Chapter Three:
A Heart Freshly Broken
There was no shrine in the Erlking's palace. There was nowhere to mourn the dead in privacy. It was probably because goblins didn't really care much for their dead in the first place. If there'd been one, I'd be on my knees every day from dawn until dusk begging for forgiveness. Instead, I was rushing through the dark corridors and naturally carved halls with no idea where I was headed.
The tears were hot, building up behind my eyes. I wouldn't cry. I couldn't cry. The last time I'd shed a tear for myself was over a decade ago and I wouldn't let the pain get ahold of me again. I couldn't afford to be weak.
I turned the bent nail over and over in my hand. As long as this doesn't burn me, I'm human. Relief flooded through me like warm sunlight. But if Soren had his way it wouldn't be for much longer. The relief died a short, cold death. There was some truth to what he said; I'd adapted to his kind's ways to survive against the odds. A burning part of me couldn't stand the idea of dropping dead like the others surrounding me. I wanted to live. I had to live.
But adapting wasn't the same as truly becoming like them. It couldn't be. I wasn't a monster. I wasn't about to become a monster with a mind so twisted that emotions were foreign and bringing pain caused pleasure.
I hurried through the dark halls of the palace, clutching the nail in my hands, allowing it to dig into my skin, to draw blood from the heel of my palm. I wanted to feel pain; I wanted to know I could still feel pain.
Finally, when one side of the hall dropped into a large chasm and the jagged rocks made it precarious to continue, I collapsed and let myself breathe. Every cell in my body was on fire but strangely the pain wasn't physical. I wanted to scream to drown it out, cover my ears so it would stop assaulting me. There was so much pressure inside my chest I was sure it would burst.
Calm yourself. I thought, trying to keep a steady breath. Calm yourself.
I stared at the nail in my palm and remembered things I tried to forget.
A small fishing village close enough to the forest that hunting with a bow was just as widely taught as fishing with a spear, a mother who brushed my hair each night, braiding it with care, a father who took me when he traveled into the snow, taught me the tracks of animals and the calls of bird, the smiles of my sisters when we played games together, the feeling of their arms surrounding me, pinching my cheeks and giggling at the dirt on them, and a fire that burned so I was warm all the way to the bone.
I turned the nail over in my palm.
"You're different than the other girls Janneke." A broad man said.
Tears rolled down my face. "Why don't you call me Janneka?"
His beard hung braided down to his chest, making up for the lack of hair on his head. I clung to him the way children clung to their mothers as he wiped away my tears. "Janneka is a woman's name. Janneke is masculine."
New tears replaced the ones he wiped away. I loved the way Janneka sounded, loved the way the J sounded like a Y, the way it bubbled on my lips like a stream. Janneke, with its harsh J and abrupt ending could never compare.
"I want to be a woman, not a man. Why can't I at least be a shieldmaiden?" Shieldmaidens were still considered women, even if they did fight.
My father only shook his head. "You'll understand someday, Janneke. I promise. For now, use the skills you've learned well. Protect those you love."
I'm sorry.
I bit my lip. There was nothing I could do about it now. Nothing I could say could break me from the bonds I had. No matter what, I had to do this Hunt. I couldn't disobey a direct order from my master. And if Soren was hell bent on making me one of his own, I knew it had to be a matter of time.
I'm sorry I disappointed you. My six sisters were as beautiful as the moon and stars before their skin burnt off and their bodies were violated in every way imaginable. My mother would sing me to sleep in the language of her mother's people, tell me I was beautiful despite the hunting leathers and mud and messy hair. Her only flaw was sending me to chop firewood in the middle of the cold. It was the last time I'd heard her voice. My father had taught me everything I knew, everything that helped me survive in the Permafrost, but I knew now he'd disapprove of becoming like them. He'd rather I'd kill myself.
But even if I was dead, I wouldn't go back to them. Those who took their life by their own hands didn't join their family in the afterlife. Either way, Soren'd placed a suicide bind on me long ago. If I even thought about hurting myself; he would know. I couldn't escape in death and if I was being completely honest with myself, I didn't want to. The urge to live, to survive, burned in my like a raging fire. But I wanted to live as a human, not a goblin.
There had to be another way. The Hunt would take me outside the Permafrost eventually. If I was outside the borders of the Permafrost, armed and horsed, I could escape. The bind that kept me from escaping wouldn't mean anything once I was in the human world. The binds that tied me to Soren and the 'frost would be harder to escape from, but if I was in the human world, perhaps it would work. I doubted Soren would decide I was more important to chase after than the Stag. All I had to do was join Soren on the Hunt and play along as well as I could, keep my humanity in check, and when the time came, run like Hel to my freedom. It would be difficult, but not impossible.
