Yes, I suck for not updating in so long. I'm sorry - please forgive me. I'm trying to juggle real life and four stories. I hope this chapter will make it up to you.

Page 280-288 of Ironside: The Completion of the Impossible Quest

Enjoy!

Rath Roiben Rye was talking to a fey woman, an exile of the Seelie Court. She was slim as a wand, her black hair knotted into a flamboyant jeweled cloak that matched her tail, also cloaked in jewels.

He leaned forward to hear what she was saying as she gestured wildly. "My sisters and I are extremely strong, a very good asset to your side. Offer us a high position in your court and we may agree to join you."

He spoke calmly. "I do not think you are in a position to be making bargains. You and your sisters are exiled fey. You are under no court's protection, and you are forced to live in the iron stink of the city as it slowly kills you. I am offering you another option. You would be wise to take it."

"Our post in the Seelie Court was very high – we do not wish to be demoted in your Court. Keep in mind you are asking us to fight our Queen. It is not an easy decision for us – you must make it worth our while."

He resisted the urge to snort, knowing she was just bluffing to negotiate – they had no love for the Bright Lady. Quite the contrary. "The same Queen that exiled you and forced you into the city. Do not try and negotiate with me to feed your thirst for power. We both know that you should take my proposition with pleasure. This is your last chance. I will not offer again."

"And if we do not agree?"

He looked at her impassively. "You will hurt only yourselves – this deal benefits you more than it does me. The Unseelie Court already has many supporters among the exiled fey."

Her shoulders slumped as she admitted defeat. "You have bested me, Lord Roiben. I agree to your bargain. I pledge myself and my sisters to you as servants of the Unseelie Court. We will aid you in your battle against Silarial."

He shot her a quick grin in victory. "I knew you'd see my side."

She did not reply as he dismissed her with a wave of his hand, but her expression told him that she did not appreciate being told what to do.

He grinned. Well, there was nothing she could do about it.

He turned suddenly and took in the creatures that had gathered for the duel. He wondered, for the millionth time, what could have possessed Silarial to offer him this duel. To accept his terms so easily, she must have some trick up her sleeve. But he could not for the life of him figure out what it was.

He turned back to Ellebere to give him last minute instructions about the battle and the exiled fey, when something half-fell in front of him. Something green with black eyes. Kaye.

He looked down at her, crouched in the dirt as she tried to recover from her fall. "You," he said. His voice sounded detached and devoid of emotion, when he was anything but. Feelings swirled through him suddenly and violently at the sight of her, all of them conflicting.

He was glad to see her, relieved that she was fine, worried about her and what she was doing in the midst of all the danger, and angry at her – how dare she show her face after what she had done to Ethine?

Eventually, the latter won out over all the others.

Ellebere grabbed Kaye's wrists and wrenched them roughly behind her back. He saw her wince, but said nothing. "This is no place for a pixie," Ellebere declared, looking down at Kaye with distaste.

Ruddles pointed towards her with one gnarled hand. "To stand before our Lord and King, you must have completed your quest. If not, custom allows us to rend you –"

"I don't care what custom dictates," Roiben declared, waving off the chamberlain. He knew as well as anyone what they wanted to do – they wanted to kill her. But he would not allow that. He told himself it was because he had to ask about Ethine, but a part of him knew he still felt for her. He was almost afraid of the power she held over him, even now, after everything that had happened.

"Where is my sister?"

"Silarial's got her," Kaye said, her words pouring out in a rush. "Ethine's what I came to talk to you about."

He was not appeased, glaring at her. She shrank back from his gaze, and he noted a hint of fear in her eyes. It filled him with a strange smugness as well as sadness. A part of him wanted her to be afraid of him - and the other wanted her to trust him unequivocally as she had before.

"My Lord," Ruddles piped up again. "Though I would not choose to contradict you, she may not remain in your presence. She has not completed the quest you bestowed on her."

"I said leave her!" His words came out in a shout.

Kaye spoke again. "I can lie." She looked nervous, but she said the words with conviction. "I am the faery that can lie."

A hush fell over those who were assembled as her words sank in. They looked to each other and back to Kaye in astonishment. She shouldn't even have been able to utter those wrods in the first place.

"That's nonsense." The words came from Ruddles. "Prove it."

"Are you saying I can't?"

"No faery can tell an untruth."

"So," she exhaled, her breath rushing out. "If I say I can lie and you say I can't, then one of us must be telling an untruth, right? So either I am a faery that can lie, or you are. Either way, I have completed my quest."

"That reeks of a riddle, but I see no fault."

A choked sound left Roiben's lips, a cross between a laugh and a sob.

She had done it. She had completed the impossible quest. She was his now, just as he was hers. They were consorts, now until the time of their deaths. Everything he had done to protect her, everything he had put her through, put himself through, was in vain.

His mind tried to sort through the whirlwind if thoughts that hit him, but only one stood out as he looked down at her.

He realized he still loved her. He had never stopped loving her. Not really. Yes, he was mad about the fact that she threatened his sister, but a part of him understood that she was trying to protect people she loved. He realized that he had used the Ethine issue as a front – something to be mad at her about so he wouldn't feel as guilty about giving her an impossible quest.

