White Stag

by Kara Barbieri

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  To Avalon Hills Eating Disorder Treatment Center for saving my life; and to Kayshia, Lia, Megan, Marina, Jade, Talisa, Jordan, Sam, Eleni, Kate, Jessie, and Courtney, my fellow ED warriors

  Author’s Note

  THERE IS TRUTH in fiction. That much we all know. When White Stag was originally conceived and written in its baby draft two years ago, I was going through a(nother) very dark time in my life. I have been, and always will be, open about my personal struggles, and those struggles come to play in White Stag. Writing it was a way to turn my pain into something productive that could transcend my own experiences and limitations on this earth.

  Like me, Janneke suffers from a loss of agency that was not her own doing and from the failure of those who should have known better and done better (whether or not they meant well in the first place). Her journey of forgiving herself, letting go, and finding strength inside her own self and her own scars mirrors mine.

  That being said, there are things in this book that you may find distressing or disturbing. Janneke’s trauma and struggle regarding both her sexual assault and her attacker is a contributing part of her character arc and her healing, and there will be some descriptions or narratives you may find triggering.

  Like me, Janneke also deals with an eating disorder and body dysmorphia. Our disorders manifest a bit differently, but they come from a very similar place. It is a scary, obsessive, and vulnerable place to be, especially as a young woman.

  White Stag contains violence that may be considered graphic to some. So be warned that there is content in this book that may trigger you. If that does happen, I want you to know that your feelings and experiences are valid and your safety (both physically and mentally) matters more than anything else. My experience is not yours, and I would always advocate for you to do what is best for you. If that means putting the book down, then I want you to know it’s okay and I understand.

  I do hope that we can continue this journey together in pain, healing, and all the ups and downs that come after. I’ve found that sometimes we’re so burdened that we think we might break, and in that moment nothing looks like it will ever be okay again. Places like the National Eating Disorder Association; the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network; and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) are there to help.

  I want to end this with a quote from Angel that really speaks to me as someone who has so often felt helpless: If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

  Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?

  The father it is, with his infant so dear;

  He holdeth the boy tightly clasp’d in his arm,

  He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

  “My son, wherefore seek’st thou thy face thus to hide?”

  “Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!

  Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?”

  “My son, ’tis the mist rising over the plain.”

  “Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!

  For many a game I will play there with thee;

  On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,

  My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold.”

  “My father, my father, and dost thou not hear

  The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?”

  “Be calm, dearest child, ’tis thy fancy deceives;

  ’Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves.”

  “Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?

  My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;

  My daughters by night their glad festival keep,

  They’ll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep.”

  “My father, my father, and dost thou not see,

  How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?”

  “My darling, my darling, I see it aright,

  ’Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight.”

  “I love thee, I’m charm’d by thy beauty, dear boy!

  And if thou’rt unwilling, then force I’ll employ.”

  “My father, my father, he seizes me fast,

  For sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last.”

  The father now gallops, with terror half wild,

  He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;

  He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,–

  The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

  —“DER ERLKÖNIG,” JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  PART ONE

  THE CAPTIVE

  1

  MASQUERADE

  THE FIRST THING I learned as a hunter was how to hide. There was a skill in disappearing in the trees like the wind and merging into the river like stones; masquerading yourself as something you weren’t was what kept you alive in the end. Most humans didn’t think the masquerade was as important as the kill, and most humans ended up paying for it with their lifeblood.

  Here, as the only mortal in a hall of monsters, I was very glad that I was not most humans.

  I kept my steps silent and my back straight as I passed beneath the white marble pillars. My eyes flickered around me every so often, counting hallways, retracing my steps, so I could escape at a moment’s notice. The Erlking’s palace was treacherous, full of twists and turns, stairways that led into nowhere, and places where the hallways dropped to gaping chasms. According to Soren, there were also hollow spaces in the walls where you could slink around unnoticed to the mundane and the monstrous eye, but you could hear and see all that went on in the open world. The lair of a king, I thought bitterly. I dared not say it out loud in case someone was near. But beside me, Soren sensed my disgust and made a sound deep in his throat. It could’ve been agreement.

  Soren examined his king’s palace with the usual contempt; his cold, calculating eyes took in everything and betrayed nothing. His lips turned down in a frown that was almost etched permanently into his face. Sometimes I forgot he was capable of other expressions. He didn’t even smile when he was killing things; as far as goblins went, that was a symptom of chronic depression. He lifted his bored gaze at the gurgling, choking sound coming from his right, and it took all my willpower not to follow his line of sight. When I felt the subtle whoosh of power transfer from one body to the next, my fingers twitched to where I’d slung my bow, only to remember too late that it had been left at the entrance of the keep in accordance with ancient tradition.

