“Lydian?” My voice broke as I said the name. Was it so obvious that something was wrong with me? “I’m not mad, then,” I said, realization dawning on me. If Donnar somehow knew …
“No, you’re not,” Donnar said. “Soren never completely burned Lydian’s body, right? Didn’t give it burial rites?”
“No. He kept his heart. It’s … somewhere around here.” I tried to make myself forget about the still-beating heart locked away in one of the various rooms of the palace. Only those with a fully burned body and burial rites could truly pass on to the next life. Otherwise, they became stuck in a hellish afterlife where they were trapped in the void, never seen or heard from again. Or so I thought, until Lydian barged into my head.
Regardless, when it came to the matter of Lydian’s still-beating heart, I had enough haunting my brain without that image pushing through.
“He can’t truly leave this world until it’s burned. His specter has latched on to you,” Donnar said. “But I’m sure you know this by now.”
“He keeps saying things and I don’t understand,” I said fervently. “I keep seeing these … these flashes of the world falling apart. People being undone by the inside out. Sometimes the sound in my head gets so loud that I think it’s going to explode. There’s death. Death everywhere, and it’s all screaming to me, and I don’t know what’s going on!”
Donnar was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was both soft and sad. “I did tell you your path wouldn’t be an easy one.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with me?” I asked. “Why I’m seeing all these things?”
Because I’m a part of you now, Janneke.
“No!” I shouted, not caring who heard. “Shut up! You aren’t part of this conversation!”
“But he is,” Donnar said. “He’s very much a part of all of this.”
It’s all about me. What I know. What you can’t know. Unless …
“Unless you want to end up like him.” Donnar somehow finished Lydian’s sentence though his voice was only in my head.
“I want an explanation,” I said, trying to keep my hands from shaking. Hel, was it too much to ask to have my life for once not be tainted with my tormentor? Was it so hard for the Norns to let me live in some relative peace for once? Was I cursed to this plague for all eternity? He was dead. Dead and gone and cold in the ground somewhere, and yet somehow, he was still here, doing what he always did. What he’d always done. Tormenting me.
“I can’t tell you,” Donnar said. “But I can show you.”
I took a step back, suddenly frightened. “I’ve seen the things you’ve shown me. Forgive me if I’d rather not deal with the mental torture.” An iron knife with an antler bone handle, shoved deep into my father’s flesh, the proclamation that we were all monsters, his body turning into mine as it bled out and then slowly faded from sight. Yes, I’d had enough of what Donnar could show me to last a lifetime.
“You don’t have the luxury of refusal, I’m afraid.” He held out a hand, sharp talons glistening in the light. “You must see. You must.”
“Or what?”
“The end of the world.” Both Lydian’s and Donnar’s voices spoke at the same time, resonating in my own head and in the space around me, hanging heavily in the air.
“It’s never something simple, is it?” I asked sardonically.
In my mind’s eye, I could see Lydian. His hair was frazzled and his face was smudged with soot, his clothes ripped like millions of fingers had torn their way into them. But the smile on his face, so much like his nephew’s, was the same. What happens when the serpent stops eating his tail?
I didn’t know, but as I reached for Donnar’s hand, I braced myself to find out.
* * *
THE WORLD RUSHED around me, through me, inside and out. There was no breeze, but my hair blew in the wind despite that. I was standing still and moving forward. I was rising and I was falling. Bursts of color and blackness danced across my field of vision as the world around me shifted from the throne room to someplace dark and cold. A place where the red bloodwater trickled down from the sky high, high above; where those who entered rarely left with their sanity—if at all.
The motion stopped and Donnar released my hand. Goose bumps rose on the skin of my arms from the cold. Something was different about this cavern—I could tell it was the same one I’d been in long before, the one Donnar and Tibra inhabited, but something was off. There was more moss, rock structures that hadn’t been there before were there now, the bones and feathers on the ground were fresher, fewer in number. Around us, the air shimmered as if it were a mirage.
“What is this?” I asked Donnar, but he shushed me and pointed ahead of us.
Standing there was, well, Donnar. Obviously younger, judging by the skin that barely covered his ribs and the talons that had yet to grow into full length. When a svartelf fully matured, the skin on their backs broke and left them open for the world to see. Muscle, bone, veins, nerves, and sinew all on grotesque display for everyone. Or, in theory, anyways. Staring at a svartelf’s exposed back was considered one of the highest forms of disrespect and insult one could commit, and you’d be lucky to escape with your eyes intact.
Footsteps echoed in the cavern as someone approached the younger Donnar, and the older Donnar motioned for me to step aside a few paces, widening my field of vision. A shriek rose and died in my throat before it could be released at the sight of the goblin approaching Donnar. My hands balled into fists, nails digging into the flesh, and a cold trickle of terror ran down my back.
Not real, I thought. He’s not real. He can’t see me. He can’t.
I’ve always been able to see you, Janneke. His words rang in my mind, clear as day. Memory or not. I’ve always seen you. Always.
“Stop talking,” I growled, forcing myself to ignore Lydian’s voice in my head as a younger version of the goblin stepped before the svartelf.
