Realms of the Goblin King (The Realm Trilogy Book 3)

by Lisa Manifold

  “My betters, as you term them, are delighted to have my assistance. Do you have any reason to believe Secret Name would go anywhere other than the Dragon Realm?”

  She smirked for a moment, than answered. “No. I know all about him, and there is nowhere else he would go.”

  “Why do you tell us this, Mistress?” Taranath spoke for the first time. “You are no friend to my King.”

  She glared, and then I saw her shoulders sag a little. “Because I am tired of worrying over the usurper, and wondering when he will harm me merely because I am my father’s daughter.”

  “He has not bothered you for more than six hundred years,” Drake said, a dry tone to his words.

  “Because I do not allow myself to be within his notice!” She spat. “Ever since my father was murdered, my mother and I knew we needed to protect ourselves. There was nowhere beyond the reach of the Fae King and his spawn. Nowhere. Thankfully, Eilor was kind, and gave us shelter. Then he allowed Secret Name and I to marry, and arranged for us to live here, quietly. I will never forgive your king, but I wish to move into another part of my life, and want nothing to do with him. I wish to live in peace. You may tell him that. I will not forget what he’s done, but I no longer wish to be at war.”

  They’d never been at war. With her words, I saw what kind of life she’d had. She went to the worst place possible to have a peaceful life. Eilor and Ailla had fed the fear, and made her a little crazy. Then they got her married to Cian the psycho, and the crazy paranoia continued. She might be a hell of a liar, but I believed her. I wished I could tell her that it was pretty likely that everyone she trusted was a big, fat lying jerk. It probably wouldn’t help our situation, but I swung right back towards pity for her.

  “Would you be willing to call on him, see where he is? Not to tell him we are seeking him, but to see if he is indeed in the Dragon Realm?” Drake had softened his voice.

  It didn’t help. She crossed her arms under her chest, and glared. “Why would I lie to him? We do not lie to one another.”

  Shows what she knew. I knew she couldn’t know about Cian playing footsie with Ailla.

  “Because you are trying to save him,” Taranath said quietly.

  Her head whipped towards him, and I swear her eyes nearly bugged out. Snotty she might be, but Dhysara was really conflicted about this. I wondered if Cian knew she was pregnant. Something told me he didn’t.

  Dhysara looked like she might cry. “Do you promise you will not harm him?” She looked right at me when she said it.

  “As long as he has nothing to do with the plot against my king,” I answered. “If he is not involved, I’ll send him home to you.”

  She studied my face for what seemed a long time. Then she came to her decision. “You may enter, and I shall contact him.” She turned and went into the cottage.

  “Is this really a good idea?” Drake hissed to Taranath, as they fell in behind me.

  “She will not harm us if we do not attempt any threatening moves,” Taranath said. “The cottage is warded to protect her, so do not try anything that may be seen as harm. And I have taken over the spell from Iris, so we are protected.”

  “Noted,” Drake said, and it sounded like he grit his teeth.

  Inside, the walls were draped with fabric, making the small house feel cozy and rich all at once. A fireplace at the back had a big fire in it, and Dhysara went to one of the chairs in front of it. She sat, and pulled something from a basket near the chair. “Sit over there,” She pointed at a table across the room. “I do not want him to see you.”

  We all sat along a bench next to the table.

  “I don’t like this,” Drake whispered.

  “I don’t either, but if it gets us what we want,” I said. I stopped as Dhysara looked at me impatiently. I guess we weren’t supposed to talk, either.

  She held up a mirror. Did everyone have one? Then I remembered that she was royal, and had lived with a court all her life. So of course she would.

  “Secret Name,” she said. The very act of saying her name shot color into her cheeks. She looked like a flower blossoming. “Dearest, are you there?” She cupped the mirror in both hands.

  She really loved the psycho asshole. The emotion that I could see on her wasn’t fake.

  “Sara,” A deep voice came from the mirror. “Is all well?”

