White Stag (Permafrost #1)(34)
8
RAPPROCHEMENT
THE WIND BLOWING through the trees was the only sound I heard while I digested what Soren had told me. Every cell in my body ached to reject it and prove it wasn’t true, but I knew he wasn’t lying. The revelation had me shivering.
My mind whirled with the memories of the past; bits of stories that at first had no meaning now held all the answers in the world. The way the other villagers looked at me, the scornful whispers as I streaked by them with a bow in my arms, reveling in the feeling of solitude in the freezing forest, the ambitious drive that pushed me to be faster, stronger, smarter, better than all the others, the things my father told me when I was no higher than his knee about the Permafrost and the despicable creatures who lived there. Was it his ultimate goal to poison my mind against my eventual home? Somehow, I thought it was. It all made sense except for one thing that sank in my stomach like a large stone.
“You didn’t…” I could scarcely get the words out, “… have anything to do with the raid on my village, did you?” I fought the dread threatening to swallow me as I waited for his answer.
Soren’s eyes shone brightly with concern.
“No,” he said, and my heart lifted in relief. “During the time of Lydian’s raid, I was busy finalizing my lordship.”
I nodded. It was no secret that younger goblins usurped and killed their sires when they became strong enough to rule in their place. If there were goblins loyal to their old lord, they were dealt with just like the castellan was all those years ago. For a young goblin, the path to power was always stained with blood.
“When I came to the village, it was already in ruins,” he continued. “You can imagine my surprise when Lydian threw you in front of my feet.”
I looked away as Soren searched my face. I didn’t want him to see the fear there.
“I don’t know all of what he did to you, Janneke, and I’m not going to force you to tell me before you’re ready to,” he said softly. “But I know some of it, and I know I will never let him touch you again. What’s more is I know you won’t either.”
I took a deep breath, pulling my arms around myself. The temperature had dropped to freezing, the sun all the way below the horizon. In the dark, moonless sky, the trees stretched up like fingers trying to steal the stars. It was so quiet, so still, nothing but the sound of the breath in our lungs.
“So why didn’t you tell me? Why was I like any other thrall? Why for the past one hundred years was I in servitude—enslaved by you?” I asked, the question burning inside of me. “In all that time you could’ve said something! Why didn’t you?”
Soren shook his head. “That wasn’t part of the original plan. But the original plan was foiled when Lydian captured you. You know some of the laws of winter, about fighting and gift-giving. Another one is that a gift can only be used according to its nature, unless the gift fundamentally changes. In the spirit of the Permafrost, Lydian gave you to me as a thrall, thinking I would kill you. Obviously, that backfired. I thought I could make your nature change and keep everything to myself. If things had worked out the way I planned, then I would have tried to go down the path of a changeling anyway.” He sighed. “And … I was scared. I told myself I’d say something when you were healed, but then I didn’t. I kept promising myself ‘next year’ but the longer I said nothing, the harder it was to tell you the truth. I wanted to win your trust, and I was afraid the truth would break it.”
I swallowed, hoping to dislodge the lump forming in my throat. “A hundred years and you couldn’t take ten minutes of bravery?”
Soren looked down at his feet, something similar to shame and a hint of humility in his body language. “I know that while I never thought of you as truly enslaved or treated you like that, my lack of communication, my fear of telling you the truth, left you afraid and imprisoned, like you were trapped in Hel. Lydian might have captured you and the law of winter might’ve imprisoned you, but I—I did nothing to change it. I continued it. That was wrong, and I know none of this can make up for the past, but I am so sorry.”
He was right. Nothing he said could make up for the years passed by, but at the same time a fissure in my soul mended and knitted back together like yarn. It was a crack I’d never realized was there, but as the weight lifted off my chest I breathed my first truly unburdened breath in a long, long time.
The wind howled around us. I swore the roots we sat on were coming to life. The Permafrost was full of the sounds of night: hooting owls, the calls of wolves, and the far-off cries of fighting goblins. My mind wandered back to the camp where Rekke and Elvira were. I wouldn’t put it past Elvira to be plotting another way to kill me. After I injured her snow cat, she looked mad enough to disembowel me right there and then.
I looked down at my hands. The tawny-colored palms were full of calluses and old scars. Hard muscle shaped my arms and shoulders, rippling down my sides. Was this the body of a human or a goblin? Did these hands, which could bear the razor-sharp bowstring of a Permafrost bow without bleeding, belong among other humans who would never understand them? Somehow, I didn’t think it mattered anymore.
Pain burst deep in my chest at the thought of my family: my mother, my father, and my sisters. They must’ve known my fate as I grew wilder by the day.