Chapter 2
It was a punishment.
At least, Melisandre intended for it to be a punishment.
The Fae Queen, ruler of both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faerie, had recently decided that he was no longer allowed to serve her as one of the elite guards that lived in her grand palace.
Instead, he’d been banished to his rooms at the guards’ barracks and given a post out of her sight while she fumed over his perceived insult.
Ash hadn’t meant to upset the queen. It was just his poor fortune that he was the guard stationed at the right side of her throne when her glamour suddenly slipped; as the queen, her command over her glamour was impeccable, but it had a tendency to waver whenever one of her court had the bad taste to mention Melisandre’s missing consort, the former Summer King.
For a few moments, her blonde curls darkened to black, her yellow eyes shifting to silver, her tan fading as she turned her pointed stare on the Seelie noble who should’ve known better than to utter Oberon’s name in her presence.
Of course, Ash had protected his queen. With a soft cough, he snared her attention, gesturing to her suddenly pale skin.
He never knew why Melisandre insisted on appearing as a Light Fae when she was a Dark Fae royal from the Winter Court, but she was ultimately the Fae Queen and he owed her his loyalty in the same manner as he had served Oberon when the Summer King sat on the same throne.
Rather than appreciate his loyalty, his queen turned her fury on Ash as well as Raine.
He had to admit that only one of them was now destined to stand frozen, another statue for her endless summer garden—and it wasn’t Ash.
Raine’s wealth and his pedigree hadn’t been enough protect him from Melisandre’s cruelty or how she sentenced him with an innocent smile before she callously sent Ash from her sight.
At the barracks, fellow guard Ninetroir pointed out that every one of them knew better than to react whenever Melisandre lost her temper. While her glamour slipping was rare, her quick temper wasn’t, and Ash had brought this punishment on himself.
The Dark Fae wasn’t wrong, either.
Though Ash wasn’t standing as a statue to amuse the queen, his new assignment wasn’t too far off from that.
For the next decade or so, he was sent to the edge of the realm, guarding a point where the veil between Faerie and the Iron—the human realm—was thin enough to be a concern.
It wasn’t quite a fairy circle or a pocket of shadows, but there was a slight risk that fugitive faerie folk might try to escape their fate in Faerie by slipping through the weak point, taking their chances among the humans.
Or, worse, a human might actually stumble upon the path to cross over on their own without being led by one of his kind.
Ash snorted. A human that wasn’t controlled by the touch?
They’d never last long in Faerie, and that wasn’t even taking into account all the stories Ash had heard about the lengths his fellow fae would go take that first touch inside of Faerie without having to brave the Iron.
He didn’t blame them, of course, since he’d done worse himself in his time.
Though he rarely paid any attention to the mortals on the other side of the veil, he’d touched a fair amount of humans during his three centuries.
Between his glamour and his charm, it didn’t take much to convince them to give him permission to touch them anywhere he wanted to.
And Ash would—he had—all for the rush of power that a gifted piece of soul would give him.
It had been decades since he played with a human pet, though. About the same amount of time since Melisandre had last sent him to the edge of the veil.
Nothing much changed, he concluded as he stood at his post. Fashions did, and the amount of iron humming in the air was so strong that he could just about sense it even through the thinning veil.
The last time Melisandre grew annoyed at him and sent him to the borders, it had been a different post, but the view was basically the same.
The greenery, and the humans milling everywhere, unaware that they had one of the Blessed Ones in their midst.
Though he stayed firmly in Faerie, Ash pulled on a layer of glamour that would keep him hidden in case any of the humans noticed the weak point between worlds. He was the only fae responsible for this post, and he knew better than to question Melisandre when it came to his punishment.
Eventually she would calm down, and she’d fall back into her “benevolent ruler” role, oblivious to the fact that many of her subjects referred to her rule as the Reign of the Damned. Until then, Ash would have to stay out of sight and hope that she was still far more furious with Raine.
