Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(89)

“Who are you?” I whisper.

He nods at me. You know who I am, Elisabeth.

“You are a man with music in his soul,” I tell him. “You are the one who showed me a way to myself, when I was lost in the woods. My teacher, my playmate, my friend.” I choke a little on the sobs rising from my throat. “You allowed me to forgive myself for being imperfect. For being a sinner. For being me.”

If my brother is my grace, then the Goblin King is my mercy. I look from one to the other. How can I possibly choose? I have fallen upon an ancient weapon, but how can I possibly cut out my own heart and survive?

Josef steps forward, hand outstretched. The Goblin King steps forward as well, a mirror image to my brother. I hold out my hands to each, and their shapes blur and merge, until I can no longer tell which is my mercy and which is my grace. Perhaps they are both. Perhaps they are neither.

Choose.

And still I wait. Still I hesitate, unwilling to let go of either. Both.

Choose.





the maiden’s blood spilled over the cavern floor, a widening circle of crimson, scarlet, and vivid red. The changeling cried out and ran forward, placing his hands over her heart to stanch the bleeding.

“Help me!” he cried out to the man on the dais. “Help me, please!”

The man lurched upright, pale and wan and unsteady on his feet. The Goblin King. Without the power of the old laws thrumming through his veins, he looked strangely diminished. Less frightening, less otherworldly, less . . . just less. For his entire mortal life, the changeling had heard tales of this man—this uncanny figure—who could bend space and time and the laws of reality as the world knew it, yet the Goblin King who stood before him was not a myth. He was just a man.

And the changeling hated him a little for it.

The Goblin King joined the changeling by the maiden’s side, covering his hands with his own. Together they pushed down upon her chest, feeling the pulse, pulse, pulse of her heart beating beneath their palms.

“Please,” the changeling said, turning his eyes to the mass of goblin hands and eyes and teeth watching with an impassive, implacable, impersonal gaze. “What can I do?”

Do, mischling? the legion of voices was amused. Do what? Save her life? It is too late. She has made her choice.

“She did it to save me!” He turned on the Goblin King. “How could you just let her die?”

Blame him not, the old laws said. He is a hollow husk of a thing. We ate his soul already; he has nothing left to give.

The changeling threw his head back and screamed.

From the crawling, writhing mass of creatures, two small goblin girls clawed and wriggled their way free. Other hands burst forth and grabbed at their ankles, their wrists, their limbs, any bit of their bodies within reach, but the girls were determined, biting and scratching as they fought their way to the changeling and the Goblin King.

“Mischling,” said the one nearest to him. She was slender, like a sapling tree, with a crown of branches wound with cobwebs atop her head. “There is a way to save her.”

Silence! the old laws roared.

“That one,” said the other, a short stout little thing with thistledown hair, pointing at the Goblin King, “has given all he can give. He has nothing left.” Her black eyes were solemn. “But you do, mischling. You do.”

The changeling looked to the man at his side. He was shaking his head, in resignation or denial, the changeling did not know what. “He should not have to bear the cost.”

“What cost?” the changeling demanded.

“Eternity,” the Goblin King whispered. “Unending torment.”

The changeling went still. He knew then what the sacrifice would claim of him, what the old laws required.

A king.

“No,” the man beside him said. “She cannot bear to lose you, Josef. Elisabeth would never forgive you.”

Josef. It was a name he had stolen, an identity and a face and a life he had taken for his own. The fat, sweet little mortal child who had died of scarlatina before he had had a chance to live. The changeling had seen his opportunity, and taken it. He had become the boy in the cradle. He had become Liesl’s brother.

“How?” he breathed. The changeling turned to the face wrought of nightmares. “What must I do?”

“It was never a bride who was needed to bring the world back to life,” said the twig-laden goblin girl. “It was grace.”

The Goblin King gave the girl a sharp look. “Explain yourself, Twig.”

Twig trembled and shivered, buffeted about by fear and eagerness. “Only a person given willingly to the Underground with a whole heart understands the true price to be paid and offers it with joy.”

“Grace, mischling,” said the thistle-haired goblin, “is the capacity to love the world entire. Without regard to self. Without regard to the individual. The first Goblin King understood this.”

The man beside him stiffened. “Then why a bride, Thistle?” he asked. “Why must innocent blood be spilled to wake the world to spring?” The changeling could hear the words the man did not say. Why did I have to suffer? Why did she?

“A sacrifice made with half a heart is worth half its value,” Thistle replied. “You were tricked onto your throne, Your Majesty. The first Goblin King was tricked out of his.”