  A scream echoed off the cavernous passageways as we made our way to the great hall where everyone gathered. It sent chills down my spine with its shrillness before it was abruptly cut off. Somehow, that made me shiver even more. Ancient tradition and custom aside, nothing could stop a goblin from killing you if that was what they desired. My hand reached for my nonexistent bow again, only to be captured by cold, pale fingers.

  Soren’s upper lip curled, but his voi
ce was low and steady. “The next time you reach for a weapon that isn’t there might be the last time you have hands to reach with,” he warned. “A move like that will invite conflict.”

  I yanked myself away from his grip and suppressed the urge to wipe my hand on my tunic like a child wiping away cooties. “Force of habit.”

  Soren shook his head slightly before continuing on, his frown deepening with each step he took.

  “Don’t look so excited. Someone might get the wrong idea.”

  He raised a fine white eyebrow at me. “I don’t look excited. I’m scowling.”

  I bit back a sigh. “It’s sarcasm.”

  “I’ve told you before, I don’t understand it,” he said.

  “None of goblinkind understands sarcasm,” I said. “In another hundred years I’m going to lose my understanding completely.”

  Another hundred years. It hadn’t hit me yet, not until I said it out loud. Another hundred years. It had been a hundred years since my village was slaughtered, a hundred years as a thrall in Soren’s service. Well, ninety-nine years and eight months, anyway, but who’s counting? Despite the century passing by, I still looked the same as I had when I was forcefully brought into this cursed land. Or, at least, mostly; the scars on my chest hadn’t been there a hundred years ago, and the now-hollow spot where my right breast should have been burned. The four months when I’d belonged to another were not something I liked to think about. I still woke up screaming from nightmares about it. My throat went dry and I swallowed. Soren isn’t Lydian.

  “You look tense,” Soren said, breaking me out of my thoughts. I’d crossed my arms over my chest. Not good. A movement like that was a sign of weakness. It was obvious to everyone that I was the weakest being here, but showing it would do me no good.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I just don’t like this place.”

  “Hmm,” Soren said, eyes flickering around the hall. “It does lack a certain touch.”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “The entire design of the palace is trite and overdone.”

  I blinked. “Okay, then.”

  By now we’d entered the great hall where the reception was held. Every hundred years, the goblins were required to visit the Erlking and swear their fealty. Of course, their loyalty only extended to him as long as he was the most powerful—goblins weren’t the type of creature to follow someone weaker than themselves.

  The palace, for what it was worth, was much grander than most other parts of the goblin domain. Soren’s manor was all wood, stone, and ice, permanently freezing. Nothing grew—I knew because I had tried multiple times to start a garden—but the roots never took to the Permafrost. Here, it was warm, though not warm enough that I couldn’t feel the aching chill deep in my bones. The walls were made of pure white marble with intricate designs far above what a goblin was capable of creating, and streaked with yellow and red gold like open veins. It was obviously made by humans. Goblinkind were incredible predators and hunters, gifted by the Permafrost itself, but like all creatures, they had their flaws. The inability to create anything that wasn’t used for destruction was one of the main reasons humankind were often stolen from their lands on raids and put to work in the Permafrost.

  Soren’s scowl deepened as we passed under a canopy of ice wrought to look like vines and flowers. “I feel like I need to vomit,” he said.

  I stopped in my tracks. “Really?” I swore, if I ended up having to clean up Soren’s vomit …

  He glanced at me, a playful light in his lilac eyes. “Sarcasm? Did I do it right?”

  “No.” I forced myself not to roll my eyes. “Sarcasm would be when you use irony to show your contempt.”

  “Irony?” He shook his head, his long white hair falling into his face.

  “Saying one thing when you mean the other, dramatically.”

  “This is beneath me,” he muttered. Then, even quieter, he said, “This place is in dire need of a redecoration.”

  “I’m not even entirely sure what to say to that.” With those words, he flashed me a wicked grin that said little and suggested much. I turned away, actually rolling my eyes this time. For a powerful goblin lord, Soren definitely had the ability to act utterly childish. It could be almost endearing at times. This, however, was not one of those times.

  In the hall, the gazes on the back of my neck were sharp as knives. I kept my head straight, trying my hardest not to pay attention to the wolfish faces of the other attendees.

  From a distance they could almost be mistaken for human. They varied in size and shape and the color of their skin, hair, and eyes much like humans did. But even so, there was a sharpness to their features, a wildness, that could never be mistaken for human. The figures dressed in hunting leathers, long and lean, would only seek to torment me if I paid them any attention. As the only human in the hall, I was a curiosity. After all, what self-respecting goblin would bring a thrall to an event as important as this? That could very easily get me killed, and I wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon. My hand almost twitched again, but I stopped it just in time, heeding Soren’s warning.