My lungs were on fire and I released the breath I'd been holding. I could do this. I had to.
I don't know how long I stared at that empty chasm, but I knew it was long enough for shreds of orange light to trickle in from the skylights and for the sound of careful footsteps to come my way. Light, quiet, almost effortless. Whoever they were, they were not human. After the incident with Lydian, that could spell some very nasty things for me.
Shuffling through the darkness, I gave my sight over to my touch and grabbed at the rock furthest away from the edge. Grappling for a hold on the loose, porous bits, I pulled myself up and into a crevice nearly too small and waited. When I was in a safe-enough position, I closed my eyes. Even with the light shining through the skylights, it was too little to get any idea what or who was coming through.
When you couldn't count on your eyes, you counted on everything else. There were at least three walkers, one with a heavy gait that even he couldn't contain. Two brutes and a she-goblin, I could smell that much even from here. Goblin males smelled like fire; their women, ice. Another smell played on the back of my tongue; iron poisoning. It was just a hint of the bitterness, not enough for it to be Lydian's, but definitely one of the men he'd come into contact with.
They started speaking; voices echoing down the chamber.
"You're telling me you want to ally with Elvira after the laughingstock Soren's whore made you?" This was the she-goblin, someone whose name I couldn't recall. She must've been Elvira's subordinate. Back during the fight with Lydian, the she-gobin's fierce eyes looked like they wanted to consume me.
"It was Lydian's power that brought down the Erlking in the first place," a man argued. I knew his voice. Franz. He'd been the one to successfully pull the nail out. It smelled like he hadn't done so unscathed.
"It was the challenge, not Lydian alone. Soren could've easily have been the most powerful in the room if he hadn't let his little pet in his way." The third voice was a man I didn't know.
"She's a liability; even if neither know it. Once Soren starts the Hunt he'll take her with; I can see it in his eyes. He wants her. And that will make hunting his power easier. It's simple logic, Helka," Franz said.
The she-goblin grunted. Helka did not seem convinced. "I do what's best for my leader; Elvira wants someone who can be an asset if she loses and a strength if she wins. If Lydian wins, would we have his word that our power would remain?"
"Not untouched," Franz said. "But less taken than normal, that would only be fair. And the same would go for each other."
So it's already starting. It'd been less than thirty-six hours since the Erlking died and they were already making bets on the winner and the losers and who would survive with the most power intact.
"Soren's team hasn't been assembled yet. I don't even know his plans and I'd like to pride my relationship with the man," the unrecognizable voice said.
"He likes his whore better than half his court," Helka said, not with contempt. "It's not your fault. Some men have interesting tastes."
Bile rose in my throat at those implications. Of course everyone thought he was fucking me. It'd probably be more scandalous if they'd known he'd never laid a finger on me in that way. He'd seen me naked. With how damaged I was after Lydian I wouldn't have survived without intense healing. But as far as I knew, he'd never touched me. Not in that sense.
"Perhaps someone should take care of her—and him as well. I remember how he took down Cÿrus and the coup that followed. It was unnatural. And the girl—she's not natural either."
I racked my brain for the identity of the speaking goblin but could find none. There were hundreds of goblins who somehow were in Soren's services but he brought very few along with him. I couldn't pinpoint who this one was but it was easy to tell he didn't like me and from the sound of it, he wasn't so fond of Soren either. He wants to kill him. I froze. He wants to kill Soren.
I had to stop it. If Soren died, I'd go revert back to being Lydian's. Lydian might not have the end-goal of turning me into a monster, but he did want to make me suffer in unspeakable ways. He would draw it out, keep me hanging on a thread to life while I endured his torture endlessly. He wouldn't kill me; he'd far too much pride for that. He wanted me to suffer.
I might've hated what Soren was planning to do and rejected it with my very being, but I'd rather join him on a Hunt that I could possibly escape than take my chances with Lydian.
The footsteps started to pick up and I dared to stretch my senses further to the inhuman. Everything had power, an energy force that flowed through them, but for goblins and other inhuman creatures, power could be used, manipulated like a weapon. For a lesser being it laid dormant while they lived and died. A goblin's power decided everything; who ruled and who bowed, who lived and who died, it hovered over them like an aura. I was human with no power to call my own, but after a hundred years I'd begun to feel the power of others. There was the she-goblin's, Hekla's, thick enough for me to count her as a serious threat, while Franz's was too thinned and frayed. The mystery brute plotting against Soren was strong; but he was nothing I hadn't taken before.