There was no iron poisoning in his leg so he stood tall, his skin was fresher, younger, lacking the multitude of scars from before. His hair was shorter too, only down to his ears. But what really struck me were his eyes. His green eyes weren’t clouded, they didn’t look as if they were gazing always at something everyone else couldn’t see. They were clear and present.
“You seek knowledge,” the younger Donnar said to him. “But it’s not knowledge you can handle.” His tone was not unkind.
The younger Lydian growled and took a step forward. “I can handle it! I can! For generations my family has had the sight! Generations we have been gifted this knowledge. You cannot deny it to me!”
The younger Donnar was unfazed. “You were not born with the sight. You can’t handle it. Leave, goblin, there are no answers for you here.”
Lydian swiped at the younger Donnar, causing a line of red to form on his cheek. “My father has it! My brother has it! And my grandfather and his! It is my right to also have it! They don’t get to be the only ones! It’s my blood right to be able to see. You cave-dwelling backless bastards should know that!”
A drop of blood ran down the younger Donnar’s cheek and onto his lips. He tasted it with his tongue, before narrowing his eyes. “It’s your right to see, is it?”
“Yes,” Lydian hissed.
“And what do you want to see? What do you deserve to know?” Though the younger Lydian didn’t seem to notice, I couldn’t help but feel a sinking in my gut at the look in the younger Donnar’s eyes.
“Everything.”
The svartelf broke out into a malicious grin. “So you shall.”
One second Lydian was standing and growling, and the next he was on the ground, shrieking. He clutched his head with his hands, fingers digging into the skin on his face. His cry echoed off the walls of the cavern, going up and up and up to the mountains above. He contorted, twisting from grotesque shape to grotesque shape, screams of agony never ceasing. Younger Donnar stood over him, smiling.
“They’re all dead. They’re all dying!�
�� Lydian shrieked. “Little lives snuffed out by feet, and the bird is going to die in the cold. Heartbeats, there are millions of them. Everywhere. Everything. The stone will be unturned, the other skipped across a pond. Even more will stay as they are forever. Ice goes and comes, the world is burning. The serpent is free and he’s sitting on his throne, and she’s beside him, both of them, the serpent is unwinding. What have you done to me?” he gasped. “Make it stop!”
I could barely tear my eyes away from Lydian to look back at Donnar. “What did you do to him?”
Donnar shrugged. “He wanted to know everything. So, I let him.”
“Let him, what?”
“Know everything. The fate of each insect, each crawling worm and blade of grass, the individual tracks of the particles in the air, the marks in the snow. The deaths and births of all living things and their every single heartbeat, every single breath. Every single second of every single thing from the beginning to the end of the world, I let him know.” At those words, Donnar smiled.
Fear formed like a rock in my stomach, and I had to stop myself from taking a step back at the look on Donnar’s face. It was so easy to forget, sometimes, surrounded by the ones who I loved and who loved me, that despite everything, in some ways I was always going to be different. It was hard to remember that some of the people I cared for couldn’t experience emotions the same way I did and would never know exactly how to empathize no matter how hard they tried. It was even worse knowing that other goblins, svartelves, the creatures of the Permafrost in general didn’t care who I was and were perfectly fine with trying to drive me to insanity. Hel, Lydian managed to do it from beyond the dead.
The Permafrost could be beautiful and its creatures did possess some feral form of grace, but above all, it was brutal, unforgiving, a place where the wrong words to the wrong creatures could end my life before it’d even begun and there were no second chances, no take-backs. Brutal, severe, harsh, and cold.
“Knowing all those things?” I said when I managed to get over a bit of my shock. “They could—they’d have to—”
“Drive you mad?” Donnar replied. “Yes. They could. They did. Granted, he was already unstable before my ‘gift’ cursed him.”
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked. “How is this going to help me with my visions, with Lydian in my head?”
“Perhaps you should ask him, yourself,” Donnar said.
“Ask Lydian?”
“You’re the stag, communicating between worlds should come naturally to you.” He frowned at the look on my face. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how?”
I balled up my fists again in frustration.
“Ask him,” Donnar repeated. “I cursed him with the weight of knowledge. That weight would drive the strongest mad. He would never be able to speak about what he saw until his death. He’s dead. He’ll always be like this. He never was not. He’ll always be tortured by the endless stimuli of knowing, but at least now, he should be coherent. More reachable. Ask him and you will understand.”
With those words, the world rushed around me again until I stood alone in the throne room, dizzy and shaking. For a long moment, all I could do was stare blankly, unable to even think, much less move voluntarily. When I finally regained control of myself, I fell to my knees and wept.
3
THE FLAMING ARROW
I PULLED MYSELF together quicker than I thought I could. Quick enough that should Soren come back, he wouldn’t have noticed my tears or distress. Donnar was gazing at me, something akin to pity in his eyes. I glared at him. I didn’t need anyone’s pity.
“You drove him mad, then,” I said, straightening myself.
Donnar shrugged delicately. “If it’s any consolation, he was damaged way before I cursed him, and I don’t take disrespect well. Your pity should be saved.”
“I do not pity him. I do not feel compassion for him. None of this changes my view of him.” The words came out in a near growl. “You made everything worse.”
