White Stag Page 4

  My breath was shaky, rasping in my throat. “I don’t—I won’t—” Refusing was in vain. There was nothing I could possibly do if he made up his mind. I couldn’t stop my own self from evolving—if I truly was—unless I killed myself, and that option had been taken from me a long time ago. If this was what he wanted, then this was what he’d get.

  But I still begged like a pathetic child. One who should’ve known better.

  I cringed as he brushed my hair behind my ear. “I promise you’ll understand soon. I vow it. We’re friends, Janneke. I am doing this for you, as a friend.”

  I stood there. Every cell in my body ached to scream, to cry, to beg, to run and fight and argue until he reconsidered. It would prove to him I had a human’s cowardice, at least. It would prove I wasn’t like him, not every bit. But I was silent, the words I could’ve said drifting off into empty space.

  “You’ll join me on the Hunt,” he said. “In place of my men-at-arms or healers. You’re smart and capable. And I don’t have to worry about you killing me to take my power. As I said, the transition will be easier that way.”

  I pulled away, touching the place where his hand had been as if it stung.

  My eyes burned with held-back tears, so I was surprised at the stillness in my voice when I finally commented, “Is that all?”

  “We leave tomorrow,” he said. “At dusk. You will be ready. Get some sleep.”

  Numb from head to toe, I nodded and began to leave the room. You can’t fight this, a voice told me. It was always going to come.

  “Janneke?” Soren called. He doesn’t have the right to sound so concerned. Not a soulless creature like him.

  “Yes?”

  “You have no reason to be afraid.”

  3

  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 have been on my knees every day from dawn until dusk, begging for forgiveness for the people who had been slaughtered, for my family who had died by Lydian’s hand while I ran to save myself, for forsaking my father’s teachings about the enemies in the Permafrost. 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 owed that much to them all at least.

  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. 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—all the things my father had taught me to hate since I was the height of his knee.

  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. The worst part was that I knew Soren meant well. He truly thought he was doing me a favor with all of this. Even if I didn’t see it now, soon I would understand that what he was doing was a gift. It would’ve been easier to hate him if there was outright malice to his intentions. Lydian and Soren are two very different creatures. One inspires absolute dread and rage, the other a mix of things I can’t even figure out.

  I took a deep breath and then another, forcing my body to become calm.

  I stared at the nail in my palm and remembered things I had 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 birds, and told me how the world was while I sat on his knee; 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, twirling it between my fingers.

  “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. Not like me, the last-born daughter of a Jarl and his family, most likely the last child my mother would ever have. For that reason, I would be raised as a male heir, unable to acknowledge my womanhood.

  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. Remember who you are.”

  I’m sorry.

  I bit my lip. There was nothing I could do about it now. I had to do this hunt. I couldn’t disobey a direct order from Soren.

  I’m sorry I disappointed you. My six sisters were as beautiful as the moon and stars before their skin burnt and their bodies became almost unidentifiable from the fire and slaughter that rained down upon them. 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. I had her eyes, she would say, smiling down at me. All six sisters took after her, with their skin a few shades lighter, hair not quite brown and not quite red, but I was the only one who had her leaf-colored eyes. Her only flaw was sending me to chop firewood in the middle of the cold night. It was the last time I heard her voice.

  My father had taught me everything I knew, everything that helped me survive in the Permafrost, everything I knew about goblins, the folk, and humans. I followed him like a shadow, absorbing every word he spoke. He would call me his pride, would revel in the fact that I was the only daughter who took after him, with dark curls and darker skin, heir in both position and physical features. He would’ve hated me for becoming like them. If he could see me, he would hate me.

