will.” The Guardian's voice was calm, ruthless. “Everything. Every soul you destroyed, every life you took. You will remember, knight. We have only just begun.”

It went on forever.

Each time, I was there, watching the scenes play before me as the heartless Unseelie prince, cold, violent and uncaring. I hunted more humans through the forest, tasting their fear as I ran them down. I slaughtered at the queen's whim, whether it was a single creature that earned her wrath, a family for her entertainment or an entire vil age to set an example. I competed with my brothers for Mab's favor, playing my own vicious, courtly games that often ended in betrayal and blood.

I seduced even more human females and broke their hearts, leaving them empty and hol ow, writhing in their loss.

Each time I lived these atrocities, I felt nothing. And each time, the Guardian would pul me out, for just a moment, and the horror of what I'd done would threaten to crush me. Crime after crime stacked upon one another, weighing me down, adding new memories and shame to the nightmares of my life. Each time, I wanted to curl up and die with my guilt, but the Guardian gave me only a moment's ref lection before hurling me into the next massacre.

Finally, after what seemed like years, centuries, it was over. I lay on the f loor gasping, my arms around my head, bracing myself for the next horror. Only this time, nothing happened. I heard the Guardian speaking above me, its voice distant and matter-of-fact: “The final trial begins at dawn.” Then it vanished, leaving me alone.

My thoughts, now my own again, reached out tentatively, probing the silence. And in the sudden calm, every single memory, the crimes of my past, every nightmare and horror and depravity committed by the Unseelie prince, all rose up and descended on me with screams and cries and anguished howls, and I found myself screaming, too.

Puck and Ariel a burst through the door, weapons drawn, scanning the room for attackers. Seeing me, kneeling on the f loor, my face wet and tormented, their expressions went blank with shock. “Ash?” Ariel a whispered, walking toward me. “What happened? What's wrong?”

I lurched away from her. She couldn't know—neither of them could ever know—the horrors I'd committed, the blood staining my hands. I couldn't face their shock and contempt and disgust when they found out who I really was.

“Ash?”

“Get back,” I rasped at her, and her eyes widened. “Stay away from me.

Both of you. Just…leave me alone.”

Ariel a stared at me…and for a moment, I saw Brynna's face when I'd told her everything was all a game. It was more than I could bear.

Ignoring their cal s, I rushed past them, escaping into the hal s of the castle.

Faces followed me down the corridors, their cold, accusing eyes boring into me, crowding my mind.

“Ash,” Brynna whispered, hugging herself in an alcove, watching me pass, “you said you loved me.”

“My sisters,” the nymph said, appearing from around a corner, glaring at me with burning black eyes. “My family. You kill ed them all . Every single one.”

“Demon,” whispered the old farmer, his eyes glazed over with tears, pointing at me with a trembling hand. “You took my child away. all I had left, and you took him from me. Monster.”

I'm sorry, I cal ed to them, but of course they wouldn't hear. They were long dead, their grief and hate unresolved, and nothing I said or did could make any of it right.

I could hear Puck and Ariel a's voices down the hal , cal ing my name, searching for me. I didn't deserve their concern. I didn't deserve to know them, two bright spots in a life of darkness and blood and death.

I'd destroyed everything I touched, even those I loved. I would end up destroying them, too.

“Murderer,” Rowan whispered, appearing from a doorway, and I shied away from him, nearly blinded by tears and not watching where I was going.

The f loor suddenly gave way beneath me. I fel down a long f light of steps, the world spinning madly, until I landed with a gasp at the bottom, pain stabbing through my arm and side.

Gritting my teeth, I struggled upright, pressing a hand to my bruised shoulder, and looked around. It was dark here, shadows choking everything, the only light coming from a dying candle in the mouth of a stone gargoyle. Beside the leering creature stood a massive stone door, like the entrance to a crypt, standing partial y open. Cold, dry air wafted from the crack beneath it.

I staggered forward, squeezed through the opening, and put my un-injured shoulder to the stone, pushing with all my might. The massive door closed with a rumbling groan, shutting out the feeble light and plunging me into complete darkness.

I didn't know what surrounded me, and I didn't care. Feeling my way forward, I eased into a corner, put my back to the wall and slid to the f loor. I was cold, even starting to shake, but I welcomed the discomfort.

