Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(81)
“And what do you think she left as payment?” the Countess returned.
I fell silent.
“A life for a life, Elisabeth. Death for harvest. It was she who tricked another youth into staying behind, into becoming the next Goblin King. Who then, in turn, went out into the world in search of a bride to remind him of the mortal life that was ripped from him. And in turn, that man thrust the throne upon yet another, and another, and another. It doesn’t end, mademoiselle. Not for us. Not for Der Erlk?nig’s own.”
The maelstrom was closing in, the waters of madness threatening to submerge me in their depths. I could not—would not—succumb. I would not drown in despair. If there was anything I had to keep me going, it was that I believed in love—the Goblin King’s for me, my own for my brother. And my sister. And the world above. I had to try, or fail my own sense of self.
“Poor fool,” the Countess said softly, seeing the expression on my face. “Poor, poor fool.”
I snatched the compass from her fingers. “If you will not help me,” I said. “Then do not stand in my way.”
She stared at me for a long moment, saying nothing, though her vivid green eyes held all the words in the world. Then she nodded, and stepped aside.
“Viel Glück, Elisabeth,” she said as I shoved past. “Godspeed.”
*
Once outside, I followed the path directly away from the needle onto a hidden trail, up the slopes, and to the mysterious, mirrored lake that reflected another sky. A path of impossible poppies sprang up at my feet, swaying and whispering in an unseen wind.
The souls of the sacrificed. All the hairs along the back of my neck and my arms rose up as though greeting this invisible breeze, as the whispers and murmurs resolved into words.
Hurry, hurry, the poppies urged. It is not too late.
It was not too late. I took courage, and ran.
The clouds overhead were heavy and gray, laden with early spring snow. Fat, wet snowflakes fell in heavy drops, half rain, half ice. Behind me, I could hear the faint drumming of hooves. Or perhaps it was the thudding of my anxious heart in my breast, beating an erratic tattoo of fear and excitement. I raced up the hill, heedless of my tread and where my footfalls lay.
The path quickly turned treacherous, the light dusting of snow turning the dirt underfoot slippery with mud. The trail was narrow, just barely wide enough for a human, even one as small as me. One misstep and I would plunge to my doom. The thought tumbled through my brain, and I could not resist looking over the ledge. It was a long, sheer drop to the valley floor several hundred feet below me, and I could not help but edge closer, lean farther out. There was ever a part of me that loved to face danger, to stare it in the eye and dare it to do its worst. I wanted the knife’s edge of mortality pressed against my throat, to feel my pulse murmuring beneath the blade. I never felt more alive than when I was close to death.
Then the shelf on which I was standing crumbled.
For one piercing moment of clarity, I thought that this was perhaps the truest expression of my fate. That for all I tried to do good by those I loved and for the world, in the end it would be my own arrogance, recklessness, and mania that would trip me up. That would keep me down. That would ruin everything I touched despite my best intentions.
Vines wrapped themselves around my arms and legs, dead shrubs and mountain bushes halting my fall. The Count’s compass continued tumbling to the floor below, the faint tinkle and crack of shattered glass and metal echoing up the hill. There was an audible pop! as something snapped in my wrist, the sound echoing behind my eyes, even as the sharp pain of it felt distant and unreal. Even my screams were stolen from me as the sudden yank preventing me from plummeting to the valley floor drove the breath from my body. I hung above the drop, suspended by roots and vines twined about my limbs, for an eternity, poised forever between life and certain death.
Then beetle-black eyes winked at me from the crevices of the hillside. Beetle-black eyes, long, spindly fingers, branches and cobwebs spun for hair.
Twig.
The brambles wrapped themselves tighter about me and slowly but surely began lifting me back onto the trail, back to safety. Hands appeared, bursting from the mud and rocks as they had when I had tried to escape the Underground, but they were helping me up instead of bringing me down.
They deposited me back to safety on a lower ledge than the one from which I had fallen, and vanished. I lay there for several breaths, trying to center myself back in my body, back to the present, to the pain in my wrist, the mud soaking into the wools and silks at my back, the pebbles pressing into my tender points. My mind was in both the past and future, all the mistakes I made and the regrets I had, and all the choices—both terrible and good—I had come so close to never making again.
When I returned to myself, I was alone.
Had I imagined Twig and the goblin hands? The agony in my wrist carved out all extraneous thought, and I cradled my left hand in the crook of my right elbow. The angle at which it sat was twisted, odd, and unnatural, and the sight of it almost made me queasier than the pain. Gasping and sobbing, I tried to move my left hand with my right, to maneuver my bones back into place. A grind, a click, an unsound deep in my body that resounded in my skull and in teeth, and then, sudden relief. The bliss flooded through me like warmth, and I found I needed to lie down to recover from the dizziness.
I could have lain there forever, succumbing to the aftermath of a whirlwind of fear and exhaustion, but the whispers tugged at me again.