  She nodded as she said, “Of course it is.”

  “Then why do you call me?”

  Wow, what a jerk. Did she not hear the nasty tone he used? Jeez.

  “I am wondering when you will return. I miss you, my love.”

  Oh, god.

  My guilt spiked hard. I shoved it back down equally hard. I didn’t want to deal with it, and I didn’t want her to know I felt it.

  “I will return when it is safe to do so. As I told you, I fear my enemies may find me. And you,” he added, although that last bit was clearly an afterthought.

  He was a total douche. How did he get this woman to fall in love with him? Devotion to him aside, she seemed sweet.

  Dhysara brushed her fingers lightly against the mirror. “I am well, Secret Name. I am also very capable of protecting myself.” Her hand not holding the mirror skimmed her middle.

  He didn’t know. Or if he did, he was an even bigger jerk than I thought. He didn’t ask about it at all.

  “I know you are, Sara.” His voice changed.

  It sounded to me like some guy on TV selling cars, but Dhysara perked up and color bloomed in her cheeks.

  “Come home soon,” she said quietly.

  I could hear the longing in her words.

  “When the Goblin King has stopped his persecution, I will be able to,” Cian said.

  Dhysara didn’t say anything, and as the silence stretched on, I guessed he’d gone. She stared at the mirror. Then she pulled her shoulders back, and stood tall.

  “He is in the Dragon Realm. I recognize the castle. But—” She stopped.

  Drake had stepped around me, and his right hand rested on his sword.

  Dhysara backed up, fear plain across her face. The glow from speaking with Cian faded as though it had never been there. The proud woman who’d met us at the door was gone.

  “You swore not to hurt me!” She cried. “It seems I am to die as my father before me!” She raised her hands, to what, I wasn’t sure.

  “Stop it, both of you,” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. Save me from these fae and their drama. “No one is hurting anyone. I’d be happy to discuss the facts of what happened with your father later, as would, I am sure,” I gave Drake the sit-down-and-shut-up-hairy eyeball, “the Goblin King. Probably even the Fae King, so that you would have all the knowledge available. But that is not the concern at the moment. No matter what we say here, it won’t change what has happened. We need to find Secret Name—” I forced myself not to call the jerk Cian— “so that this can all be sorted, and you can have him home.” I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. All this lying didn’t come easily.

  She stared at me, studied me in fact. She wasn’t sure if she could believe me, but boy, she wanted to.

  “Will you promise not to harm him?”

  Hadn’t we covered this already? “I cannot promise you that, Lady Dhysara,” I said before either Drake or Taranath could put their oars in. “What I can promise you is that he will not be hurt if he is innocent of plotting against the king. But if he lashes out at us, we have no choice to defend ourselves.”

  She crossed her arms. “You don’t really help your case, human.”

  I decided that she wasn’t really trying to piss me off. She was just one of those people—fae—who are ingrained with prejudice about those they felt were inferior.

  That didn’t make me feel any better, but I had to try, dammit.

  “I’m being honest. I’ve never found that honesty hurt my case.” I tried to sound light and unaffected. It was not easy when I wanted to slap the smugness out of her.

  I kept eye co
ntact with her, not moving. Finally, she sighed, and looked down.

  “I can give you the location of where it seems he is. I am not sure, and I want that clear, so if he is not there, it is not held against me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Show us on a map,” and I felt Taranath rustling in his pack next to me. I wanted to turn and look at him, but I also didn’t want to look away from her.

  Taranath walked beyond her to a table, and unrolled a map. “If you would, please, Lady Dhysara.”

  His quiet tone and respectful manner seemed to calm her. She stood near him, and I stood next to her. I felt like Drake looming over her would destroy the tiny bit of whatever good we’d managed.

  “Here,” she said, pointing at a place on the map that I couldn’t read. I had to get around to learning Fae. Maybe when I got my husband back and wasn’t living in a state of crisis.

