Chapter 5 #2
Nothing could have stopped him from going after the creature.
It didn’t matter that he was the one who sent it running toward Callie.
From the terror that slammed into her like a wave, reaching out to him even through the veil, to the way she stared at the kobold without trying to escape it, Ash had his answer.
She could see it—she could see him—and, suddenly, he wanted to hold onto his fascination with her.
His human female needed to live so the kobold had to die. He wasn’t even thinking about what it would mean to save her life until she, still stunned, pointed out that he had. And, with just those words, she unknowingly triggered a geas similar to that of Nine’s.
Ash was protective of his human, but he was still fae. He would use that life debt to get what he wanted, no matter what.
Once locked inside his personal quarters, Ash reached into the deep pockets of his pants, pulling out the contents inside. When he could store everything he could or would ever need in a faerie portal, the things he kept on his person were the most important things he owned.
Normally there was only one thing in his pants. Today, there were three.
Nestled in the crook of his bronzed palm, he saw his pebble.
A symbol of the life debt that Ninetroir owed him, Ash never went without it; the geas would still exist even if he lost the small rock, but he liked knowing he had visible evidence of it.
Nine was a Dark Fae, one of the Cursed Ones.
He was much younger than Ash, and he’d recently joined the queen’s guard after completing the academy at Ash’s request, but they weren’t friends.
The fae didn’t have friends.
They did, however, have a fated mate. Known as their ffrindau, each of the fae was promised a soulmate, though so many of his kind didn’t put much stock in the fanciful notion. They took mates as they pleased while acknowledging that any union would only last until a ffrindau came and shattered it.
Ash had never thought he’d find his. Born more than three centuries ago, he wasn’t as young as Nine, but he was still considered a youth to his kind.
Most fae didn’t find their ffrindau until they measured their years in millennia instead of centuries, and since he had never lacked for female companionship, his fated mate was an idea instead of a reality.
It still was, but after how his every instinct told him to save Callie from the kobold, he wasn’t so sure anymore.
And, for one of the fae, being unsure was very, very dangerous.
Next to the pebble, he looked at the watch that had stopped ticking as soon as he brought it through the portal and into Faerie.
A soldier through and through, Ash was always thinking ahead.
He’d grabbed the timepiece before he left Callie’s cage, sensing from its aura that it belonged to the male who had imprinted on her home.
The Mitch she spoke of.
Ash wasn’t so certain he would need it, but it never hurt to be prepared. He wanted to believe that mindset led him to also take the third item he was holding, but Ash knew better.
He took Callie’s tiny hairbrush because he wanted to bring something of hers with him, and he was pleased that it held countless strands of her lovely, pale hair.
Using two long, slender fingers, he unthreaded a single strand, holding it up to his eyes in open inspection. It wasn’t quite white, he decided, but more of a white-blonde. There was a distinction, and it had everything to do with his curious human.
So engrossed in deciphering its shade, Ash never realized that he had company until it was too late.
A knock sounded at his door. “Open up, soldier.”
Ash disappeared the pebble, the watch, the brush full of her lovely white-blonde hair back into his pocket. He patted the bulge along his hip, making his uniform as pristine as possible, then pressed his thumb to the crystal again.
The lock disengaged with a soft snick. Before Ash could reach to grip the knob, it was already turning.
The door swung outward, revealing a Light Fae with an extra row of golden buttons along his collar.
Captain Helix.
“Evening, Captain.”
Helix nodded at Ash. “I’ve come because of the queen.”
Of course he had. Helix was the captain of her guard, and though rumors among the ranks wondered how much longer he would keep the post when his loyalty was tied much closer to the throne than to who sat on it, he had managed to do something most deemed impossible: he’d kept his head these last two centuries.
A formidable male, and one that managed a second impossible feat: he had earned Ash’s respect during the last of the Shadow Wars.
The Shadows Wars—fought between the Dark Fae who refused to accept that the Fae Queen was also their ruler, and the Light Fae who enforced Melisandre’s whims—marked the beginning of her Reign of the Damned.
Before she became the queen, the Summer King had ruled over the Seelie Court while the Winter Queen oversaw the Unseelie Court, including the Shadow Realm.
