Goblin King

by Kara Barbieri

  The fate that this world would die.

  That Soren and I would cause it in our attempt to save it.

  That in some sick way, Lydian was doing what his twisted, ravaged mind thought was right. Not solely because he was a mad dog that needed to be put down—though that had always been a part of it—but that in some way, he had tried to save the world and that way happened to include terrible, horrible things.

  Then the nausea went away when I decided it didn’t matter. That I couldn’t dwell on it because I knew, knew, it would break me if I did. I would not let him break me.

  My eyes hardened in resolve and I straightened from the hunched form I’d found myself curling into without thinking. Lydian stopped his laughter, catching his breath, turning his head to the side quizzically, in a move that reminded me uncomfortably of his nephew.

  So, he could understand too, the look in my eyes.

  “Soren and I end the world, huh?” I said, voice steady.

  He gave a quick, sharp nod.

  “Well then, I’m assuming you’ll tell me you have the solution?” My voice betrayed no emotion, and I tried to focus on keeping my breath and heart rate down and steady.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “You think?” I let the acid dip from my words.

  “Before Ragnarök can begin in truth, Fimbulwinter must start.” I nodded along. Fimbulwinter. The winter that lasted three years. When I was a child, my father used to scare me with stories of Fimbulwinter. Three years of ice and cold where the sun never shown. All the animals and crops would die, which would make every creature from the smallest mouse to the largest draugr weak with hunger and exhausted and perfect for when Ragnarök and the soldiers of the dead did arrive three years later. Back as a child, I thought they were stories. But I’d lived in the Permafrost, spoken to gods, killed draugrs, and became a liminal being. I was far past believing anything was a children’s story. “For Fimbulwinter to start, Fjalar must cry three times. His voice will pierce the chains that keep the Naglafar from setting sail with the hosts of the dead.”

  The names were older than legends to me, but somehow so familiar. Fjalar, the giant bird whose cry was loud enough that it broke the chains on the dreaded Naglafar, the nail ship, built from the undead’s uncut finger and toenails, carrying the unholy, those not put to rest, those who did not earn a good afterlife, to be soldiers in the army of the dead.

  He wasn’t saying the plan outright, but I managed to follow along fine.

  “If we kill Fjalar before he can break the chains on the Naglafar, we can thwart Ragnarök,” I said, “and with any luck, the serpent will go back to sleep.”

  A smile danced on the edge of Lydian’s lips. Somehow it made him look even more sinister than when he was raving. “Smart girl, yes.” I bristled at the term girl, but not enough for him to stop speaking. “The one problem is, Fjalar is a liminal being. You can’t hunt and track something that’s there but not there.”

  “Not unless you’re led by something else there but not there,” I finished for him.

  The hints of a smile on Lydian’s face turned into an outright grin. I was the stag and forced a neutral expression.

  “You’re taking this rather well,” he said, curious eyes flitting toward my face.

  “Don’t mistake me, Lydian,” I said, an edge in my voice. “Nothing you did is forgiven, forgotten, excused, whatever adjective you want to think up. You’re not some hero who did a bad thing for a good reason. I’ve met my share of monsters and monster-like heroes to know the difference, and you are, always will be, a monster.” The icy tone in my voice made the air around us glimmer with ice crystals, and as I continued, they began to crack and freeze, almost like the water in the air was turning into a thin sheet of ice. “Nothing you did was for the greater good. Nothing you wrought was for the good of the realm, of the people, of anything. The hurt you’ve caused, the pain, the vile actions I won’t even name? None of that changes.”

  I took a step forward, and from beneath my feet, the once-grassy field cracked with ice. Like his nephew, Lydian was taller than me by at least two heads. But somehow in this space, I met his eyes plain as day, face-to-face, heights equal. It was only when the wind tickled my boots did I see the ice had lifted me into the air, holding me on the frozen crystals my power formed. “You’re useful now. Your usefulness doesn’t absolve your crimes. That’s all you are. A tool. And once you’ve finished out your usefulness…” I shrugged as my feet returned to the ground. “Well, you know what happens to broken tools.”