  “This is where we have gone to spend time together. It’s one of Eilor’s personal estates, not part of the Dragon Realm itself. It’s very private.” She didn’t look at any of us.

  “Thank you, Lady Dhysara,” Taranath said, rolling up the map. He turned, putting it back into the pack as he did so. I watched him over my shoulder, and then Drake moved to join him. I made to follow when Dhysara’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

  I didn’t see anything but the intensity of her eyes, although I heard the hiss of Drake’s sword leaving the scabbard.

  “It’s okay,” I said, not looking away. God, I hope it’s okay. I’ll never hear the end of it if I’m wrong.

  “Please try to keep him safe,” she said. “He is sometimes…fierce in his opinions.”

  That was the understatement of the year, if not the century. He was insane, but I couldn’t say that to her.

  “I can only work with what he gives us,” I said, wanting to be honest.

  She squeezed my hand. “That is the best I can hope for. This has been coming for a long time.” She dropped her hand from mine, and turned away from all of us. “Please leave now. I want no one to see you here.”

  Who would see anything? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. “Thank you, Lady Dhysara,” I said, backing towards the door.

  She crossed her arms, and I saw her head nod a bit, but she didn’t speak or turn around.

  I let Drake and Taranath leave and then I backed out of the door, closing it behind me. It seemed important that I didn’t turn my back to her. I wasn’t thrilled at my gut warning about that, but whatever. We were out of there, and as I turned, Drake was bringing my horse to me.

  Without words, we all mounted, and then rode in silence. None of us wanted to speak until we were safely away.

  Chapter Eight

  “We have a problem,” Drake announced after we’d been riding for a while.

  “Only one?” I felt my eyebrows raise.

  “We need to stop and look over the map,” Drake reined his horse and moved over to the side of the path we were on.

  Taranath and I did the same, and I slid down from the horse. Drake was already unrolling the map.

  “Look,” Drake said, and I could hear something—anger?—in his tone. “This is the castle that the woman indicated. Look how far into the Dragon Realm it is.”

  I peered more closely at it. It didn’t look that far, but Taranath was nodding.

  “It will take us some time to reach this place on horse,” he said.

  “Really? But it doesn’t look that far,” I said before I could stop myself.

  “Ladyship, allow for the fact that I might know the land,” Drake snapped.

  “Ease up, Mr. Intensity! It doesn’t look that far on the map. Perhaps the fae need some work on their mapmaking skills!”

  “What would you know about maps?”

  “Oh, I don’t know! Maybe that I looked at them every day for years! And they were accurate in terms of representing a realistic distance!” I yelled back.

  “This is not helping us solve our problem,” Taranath said, taking the map from Drake. “There is only one solution, my lord. And—”

  “I know, I know!” Drake threw up his hands. “We have to portal.”

  “But—” I felt lost all of a sudden. Wasn’t the point of bruising my ass that we couldn’t portal? “I thought we couldn’t because we’d be spotted and all that?”

  Taranath nodded. “We will be. If not by Cian and his associates, by someone else. It will not allow for us to move about quietly. But Drake is right. We will spend too much time trying to get to the castle that Dhysara indicated.”

  I held up a hand and he stopped, looking at me expectantly. “I know this is a little off-topic, but I have to ask. I felt sorry for her, but there was something creepy as hell about her, wasn’t there?”

  That made Drake smile a little. “You mean other than her choice of a mate?”

  “She really loves him, but…” I thought about it. “She is obsessed.”

  “That can be dangerous,” Taranath said. “She does seem extremely focused on him.”

  “She’s pregnant,” I said.

  “What?” Drake said.

  Taranath nodded again. “I noticed that as well, my lady.”

  “She didn’t look pregnant,” Drake protested.

  “She totally is,” I said. “You couldn’t see her cradling her stomach? She wants him home.”

  “This is not good,” Drake said, turning away and beginning to pace in frustration. “What do you know about fae children, Iris?”

  “I know that there aren’t that many.”

