White Stag Read online

  “Aleksey was here, wasn’t he?” 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 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 might survive. I didn’t think at all, only acted. “Well, it isn’t the first time.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Soren said, looking me over 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 fur-lined leather gloves. From underneath the falling hood, his white hair was braided in the style of a goblin hunter.

  “Janneke,” he said softly, “are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He looked like he didn’t quite believe me. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded.

  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.

  4

  BEGINNINGS

  THE SUN GLINTED off the icy river—one of the only ones that ran fast through Soren’s territory as far as I knew. Though the sheen of ice was bright in the daylight, I knew the water underneath was swift. Swift water bothered goblins; I’d known that even in the human world. The different lands and creatures were aware of one another, after all, despite the magical and predatory nature of those across the border.

  It’d been more than a year since Lydian’s attack on me and the destruction of my village. I’d gotten used to the odd culture of the place, both uplifting and backstabbing at the same time, and understood the best ways to be useful and spend my time.

  But I did not have any special skills that goblins needed. I couldn’t embroider or make pottery or weave cloth. I could hunt and fight, but goblins didn’t need someone to do things they already excelled at. So I wasn’t surprised when Soren asked to speak with me. But I was surprised when my new job basically meant I’d be by his side at all times.

  I was surrounded but not by my own kind. There were few humans in the halls of Soren’s manor, and all of them were normally busy with whatever tasks they’d been entrusted to do. In the times I wasn’t by Soren’s side, helping him with training or lending my voice to matters he asked my opinions on, I found myself alone with free time I didn’t know what to do with. When that happened, I observed. Sometimes I escaped from everyone in order to let myself delve into the hatred and anger that burned deep inside of me, directed at myself.

  Which led me to the river. The only place where none of the goblins went and the place where I could be without stares and whispers and brutal snarls.

  The Permafrost could be called beautiful if I forgot what creatures dwelled here. In the sunlight, the snow glittered and the blue sky was the color of robins’ eggs. The forest I’d found dead when I was first brought here was more alive than I thought, the wind whispering through the skeleton trees and hardy little animals climbing through the undergrowth to scavenge what they could. They were survivors, like me. This world had more life in it than I’d originally thought, and there was even a beauty to it that I found I could love … if I could forget why I was here in the first place.

  “So this is where you go.” I froze at the voice. I hadn’t heard Soren come up behind me. Why was he looking for me? Did I forget something? My mind began to race.

  “Excuse me?” I asked when I found my voice.

  “You always go off when you have free time, and no one can ever figure out where. I decided to find out.” The goblin lord sat beside me, and I stiffened, daring to look at him through the side of my vision.

  His clothes were drenched in sweat, and the muscles in his arms were tense. He must’ve come from some type of chore that he preferred to do himself. I stared at the bulk of his arms, thinking how easily they could hold me down, immobilize me … then I snapped out of the poisonous thoughts. He’d given me no reason to fear him … much.

  “Why here?” he asked, as he thrummed his fingers against his thigh. One of his knees started bouncing, and I caught him glancing at the river in revulsion.

  “I’m able to be alone here. Goblinkind don’t like the fast-moving water. You can barely keep still, even now,” I said.

  He looked impressed. “Not many figure that out.”

  “I notice a lot.”

  His eyes were still on me, and the curiosity in them had me squirming. “What else do you notice?”

  I bit my lip. This could be some type of trap or game to cause me pain. Goblins were tricky. I looked back toward the river.

  “What else do you notice?” he said again.

  I closed my eyes. “You say you’re ambidextrous and fight with both hands, but you favor your left, so you’re most likely self-taught and biologically left-handed. You always have someone eat some of your food first; I assume because of fear of assassination. Almost every thrall claims they’ve never had the nectar, but almost every one of them is lying. The ones who are telling the truth ironically tend to get on better than the liars.”

  Soren was still looking at me; I could feel it. “Anything else?”

  I opened my eyes and met his gaze, trying not to tremble. “Your castellan wants to kill you.” The memory of the crimson-eyed goblin was forever burnt into my brain. Besides Lydian, he was the cruelest I’d known, and he made it a point to make sure I knew my place. But he talked like we weren’t around him, like humans had no minds themselves, and therefore I’d heard him plotting.

  Soren’s eyebrows rose. “And how do you know this?”

  “I heard him talking with another. Some courier, I think. They were speaking of a goblin who used to rule here—Cÿrus—and how he should be avenged. That you were too young and inexperienced. That you would bring this place to ruin. The castellan said he would take care of it.”

  Soren’s jaw tightened, and I waited for his rage. He’d be angry with me, surely, for speaking ill of him—even if they weren’t my words. I knew what happened to humans who mentioned bad news. Why I felt compelled to tell him in the first place, I didn’t know. I prepared myself for the worst.