  But even if I were dead, I wouldn’t go back to them in the worlds beyond. Those who took their life by their own hands didn’t join their family in the afterlife; at best they haunted the earth, at worst they joined the dread ship Naglafar as undead slaves toiling forever. Either way, Soren’d placed a bind on me long ago that effectively stopped me from hurting myself. If I even thought about it, 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 me like a raging fire. Even after what Lydian had done to me, I still survived. Life might have been painful and hard and even futile, but giving up was not in my nature. I woul
d rather survive in hopes that tomorrow would be better than take the chance away completely. 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 were outside the borders of the Permafrost, armed and horsed, I could escape. The bonds that kept me from escaping wouldn’t mean anything once I was in the human world. They were especially strong, created with both Soren’s and my own blood and spoken in the old magic language of the Permafrost. Those that tied me to Soren and the ’frost would be harder to escape from, but if I were in the human world, perhaps they would break. 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 belonged to, 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 farthest 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 the light shining through the skylights was too weak 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 he couldn’t contain. Two brutes and a she-goblin, I could smell that much 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 of you?” My hands curled into fists. 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-goblin’s fierce eyes had looked as if they wanted to consume me.

  “It was Lydian’s power that brought down the Erlking in the first place,” a male argued. I knew his voice. Franz. He’d been the one to successfully pull the nail out. It smelled like he hadn’t gone unscathed.

  “It was the challenge, not Lydian alone. Soren could’ve easily been the most powerful in the room if he hadn’t allowed his little pet to get in his way.” The third voice was a male I didn’t know.

  “She’s a liability, even if neither knows it. Once Soren starts the Hunt, he’ll take her with him. 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.

  Helka grunted, seemingly unconvinced. “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.”

  It’s starting. It had 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 take pride in my relationship with the man,” the unrecognizable voice said.

  “He likes his whore better than half his court. Not that he has much of that either,” Helka said. “Some men have interesting tastes.”

  Bile rose in my throat at those implications. Of course everyone thought he was bedding me. It’d probably be more scandalous if they knew 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. Soren had been part of that. I’d spent enough time in the training yard with him to have gotten a few closer-than-needed looks at his body myself, as Soren wasn’t exactly known for his modesty. But 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 couldn’t. Despite his status as one of the more powerful goblin lords, Soren didn’t keep a very big court and found no need to. The few score of goblins in his control tended to be spread across the Permafrost as his eyes and ears. 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, no matter his wishes, the bind spells cast upon me would revert me back to Lydian’s ownership. He’d made sure of that when he threw me at Soren’s feet all those years ago. Lydian might not have the end goal of turning me into a monster, but he did want to make me suffer in ways that still gave me nightmares. He would draw it out, keep me hanging on to life by a thread while I endured his torture endlessly. He wouldn’t kill me; he had far too much pride for that and he wouldn’t want to lose his toy so quickly. He wanted me to suffer.

  I might’ve hated what Soren wanted me to become, but I’d rather join him on a hunt where 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 it, 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.

  Another way my body has evolved. I shook the thought off.

  There was the she-goblin’s, Helka’s, power, 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 nothing I hadn’t taken on 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, as if he were a dog slobbering for meat. Before I knew it, he’d hung back and let the rest go without him. Watching. Waiting to get the drop on me.

  I sprang from the crevice with the grace of a big cat and landed on the brute’s back before he 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 upper hand.

  “I thought I smelled you.” He laughed. “Now I really get to have fun.”

  I was still on his shoulders and answered his statement by driving his head into the rocks. He spat and grabbed at me, forcing us both down on the ground. He had at least seventy 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 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 built pressure in my hips, then dug my hands as hard as I could beneath his elbows. My knees bunched together. For the first time, we saw each other evenly, crazed blue eyes staring into dark 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 my tunic was as good as ruined.

  I sat there, trying to quiet my heart, watching as the light from the skylights changed from orange, to red, to purple, to dusky gray. 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 lives to save my own. Even here, in the Erlking’s palace, the Hunt had begun. I couldn’t be bogged down with guilt, but I wouldn’t feel 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. Remember what you are, Janneke. The cadence of my father’s voice faded each day.

  I stayed on the ledge by the chasm until Soren found me. He inhaled deeply, detecting the others who’d been here with me. When I looked hard, his features changed to something angular and sharp, more monster than person. But it was gone in a flash.