by Emma Hamm
“Yes.”
Her head snapped up, looking at him in surprise. She thought perhaps it was a lie, but the longer she stared at him the more she realized Micah meant it with every fiber of his being.
“I have led an unusual life, Jane. I was born in the City, with all its splendor and riches. Later, I was banished to the outskirts and started working in the mines. I know exactly what it is that you and your people work so hard for. And I know it is not worth it.
“These goblins have offered me a life I would never have imagined otherwise. They are kind and giving. They accept others without question and give them shelter. All they ask for in return is respect and for us to accept to their ways. They are a fascinating species. In so many ways they are superior to humans.”
Jane nodded. “Perhaps they are to you Micah. But you cannot forget the miners that are not here with us. Where are they? And this does not change the fact that I have a responsibility. My loyalty belongs Above with family.”
“These creatures are dying, Jane.”
The cave fell silent after the words.
“What?” Her words echoed slightly in the cave, ringing back against her own ears.
“They’re becoming extinct. They have perhaps three more generations before they will be completely wiped from this planet.”
“They look healthy to me,” she replied. “I can’t imagine that there’s something that is plaguing them.”
He sighed, leaning back on his hands. “They can’t produce females anymore, Jane. They have only produced a handful of offspring this generation. The next they aren’t certain whether there will be any at all. They need to do something and fast before they are no longer here. This is a species that we cannot ignore. A problem we cannot ignore.”
“I’m no scientist. I don’t understand these things, so you’ll have to excuse me when I ask what this has to do with me.” She had a sinking feeling that she knew already.
“It is our hope that a hybrid species is the last chance to save them.”
That was what she was afraid of hearing. Jane licked her lips, staring down at the water around her feet as she clutched the towel tighter to her chest.
“A hybrid species. So you’re saying that they kept me here so that I could provide them with a child. Is that what Ruric is supposed to do?”
“We need to save them, Jane. I have spent many years here and I know exactly what you worked for. The City is not all the glamour and good that those in the outskirts think. They are terrible, vain people who could care less whether you survive or not. You have to believe me when I say the goblins are worth saving.”
She started shaking her head, her fists clenched against her heart and knees shaking. “I am not some kind of brood mare. It’s good that you love these people, Micah. I’m glad someone does. But this is not my job.”
“I’m not trying to say it’s your responsibility Jane. I’m asking you to consider this for the good that it is. Your family will be fine without you. I lived in Silnarra. I know the kindness that is there. Another family will take them in, get them situated. They will be safe and happy. You need not worry about them.”
“If this is a choice between my family and the goblin species, I’m sorry to say I will choose my family every time, Micah.” Her voice was deadly quiet, low and straight from the heart. How dare he put her in this position. How dare he try to guilt her into this strange experiment!
“I didn’t say you had a choice, my dear.” He stood slowly, dusting himself off as he watched her. “It is best if we feel as though we were the ones who are making the decisions. I do not want you to feel as though you were be forced into this binding. You’re doing a good thing.”
“I believe force is exactly what you just described Micah.” She pointed towards the mouth of the cave. “Get out.”
He inclined his head, and in some way she wondered if he knew he had overstepped the line. If this was a plan to get her to want to help these people, he had failed miserably. She wanted to go home.
Jane desperately missed the sand underneath her feet. She missed her sister’s laugh and her brother tossing things at them. She missed the way that the tent would move in the wind as the storms blew past them. She even missed the biting sun beating down against her back.
Nothing here was like home. It was so cold, so wet, so dark that she could feel it closing in her on her. This was where she was going to lose her mind and she would be damned if her death would greet her in a tomb. No one would ever know where to mourn her. She should be buried beside her mother to return to the sands and the dunes. Not left down here in a cave for animals to pick apart her bones.
As soon as she couldn’t hear the sound of Micah’s feet she crumbled. Her knees hit the stones hard, head suspended over the water that was still glowing from her movements.
Jane was a strong woman. In fact, most would say that she was so stubborn and pig headed that she wasn’t likely to ever cry. She dealt with stress and fear physically. The more work she could do, the better she would feel. But down here she had been coddled so much that her emotions had stayed pent up inside of her.
She had done her best to keep them in check. Her spine had remained straight. She had not shamed herself by falling into hysterics. Eventually everything would boil over.
In this moment she forgot how to breathe. Gasping breaths forced air into her lungs but she could not feel it. The darkness around her pressed in, forcing her closer and closer to the ground until she was certain she would be crushed under the weight of it.
This was the end for her. As Micah had said, there was no choice. She could not leave here. Even if she somehow managed to escape from her captor where would she go? There were too many tunnels, too much darkness for her to disappear into. Without a goblin guide, she would surely die. There was nothing for her to do but bow to their will. It went against every grain in her soul.