  He nodded. “It’s considered a good sign for the marriage when a child is created. And to know that this will potentially a little Cian—the mind boggles at the thought. Even once we rid ourselves of Cian, there’s another little—”

  “No! You’re not thinking about—” I couldn’t even say the words.

  “It would depend on how the child was raised. Look at the king and Cian,” Taranath said. “The same parents, but one child is a good man and good ruler and the other is—”

  “Insane,” I finished. “And Dhysara doesn’t seem to have the best grasp of reality, plus, she has a huge ego,” I remembered her snotty comments about the usurper. “That doesn’t bode well for her child-raising skills.”

  “She also has the mistaken impression that she should have been the next in line for the Goblin Throne. Who knows what assumptions she would pass onto a child?” Taranath sounded bothered, and that was saying something.

  He never sounded bothered. That scared me.

  “We are not considering hurting her or the baby!” I couldn’t believe we were speaking of this.”

  Taranath shook his head and patted my hand. “No, your Majesty, we are not. We are not monsters, even though this creates problems for the king and yourself. No, we are assessing the potential problems. It is something that will have to be dealt with.”

  “I don’t like the way that sounds—‘something to be dealt with’,” I said. “I can’t support that. We have to find a solution that doesn’t involve violence against an innocent kid!”

  Drake rolled his eyes, but Taranath smiled. “We will, your Majesty. We are not unkind, or cruel. But preparation with knowledge of challenges makes ruling far easier than reacting as something is occurring.”

  “Well, we have time to consider the issues of a little Cian,” Drake interrupted. “We need to decide how we’re going to manage this distance.” He pointed at the map that Taranath still held.

  “Of course we’re going to portal,” Taranath said. “However, the question is how to conceal ourselves, such as we can.”

  “Any ideas are welcome,” Drake said dryly.

  I kept quiet. I had found that even though Taranath got to where he wanted to go slowly, it paid off to let him take his time. He was careful and thoughtful, and usually right.

  “We have Iris direct the portal,” he said.

  “No!” Drake and I said together.

  “I’m not that good at it. Not even a little bit good,” I p
rotested.

  “Who knows where we’ll end up, even if we do make it?” Drake asked at the same time.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I snarled at Drake.

  “Just being honest, ladyship,” Drake shot back. “You know, that thing you prize so highly?”

  I had to walk away. The urge to slap him was strong. It didn’t help that he was right. Portal travel made me nervous. I didn’t have a good idea of how it was supposed to go because most of my portal travel had been affected by the spell that Ailla put on me. Even now, the thought of it made my stomach roll around uneasily. I knew this was because I still struggled with the after effects of the spell, and that it didn’t have jack to do with actual portal travel, but my mind couldn’t get past it. One more reason I got first dibs on Ailla.

  I stood with my back to the others, breathing deeply. We were all stressed, and the meeting with Dhysara was lingering in the creepy column. I’d made it through stress before, but worry over Brennan, worry that we’d be too late, and the fact that I knew I was out of my element with a lot of this made it worse for me. I felt pretty sure Drake was seething with anger, and anger didn’t make good decisions.

  Neither did fear, and I had to stop worrying about what I didn’t know. I was with two people who, snark from Drake aside, would be at my side no matter what. Taranath thought I was doing well. Although…I turned back.

  “Why is it exactly that you want me to do the portal?” I asked.

  “Because he has decided he has a death wish,” muttered Drake.

  Taranath didn’t even act as if he’d heard Drake. “Because your magic is not anything that is known to the practitioners who might be monitoring what is going on,” he said with a smile. “You’re an unknown quantity. The Fae King had not sent out the invitations to your celebration when we discovered his Majesty missing. So no one knows that you’ve married.”

  “Other than the goblins,” I said, remembering them humming The Bridal March and feeling my eyes fill with tears. They were loyal, but Cian had somehow gotten a healthy number to attack both Brennan and Drake right before we met. There had to be a spy or someone who wasn’t loyal somewhere.