  But he didn’t hit me or even touch me. He just stood, lips pursed, and started back to the manor. “Thank you for your insight, Janneke. Be sure to be back at the manor by sundown.”

  I watched him go, shaken.

  A few days passed after that, and nothing happened.

  Then one day I noticed a new goblin stalking around the courtyard. No one knew where the old castellan had gone; he’d simply vanished. But when I went to my small room that night, on a low table beside the sleeping platform was a note in Soren’s script.

  There were only three words written.

  “You were right.”

  * * *

  THE IMAGES IN my head twisted and turned, sharp claws, fire blowing up into the sky. The screams of my fa
mily and friends filled the air, and I was running, running through a burnt field full of the dead. Behind me the sound of horses’ hooves was getting closer. Soon they would surround me, and then I would be a goner. As I ran, my feet were sucked down slowly into the burnt earth, until I was prone and vulnerable. The horses surrounded me, and then there was darkness.

  I woke up with a shriek in my throat and my heart beating hard in my chest. The nightmare was so vivid I was surprised when I found myself swathed with furs on a sleeping platform softer than clouds. I shook my head to clear it, trying to focus on something else. When I got my bearings, a bead of panic burst in my chest, and I forced myself to quell it.

  Soren was by my side, his hand on my shoulder. “You were screaming. I thought I should wake you.”

  I caught my breath. “It was just a nightmare.”

  “The same one?”

  “Every time.”

  “Lydian won’t haunt your dreams for much longer. I promise you that.” He squeezed my shoulder, then winced and took his hand away before crossing the room to a drawer. I watched with curiosity as he took out a piece of cloth before ripping it into long shreds and trying to use his teeth to tie it across his palms.

  I stood. “Let me help.”

  Soren looked wary—showing weakness of any sort, even to someone like me, went against his instincts—but he held out one of his hands and I saw the faint burns across the palm. Sighing, I began to clean the area and wrap it up. “How did you do this?”

  He eyed my newly braided hair. “Apparently braiding my own hair in hunting braids doesn’t go against the magic the Permafrost granted goblins, but braiding anyone else’s is considered creation not linked to destruction, and so I’m going to get injured.”

  “You could have asked someone else,” I said, changing to his other hand. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

  “No, but I would have. I believe such intimate things must be done by those with whom it is most meaningful.”

  I made a disapproving noise in the back of my throat as I finished with his burns. “Try not to expose them to too much direct sunlight. You burn terribly and it’ll make it worse.”

  Soren flexed his hand, curling each blue-tinged finger. “I swear this is a curse.”

  “Come on.” I rolled my eyes. “The other week you were going on and on about how beautiful you looked.” He did, really, look beautiful. Eerie, but beautiful. The odd blue-gray tint of his skin and lips, the white of his hair, and the pale purple of his eyes were not features found on most goblins—only a select few in the Higher North, his place of birth, ever looked like that. It was like the color had been leeched from his body; I’d seen one or two humans with a similar condition.

  “I mean, I am beautiful,” he said.

  “You’re insufferable, you mean.”

  The corners of Soren’s lips threatened to turn up into a smile as he moved to lounge on a chair across the room. No, “chair” wasn’t the right word. It was more like a throne. The dark wood was carved with animals, both predator and prey, and vines that twisted around them in a never-ending circle. The back had the image of Jormungard, the serpent who circled the world, eating his own tail. Soren then leaned forward on his elbow and stared.

  “You know,” I said, “staring at me like that is really creepy. Even for you.” The serious tone I’d tried to take on was ruined when I couldn’t hold in my laugh.

  He frowned at that. “Does your kind normally do that?”

  “Do what? Laugh? Yes. Often.”

  “No, I mean, does your kind normally have that really cute nose crinkle when they make certain facial expressions, especially ones of humor or anger? It looks absolutely hilarious on you. In a good way, I mean.” He continued after a moment of silence, “From the look on your face, I’m guessing no. I’m also assuming you didn’t know that. Don’t be offended. It really is quite endearing.”

  “Oh, bite me,” I said.

  “Really?” he asked, surprised.

  “I’m finding it really tempting to punch you.”

  “You already punch me,” he said.

  “I mean, without your consent.”

  His eyes sparkled with humor, and he let out a laugh. I twitched, my skin crawling with millions of imaginary bugs. Clenching my fists to keep myself from brushing off my arms, I waited until his amusement died down. Why did goblin laughter have to be so shrill?

  “You know, I never noticed how vulnerable a human is when they sleep.”