  Something was calling me from the back of my mind, a familiar voice I could barely make out. Suddenly, there was a sharp tug around my navel, like a band about to snap.

  “I suspect this is all we have time to speak about,” Lydian said. “I’m afraid even I won’t be coherent for much longer. Keeping composure for long … is hard. But it seems we have some sort of a deal.”

  “It seems we do,” I replied, letting out a bared-tooth smile that would make Soren proud.

  “Tell my nephew I said ‘hi.’”

  Snap. The world around me retracted until I was pulled backward out of the field and into the air, thrown through the cosmos, into the ground, through the rivers and waters, until I burst forth back into my body, drenched and gasping.

  Diaval was breathing heavily, her fingers still coated in blue static and her dark eyes glowing unnaturally bright. But other than that, the courtyard was completely silent. I waited semi-patiently as she caught her breath and her eyes returned to their normal dark blue. She gave me an apologetic look. “I kept you in there for maybe around twenty minutes. I’m sorry. I hope that was enough.”

  “It was enough, Diaval,” I said, bending down to take her hand and help her stand. She stumbled a little, but managed to keep her feet. “Thank you.”

  “What did you learn?” she asked, a hand on my shoulder as she continued to keep herself steady. I noticed without it, she was swaying slightly as if in an invisible breeze.

  I sighed. Out of all the people I could tell this information to first, Diaval would most likely be the least judgmental. Not to mention soon Soren would need to know, because if Lydian was right—then, well, we had to do something.

  It hadn’t hit the me side of me. I was still in stag mode, my emotions there but sort of dull, mute, cut off from me as if they were behind a thick fog or glass. Was this how it was for Soren all the time? I wasn’t sure. But the information hadn’t hit those emotions yet, the mantle of the stag clouded them, focused my mind on one thing only: my duty to the Permafrost.

  I told Diaval and watched her expression as it barely changed at all. Once or twice, she nodded to herself, but other than that, nothing. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign. Finally, she spoke. “This … complicates things,” she said.

  I snorted. “You think?”

  “Soren’s gonna pitch a fit.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. That was not going to go well, no matter how I managed it. “Thanks for the encouragement. I was going to tell him everything in the morning.”

  She hmmed before speaking again. “You seem strangely calm for all of this.”

  Nodding, I brushed off some nonexistent dust from my pants. “I’m compartmentalizing, I think. It’s like the stag half of my brain has taken over, it’s not allowing for emotions other than knowing this is fucked up but I have a duty to the world anyway. I’m sure as soon as the human half takes over, I’ll be a blubbering mess somewhere lost deep in my trauma.”

  The words came out sardonically, but they were close to the truth. I wasn’t entirely sure when this whole stag-focused mindset would wear off, but when it did, I knew I was going to be a wreck. I knew what I had to do, but that didn’t mean the human side of me liked it or could process it.

  Maybe the stag-focused side of me would manage to keep me from freaking every time Lydian was near me, but it couldn’t stop the disgust his presence pooled in me—toward both him and myself. I still woke up s
creaming from nightmares about Lydian. Maybe it was dumb, but I thought they’d go away once he was dead. That the flashbacks would fade now that he couldn’t hurt me. But that hadn’t happened. The mental wounds he created still bled, and the scar tissue was still rough and pulled painfully in my brain. Not to mention other dreams where my family gave me their accusing looks or even worse, dreams where none of this ever happened and I was normal. Despite all I had here, I didn’t want those dreams to end.

  Diaval stood beside me, hand hovering over my shoulder like she wasn’t sure whether the physical contact would comfort or trigger me. I nodded toward her, and she placed her warm, small hand on me. “If it helps, you’ll have me there as backup. And Seppo and Rosamund. When you tell him.”

  I shook my head, unease flittering in my chest like moths. “No, it’s already going to upset him that you all knew about Lydian before he did. I need to tell him alone. It’s the only way I can make him understand.”