Or not-so-impossible, it would seem.

"Clever." Ruddles gave her a toothy grin but patted her on the back. "We accept your answer with pleasure."

Roiben's voice was soft as he spoke again. "I suppose you have succeeded, Kaye. From this moment, your fate is tied to the Unseelie Court." He internally cringed at the words. "Until the time of my death, you are my consort."

"Tell them to let me go." Her voice had a hollow quality to it, and he could see she was not happy or excited about her victory.

"Since you're my consort now, you may tell them yourself." He could not meet her eyes as he said the words. My consort. "They ought not to deny you now."

Ellebere did not need any prompting to drop Kaye's arms. She turned to him and Ruddles. "Go." Her voice broke on the word.

They looked to him, waiting for his nod before obeying.

"Why have you come here?"

She looked desperate for a moment, as if she wanted to say something very badly. "Look at me. Why won't you look at me?"

"The sight of you is a torment." He raised his eyes and looked at her in time to see the hurt flit across her face. "I thought if I kept you out of this war, it would be the same as keeping you safe. But there you were, in the middle of the Seelie Court as if to prove me a fool. And here you are again, courting danger. I only wanted to save one thing, just one thing, to prove there was some good in me after all."

And she was the good in his life. She made everything happier and less somber. She proved that he was capable of loving, of being loved, of being trusted. And he wanted to live up to her trust.

"I'm not a thing," she told him with a hint of petulance in her tone.

He closed his eyes, covering them with a cold hand. "Yes. Of course. I shouldn't have said that." She wasn't an object, a prize to be won and displayed. She was a person, a girl to be loved and protected and cherished.

She took his hands in her small, callused warm ones. He kept them limp, letting her pull them away from his face.

"What are you doing to yourself? What's going on?" There was desperation in her tone once again.

"When I became King of the Unseelie Court, I thought we could not win the war. I thought that I would fight and I would die. There is a kind of mad glee in accepting death as an inevitable cause."

"Why? Why bind yourself to such a miserable fate? Why not just say 'screw this, I'm going to make birdhouses,' or something?"

Another time, he may have laughed at her human words, but not today.

"To kill Silarial." He felt a kind of demented happiness at the mere thought. "If she isn't stopped, no one will be safe from her cruelty." He took this opportunity to explain the kiss that she had seen, to set things right with her. "It was so hard not to crush her neck when I kissed her. Could you tell it from my face, Kaye? Did you see my hand tremble?"

She looked shocked. "Then why did you kiss –"

"Because they're my people." He swept a hand over the expanse in front of him, taking in the creatures. "I want to save them. I needed her to believe I was in her power so she might agree to my terms." A feeling of dread crept up his spine as he thought about how she would have taken it. "I know it must have seemed–"

"Stop," she commanded, not letting him finish. "I came here to tell you something. Something I figured out about the battle."

He raised a brow, wondering what it could be. Could she have figured out Silarial's trick, her secret weapon? He knew that if Kaye was here to tell, it was probably true. She had been right countless times before. He prayed that this time was no exception. "What is it?"

"Silarial's going to choose Ethine as her champion."

He laughed, but the sound came out as a sob, short and terrible.

He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before – it was typical Silarial. It fit her personality perfectly, to make her choose between killing his sister or letting himself be killed. No wonder she had been so anxious after Kaye had threatened Ethine. She needed her for the plan to work. He should have known – Silarial cared for no one but herself.

"Call off the duel. Find some excuse. Don't fight."

"I wondered what terrible thing she might set against me, what monster, what magic? I forgot how clever she is," he murmured, more to himself than her.

"You don't have to fight Ethine."

He shook his head. "You don't understand. Far too much is at stake tonight." His mind was made up. He knew what he was going to do.

"What are you going to do?" she asked sharply, as if she was reading his mind.

"I'm going to win. And you would do me a great service if you told Silarial I said so." Let her know her tricks will not work this time.

He shouldered his scabbard. "I think it's time you went, Kaye." He paused for the smallest moment before continuing. "I won't ask you to forgive me, because I don't deserve it. But I did love you." He looked down. Who was he trying to fool? "I do love you."

"Then stop doing this. Stop not telling me shit. I don't care if it's for my own good or whatever stupid reason –"

"I am telling you shit." She laughed suddenly, presumably at the sound of him cursing, especially when his diction was usually so formal and respectful. He gave a small smile back, understanding what was funny.

The smile stayed on his face as he reached out to touch her face. He stopped himself at the last moment, afraid to touch her for fear she would disappear, turning out to be an illusion, a mirage, a trick of his mind. And even if she was somehow real, he didn't want to touch her, to give himself hope of ever being with her again. Not everything could go well tonight. He would try his best, but he did not know what would happen. He did not dare more than to trace her hairline, his fingers brushing the soft wisps of hair softly, never once coming to rest. She shivered under his hand, from the cold of his hands or his touch itself, he didn't know.

"If you really can lie," he said softly, "tell me this will end well tonight."

Please review (flames welcome).

Guys, how do you think I'm doing at capturing Roiben's personality? I'm trying to walk a fine line – keeping it canon while not just repeating the dialogue in the book, which would be really boring. Please give me your thoughts and suggestions. Thanks.

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