  We finally crossed the floor to where the Erlking sat. Like Soren’s, the Goblin King’s hair was long. But unlike Soren, whose hair was whiter than the snow, the Erlking’s hair was brown. Not my brown, the color of fallen leaves, underbrush, and dark cherry wood, but murky, muddy brown. It was the color of bog mud that sucks down both humans and animals alike and it somehow managed to make his yellow-toned skin even sallower. He was the strongest of all goblins, and I hated him for it. I also feared him—I was smart enough for that—but the fear was drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears as I locked eyes with Soren’s king.

  Soren turned to me. “Stay here.” His eyes turned hard, the glimmer of light leaving them. Whatever softness he had before drained away until what was left was the hard, cold killer he was known to be, and with it went the last shreds of warmth in his voice. “Until I tell you otherwise.” Subtly, he jerked his pointer finger at the ground in a wordless warning.

  I bowed my head. “Don’t take too long.”

  “I don’t plan to,” he said, more to himself than to me, before approaching the Erlking’s throne. He went to one knee. “My king.”

  I eyed Soren from underneath the curtain of my hair. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides. He must’ve sensed something from the Erlking, from the other goblins, something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Cautiously, I directed my gaze to the Goblin King himself, aware that if I looked at him the wrong way, I might be inviting my own death. While the behavior and treatment of thralls varied widely among goblins, I had a feeling submissiveness was required for any human in the Erlking’s path.

  This close, the Erlking’s eyes were dark in his shriveled husk of skin and there was a tinge of sickness in the air as he breathed his raspy breaths. His eyes flickered up to meet mine and I bowed my head again. Don’t attract attention.

  Soren spat out the vows required of him in the old tongue of his kind, the words gravelly and thick. He paused every so often, like he was waiting for when he would be free to drive his hand through his king’s chest, continuing on with disappointment every time.

  The tension around the room grew heavier, pressing down on those gathered. Somehow, like dogs sniffing out blood, they all knew the king was weak. Beautiful she-goblins and terrifying goblin brutes were all standing there waiting until it was legal to kill him.

  Beside the weakened king’s throne, a white stag rested on a pile of rushes. Its eyes were closed, its breath slow. Its skin and antlers shone with youth, but the ancient power it leaked pressed heavy against my shoulders. That power was older than anything else in the world—maybe older than the world itself.

  Goblins were, before all things, hunters. Born to reap and not to sow. Cursed with pain upon doing any action that did not in some way fit into the power the Permafrost gave them, the goblins fittingly had the submission of the stag as the symbol
of their king’s ultimate power. Until it runs.

  I didn’t want to think about what happened after that.

  Soren continued to say his vows. The guttural language was like ice shards to my ears, and I shuddered. Catching myself about to fidget, I dug my fingers into my thigh. Control yourself, Janneke, I thought. If they can do it, you can.

  A soft voice whispered in my ear, “Is that you, Janneka?” His breath tickled the back of my neck, and every muscle in my body immediately locked. Icy dread trickled down my spine, rooting me in place.

  Don’t pay attention to him. He’ll go away.

  “I know you can hear me, sweetling.”

  Yes, I could hear him, and the sound of his voice made me want to vomit. My mouth went dry.

  Slowly, I turned toward Lydian. He looked the same as he had a hundred years ago. Long golden hair, slender muscles, a lazy, catlike gleam to his dark-green eyes, and skin the color of milk, unblemished and unmarred. High cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and the haughty look I’d so often seen on his nephew graced his features. Every so often those eyes would flicker, as if they had a mind of their own, almost as if he were seeing past me, past the Erlking, past everyone. Twitching eyes aside, goblin males might’ve been called “brutes,” but Lydian’s looks were anything but. That made me even sicker.

  “How is your calf?” I asked, letting hostility seep into my voice, surprised I was able to keep the waver out of it.

  He shifted his weight so it was equal on both legs. “It seems that civil conversation is still not your strong suit.”

  I ached to hurt the man before me. “And I suppose you know all about civil conversation? Where I come from, leaving someone for dead doesn’t count as ‘civil.’”

  Lydian’s face was a blank slate, but I could see the storm beginning to stir beneath the surface, and I didn’t fail to notice him shifting his weight back onto his good leg. You don’t want to anger him, a tiny voice in my head reminded me; a fearful voice that knew exactly what he could and would do. The same voice that reminded me he was so much stronger than I’d ever be, that he could hurt me with his little finger if he wanted to, if I angered him enough. I’d paid the price of that lesson in blood, and it wasn’t something I’d soon forget. But another voice, strong with hatred, craved to hurt him and to see him bleed. Before the Permafrost, it never occurred to me that you could both hate and fear something at the same time, but when it came to Lydian, those were the only two emotions I was capable of. His nephew, however …