  Midnight had long since passed, and I gazed toward the sky. It was still dark, though getting lighter to where the stars were harder to point out unless I really, really looked. Sooner or later, Soren would wake from his uncomfortable sleep in the chair to find me gone, and he would most likely panic because he was taking his role as concerned partner very seriously.

  It was funny, some people called him the Ice King, said that his heart was frozen, that he was brutal and without mercy. Of course, all of those things were good by goblin standards and essential for the Erlking. How many people knew that under all that ice was something sweet, like sugar, that under the harsh ruler was a kind and compassionate goblin.

  He would understand why I kept it a secret. He had to understand.

  * * *

  THERE WAS A candle lit when I entered the room again, and Soren sat by it, staring in the flames.

  “You know if you do that for too long, you’ll start to hallucinate,” I said.

  He stood, chair shooting backward. “I was trying to scry.”

  “Didn’t know you were into magic,” I said. “Should I tell Diaval?”

  “That’s who you were with, right?” he said. I nodded. “Thought so. I could smell her. She’s got a peculiar scent.”

  Scents. One of the many things I did not experience the same way Soren did, though I think I was lucky for that. I wouldn’t have wanted to pick everyone apart by a unique smell anyways. Soren smelled nice enough when we were together and he’d not recently been training, and that worked fine for me.

  “And no,” he continued. “I figured you’d gone off somewhere, and I was trying to see where you were. I know we’re technically supposed to be able to do that as the stag and Erlking, but no luck.”

  “If it helps, I can’t do it either. I’m a pretty big failure at this whole stag thing.”

  “Don’t say that,” Soren said with some anger to his tone. “You’re the first human to have the stag’s power, ever. Of course it’s going to be hard. Now, are you going to tell me about where you were, or am I going to have to beg?”

  I sighed, running a hand through my curls. I guessed sooner was better than later. “Sorry if I worried you.”

  “Apology accepted,” Soren said, sitting next to me on the sleeping platform. “I know you can take care of yourself. But I still worry. Especially lately. You’ve not … been yourself.”

  I took a deep breath and winced like I was inhaling ice shards. “About that,” I started. “Soren, I need to tell you something.”

  “I’m listening,” he said, lilac eyes on mine.

  Well, it was now or never. A stone dropped into my stomach as I started my story. “I’ve been hiding something from you. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I can’t make excuses for it, so I’m not going to try. But you’re right that in the beginning, it was nightmares. But a few months after I became the stag, I began … having visions. At first, it was fleeting, normal life things. But then they became about the end of the world. Then I started seeing him … hearing him, in my head.”

  Soren frowned, leaning forward. “Who?”

  I turned my head away, unable to keep his gaze. “Lydian. His shade spoke to me, appeared by me, taunted me, warned me.”

  Soren tightened one hand into a fist. “I didn’t think he’d even be able to, trapped where he was. I’ll burn his heart; he’ll disappear.” He began to stand, but I pulled him back down.

  “No!” I said with a bit too much force.

  He sat but looked at me oddly. “No?”

  “I talked to Donnar today. He told me a few things. Did … did your father ever mention that he could see the future?” Gods, this was going terribly.

  “Once or twice, just that it skipped my generation, why?”

  “Because it’s a family trait, but it doesn’t show up in everyone. It didn’t show up in Lydian. He was jealous of your father and his father and went into the svartelf caverns demanding the gift of the sight. Donnar was there. Lydian insulted him, and Donnar cursed him. He cursed him with knowing everything and never being able to fully tell others. Every breath of every creature, the life of every blade of grass, drop of water, every person who was or ever had been. It drove him mad. Or, well, madder. He wasn’t exactly the picture of stability in the first place.”

  Soren’s face darkened and he stood, his hand yanking from mine. I tried not to feel hurt at the action. It was only going to get worse, I knew it. “What are you saying, Janneke?”

  “I’m saying he was right. He was a mad son of a bitch who tortured both of us and would’ve killed us and possibly doomed the entire Permafrost. But he was right. We were always going to destroy the world.”