Her hands clutched at her ribs. If she didn’t hold onto them hard enough then everything was going to spill out. She would start screaming, raging, breaking whatever she could because life wasn’t fair. This was not how she was supposed to spend the rest of her life. Rotting away as a goblin bride was a punishment for a crime she did not commit.
She barely flinched when warm hands curved on top of hers. Gentle as they always were with her, they lifted her from the ground. Her towel was once again wrapped around her, tucked end to end before she was lifted.
He deposited her away from the water and set her feet onto the ground gently before he started to dress her.
Ruric wasn’t quite certain what had happened. He had walked back into the cave after passing Micah, the man’s ducked head and closed expression saying more than he wanted to understand. Still, Jane had been strong through this entire ordeal. He admired her strength in that way.
Returning to her was going to be another fight and he had steeled himself against it. Losing his control once was enough. He did not think she understood just how much trouble she could have been in. Goblins were so much stronger than humans. He could have killed her if he had wanted to and it would not have been a struggle.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, even as anger and aggression had coursed through his veins, he had focused on the twin points of her fists pressed against his skin. It was the first time she had willingly touched him and it had been in protection of herself. He would always find shame and guilt in that thought.
He found her on her knees beside the pool. Ruric wished that he did not understand what her posture meant. It would have made it easier on him to know that she remained strong and unaffected by everything that was happening to her life. But she was not made of stone after all. There was a part of him that was pleased to know this.
She was light in his arms, easy to move and place where he needed her to be. It was even easier to dress her when she was like this. The weaving patterns of cloth were easier to wind around her when she was not squirming or speak
ing.
She was so different from him. Ruric doubted he would ever look at her without being a little startled. As pale as him in some places, and yet dark in others, she was pieced together parts of strength and softness. The hard angled planes of her stomach and ribs blended into soft breasts and thighs. Her arms and legs were heavily muscled, powerful in a way that most female were not.
If he had learned anything about her, it was that she was a creature who was made to work. Like the others they took, she would have done well in the mines. Humans seemed to be bred to work. Goblins might be powerful but their hands and feet did not make it easy to do many things. These humans with their long delicate fingers could do so much that he could not.
Once she was finally dressed, he rose to his full height before her. His large palms framed her face, clawed thumbs brushing away the water that had dampened her cheeks.
“Tears.” He knew this word. It was not often that they saw them deep in these tunnels, but he knew this word better than most.
“I have to go home.”
The words were broken, choked in the back of her throat. They nearly made him wince. The sound was ugly. Perhaps this was the way that goblins thought of the human language. Choked, constrained, and so painfully emotional.
Her eyes looked up at him, those strangely tiny things that could barely see in the caves without his help. Yet he could always see all of her. Bathed in the blue glow of their globes, she looked less like a human and more like some fairy creature that had stepped out of a child’s tale. How she could not see that the entirety of the goblins in this cave system were enthralled with her?
“What did Micah say?” He was getting better at speaking, the more he practiced with her the easier it was for him. Ruric was lucky to have this chance. The more he could learn the better their raids would go.
“He explained the ceremony and the reasoning behind it.”
There was a flicker of the usual anger he had come to expect in her eyes. But her voice did not raise, her muscles did not quiver. What little fight she had been clinging to was finally gone.
As cold as it sounded, this was the moment that Ruric had been waiting and hoping for.
His hand traveled down the length of her cheek and neck. She had been so strong and stubborn for so long, he had been afraid that she was never going to accept her fate. It was an admirable quality, one that he shared with her. But perhaps now she would be willing to see his world the way it really was.
“Come with me.”
She didn’t really have a choice, did she? Jane didn’t have a choice in anything down here. His hand stayed on the back of her neck until they reached the precarious edge of the cliff. Even after nearly two weeks, she had not gotten used to it.
In the moment when she expected him to turn in towards their cave, he ushered her forward. They had never traveled this way before. The globe he had gathered lit her way enough so that she wasn’t going to fall.
She tried to pay attention, but after so many turns, Jane had no idea where they were. It could have taken hours for them to walk where he wanted her to go. She wasn’t certain without the sun passing her by. How she missed the sun.
Ruric in contrast was slowly getting more and more nervous. If she knew about the ceremony than she was ready to find out more about his kind. No longer did he want to treat her as a pampered pet. It was time for her to understand why it was so crucial to his kind that she be here. It was not their first choice. None of them wanted to dilute the blood they had. None of them even knew if a hybrid was an option. They simply had no choice in the matter now.
Finally they rounded a corner and Jane could finally see how the goblins really lived.
Reed ladders strung across great chasms connected goblin homes from side to side. They were lit by small globes that were held above them by taller reeds, looping across so it was easy to see. There were goblins walking on them, carrying large baskets on their heads and hips. The ladders were swaying with the slightest breeze. Strung across the ladders were the strips of fabric they used as clothing, all of the light silk pieces fluttering in vibrant colors.
