The knight choked and dropped his sword, clutching his middle as he staggered back, the sudden stench of burned flesh rising on the breeze. Face tight with fury and pain, the knight turned and vanished into the crowd, and I breathed a ragged sigh.
Shaking with adrenaline, I looked around for Ash and saw him leveling his sword at the throat of a kneeling Faolan. The other knights sprawled nearby, groaning.
“Are we done here?” Ash said softly, and Faolan, eyes blazing with hate, nodded. Ash let him up, and the knights limped off, to the jeers and taunts of the Winter fey.
Sheathing his sword, Ash turned to me. I was still shaking with adrenaline, replaying every moment of the fight in my head. It didn’t seem quite real, like it happened to someone else, but the thrill coursing through my veins said different.
“Did you see that?” I grinned at Ash, my voice trembling with excitement and nerves. “I did it. I actually won!”
“Indeed,” mused a familiar, terrifying voice, one that turned my blood to ice and made the hairs on my neck stand up. “It was quite amusing. I do believe I’m going to need some new guards, if they can’t even defeat one scrawny half-blood.”
It’s amazing how quickly a bloodthirsty mob can clear out, but the Queen of the Winter Fey had that effect on people. In seconds, the crowd had fled, fading back into the camp until it was just me and Ash in the middle of the path. The temperature dropped sharply, and frost spread over the blades of grass at our feet, which could mean only one thing. A few yards away, flanked by two unsmiling knights, Queen Mab watched us with the stillness of a glacier.
As usual, the Winter Queen was stunning in a long battlegown of black and red, her ebony hair a dark cloud behind her. I shivered and pressed closer to Ash as she raised one pure-white hand and beckoned us forward. The Unseelie monarch was as unpredictably dangerous as she was beautiful, prone to trapping living creatures in ice or freezing the blood in their veins, making them die slowly and in agony. I’d already felt the brunt of her legendary temper, and I had no desire to do so again.
“Ash,” Mab crooned, paying no attention to me. “I heard the rumors that you were back. Have you had enough of the mortal world yet? Are you ready to come home?”
Ash’s face was shut into that blank, empty mask, his eyes cold and expressionless. A self-defense mechanism, I recognized, to shield himself from the cruelty of the Winter Court. The Unseelie preyed on the weak, and emotions were considered a weakness here. “No, my Queen,” he said, quiet but unafraid. “I’m no longer yours to command. My service to the Winter Court ended last night.”
Silence for a few heartbeats.
“You.” Mab’s depthless black eyes shifted to me, then back to Ash. “You became her knight, didn’t you? You swore the oath.” She shook her head in disbelief and horror. “Foolish, foolish boy,” she whispered. “You are truly dead to me now.”
Fearing she might turn and walk away, I eased forward. “You’ll still lift his exile, though, won’t you?” I asked, and Mab’s gaze snapped to me. “When this is over, when we take care of the false king, Ash is still free to return to the Nevernever, right?”
“He won’t,” Mab said in a lethally calm voice, and goose bumps rose on my arms from the sudden chill. “Even if I raise his exile, he’ll stay in the mortal realm with you, because you were foolish enough to ask for that oath. You’ve damned him far worse than I ever could.”
My stomach twisted, but I took a deep breath and continued to speak firmly. “I still want your word, Queen Mab. Please. When this is done, Ash is free to return to Tir Na Nog if he chooses to.”
Mab stared at me, long enough for sweat to trickle down my back, then gave us both a cold, humorless smile. “Why not? You are both going to die anyway, so I don’t see how it will matter.” She sighed. “Very well, Meghan Chase. Ash is free to return home if he wants, though he said it himself—his service to the Unseelie Court is done. His oath to you will destroy him faster than anything else.”
And without waiting for a reply, the Unseelie Queen whirled and stalked away from us. Though I couldn’t see her face as she left, I was almost sure she was crying.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FAERY WAR COUNCIL
A swollen crimson moon hovered over the camp that night, rust-red and ominous, bathing everything in an eerie, bloody tint. Snow flecks drifted from a nearly clear sky, rusty flakes dancing on the wind, like the moon itself was tainted and corroding away.
I left my tent, which was small and musty and lacked an illusionary forest clearing, to find Ash and Puck waiting for me on the other side of the flaps. The eerie red light outlined their sharp, angular features, making them seem more inhuman than before, their eyes glowing in the shadows. Behind them, the camp was quiet; nothing moved beneath the harsh red moon, and the city of tents resembled a ghost town.
“They’ve called for you,” Ash said solemnly.