Despite how sick the Shadow Realm made the Light Fae soldiers, they still succeeded with the help of the Wild Hunt, driving the Dark Fae soldiers further into the shadows and cementing her new rule as Fae Queen.
If it wasn’t for the fact that, shortly after Oberon disappeared, the Winter Queen also vanished, maybe the Dark Fae would have had a better chance to defeat the Light Fae.
But with both monarchs lost, Melisandre found it all too easy to take control of their thrones.
Now, two centuries later, she controlled all of Faerie—and was desperate to keep her crown.
During the Shadow Wars, there were still too many casualties, too many immortal lives cut down.
While some of the lesser faerie races could be dispatched more easily than others—including kobolds—a fae could survive any wound save for decapitation.
There were other fae-killers, too, of course.
A Brinkburn, banishment to the Iron, too many shadows for the Seelie, sunlight to the Dark Fae…
but when it came to mortal wounds, chopping off a fae’s head was the only way to go.
None were faster with a sword than Helix, Ash recalled. He struck down their enemies without hesitation, but he wasn’t a merciless killer. Those who didn’t deserve death kept their heads and, deep down, Ash respected that.
Which was why, though his hand itched to grab his own sword, he steadied it. Before he jumped to the conclusion that Melisandre had learned of his trip into the Iron, he might as well find out why Helix was actually there.
“What is it the queen wants from me?”
“There’s a skirmish in Scáth,” Helix explained. Scáth was the largest city in the Winter Court, and a site of more than a few battles during the last war. “The queen has sent a few guards to shut it down before it becomes trouble.”
That would explain why there had been no whisper of Nine and his shadows lurking around the barracks lately. A formidable shade-walker, Melisandre would’ve sent the Dark Fae to control some of his more restless brethren.
As a Light Fae, Ash couldn’t create a portal in the Unseelie Court.
He’d have to go by horse if he was needed to join the other soldiers, and that meant a journey through the Shadow Realm.
The dense shadow would drain Ash almost as effectively as the Iron did, but he would do it because it was his duty, even if Melisandre would surely just think of it as another way to punish him.
And it would be a punishment, but not in the way the queen would hope for.
Ash was an elite fae soldier who’d survived long tours in the harsh Winter lands of Faerie.
A quick jaunt to Scáth to stifle any new rebellions would be nothing to him—but leaving the puzzle of his white-haired human behind for longer than he cared to?
Ash’s gut twisted in some unfamiliar emotion. Layering on his glamour—unlike Callie, Helix would only see what Ash wanted him to see—he used the shield to hide his sudden discomfort.
Then, in as unconcerned a voice as he could manage, he asked, “Does she want me to go? Is that why she’s sent you here?”
“No.”
Ash narrowed his gaze on the captain. “Then what does she want?”
Helix gave a graceful shrug of his shoulders, his layer of glamour just as thick as Ash’s, if not thicker.
What was the good captain hiding, Ash wondered?
And then Helix said, “Melisandre wants nothing from you which, considering she’s still furious you caught her with her glamour down, is a very good thing. Still, I speak for her.”
Ash’s suspicion only rose. “I’m still waiting to understand, Captain.”
“It’s very simple. The palace guard is not as strong with some of our best on the frontlines, and it’s foolish to have an elite soldier wasting his time on the edge of the realm when he could be better used elsewhere. I can make that happen for you, Aislinn. Just say the word.”
Helix had his name, but since Ash hadn’t gifted it to him, the captain couldn’t use it to command or compel him. Still, it was a reminder of who Ash was, who Helix was, and how fickle the creature they both served could be.
Melisandre used her subjects’ true names as a warning.
What about Helix? What would he want in return for his “help”?
Changing his post from the edge of Faerie to the Fae Queen’s crystal palace wasn’t a favor exactly, or even a bargain, but it was enough to tilt the scales toward the captain if Ash accepted.
Good thing he had no intention of doing so—and not just because he loathed the idea of being in anyone’s debt.
“Don’t intercede on my behalf. I’m fine where I am.”
Helix nodded. “If you change your mind, let me know. I’ll talk to the queen.”
Ash thought of the brush in his pocket, and his plan to cross back into the Iron as soon as he possibly could.
“As you say, Captain.”