The Goblin King (22 page)

Eliza pushed her hair back off her face. She’d cut it a little too short. It wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears. “How does magic stop—”

“Ever stood in a rain of bullets? Fought an army of skeletons wielding battle axes? How do you fight ghosts who look like family that died a thousand years before but now seek your blood on their weapons?” Dai lifted his cup in salute. “Magic.”

He took a swig of wine. “And every time Roan uses magic he pays with his soul. Much easier for the druid to chip away like a coward than face a warrior like a man.”

Yet, Roan used magic without a thought. Sacrificing himself to protect her with a ring. How much of his soul had he used to make her ring? “Will the diamond stop you from becoming—”

“Goblin.” He twirled the goblet in his fingers. The gold tossed sunspots over the walls. “Not if Roan fades. We’d thought…” He shook his head and drank deeply. “We thought that you coming willingly could break the curse.” He slammed the goblet down with too much force. It bounced and tipped on its side, then rolled spilling the last trickle of red wine.

Eliza jumped. The wine glistened on the table like fresh, blood-filled blisters. Bursting a blister led to infection, but she took the risk.

“I thought it would too.” If breaking the curse was as easy as wishing it, then it would’ve been broken a hundred times over every day she’d known Roan.

“Why do you care?” Dai flicked the goblet back onto its base and refilled it.

He drank as if he was breathing. The gold framed glasses suited him, but he wore them as goblin treasure. Her gold earring hung from his ear. Dai had given up. He was hoarding treasure ready for when he faded. The pendant only prolonged the inevitable.

The temperature in the caves plummeted and she burned as if ice pressed its bitter lips to her skin. “Because there are too few good men.”

“None of us have been
good men
in a very long time. Wake up and smell the rot.” He waved his hand toward the food.

The food that had been edible what seemed like moments ago was discolored with mold. In the meat, maggots writhed. Eliza clamped her hand over her mouth in an effort to keep her stomach in place. It tumbled trying to throw out the small amount she’d eaten. She turned her head away and drew in several deep breaths in an attempt to quell the rising nausea. She was sure she could feel the cold bodies of the maggots in her stomach. Eating her from the inside.

Dai smiled and took a drink. “What you’ve eaten is fine. The Shadowlands claims what is left. Quick and the dead.”

“Would you rather I was dead?” She kept her eyes averted from the decomposing food. She didn’t want to know what happened to the food next.

He pressed his lips together and thought.

The pause was enough. Short answer, yes. Dai would prefer it if she were dead.

“No. But every action has a price. Your presence denies Roan death. If he were only gambling with his life, I wouldn’t care. What a man decides is his own business.” Dai pointed with his goblet. He’d judged and found her guilty of offering life. “He will risk fading for one more second with you.”

One more second with her. Eliza snorted. “I can tell by the way he vanished and left me here.”

“What did you say to him?”

This wasn’t her fault. Roan’s brother didn’t have the right to question her. She wasn’t on trial. “Didn’t you overhear?”

Dai blinked. The glaze over his eyes loosened for a moment so she could see the intelligence that had once been applied to breaking the curse. Now he wallowed waist deep in wine, waiting for the end. Both brothers were trying to face death while still holding out for a cure. But each shattered hope cut deep, making a wound that wouldn’t be given time to heal.

Eliza softened. How would she deal with an unwanted fate? By hiding in the Shadowlands. “I said I can’t stay here. I need to live in both worlds.”

Except she hadn’t said it exactly like that. Maybe if she had, Roan would have understood. He didn’t have enough soul to keep lashing out and releasing his hurt.

“As queen you have to remain. You are another possession.” Dai ran one finger over the rim of the empty spectacle frame as if he was thinking. “Modern life makes kidnapping so much harder.”

Eliza sat up a little straighter.

Dai laughed. “A goblin joke. You were his first kidnap.” He raised his drink. “And his first queen. Just another sign how close he is to the edge.”

“What do you mean?” Roan had said he had days. Did he have less time? However long he had, he was wasting time by running away. Surely they could talk, make love, and laugh…she remembered the grating laugh as he left…maybe not laugh. They could steal time and make it stop just for them.

“Goblin Kings always steal a queen. A woman captured over the solstice.”

He waited for the words to sink in past the barrier of her skin and deep into her body. Her heart slowed until she could feel the squeeze of the muscle as it pushed her unwilling blood onward. She had come to Roan on the longest night of the year. Samhain might be the night of the dead, but winter solstice belonged to the goblins.

Dai placed his cup down and leaned on the table. “Perfect, isn’t it?”

“He could have taken any woman.” Her voice was quiet and shaky.

He shook his head. Long black hair slipped over his shoulders. “You don’t understand what you tamper with. Kidnapping and rape would have completed the curse. No other woman would do. You were willing.”

It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with what Roan was. He wanted a queen that wouldn’t cost him his humanity. And she was desperate enough to fall into his hands. She slumped back into the chair. It supported her body but not her spirit, which slipped through the wood and lay on the floor, waiting to be reconnected with life. Her skin resisted and argued. It remembered and trembled under the imagined touch of his hands. The summer heat of his eyes that had burned through her, searching for something, but not knowing what it would be if he found it. Did she believe the man, or the goblin?

“What happens to the human queens?” She wasn’t sure she had the stomach to know, but she had to ask. If the curse won, she would become one of those women.

“That depends. The lucky ones succumb to the Shadowlands magic, surrender their souls, and fade.” Dai refilled his goblet.

Eliza’s fingers curled as she resisted the urge to snatch it from him and make him sober up. “And the unlucky ones?”

“If they are captured by a rival troop, they are eaten.” He pulled one of the knives that decorated his armor out and stabbed the table. “They don’t kill their food first.”

