The Goblin King (29 page)

He drew in a breath of tasteless air. This was a moment to savor.

Elryion stepped back. Blood welled from the scratches on his wrist. “What magic is this?”

“No magic.” The sword was light in his hand. He was within striking distance. One well-placed slice would kill him fast. A dozen well-placed cuts would kill him slow. There were still important decisions to make before the druid died.

Elryion tensed, his face turned red, but no magic came to his aid. “You break the old laws if you kill me.”

The laws the druid clung to had died out hundreds of years ago along with the rest of the British tribes. Once he had feared breaking the old rules, believing shedding druid blood would only damn them further. Now he was beyond caring. “I would be a free criminal over a cursed goblin any day of the week.” He flicked the sword.

“Your soul will never find peace.”

“What other damnation could be wrought on me?” He leveled the sword at Elryion’s chest. The blade would slip smoothly past the ribs and rip through the druid’s heart—assuming he still had one.

“Free me, damn yourself.” Elryion dropped his hands to his side. He gazed calmly at Roan, a smile on his thin lips. “My death will achieve nothing.”

The sword didn’t move. Calm flowed through Roan.

“I’ll take the chance.” Roan thrust the sword, knowing the death of the last druid would forever stain his hands.

Elryion twitched. Disbelief stretched his features. He looked down at the sword impaling his body.

“How does it feel having your heart filled with cold metal? An undeserved fate delivering your death?” Roan pulled his sword free. Elryion’s flesh sucked at the blade as if reluctant to release the weapon. “I have lived for this moment.”

“Then you have wasted your life.” Scarlet bubbles colored Elryion’s lips.

“You denied me my life.” Everything he should’ve done, should’ve been, had passed him by. A future was all he hoped for.

Elryion’s legs buckled. Blood splashed onto the gray dust. “I protected our people.”

“You damned us all. Every Decangli who died because of Rome is your responsibility.” Every one of his people that he was ordered to kill at the command of the Roman general was because of Elryion. Roan grabbed the white robes. His sword fell to the ground and lay naked in the dust. “You cursed the wrong man. I would have protected us. We could’ve fought back and won.”

Breath ceased to move the body of the druid. Roan let the corpse fall from his hand. It bounced softly in the dust.

“It’s over.”

Blood spilled from the wound. The dirt drank its fill until the ground was sodden and seemed to bleed in sympathy over such a heinous crime. The cold ache in his chest increased. He placed a hand over his heart. No beat stirred his blood. He closed his eyes and sank to his knees. The one death that should’ve meant something failed to stir even the smallest response.

“It’s over.” He thumped his fist against his chest as if to kick-start the reluctant muscle. But he knew his heart wouldn’t respond. It was still cast in gold. He was still trapped and his soul was sliding through his fingers.

The sweet darkness of a whispered promise offered no more fighting. All he had to do was let go. Let go and he could be reborn as a goblin. He ignored the star that marred the endless night and reached out into the darkness, but what looked like velvet cut like razors. Roan pulled his hand back. There would be no peace in giving up, only an eternity of denied fulfillment. A craving never satisfied. The only desire he had was to feel Eliza’s skin beneath his fingertips one more time. Let her warmth encase him and her smile free him. The white star bloomed like a supernova on the horizon so bright he had to open his eyes to escape the glare.

The body of the last druid lay sullen in the dirt. If the gods still cared, they might forgive him. If they didn’t, he no longer cared. His fight was over. There was only one way left to avoid fading. Roan picked up his sword and wiped the blade clean on the edge of Elryion’s robe. Then he stood and sheathed the blade. Never had a death achieved so little.

“May you drink in the Hall of the Gods.” He took a handful of dirt. “I doubt there’ll be a place for me.” Roan threw the gray dust over the corpse in a token burial. He refused to use the magic that would damn him to burn the man who had tried.

He would have the last victory.

He would die when he was ready.

He would love Eliza one last time.

Then it would be over.

Roan turned his back and fell into the Fixed Realm. He didn’t see the pale green shoots that peeked out from the gray dust, marking where he had knelt. And he didn’t see them die when he left.

Chapter 17

The shadows bent to his will as Roan moved between the realms on a whim. His heart remained silent, a fist of gold that wouldn’t melt. Stepping into the bedroom where Dai and Eliza waited took more courage than facing an entire Roman legion.

The beads in his hair whispered his failings in his ear. His queen and brother turned. They may not be able to see him, but they knew he was there, wrecking the dream and bringing despair. Their desperate hope was etched on their faces. The unanswered questions that pulled their lips tore at his innards with wounds that would never heal. He had failed.

Roan released the shadows. He would be seen while he faced the jury. He would tell the truth and pay the penalty.

Dai severed the silence. Their language was twisted by the rasping goblin voice. “What happened?”

The words bled out, smothering the dream of life after curse. How could he tell his brother it was over? That Elryion had spoken the truth. His death had only bought their death.

Roan looked at Eliza. She had risked her life to help and he could never repay her. He spoke in English because she deserved to know, even if she didn’t want to believe.

“Elryion is dead.” The sweet metallic scent of sacred druid blood clung to his sword, his skin, his soul.

Neither moved. His announcement had turned Eliza and Dai to stone. But he knew what they were thinking. They knew what it meant. The choice was very simple—fade or die. Goblin or suicide. He wanted a third option. Any third option would do. He had a cavern full of gold and still he couldn’t buy the correct answer.

“But nothing happened.” Eliza’s forehead creased. “You’re still—”

“When?” Dai cut her off.

Roan closed his eyes and took a breath.

When? When was a good time to die? Today? Tonight? Next week? A year from now? When would he be ready to leave Eliza? He would fade before he was ready.

Roan gave Dai a pointed look. “I would spend some time with Eliza first.”

