Wintersong(37)

It had not seemed that way the night before. I remembered a bevy of fawning swains, illicit kisses, and inappropriate touches.

“Very well, then.” I would not show him any sign of relief, any weakening of my dignity. “I shall collect her and go.”

“Oh ho ho.” The Goblin King conjured himself a chair and table and sat to face me. “We are not finished. We’ve but just played the second round.”

“Which I won,” I reminded him. “I am here in your domain now.”

“Yes, you are,” he said softly. “You are here at last.” There was an inviting edge to his words, an edge that caressed.

“Here at last,” I agreed. “Soon to be gone.” I spread my hands flat on the table between us. “And so the final round begins. What are the rules?”

The Goblin King laid his hands on the table as well. His fingers were long, slender, beautifully articulated, and—I saw with relief—with the proper number of joints. Our hands were where we could both see them, an old gesture to prove we were laying down honest wagers. Our fingertips brushed. The whisper of a memory touched me.

“The rules are simple,” he said. “You found your way in. Now find your way out.”

“Is that all?”

He smirked, smug and self-satisfied. “Yes. If you can.”

“I found my way Underground; I shall find my way back to the world above,” I said. “‘For we walk by faith, not by sight.’”

The Goblin King raised an eyebrow. “Are you confident,” he asked, finishing the verse, “and willing to be absent from the body?”

I was startled. I had not expected a king of goblins to recognize words from the Scripture.

“I am willing,” I said in a low voice, “to do anything that is required of me.”

A slow smile spread over his face. “What will you play, Elisabeth?”

I had no answer. I had given him my music; I had given him my all. I did not know what else I had left.

“You first,” I said instead. “What will you lay down on the table?”

He watched me closely. “Shall we call each other’s reckoning then?”

I swallowed. “If you wish it.”

“Then what would you ask of me?”

He was laying a vast amount of power at my feet. He was Der Erlk?nig, magic and myth and mystery. I could ask him for anything I wished. I could ask for riches. I could ask for fame. I could ask for beauty.

“My music,” I said at last. “I am not greedy, mein Herr. I will ask only for what was mine to start.”

He studied me for a long time, so long that I thought he would refuse me. “That is fair,” he said with a nod.

“And you?” My scalp tingled, and an ache began at the base of my spine, fear or eagerness, I did not know. “What would you ask of me?”

His eyes held mine. “I would ask the impossible.”

I struggled to let the Goblin King hold my gaze as heat stained my cheeks. “Bear in mind that I am no saint,” I said, “and cannot work miracles.”

His lips twitched. “Then I would ask for your friendship.”

Startled, I removed my hands from the table.

“Oh, Elisabeth,” he said. “I would ask that you remember me. Not as we are now, but as we were then.”

I frowned. I thought back to our Goblin Grove dances, to the simple wagers we had made when I was a little girl. I struggled to find the truth hidden within my past, but I was unsure which was memory and which was make-believe.

“You do remember.” He shifted closer in his seat. There was something like hope in his voice, and I could not bear it.

The Goblin King lifted his hand. The table beneath us vanished, swallowed up by the earth once more.

He placed a finger against my temple. “Somewhere within that remarkable mind of yours, you kept those memories safe. Too safe. Hidden away.”

Was the Goblin King the friend I had imagined—remembered—as a child? Or was he truly the Lord of Mischief, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality? I was restless and itchy within my own mind.

He left his seat and kneeled before me. His hands rested on the armrests of my chair, but he was careful not to touch me.

“All I ask, Elisabeth,” the Goblin King said, “is that you remember.” His words were a bass, their notes resonating in my bones. “Please, remember.”

I shrank from the longing in his voice. “I cannot give you that which cannot be given,” I said. “I could more easily cut off my hand to give you than my memories.”

We stared at each other. Then the Goblin King blinked and the tension that quivered tight between us snapped.

“Well,” he said, drawing out the vowel. “Then I suppose we shall have to make do.”

I nodded. “What would you claim of me?”

His eyes glittered. “Your hand in marriage.”

The blunt proposal hit me harder than a blow. “What?”

The Goblin King crossed his arms and leaned back, his pose insouciant, a smile quirked to one side. Yet somehow his eyes seemed sad.

“You asked, I answered,” he said. “The answer is you. What I want is you—entire.”

I swallowed hard. The air Underground was suddenly hot, close, suffocating.