Her throat closed. Roan had made a comment about goblins sending her bones back. She’d thought it a threat, not the truth.

“And those that aren’t captured find out how long the human body can last in the Shadowlands at the mercy of their king, before they get the relief of death.”

As a goblin, Roan was all anger and raw power. There would be no gentle touch or kind word. The hands that touched her would be cold and gray. She squeezed her eyes shut as she tried not to think about the night he’d revealed himself to her, his body pressed against her, his yellow eyes glowing in the shadows.

“He promised to take me home before he fades.”

“Bit hard when he’s not here.” Dai pulled the knife out of the table. He ran the tip along the table, lifting a curl of wood.

“Roan will come back.” She said it to convince herself as much as Dai.

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s easier to face death alone.” Dai flung the knife at the wall. It quivered, stuck in the rock between two of the swords hung for the dead.

“You mean to keep the vow.”

“I have no wish to be goblin.” He thumbed the hilt of another knife.

She couldn’t give up on Roan. If she did, she was giving up on a life she’d only dared to dream. “There must be a way—”

“What do you think we have done for close to two thousand years? I have trawled through forgotten tombs for forgotten texts written in forgotten languages.” Dai pulled the knife free of the rock and returned it to his vest. “Roan visited magicians, wise women, religious leaders, hermits, gurus. Nothing. The magic the druid used is forgotten.”

Eliza understood why Dai had given up. He’d failed. It had been his responsibility to find a cure. Now they were truly at the end of the line. If Roan fought the druid and didn’t kill him, Roan would fade, dragging Dai along for the ride.

Sadness bubbled up and drowned the hope she’d been clutching. “There’s really no solution.”

“No.” Dai removed his necklace. He dropped it into a black bag and tucked it into a pocket. “I will take you home.” He held out his hand.

“I thought I had to stay here since I’m queen?” Eliza slid off the chair, placing it between them. Dai had already admitted he would rather she not be here, involved with Roan.

“I doubt he has the heart to take you back.”

Roan had no heart, it was gold. “Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t. I’m more goblin than man.” His eyes blinked yellow then blue so fast she could have imagined the change.

“I’ll wait here for Roan.”

Dai looked at the ceiling and sighed. “After everything I’ve said.” He gritted his teeth. “You aren’t safe here alone. Elryion would use you to kill Roan. The Hoard creeps around in the dust looking for tasty human. And every breath you take is one closer to corruption. The longer you spend here the more you become part of the Shadowlands.”

Eliza glanced at her hands. She could fade by just being here? She looked back at Dai, if he wasn’t staying here with her…“Where are you going?”

“To find Roan.”

She jumped like an overeager puppy being taken for a walk. “I’ll come.”

Dai shook his head. “He’ll find you when he’s ready.”

Her toes gripped the inside of her shoes. They both knew that may never happen. She wanted to wait for Roan, needed to see him again before he was lost to her forever. But the price required, remaining trapped in the Shadowlands on a chance, was too high.

“Swear you’ll take me home.”

Dai placed his hand on his sword. “On my life. Besides, I can’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go while you wear his ring.”

Eliza glanced at the ring; as beautiful as it was, the intent was as black as the diamond in its heart. She was Roan’s until the end.

“I’ll wait for him in the Fixed Realm.” She clasped Dai’s offered hand and hoped he was telling the truth. The candles blurred, and she blinked clearing the tears. “Tell him I’d like to say good-bye.”

“I can’t make promises for a king.”

***

Roan stretched out his legs. A black spider danced past, away from the intruder who’d ripped through its silk interior decorating. The tree house had been vacant for years. It sighed around him, longing for the laughter of children to call out from its windows. He was a poor substitute.

Through the window he watched the house. The lights remained on, but the man no longer flickered against the blinds. He slept. If Roan reached out, he would be able to snag the edge of the dream and twist until it broke. Roan forced out a breath. This time he let Steve sleep.

With a yellow nail he flicked a red-backed spider away. His gray fingers were more like spider legs than a man’s hand. It was a body he hated, yet he expected Eliza to overlook the disfigurement. She wanted a real man, not a part-time, damned man. He couldn’t live up to her expectation. He’d been set up to fail before they first met.

And he would fail her a hundred times over and still not be able to walk away and let her be. And she would call him back. And he would come, caught by the promise that maybe if the stars aligned, or fell from the sky, the curse would break.

He drew his sword. The blade was still and black in the dark. Untarnished by time, or stained by use, it had been at his side for most of the curse. No doubt it would go on without him. Slashing, cutting, biting into flesh. Never his. A bullet was faster, surer. He wanted the end to be clean.

His fingers traced the length of the blade. She would be chatting to Dai. He would be telling tall tales of ancient tombs and hidden treasure, making them come alive in the dust to entertain. But she would sigh and wonder where he was and when she could come home. Eliza was right. Keeping her in the Shadowlands would ruin her real life. This was where Eliza deserved to live. Her home. Her world.

The idea of leaving her with Steve, her fiancé, turned his stomach worse than the stink of death after battle. As men they both had one thing in common.

Eliza.

Steve feared losing Eliza, too vain to realize that he’d lost her a long time ago. She was too scared of him to leave because of a few pieces of paper he kept hidden. Steve’s fears had revealed the usual obsessions of a man concerned only with appearance. His fear of being exposed as a fraud, of being laughed at. Losing Eliza was down the list.

The man was a fool.

Roan lifted the sword and rolled his wrist. The motion was fluid, pure muscle memory with no thought. With a nick, not even a full cut, he could free Eliza from whatever web Steve had built. Her wish was simple.