Dai nodded. His wide, yellow eyes still understood the human need to say good-bye. Shadows engulfed him as he withdrew to the Shadowlands. Then Roan was alone with Eliza.

She slid off the bed, dressed for sleep but wide awake. “What now?”

Roan stood his ground even though he wanted to retreat into the shadows and hide his face from his queen.

“Nothing.” His fingers reached out. He touched the tangled strands of her hair. It was softer than silk against his skin. He was caught in a web of broken dreams and desire.

She shook her head. He let his hand drop. His skin craved her warmth, the softness of her body, the sigh of her breath against his ear.

“There can be no tomorrow, Eliza. It’s over.”

“It can’t be over.” She gripped his hand as if she could stop him from leaving “There has to be a way.”

He flinched but didn’t pull away. He couldn’t pull away from the person who had held his gray hand and not recoiled in fear. The heat from her skin seeped through his flesh, searing deep. But it still couldn’t soften his heart.

“I don’t have the time left to keep looking.” He touched her cheek. “I don’t want to quit. But the alternative is worse. The goblin I become won’t be me.” No matter how hard he tried to believe otherwise, none of the goblins he’d studied had held onto even a glimmer of humanity.

“How long?” She gazed up at him. The gold in her eyes shimmered.

“Not long.” The darkness was breathing down the back of his neck, so close he could feel the tips of its jagged teeth. So he looked forward, only to be blinded by the bright star that now blotted his familiar darkness. If he reached for the star, he would burn or fall. “I can’t take you with me to the Shadowlands. It’s too risky.”

His home was besieged. His universe was imploding and all he could do was watch the shock waves spread, hurting everyone they touched. Chaos everywhere he looked.

She pressed her lips together. If he were a man, she wouldn’t have hesitated to place her mouth to his. If he were a man, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take her on the bed.

“Eliza…” Roan leaned in. His lips touched her hair, not her skin, not like this. Not in this gray, ugly body. He inhaled her scent. Fresh, female, flowers. All things he missed in the Shadowlands. Would they haunt him in death?

“I will go back to sleep. We can be together.” She fisted both her hands around his.

Her grip crushed his swollen knuckles. He knew what she was asking. He should refuse to meet her in the Summerland, but he couldn’t. He wanted to spend every last second he could eke out of his soul with her as a man, not a goblin.

“You have a life.” One he couldn’t be part of. “You cannot live in a dream, waiting for me.”

She spoke in a whisper, begging him to stay. “Please. Don’t leave, yet. I know…I understand what you have to do. I just…I’m not ready to say good-bye.”

Roan wrapped his arm around her. The cold of his metal heart spread, taking over all space in his chest. “Neither am I.” The truth didn’t set him free. It caught in his throat like a burr. “I will come tonight.”

To keep his promise, there would be no more use of magic for anything other than moving between realms. An instinct he would have to fight or wear the black diamond ring that weighed down his pocket waiting to be used.

He kissed the top of her head and let the shadows swallow him. Cutting out his heart would have been less painful. It didn’t beat. It served no purpose except to remind him of what he wasn’t, and what he would never be again.

A man.

Roan’s sigh filled the glittering cavern. He felt every one of his one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one years as he sat on an iron-bound chest filled with Spanish gold. He had thought he’d get one more birthday, but now he wouldn’t even be able to last the couple of weeks to Dai’s. Around him the rock rumbled as it gave into the greedy hands of the attacking Hoard. They would break in and steal his gold. And he should give a damn, yet all he could think about was the queen he’d left in the Fixed Realm.

In his fingers he worked a dread, rolling the clump of hair. He’d spent many hours creating and then maintaining the headful of bead-dressed snakes. He’d always had time to waste. His fingers smoothed over a bead. Gold. The geometric pattern carved into its surface once had offered comfort. A reminder of the hard won control. A reward for disobedience. A show of wealth.

Worthless.

His life amounted to a pile of gold that no one would ever see. Gold was nothing but a shiny yellow metal. Too soft to be a weapon. Too cheap to purchase a soul.

The rock walls were coated in its sickly sheen. But in here Eliza had glistened, her skin had been damp with sweat, and the gold in her hazel eyes was brighter than any coin he had claimed. He sighed. If he’d never taken her as queen, death would have been a welcome reprieve and not a cowardly escape.

“Where’s your queen?” Dai leaned in the hole in the wall. His gaze roamed over the piles of coins and death masks of leaders long dead. Their memory was cast in gold like they could buy immortality with a shell that bore their likeness.

He watched as his brother became mesmerized, his eyes changing from blue to yellow. The curse finally showed its strength in the one he had thought immune. And it had moved quickly once it had caught him, dragging Dai into its viselike grip. The black diamond didn’t return what had already been lost. It only slowed the gradual digestion of the soul. Of all the men who’d passed, watching his brother fade was the hardest.

Roan stood. “I can’t bring her if I can’t guarantee her return.”

They needed to leave this place before Dai lost his battle. He wasn’t sure he had the fight left to kill his brother. Dai was all that remained of his family, his people, his kingdom.

He put his arm around Dai’s shoulders and drew his brother from the cavern. Dai followed without fight. His eyes returned to blue away from the golden lure. Magic tingled in the ends of Roan’s fingers and ran cool in his blood. He could seal the cavern to prevent Dai from staring at the gold, but he would pay a pointless price and they would both fade.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t lie with her again.” Dai shrugged off Roan’s arm.

Roan shook his head. He wished he could believe his brother’s words, but they were too close to goblin for them to be real. “No you’re not. How long until you would have challenged me and tried to take her?”

Dai rubbed his hand over his chin. “Sooner rather than later. You’ve fought this battle for centuries. But I am falling fast. Without the diamond I would be gone already.”