Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(80)

“I had thought to take a turn about the grounds.” I hated how my voice trembled and quavered, how my feelings and emotions would always betray any lie I told. “I didn’t want to get lost.”

“Surely you would have become accustomed to Snovin by now,” the Countess replied.

I smiled, but it did not reach my eyes. “I’m not sure I could ever become accustomed to Snovin and its ways.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You could not . . . or will not?”

I said nothing. The Countess sighed, shaking her head with a weary sort of affection. “I see Otto has been at you again.”

“How could you be so cavalier about all this?” I demanded. “All those innocent lives? And for what? To escape your ancestor’s fate? How could you be so selfish?”

“How could you?” she demanded. She limped forward, eyes flashing. “Think, Elisabeth. Our very existence is an abomination to the old laws. The fact that we walk the world above means that the Wild Hunt not only dogs our heels, but those we love as well. And not only those we love, but all else who are good and great and talented, for the fruits of the Underground are art and genius and passion. Would you deprive the world of these gifts, Elisabeth? Is one life worth more than that of thousands?”

“It is when it’s your life,” I retorted. “And mine.”

“What were you planning on doing, mademoiselle?” the Countess asked. “What were you intending to do once you reached Lorelei Lake? Throw yourself into its blue-green depths?”

In truth, I had not thought so far ahead. My only goal was to reach my brother before something terrible happened to him, before he was lost to me forever. To the Underground, or to death.

The Countess saw the uncertainty in my face and leaned closer. I wanted to avert my eyes, to hide my expression, but the last thing I wanted was to betray any hint of my fear. The Procházkas were not worthy of my fear. Craven cowards, the lot of them, and I felt nothing but contempt.

“It wouldn’t do any good, you know,” she said softly. “Ending your life. Ending mine. We are sullied, you see. Our sacrifices are worthless because we have nothing left to give. Nothing the Underground wants. Not anymore.”

I did not care to listen. There was nothing the Countess could say that would sway me from going after my brother. Even if there were nothing I could do to save him, it was better that I tried and failed than to have never tried at all. I began to push past her, but the Countess stood firm, bracing herself against the bedpost in lieu of a cane.

“Why do you think you can’t compose anymore?”

I paused.

“Why does the world seem not enough and too much? It is because you are of both, and neither, Elisabeth. Your mind and body are here, and your soul is elsewhere. I’ve felt it, child. I’ve heard it. The reason your music is a bridge between the Underground and the world above is because of your initial sacrifice. You sacrificed your music. You sacrificed your genius, your talent, and your creativity to the old laws when you crossed the threshold the first time. Any time you play, you reach across that barrier. It makes you whole and broken all at once.”

Her words sailed right into the stormy heart of me, straight down the abyss swirling at the center of the maelstrom. “How—how do you know this?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

The Countess laughed, a bright, merry sound, and it was the ugliest thing I had ever heard. “I know because your face is as transparent as glass. Because you don’t just wear your feelings on your sleeve; your emotions wear you.” Her eyes darkened, the green turning brittle and sharp. “I know because my reckless, feckless ancestor bartered away her children’s freedom, all for the sake of self-preservation. We are the forsaken, Elisabeth. The punishment for our selfishness and our greed is to perpetuate the cycle.”

I pressed my hands to my mouth to muffle my sobs. Special Liesl. Chosen Liesl. You have always wanted to be extraordinary, and now you are.

“No,” I said through clenched teeth. “No. I cannot—will not—believe that is my fate. I will not hurt others with my thoughtless actions, even if it means giving myself up to the old laws.”

The Countess lifted her brows. “Even if you were as selfless as all that, Elisabeth, think you that your return to the Underground will undo all the damage you’ve caused? Oh, child. We can only move forward, not change the past.”

I thought of Josef. I thought of the Goblin King. “I have to try,” I said quietly.

“And just how were you planning on accomplishing that, my dear?” the Countess asked. She held her husband’s compass before her, the trinket glinting in the light of the setting sun. “Return to Lake Snovin to . . . what? Throw yourself in? And then?”

And then what indeed. “Save my brother,” I said. Then I thought of mismatched gray and green eyes consumed by white so pale as to be nearly blue.

The Countess laughed. “And then what? Save your Goblin King?”

It was the fact that she had voiced aloud the hopes I had not even dared to consider that hurt most, even more than the snide dismissal in her tone.

“I have to try,” I said again.

“Oh, child,” the Countess sneered. “If you think you are the one to break the cycle of sacrifice and betrayal, then your arrogance knows no bounds.”

Bile began to rise at the back of my throat, acrid and bitter. “Did not the first Goblin Queen walk away?” I asked. “Did she not go back and wrest her Goblin King away from the clutches of the old laws?”