Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(21)
“Mein Herr,” I said, voice trembling. “Oh, mein Herr.”
There was no answer.
I wished I had a name to call him. You cannot love a man with no name, he had said. He had thought he was doing me a kindness. The man he had been was nothing more than a shadow now, his name irrelevant, lost to the old laws as the price he paid to become Der Erlk?nig. But it was not a kindness. It was cruelty—cruel to be here in the world above, alone, alive, and apart, our story abandoned.
“Please,” I said hoarsely. “Be, thou, with me. Please.”
A sharp intake of breath. A gasp of pain. The weight on the bench beside me shifted, and I waited for the feel of the Goblin King’s arms around me once more.
But when I opened my eyes, the room was empty.
It was always empty.
I buried my face in my hands, and cried.
A soft, shushing sound, the sound of branches rubbing together in a winter wind filled my ears. I thought of Twig and Thistle, my goblin handmaidens, of their long, crackling fingertips brushing against their dry, scaly palms. Goblin applause.
I rose to my feet. “Hullo? Is anyone there?”
Silence answered, but it was not an empty quiet, not as it had been before. I fumbled my way across the room, thrusting my hands out before me. Grotesque, otherworldly creatures resolved themselves into drapes, chairs, and other mundane, everyday objects.
I was alone.
And yet.
I should sleep. Fatigue wore down my defenses like a rising tide against a dike, leaving me vulnerable to the vortex at the heart of me. I undressed down to my chemise and quickly climbed into bed, shivering against the night.
Darkness doused my eyes, but sleep did not come. I reached for its shores, straining and swimming toward slumber, but it remained out of reach. I desperately wanted to rest, to shut my eyes and my mind and my heart.
Don’t think. Feel.
“Oh, mein Herr,” I sighed. “I wish I could. I wish I could.”
As my mind drifted into slumber, I felt the weight of a name upon my heart. I wrapped my hand around his ring at my throat and tried to wake up, tried to remember, but it was gone before the dreams came.
she calls to him.
A monster lifts his head as the sound of music filters down from the world above. The Hunt has ridden him hard, and his hands and teeth are stained silver with the souls of the disbelieving. His eyes are blue-white and glow with pleasure, remembering how the taste of life, of sunshine, of breath, of passion had burst like bubbles on his tongue. Even now they tickle his throat until he throws his head back with laughter, joy, frenzy, and wild abandon.
It is a cry for help.
Several more have joined his immortal company since they began their eternal ride across the sky. The dancer in the grove, the singer in the wings, the painter in the studio, the prophet in the alley. The Hunt bore them away on undead horses across the veil, but the living cannot bear the crossing. The barrier becomes a weapon, a blade, a dagger in his hand. Innocent blood is spilled as Der Erlk?nig’s own join the unholy host. The drops fall to the ground and blossom into scarlet petals, like poppies in a field. The last vestiges of the living, they are all that remain of the humans they once were.
The music is all that remains of the human he once was.
Passing through endless, empty halls, the monster slips from shadow to shadow, a train of goblins in his wake. His hands have carried the sword and shield on the long night, but now they hold the violin and the bow. The Underground rearranges itself as he pleases, but for the first time in an age, he finds himself in a room lined with mirrors, a klavier at the center. A receiving room.
The hearth is dead, the mirrors cracked, the instrument dusty and out of tune, but still she calls to him through the veil.
Be, thou, with me.
He presses the horsehair to the strings, letting the warm, grainy voice of his violin fill the space between them. The mirrors around him reflect not the receiving hall, but a cramped, dingy space, crowded with trunks and papers and odds and ends.
And at the center of the room, a girl. A woman. She sits at the klavier with eyes closed, playing their song. Their story.
Elisabeth.
Her image flickers, wavers, a reflection seen on the edges of a candle flame. The shadows wriggle and writhe with curiosity, and with tremendous effort, the monster holds them back.
Please, he whispers. Please, let me have this one thing.
As he plays, the darkness recedes. From his skin, from his hair, the weight of the rams’ horns on his head lightening. Color returns to the world and to his eyes, a mismatched blue and green as the monster remembers what it is to be a man.
Elisabeth.
He sits down on the bench beside her, begging her—beseeching her—to open her eyes and see him. Be with him. But she keeps her eyes closed, hands trembling on the keyboard.
Elisabeth.
She stirs. He sucks in a sharp breath and lifts his hand to stroke her cheek with fingers that are still mangled, broken, strange. His touch passes through her like a knife through smoke, yet she shivers as if she can feel the brush of his fingers in the dark places of her soul, her body, her heart. She is as insubstantial as mist, but he cannot resist the urge, the itch, to kiss. He closes his eyes and leans in close, imagining the silk of her skin against his lips.
They are met.
A gasp. His eyes fly open but hers are still closed. Her hand lifts to her mouth, as though the tingle of their unexpected caress still lingered there.