“Yes,” Donnar said. “I hope you find the answers you seek.” The wind picked up again despite us being inside, and with a blur of color, Donnar was gone.
I scowled. “You could have at least given me more directions!” I shouted at the spot where he had stood. “Damn svart-elves!”
I think that’s the one topic you, Soren, and I fully agree upon.
Ignoring Lydian, I put my head in my hands, trying to piece together what Donnar had shown me. Part of it was obvious. Lydian had come down to the caverns seeking knowledge, he’d mentioned some type of ability his brother and father had that he didn’t, he was hostile to Donnar, who then cursed him with the knowledge of literally every living thing all at once, driving him mad—or, well, mad-er.
But even if he was cursed with some type of knowledge, even if he was driven mad, none of that really mattered. Not to me, anyway. It hadn’t changed the things he’d done to me. It hadn’t changed the pain he caused. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to listen to what he had to say, because even if it was important enough for his specter to hang around me and speak in my mind all day, listening to him felt like giving in. Somehow validating his actions. Maybe it was irrational. But it was how I felt.
At the same time, I wasn’t sure I had a choice. Something deep in my gut was tugging at me, a part of my mind that was walled off begged for the blockade to be shattered. There was no voice in my head, yet it was there all the same. My duty did not involve, could not involve, personal feelings. No emotions. No grudges. No pain. Nothing. I was the stag and the stag’s job was to keep balance in the world, to find and eliminate threats that would have that balance destroyed. It didn’t matter what I wanted. It was what the stag had to do. I could hate it all I wanted, I could refuse to do it as Janneke the human, but Janneke the stag would do it whether Janneke the human wanted to or not.
“Janneke?” Soren’s voice brought me back to the world, and I tried to discreetly wipe any trace of tears from my face. “Are you okay? Where’s Donnar?”
“He left,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“What did he want with you?”
Soren’s concern was written plainly on his face, and it killed me to lie to him. But I couldn’t tell him the truth when I wasn’t even exactly sure what the truth was. How could I tell him what was going on when I didn’t know myself?
I shook my head. “I’m not entirely sure.”
Soren stepped forward and rested a hand on my shoulder. “You look exhausted,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
No. I feel like I’m going to break into a million pieces. I feel like I’m drowning. But I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t know how. Asking for help was still not one of my strong suits.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” I said. At least it was partly true.
“Maybe you should rest,” Soren said. “The Permafrost won’t fall into pieces without you for twenty-four hours.”
I snorted. “I was only gone for about an hour when you tried to kill Tibra. Not that I blame you for it.”
He brushed a loose lock of my hair behind my ear, fingertips gently running over my cheek. My skin flushed where his fingers touched and the reaction made him smile with satisfaction. “I promise, I’ll be good. Besides, you look like you really need it. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I caught his hand in mine and held it to my cheek. “I’ll be fine. I promise. It’s stress.” The understatement of the century.
Gods, I wanted to tell him. The secrets inside of me ached to be let out. Seppo, Rose, and Diaval knew and I was fine with that, so then, what scared me so much about Soren knowing? Even Donnar knew more than him—granted it was probably because he caused the problem in the first place.
Maybe because I didn’t exactly tell the three of them out loud. Diaval could sense it and so could Rose, for some strange reason, and whatever Rose knew, Seppo did. They’d approached me about it all three together in what was probably considered th
e goblin form of a soft intervention.
Or maybe because Seppo, Rose, and Diaval hadn’t actually been victims of Lydian. Not like Soren and I had. They hadn’t suffered by his hand; they didn’t have him haunt their dreams for decades.
Maybe if it’d been me seeing Lydian’s ghost, it’d be different. I could confide in Soren about the ghosts of my past, real or imagined. But I was hearing him in my mind. He stood before my eyes. Not only that, but I had visions of the world being thrown into chaos, and if Donnar was right, the one person who could truly tell me what was going on was a person who I’d rather die than see again.
How would I even explain that? I could barely grasp the concept myself. Every cell inside of me ached to ignore Donnar’s words, which now bounced around in my brain, and continue surviving.
It should’ve been, well, not peaceful exactly, but better by now. The bad guy was dead. Soren and I were together and safe. My friends were safe. I was finally allowing myself to heal and grieve and let go of all the hate and anger I felt toward myself. Except for that bad guy was speaking to me from beyond the grave. It was so unfair I wanted to stomp my foot on the ground like a child.
It should’ve been better. I should’ve been better by now. But I wasn’t. The very idea of even speaking to Lydian petrified me. Hel, I didn’t even want to breathe the same air as him if I could help it. I should’ve been free of him, but my abuser was hanging on despite every effort to shake him off for good.
But I didn’t really have a choice when everything boiled down to it, did I? No matter my human feelings, buried underneath it all was the compulsion to do whatever needed to be done to keep the Permafrost safe. What I wanted didn’t matter. If it hurt me, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was fulfilling my duty and doing it as quickly and efficiently as possible.
And so despite my feelings, I did what I had to do.
“You’re right,” I murmured. “I think I may lie down for a bit. I’ll see you later?”
Goblin King Page 3