I waited until the moment when our senses mingled, when he felt the prey reaching out to his drive with open arms. His hunger, his need to kill, his desire to do things beyond nightmares, grew bigger like he was a dog slobbering for meat. Before I knew it he'd hung back and let the rest go without him. Waiting. Watching to get the drop on me.
I sprung from the crevice with the grace of a big cat's leap and landed on brute's back before he'd had any idea what was happening.
What sloppy guard. Even I, a human, could do better. I just had.
That thought jolted through me like ice, letting him get the grip.
"I thought I smelled you." He laughed. "Now I really get to have fun."
I was still on his shoulders and answered that question by driving his head into the rocks. He spit and grabbed at me, forcing us both down on the ground. He had at least fifty pounds on me and I wasn't even going to factor in the insane strength and speed he possessed. I couldn't if I tried. One thought dominated everything: Fight. Kill. Win.
Grappling with a man twice my size always put me at worse odds, but I'd learned a long time ago how to turn those odds in my favor. I let him get on top of me, pushing down the submissive-like fear it induced. I am not a wolf. I am not an animal. He cannot have me. No one can have me. Those words gave me strength as I waited, playing dead.
He was too busy trying to pull at the new clothes Soren had gifted me, salivating at whatever gruesome act he was thinking of doing next, to pay any mind to me and my actions.
I build pressure in my hips, digging my hands as hard as I could beneath this man's elbows. My knees bunched together. For the first time, we saw each other evenly; crazed blue eyes staring into fern green. Then I followed through and flipped him over me, into the chasm below.
My breath pounded against my chest, the fiery feeling in my lungs turning to ash. Nothing stung or otherwise hurt, though the neckline of the tunic was good as ruined.
I sat there, trying to quiet my heart, watching as the light from the skylights grew from orange, to red, to purple, to dusky grey. My body should've been tired, but the adrenaline pumping through me was enough to keep me going indefinitely—and I didn't know what else I could do now. Going back to my chambers wasn't an option; the man's companions could be close by. I still didn't even know his name.
The nail had rolled into a crack in the ground when I'd dropped from the crevice. I picked it up, twirling it around my fingers. I just killed someone and I didn't even know his name.
I tried to make myself feel something other than the numb cloud beginning to settle over me, but found I couldn't. It wasn't the first time I'd killed to survive. Closing my eyes, I rubbed my temples to get the vision of dead men out of my head, but I only managed to make it stronger.
Killing someone would happen sooner or later on the Hunt. If I wanted to escape, I had to accept that I would take another's life to survive. Even here, in the Erlking's palace the Hunt had begun. I couldn't be bogged down with guilt but at the same time, I'd rather die before feeling the joyous high goblins reveled in when they killed. It was a fine line and so far I hadn't crossed it; the iron nail I twirled with ease told me that much.
I stayed on the ledge by the chasm until Soren found me. He inhaled deeply, detecting the others that'd been here before me. If I looked hard enough, his features changed to something angular and sharp; more wolf than person. But they were gone in a flash.
"Aleksey was here, wasn't it?" he asked, peering over the chasm.
"He probably still is."
"He's no use to me dead. Which brings us to why you felt the need to throw Aleksey over the side of the chasm. I could understand Franz—I never liked the annoying shit—and Helka asks for it—but—"
"Aleksey was plotting to kill you," I blurted the words out. Too loud. Too much emotion. I should've said it calmly or not at all.
Soren didn't spare the chasm another glance. "And you killed him? Or almost, I think he's still alive. Poor bastard broke his spine. Slow deaths are the worst, aren't they?"
I winced. I didn't think when I threw him into the chasm that he'd survive. I didn't think at all; only acted. "Well, it isn't the first time."
"No, it isn't," Soren said, looking over me slowly. He must've thought I was pitiful, hunched over myself like a child. "But that's not the reason why you did it."
"Your death doesn't do me any favors."
His lips twitched and he came to sit beside me. Only then did I notice the weapons—two daggers of different lengths strung across his back in a holster, a quiver attached to his belt, a bow across his chest, a hunting knife neatly tucked into a sheath by his boot—and the heaviness of his outfit. Hunting leathers, for sure, but also a dark cloak made of bearskin and leather, fur-lined gloves. From underneath the falling hood, his white hair was braided in the style of a goblin hunter.
"Janneke," he said softly, "turn your back to me."
"Why?" I whispered.
He sighed. "Don't you trust me?"
I didn't dignify that question with an answer.
So instead, Soren moved behind me and began weaving his fingers through my hair, skillfully crafting the same braids he wore. It'd been a long time since anyone had touched my hair and I couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity as he braided it, reminding me of another world as the sky began to brighten and my eyes began to close.
AN: If you like this story comment below and also check out my new story ASHES COME DAWN for more badass characters!