  And with those words, my own world came crashing down.

  6

  THE CATALYSTS

  SOREN STARED AT me, mouth slightly open before his face morphed into a deep frown. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s because you’re directly related to the first Erlking on your mother’s side,” I said. “That, mixed with the blood of the stag, woke up the world serpent, and he began to gnaw at the roots of the world tree instead of his tail.” My heart was beating a mile a minute.

  “And that causes the end of the world, according to Lydian? Did you ever think he may be lying? Hel, was this what you were doing with Diaval? Does she know?”

  I was silent, guilt written plainly on my face as the flashes of Seppo, Rose, and Diaval came through our link. He growled then, a loud sound that made me step backward.

  “So, everyone else knew about this but me? That you were seeing Lydian’s ghost, what he was saying, and now you’re saying he was right?” Soren turned away from me on his heel and punched the wall. I winced as bits of marble crumbled to the ground. “I’m not going to end the world. You’re not going to end the world. He was lying.”

  “He wasn’t. I saw it. I saw the world tree and the serpent and the end of the world in my visions. And as the stag, I know it, I feel it in my bones. The world is going to end unless we do something to stop it,” I pleaded.

  “Are you suggesting we work with him?” Soren asked incredulously, then before he could give me time to answer, he shook his head and shoved past me to the door. “I’m not sure what’s more painful. The idea you want to work with that monster, you believe what he’s telling you, or the fact that despite everything we’ve been through, I was the last person you trusted with this information.”

  A burst of rage flared in my chest, and I maneuvered myself between Soren and the door. “You think I’m giddy about this?” My breath hitched, and a pain blossomed in my chest that wasn’t entirely physical. Finally the emotional dam the stag’s powers had made was breaking. It must’ve been breaking because the cold, calculated thoughts were seeping away from me, leaving me with terror blossoming in my stomach. “You know what he did to me. I’ll never forgive or forget that, and this is terrifying. I am the stag. I must do what the powers will.”

  Soren crossed his arms in front of his chest, glaring. “That’s unfai
r. I have a duty to the Permafrost as much as you. Do you know how many creatures have been changing boundaries because of problems cropping up? I fix one and then there’s another. That’s why the svartelves came in today too. Their cave is going dry.”

  I winced, realizing what I had implied. “I know you’re doing your job. I’m trying to do mine.”

  “Isn’t part of your job to inform me when this type of thing is going on?” he asked. “Not hiding it and telling all your friends instead?’

  “It’s more complicated than that!” I shouted. “I was scared. I’m still scared. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about me or know I was scared.” There, the truth was out. The burden tumbled from my shoulders and a weight lifted from my chest. The pain purged from me was better, like a catharsis. I didn’t want Soren to see me scared or weak. Not when I spent so much time proving I was strong. My hands were now shaking at having anything to do with Lydian since I was fully me again, and my stomach twisted and made me want to vomit.

  “I thought I could deal with it on my own.”

  “Which is why you told our friends, but not me.”

  “It’s different!” I said. “They practically figured it out with Diaval’s condition. They weren’t affected by him, tortured by him, not like you and I were. There was some kind of emotional buffer. It wasn’t as raw. I know I should have told you when I first started hearing and seeing him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

  Soren still had that unrelenting glare. “Step aside, Janneke.”

  “Soren—”

  “Please,” he said a little softer. “Step aside.”

  I moved away from the door and watched hopelessly as Soren stormed out of it.

  I collapsed on the sleeping platform, my knees weak and wobbly. I knew he was going to be mad that I hadn’t said anything, but I hadn’t realized he would be hurt. Because underneath the glares and growls, I could feel it inside me, like he could most likely feel my despair, and while anger was there, what really radiated all around him was hurt. Because we promised to be truthful to each other and I didn’t trust him. Not with this. That was why I was barely able to get a few sentences out about Lydian and Ragnarök before he stormed off—that wasn’t what was causing his pain. It was me, keeping a secret from him for so many months.