No matter what I have to become.
Meghan shivered against me. “I’m worried for you, too, Ash,” she whispered. “Ever since Touchstone, you’ve been acting...different.” Her hand slid up my chest, resting over my heart. “I can feel your anger,” she went on. “Not often; you’ve always been able to hide it well, but...it’s the same as when you were the Winter prince. It’s intense.”
“I am angry,” I said simply. “The thought of losing you and Keirran...” I shook my head, unable to explain the depth of rage that brought on. “Those creatures,” I murmured. “You saw what they did to Puck. To the Forgotten in Touchstone. To the humans walking around the mortal world. My greatest fear is someday looking up...and finding that we’re enemies again. Dealing with Puck was hard enough—I thought he’d forgiven me and moved on, but...”
My gut clenched as I remembered the hate in his eyes, the sneering face of Robin Goodfellow when he said we were still enemies. The Monster’s influence had brought out the worst in him, but it was still a shock when my best friend informed me, in complete seriousness, that I had better watch my back.
I didn’t want to fight Puck again. We’d both had our fill of it, years of anger and hatred and grief. Of trying to hurt each other while wishing we didn’t have to go through with it. I was done fighting those I cared about. The nightmare of fighting and having to kill my son still lingered, but it was another nightmare that terrified me. One from long ago, when I was still trying to earn a soul to be in the Iron Realm with Meghan. A nightmare where the enemy facing me across the bloody battlefield was not Keirran or Puck, but the woman in my arms right now.
“If anything like that happened to you,” I continued, feeling my voice start to choke up a little, “I...don’t know what I would do. Probably let you kill me, because a world where we are enemies is not one I’d want to exist in.”
“Ash.” Meghan looked up at me, a dozen emotions warring across her face. One hand rose, her palm pressing gently against my cheek. “I have the same fear, sometimes,” she confessed. “The war with the Lady showed me how fragile my own perceptions were, how easily someone you thought you knew can turn against you. The prophecy said Keirran could end up betraying everything, but I didn’t truly believe it until it happened. If I had to fight both you and Keirran...” Her other hand clenched on my chest. I covered it with my own, feeling her fingers tremble in mine.
“But then, I remind myself what we’ve been through,” she went on. “That we were enemies once, but we overcame it. Both the Summer and Winter Courts, hell, the entire realm of Faery, told us we couldn’t be together, that our destiny was to fight each other, because our courts were eternal rivals and Faery law forbade it. Look where we are now.”
“And I wouldn’t change anything,” I added softly. “Well, maybe the part where Keirran nearly destroyed the Nevernever. But other than that...” My comment brought the tiny smile I was looking for, and I ran my fingers through her hair. “I love you, Meghan,” I told her. “I would fight the world for us, and Keirran. I’ve never had so much to protect, but this is all I’ve ever wanted.”
And if I have to tap into my Unseelie side once more, so be it. I will not let anything take my family away. Even if I have to become a monster myself.
“Still a sweet talker,” Meghan whispered, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes. She leaned up and kissed me, making my stomach cartwheel, then gently pulled back. “The carriage will be waiting,” she said, and took a breath as if to steel herself. “Ready to go try to change the minds of a bunch of impossible faery rulers?”
“My favorite thing,” I sighed, and Meghan slipped her arm through mine. Together, we walked down the halls of the Iron Palace to the carriage that awaited us outside.
* * *
The site where the council of Faery agreed to meet was relatively new, having been established once the Iron Court became a real power in the Nevernever. Traditionally, faery councils were held either in Arcadia or Tir Na Nog to prove the goodwill of the ruler hosting, but none of the regular fey could enter the Iron Realm without dying from iron poisoning. Rather than continuously having to travel to Summer or Winter, Meghan and I suggested all meetings between the rulers of the kingdoms take place in the wyldwood, where none of the courts held sway. After some initial resistance—the rulers of Faery did not react well to change—they finally agreed.
“Looks like Oberon is already here,” Meghan observed as we stepped out of the carriage. Around us, the trees of the wyldwood soared overhead, ancient and gnarled and as gray as mist, twisted branches blocking out the sun. Twilight reigned eternal in the wyldwood, with everything cloaked in gloom and shadow, except for occasional and startling splashes of color scattered throughout the gray.
Before us, a pair of enormous white trunks rose into the air, twining branches forming an arch overhead. Through the space between, I could just make out a tunnel of trees, pale trunks acting as columns and twisting branches forming a roof above. A pair of Seelie knights guarded the entrance, long-haired sidhe in gold and green armor, leafy capes draping their shoulders and fey swords at their sides.
I stifled a sigh. Even before the council had started, the faery games and power struggles were already in effect. In the long years where I’d attended Elysium and other councils, Oberon and the Summer Court had always been the first to arrive. I suspected it was because the Seelie King wanted his pick of the seats, but also because Titania, when she even bothered to come, wanted to be the first thing everyone saw when they got there. A queen looking down upon her subjects as they entered her presence. Mab, on the other hand, was always fashionably late to every event except the ones she hosted herself, and it would be a loud, extended showing when she did finally arrive. I knew Mab, and I knew she wanted everyone to look at her, while at the same time declaring the queen of Winter would not be told what to do; she would get there on her own time and everyone else could just wait.
Meghan and I were always right on time, as befitting the only court that had working clocks. And because it was just polite.
Meghan glanced at me with a faint grimace. She knew this had to be done, but it was never a pleasant experience dealing with fickle, easily offended faery rulers. “You think Titania will be there today?”
“Let’s hope not,” I muttered back, and extended an arm to her. “Otherwise, it’s going to be a long meeting.”
The Seelie knights bowed their heads as we approached, and we followed the tunnel of trees until it opened up into a massive chamber of trunks and intertwining branches. Glowing lanterns hung from the limbs and balls of faery fire floated among the leaves, lighting up the room. They drifted alongside thousands of icicles dangling from the branches, some as long and thick as my arm. The faint breeze ghosting through the chamber set the icicles to tinkling in a cheery but ominous way, as if anything stronger would cause the whole ceiling to plummet. Delicate crystalline snowflakes danced through the room, catching the light like diamonds.