Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(78)
I had no defenses left, no strength to muster, no dignity to lose. But even so, I would have kept my mouth shut and my madness quiet were it not for the gentle sympathy and understanding in my host’s expression. Nothing crumbled my armor faster than compassion and kindness, and soon every last detail of my days came spilling out. The chink in my defenses became a breach, I was open and vulnerable, and I did not care. The Count listened without saying a word to me ramble incoherently about my fight with Josef; my guilt and reckless disregard for anything other than my worthless, selfish self; my grudging longing for the Goblin King; my fears of becoming a burden, for who could bear the weight of my disgusting soul with all its attendant madness and mania? I told him everything and nothing, unable to corral my thoughts into a semblance of order.
Presently, Nina returned with a tray laden with things for tea and a small philter of a dark, brownish liquid. The Count led me back to the bench beside the virginal and dismissed the housekeeper, pouring me a cup of tea himself.
“What is that?” I asked, stopping him before he could tilt the vial of unknown solution into the brew.
“Laudanum,” the Count said. At my terrified expression, he set down the vial and handed me my tea untouched. “I mean no harm, Fr?ulein, I swear to you upon my brother Ludvik’s life.”
I paused in sipping my drink. “Your brother?”
He nodded. “Aye. My twin brother. I was the elder by seven minutes.”
I set down my cup. There was a sadness in the Count’s eyes and a resignation in his tone, although his shoulders seemed tight with unexpressed tension. He was an older sibling. I felt our shared sense of responsibility and resentment as eldest children.
Then I frowned. “Was?”
It was a moment before the Count understood my question. “Oh.” He went to pour himself some tea, but Nina had brought only one set. He swirled the laudanum between his fingers. “Yes. He died when we were twenty years old.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
The Count nodded unhappily. “You understand, Fr?ulein. How you both chafe at and embrace the obligation thrust upon you. You take it upon yourself to safeguard the lives and hearts of your younger siblings, however ungrateful they might be. Although Ludvik was my twin, I was firstborn, still expected to become the next Count Procházka und zu Snovin upon our father’s death. Therefore, it was my duty to watch over him.”
I picked my cup back up and carefully took a small sip of tea. It was chamomile, and only chamomile. I continued sipping.
“I failed.” The Count contemplated the tincture of opium in his hand. “I failed in my duty, and it was Ludvik who paid the price.”
Like Josef. I reached out to touch the Count’s sleeve. He did not notice me.
“He was . . . special, my brother,” he continued slowly. “Elf-touched, as they would have said in the old days. Sharp-eyed and present one moment, raving and oblivious the next. He could see goblins and fairies and elves, and I always envied him that gift. Although my family had ever been the watchdogs standing guard at the threshold between the Underground and the world above, very few of the Procházkas had—if ever—been a part of the magic.”
“What do you mean?”
The Count opened the philter of laudanum. I eyed it suspiciously, but my host placed the vial to his lips and drank. I started, wondering if I should stop him, if he was poisoning himself. I was no physician, but I did not think one could drink so much without poisoning oneself. Wiping his lips, the Count put the empty vial in his pocket and turned to me, his dark eyes large and dilated, lambent and shining as though wet with belladonna.
“We are the ordinary and the mundane,” he said. “Perhaps by design, or perhaps by fate. Perhaps it takes a certain sort of mind to withstand the maddening uncanniness of Snovin, but my family have ever and always been seneschals and stewards to the line of the first Goblin Queen.”
“The brave maiden,” I said.
His lips twisted into a smile of self-loathing. “Is that what you call her? A strange notion of bravery you must have, Fr?ulein. If by bravery, you mean butchery, then I might be inclined to agree with you.”
Somehow I didn’t think he was speaking of his wife’s illustrious forebear.
“Do you know what it takes to escape the old laws for good?” the Count asked. He forced the words through sticky lips, as though fighting his own body’s impulse to silence him.
“The Countess said there is an ancient protection in her bloodline,” I said slowly. Drops of nervousness were trickling down my spine, and I eyed the ballroom exits, wondering if I should call for Nina now. “Because of what the first Goblin Queen did when she walked away.” I frowned. “But she never did say what that was.”
And now I did not trust that she ever would.
The Count laughed, but the sound was bitter, raw. “Oh, child,” he said, and there was genuine pity in his voice. “Nothing comes for free. A life for a life. Death for spring. You know this.”
I did. The trickle of nervousness became a stream of fear. I remembered my conversation with the Countess on our excursion to the old monastery, of how the old laws had punished the first Goblin King for letting her go. Of how the brave maiden had returned Underground to save him by finding his name and setting him free. I thought of my own austere young man, of those eyes I knew so well becoming lost to cold and night and frost. Even if I did find his name and unlock his soul, there was the man I loved and the monster I craved. I did not know how to free one without losing the other.