Wintersong(95)

“You monster,” I hissed.

The changeling only smiled.

“Take me back,” I said. “Take me back!”

“No.”

“I wish you would take me back!”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Your power is broken, Goblin Queen,” he sneered. “You can no longer compel me.”

I shook my head. “Then I shall go back without you.”

“Too late,” he crooned. The others, his brothers and sisters, took up the chorus. Too late, too late, too late. “Once you’ve crossed the threshold, mortal, there is no returning.”

Clouds swirled overhead, dark and ominous. I felt the icy bite of a snowflake land on my cheek before it melted away. A blizzard was coming. I had doomed the world above to eternal winter, all for my selfish desire to live.

I collapsed to the forest floor. The weight of my guilt and horror bore down upon me, pressing me into the earth.

Oh, God, I prayed. Oh, God, forgive me. I’m so sorry. Please save us. Please.

But God did not listen. The snow was flurrying in earnest now, dusting my shoulders, my back, my hands. My glance fell on the wolf’s-head ring around my finger, its blue and green eyes twinkling in the light.

With this ring, I make you my Queen. Sovereignty over my kingdom, over the goblins, and over me.

“Please,” I whispered to the wolf. “Please. Of my own free will, I gave unto you myself, entire. Take me back, mein Herr. Take me back.”

I would have called his name if I had known it. But he had no name, only a title, and I did not know if he would or could hear me now.

Although ice rimmed the branches of every tree, I was suddenly warm and oh so sleepy. The temptation to lay down my head overpowered me. I could close my eyes and sleep forever, never waking up to the world I had destroyed.

“Elisabeth!”

I knew that voice. I struggled to lift my gaze to meet his, but my lashes had frozen shut. I was blind.

“Elisabeth!”

Arms encircled me, lifting me from the forest floor.

“Hold on, my darling, hold on,” the voice murmured in my ear.

“Of my own free will,” I croaked. “I gave unto you myself, entire.”

“I know, my dear. I know.” He held me tight, and warmth—real warmth—flooded through me. Not the false heat of freezing to death.

I opened my eyes to see the Goblin King gazing down upon me.

“Do you accept my pledge?” My throat was hoarse, but my voice was steady.

“I do, Elisabeth, I do.” Those mismatched eyes were alight, shimmering with … tears? I reached up to brush them away, but my hand fell to my side.

And behind him, the skies cleared, turning blue and cloudless, as the leaves crowning him returned to green. My last thought before unconsciousness claimed me was that I had not known Der Erlk?nig could cry, and wondered what it betokened.





ZUGZWANG

I awoke to shouting. I was a child again, back under the covers with K?the, listening to our parents argue downstairs. Over money, over Josef, over Constanze. When Mother and Papa weren’t kissing or cooing at one another, they were screaming.

“How could you let this happen?” The sounds of destruction shattered the room. “I told you not to let her out of your sight!”

More smashing, more breaking. I opened my eyes to see the Goblin King raging at Twig and Thistle, who cringed and cowered at his feet. Their ears were pushed back and they shuffled forward on hands and knees, making obeisance to their king.

“Get out,” he snarled. A vase flew from the mantel straight at Twig’s head. “Get out!”

“Stop!” The vase halted in midair. The Goblin King whirled around as my goblin girls stared at me, wide-eyed.

“Leave them alone,” I said. “They didn’t do anything wrong.”

The vase crashed to the floor. “You!” His eyes flashed, his nostrils flared, and his hair was wild. Two bright spots of red stained his cheeks, a high, hectic, color. “You—you—”

“Go,” I said to my attendants. They did not need to be told twice.

The Goblin King made an inarticulate sound of fury and kicked at a small side table. It went tumbling into the fireplace, sending ash and embers everywhere. The Goblin King hauled the now-smoldering side table out of the hearth and threw it to the ground, stomping it into pieces. He was like a child in a tantrum, fists clenched with anger, face clenched with irritation.

I knew I should be sorry. I knew I should be contrite. But I couldn’t help it; I laughed.

The first giggle that escaped me nearly choked me with surprise. I had not laughed in an age, and the muscles of happiness and humor were unused to it. But the more I laughed, the better it felt, and I bathed in my mirth, an endless bubbling fountain.

“And what, my dear,” the Goblin King said in acid tones, “is so funny?”

“You,” I gasped out between breaths. “You!”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do I amuse you, Elisabeth?”

I collapsed onto my bed, back and stomach spasming with a fit of giggles. Then the storm subsided and my body was no longer wracked with the uncontrollably joyous hiccoughs of laughter. But their aftermath fizzed along my veins, and I felt loose, limber, and languid. My head hung over the edge of my mattress, and I looked up at the Goblin King upside down.