The darkness smel ed of dust, limestone, and death. But I couldn't escape the voices, the whispers that hissed accusations in my ears, furious, hateful, completely justified.

Monster.

Demon.

Murderer.

I shivered, with cold and with shame, and buried my face in my knees, letting the accusations swirl around me.

So, this was what we really were. What I really was.

Dawn, the Guardian had told me. My final test began at dawn. If I didn't show up for it, I would fail. And if I failed, I'd remain here forever, alone.

As it should be.

Time slipped away. I lost myself in the darkness, listening to the voices. Sometimes they sobbed, sometimes they railed at me, cruel, vicious words fil ed with grief and hate. Other times they would only ask questions. Why? Why had I done this? Why had I destroyed them, their lives, their families? Why?

I couldn't answer. Nothing I offered would bring them peace, no apo-logy would suffice for what I'd done. My words were hol ow, empty.

How could I have been so blind as to want a soul? It was laughable now, to think that a soul could live inside me without being tainted by the centuries of blood and evil and death.

The voices agreed, laughing at me, mocking my quest. I didn't deserve a soul; I didn't deserve happiness, or peace. Why should I get my happy ending, when I'd left a swath of horror and destruction behind me wherever I went?

I had no answer for them. I was a monster. I was born in darkness, and I would die here, as well . It was better this way. Ash, the demon of the Unseelie Court, would finally perish alone, mourning the lives of those he'd destroyed.

A fitting end, I thought, giving in to the voices, letting them rail and laugh at me. I would not hurt anyone any longer. My quest ended here, in this hole of darkness and regret. And, if I didn't die here, if I lived on forever, listening to the voices of those I'd wronged until the end of time, perhaps I would start to atone for what I had done.

“Here you are.”

I raised my head as the voice slipped out of the darkness, different from the others surrounding me that were whispering their vengeance and hate. It was nearly pitch-black in the crypt, and I could barely move more than a few feet from where I sat. But I recognized the voice, as the gleam of golden eyes, appearing out of the darkness, f loated closer to me.

“Grimalkin.” My voice sounded raspy in my ears, as if I hadn't used it for months, though I didn't know how much time had passed down here.

Perhaps it had been several months. “What are you doing here?”

“I think,” Grimalkin said, blinking solemnly as he came into view,

“that is what I should be asking you. Why are you hiding out with the dead when you should be preparing for the final test?”

I hunched my shoulders, closing my eyes as the voices started again, angry and painful. “Leave me, cait sith.”

“You cannot stay down here,” the cat went on as if I hadn't spoken.

“What good is it to sit here and do nothing? You help no one if you remain here and bemoan the past.”

Anger f lickered, and I raised my head to glare at him. “What would you know about it?” I whispered. “You have no conscience. You think of everything in terms of bargains and favors, caring nothing for those you have manipulated. I simply can't forget…what I've done.”

“No one is asking you to forget.” Grimalkin sat down and curled his tail around himself, gazing at me. “That is the whole point of a conscience, after all —that you do not forget those you have wronged. But answer me this—how do you expect to atone for the crimes of your past if you do nothing?

Do you think your victims care now, whether you live or die?”

I had no answer for him. Grimalkin sniffed and stood up, waving his tail. His yel ow eyes regarded me knowingly.

“They do not. And there is no point in obsessing about what cannot be.

They are dead, and you live. And if you fail this test, nothing changes.

The only way to ensure that you do not become that which you despise is to finish the quest you have started.”

The voices hissed at me, sounding desperate, reminding me of my crimes, the blood on my hands, the lives I'd destroyed. And they were right. I could do nothing for them now. But I had been someone else then. Uncaring and soul ess. A demon, like they said. But…maybe I could start again.

Grimalkin f licked an ear and began to trot away into the shadows.

“Earn your soul, knight,” he cal ed, his gray form fading into the dark.

“Prove that you can learn from your mistakes. Only then can you become human.”

His words remained with me long after he was gone. I sat in that cold corner and thought about my past, the people I'd hurt, manipulated, destroyed.

Grim was right. If I died here, who would remember them? If I failed and returned home without a soul, I would continue to feel nothing for my past, no remorse, no guilt, no conscience.

Brynna's voice, broken and fil ed with hate, whispered into my head. I loved you. I loved you so much, and you killed me. I will never forgive you.