  “You sleep,” I said, voice taking on an edge. “Tell me how vulnerable you are.” I paced across the large room as my reality began to dawn on me again. If I was going to get out of this, I would need to distance myself from Soren. Pacing was a bad sign; it was what trapped, injured prey did when cornered. But that was what I was. If I have to gnaw my own leg off to escape from the trap, so be it. Not to mention if I didn’t get some of this pent-up energy out, Soren and I truly might start going at it, and I wasn’t sure that was something he would be actually mad about.

  Soren’s eyebrows furrowed. “You think I sleep in that bed?” he asked.

  “The alternative is just as unlikely,” I said, haughty.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “A young lord falling asleep in the Erlking’s palace is like a rabbit sleeping under the tail of a wolf. It doesn’t happen.”

  I turned on my heel to face him. “What were you doing this whole time?”

  “I already said, I was watching you. It was quite relaxing, actually.”

  “I’m glad you had a relaxing night at least, then.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “You know I can give you something for your nightmares, right?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to be drugged.”

  “You say that like I’m going to heavily sedate you, not give you something to help you sleep,” he said. “If that’s what you want, though. I imagine they may get worse after the incident with Aleksey.”

  “He was plotting against you. I did what I had to.”

  He nodded again. “I see. I suppose that’s twice now.”

  “You remember?” I asked, thinking back to the castellan with bloodred eyes and suppressing a shudder.

  “I remember,” he said simply. But when he met my eyes, they said much more than his words.

  For a second my heart froze. Gratefulness wasn’t a good look for a goblin, and it wasn’t one I was used to. For a goblin to openly admit to remembering a debt he owed his thrall … it was unheard of. But, then again, Soren had never treated me in any other way. He’d definitely treated me better than his uncle.

  Lydian had been the one to take me captive after burning my village to the ground. I was great sport, the only known survivor of a goblin raid, and Lydian wanted to see how long I lasted. It was two months, maybe three, until I found a shred of power known only to me. A bent, iron nail, taken from the ashes before and forgotten by me in the haze of red I came to know. When I thrust it in his calf, he didn’t think I was so amusing anymore.

  But, technically, by winter law I had beaten him in a fight. He couldn’t kill me, then. So, when his young nephew came, newly made a lord through the murder of his kin, I went from a plaything to a gift. An insulting gift.

  He hadn’t expected Soren to see the fight in me. But he did.

  And here I was, almost a hundred years later, reaping the benefit of winning that fight long ago.

  Lost in my thoughts, the jangling of bronze locks and keys and the creaking of ill-used hinges made me jump. I turned to see Soren reach for something carefully wrapped in doeskin while being mindful of his damaged hands. At least they would heal quickly due to the magic of the Permafrost.

  “I have something for you,” he said, holding out the wrapped object to me.

  I stared at it, unsure. A gift given in the Permafrost always had to be repaid.

  Soren obviously knew what I was thinking, because he sighed and said, “Think of it as a repayment for saving my life.”

  Gingerly,
I reached for the package and set it down on a table of black cherry. The skin was so soft beneath my touch that I wasn’t surprised to see the white speckles dotting the brown. I wondered if the fawn’s mother was alive to mourn it, then figured she had probably been killed too.

  Inside the first fold were two leather bracers, as well as sturdy archery gloves. On the left bracer, there was a pocket too small for any knife. It didn’t take me long to guess what it was for. In the second fold was a belt with a sheath; inside the sheath, an axe of wickedly sharp, goblin-forged bronze shone black as Hel. In the third fold was a bow and quiver, the arrows tipped with goblin-forged bronze, the bow whiter than snow. Dragon bone.

  I swallowed. New gear and weapons fit for a goblin; so carefully wrought a human’s touch could taint them. Weapons, hunting gear, and armor—the holy trinity of what goblins were able to create with their own hands.

  “I already have supplies,” I said, thinking back to the bow I’d left at the palace entrance.

  Soren snorted. “Weak supplies. This is well-made. For the Hunt. You’d be wise to take them. You wouldn’t want your weapons giving out mid-hunt.”

  I swallowed the dryness in my throat. “How long is the Hunt, anyway?”

  He furrowed his brows. “I’ve never heard of it lasting longer than it takes for the new moon to come.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged, and I got a sense he didn’t really care about the topic. “Most of the competition is weeded out by then, I suppose. I don’t think it really matters—all that matters is winning. Still, take the weapons.”

  I took the items. I couldn’t refuse now that I’d touched them. Even if I did refuse, I wouldn’t put it past him to force them on me.

  “Proper gear will help your change.”

  Change. Adapt. Become like him. Disgust curled in the pit of my stomach, but I couldn’t help noticing the anticipation in my muscles. I wanted to feel the bracers against my skin. I wanted to pierce something’s flesh with those arrows. I wanted, I wanted …