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As a human in the Iron Court, you will grow old, while everyone around you will remain as they are, forever. That is the price of mortality. You will die, and you will die alone.” As it said these words, a cold hand touched my shoulder, and a spasm went through one side of my body. I jerked, nausea and dizziness f looding through me, and tried to stand, groping for the door. My bad leg crumpled and I fell, striking my head on the cold f loor, the breath knocked from my lungs. Gasping, I dragged myself across the room with one arm, my left side numb and dead, but the room spun violently, and darkness crawled along the edge of my vision. Fighting pain and nausea, I tried calling for help, but my voice left my throat in a hoarse rasp, and there was no one to hear.
Except the Guardian, which hadn’t moved from where it stood watching me struggle. Watching me die. “Death,” it droned, cold and impassive in the f lickering lights, “comes for all mortals. In the end, it will come for you as well.”
I made one last effort to get up, to keep living, though a part of me wondered why I would even resist. But it didn’t matter. I was so tired.
My head touched the cold f loor, darkness covered me like a soft, cool blanket and I felt the last breath escape my lips as my heart—finally and irreversibly—
stopped fighting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE FINAL SACRIFICE
Cold.
Everything was cold.
I was f lying down a dark tunnel, watching fragments of my life f lash before me, unable to stop. Riding with Meghan through the wyldwood. Watching Keirran and Glitch practice in the courtyard.
The birth of my son. Dancing with Meghan in the ball room. Our wedding…
Gasping, I bolted upright on a cold, hard f loor, my heart slamming against my ribs, panicked, loud and alive. Clutching my chest, I gazed around, not knowing where I was. Stone walls surrounded me, candles f lickering in the alcoves, casting everything in shadow. The tall hooded figure stood nearby, silently watching, and with a jolt, everything came f looding back.
The Testing Grounds. The trials. I had come here in the desperate need to earn a soul, to be with Meghan in the Iron Realm. I hunched forward, holding my head in my hands. I couldn’t think straight. My mind felt like a tangle of old string, trying to sort out what was real and what was imagined.
I could feel the cold stare of the Guardian, weighing me, watching what I would do.
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“Was it real?” My voice came out hoarse and raspy, unfamiliar to me.
“Was any of it real?”
The Guardian watched me, unmoving. “It could be.”
“Ash!”
Footsteps pounded toward me and Puck came into view. For a moment, I felt a stab of hatred as I gazed at my old nemesis, the memory of him and Meghan dancing and laughing together raging in my mind…but then I paused. That hadn’t happened. None of it had happened. My entire human life— my marriage, my wife and son—that was all an illusion.
“Dammit, ice-boy—” Puck panted as he jogged up. “We were looking everywhere for you. What happened? Did we miss the test? Is it done already?”
I gazed at him in disbelief. Seconds. Only a few seconds had passed, but to me, it had been a lifetime. Gingerly, I stood, drawing in a slow breath.
My leg was straight and healthy, my eyesight clear and undimmed.
When I looked at my hands, pale, smooth skin greeted my sight, when I’d become used to seeing wrinkles and age spots. I clenched my fist and felt the strength in my limbs,
“It is done,” the Guardian intoned. “The trials are complete. You have passed the gauntlet, knight of the Iron Court. You have seen what it takes to become human—weakness of the f lesh, conscience and mortality. Without these things, a soul would wither and die inside you.
You have come far, farther than anyone before you. But there is still one final question. One last thing you must ask yourself, before you are ready for a soul.
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“Do you truly want one?”
“What?” Puck, coming to stand beside me, glared at the Guardian.
“What kind of question is that? What do you think he’s been doing all this time, picking daisies? You couldn’t spring that question before you put him through hell?”
I groped for his shoulder, putting a hand on it to stop him. Puck bristled, angry and indignant, but I knew what the Guardian was asking. Before, I didn’t know what being human meant. I couldn’t understand. Not as I was.
I did now.
The Guardian didn’t move. “The Ensoulment Ceremony begins at dawn. Once started, it cannot be stopped. I offer you this one final choice, knight.