He didn’t expect much to happen during his guard duty.
His previous tour along the borders lasted close to two decades and in all of that time, the only interesting thing happened when a Dark Fae nearly burned to a crisp when he got caught in the Iron during the time of no shadows.
Ash had wondered if it was worth rousing himself out of his ennui before crossing over and dragging the lifeless male into Faerie.
He saved Ninetroir then, earning a life debt that he carried with him always just in case he ever needed to call it in.
Ash didn’t expect to be entertained during this tour, and only hoped that the Fae Queen’s grudge didn’t last as long.
Until then, he would do what she commanded of him.
When the alternative was a queen who took her buried aggression out on the statues that lined her garden, a fae who valued his immortal life obeyed his queen.
No matter how intolerable it was to be this close to humans.
Cloaked in his layer of glamour, Ash drummed his fingers against the hilt of his sword while watching the humans through the veil. Sound didn’t carry through, but he could see clearly to the other side of his post.
And that’s when he noticed that one of the humans was watching him back.
Ash’s fingers flexed; instead of tapping the hilt, he had the sudden urge to draw his sword. The weight of her curious stare made him react in a way he didn’t expect—or appreciate.
The human female could see him. Despite the veil, despite his glamour, her eyes were locked on him. And, for the first time in a long, long while, Ash found himself attracted to a human.
Her hair was long, as long as his, though it was such a fair color, he would’ve said it was white.
Even from the distance, he could see the tops of her rounded ears poking through the soft-looking strands.
Definitely human. Beautiful, too, Ash mused.
He didn’t normally go for the human look, but maybe she had a touch of faerie blood in her because he’d never seen a mortal with such a lovely face before.
And she could see him. He was almost sure of it. This human could see him.
Did she have the sight?
Only one way to find out.
It was daylight in the Iron. As a Light Fae, Ash could cross over into the human world and suffer no consequences so long as he returned before the sun set and the shadows came.
Deciding this strange human counted as part of his duty to protect this entrance into Faerie, Ash started toward the border.
Even before he passed over, he knew he was too late. With his first step, she rose from the bench she’d been seated on. With his next, she was already gathering her belongings. By the time he pushed through the veil, she was gone.
Ash patted the hilt of his sword in barely stifled frustration before returning to Faerie, the white-haired beauty a mystery, but one he dismissed as soon as she was gone and he was home again.
A human, he scoffed.
He needed to find one of the courtesans and get laid if he thought he was attracted to a human.
When night fell in the Iron, Ash left his post.
He headed straight for the barracks where he had his own space, surprising himself when he joined some of the other soldiers for a meal instead of going to the nearby inn for fairy wine and a willing female.
When he first realized where his portal had taken him, he thought about conjuring up another until the pretty human’s face flashed in front of him and he chose to head toward the mess hall instead.
Only because he wanted to, of course.
The next sunrise, he returned to his post, knowing that the veil would show him that same patch of nature he’d watched over the day before.
While magic was fluid and one spot of Faerie didn’t quite coincide with the same spot in the Iron, the weak points were like anchors; they were fixed.
Until Melisandre relieved him of his duty, he was destined to stare at the same human park.
Which meant that there was a chance no matter how slim that he might spy the white-haired female who had haunted his dreams.
He hated her for that alone. She was mortal, a nothing to someone like Ash, and it was almost an insult that she had transfixed him with only the quickest glimpse.
He wanted to believe it was only the way she locked eyes with him, almost as if she could see him.
That her quick escape, like she was trying to run away from him, made her more than just another mortal.
At least, he told himself that as he waited to see if she would return.
She didn’t. Not that day, or the next. Hours blurred together, as they often did when he was on a pointless assignment, and the faces of the humans and their beasts were indistinguishable.
And then, right when Ash had begun to think that he’d imagined her, there she was. He’d know that striking white hair and lovely face anywhere.
She was just as beautiful as he remembered, and he decided to hate her for that, too.