He did not know what she was seeing. To him, this had and always would be home.
“We were not living in your home were we?” She asked quietly.
“No.” He said in answer, gesturing with an arm as he stopped before a ladder. “This is home.”
And what a home it was. A few goblins noticed him, trilling their greeting and pausing to stare with widened eyes at Jane. To her they must have seemed even stranger as their large eyes glinted in the light of her globe.
“Why?”
He didn’t have an answer for that right now. She would learn soon enough that they could not trust her around the young ones. Not without knowing that she wouldn’t hurt the rest of them. Their people were not all warriors, in fact most of them were artisans. They were too delicate, and too few of them, to take that risk with a human walking into their midst.
“Let me show you.” He said, placing a hand on the small of her back and forcing her to take that first step onto the ropes. He did not think she would like it. They were hanging between two cliffs that went down so far even his eyes could not see the bottom. But she would need to get used to it. This was how they lived.
Slowly they made their way across the bridge. She alternated between clutching onto his arm and holding onto the rope railing. He now knew how foolish he was for thinking that humans did not have claws. Her hands made perfectly good ones as she clutched onto him for balance.
As he finally got her to the other side, he glanced down at his forearm and the half moons that had been gouged into it. Perhaps she had a little more fight in her than he gave her credit for.
“Are we going to your real home now? Why?” She was out of breath, her eyes still wide with fear and adrenaline. He recognized the look. Many of his men had appeared the same after their first raid on humans. They made foolish decisions when they looked like that. But at least she was more aware than she had been just a few moments ago.
“No.” He shook his head, walking towards a cave opening that was covered by a thin silk sheet. He paused for a moment before the door, seeming to take in a deep breath before he looked back at her. “Remember. Quiet.”
Jane had no idea what he was talking about. She tried to be as quiet as possible whenever she was with him. His ears were very sensitive, and though she wanted to scream and shout and make all the noises that she enjoyed, Jane tried to be very quiet around him.
He nodded, then pulled the cloth back and gestured for her to step inside.
She had assumed that they would be walking into a similar cave to the one they had been living in. She was very much mistaken.
Everything in this cave was vibrant. The light was no where near what she would have considered normal, but there were certainly a considerable amount more crystals. Along with the globes, the jagged arches she had seen before on their thrones seemed to grow naturally in this place. The ones here set off warm yellow glows that made it easier for her to see.
The walls were covered with those cloths that she had come to appreciate so much. Each one seemed to be dyed so that streaks of color would splatter along their lengths. Even the floors were covered with bits and pieces of them, woven together in thick strands that created rugs.
It felt more like a home. Gone was the cold dark cave and instead it was replaced with a place of softness and beauty. It was a little bit of a relief to know that there was something here that wasn’t as hard as Ruric. The male had convinced her that life Below would be much harder than she anticipated.
A shrill whistling sound made her wince. She turned quietly towards the sound.
Running around a corner came a whole gaggle of goblin children. Seven total, they were precisely what she would have expected. All skinny limbs and oddly green skin, they shoved at each other to get to Ruric. The big man was quickly overpowered by the clambering chil
dren who seemed to be using their claws to dig into his skin and pull themselves up.
She was both amused and horrified. Children always seemed to wiggle their way into her heart. Even if these children were gnawing on Ruric as though he was a piece of meat.
Every time their attention was diverted towards her, Ruric would fling out a meaty arm and drag them back into the rolling tussle that had the entire group of goblins moving to the other end of the room.
She had a feeling it was best for her to stay out of it.
Another trill from behind her made her turn slowly. It was deeper than the others, and she was not disappointed to find that her ears were true. Behind her was another male goblin, though this one’s head was shaved. She hadn’t seen that often down here.
He nodded to her, bowing his head slowly and waving a hand towards the goblins wrestling on the rug. It appeared that he was trying to tell her not to worry.
She couldn’t bring herself to anyways. Ruric was a warrior through and through. If he could be mortally wounded by small children, then she should seriously reconsider her opinion of him. The more that she learned about the goblins, the more she was certain that they were just as gentle as Micah had claimed.
Eventually the children calmed down enough for Ruric to plop them all down onto a rug, his deep voice thrumming in his throat. It appeared they were getting a stern talking to.
The grin on his face startled her. Those sharp teeth would always make her uncomfortable, especially when coupled with those strange and unusual eyes.
“Children calm now.” He appeared to stumble over the words, just those few moments of talking in his own language made it difficult for him to switch to hers.
“Micah said you couldn’t have children anymore.” Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps all of it was a lie to keep her calm.
The hum of agreement made her thoughts still though. “There not many. Some. But not many.”
He held his hand out for her to take, the long black claws curled upwards like some of the desert plants she had seen before. It was unnatural for her to put her hand into that trap when she knew that at any moment his claws could close around her wrist and shred her skin.