The Goblin King (33 page)

“Did you have a wife?” Her voice dropped like she was afraid of being heard, or maybe she was afraid of the answer.

He shook his head. “No. I refused to marry a Roman woman under Roman law.”

Eliza’s pale brows drew together as if she was trying to understand, and failing.

“Life was different. The rules were different. Men were judged differently.”

“No regrets?”

“Not anymore.” He’d seen more than any man should. “I couldn’t have asked for a better queen.” He lifted her hand and kissed the ring. It slid off leaving her skin unmarked. “I’m releasing you of any obligation.”

She gasped and tried to take the ring back. “Please.”

“I have to let you go. No ties.” Her face would be forever held in his memory. He would stand by the door to the Hall of the Gods, waiting for her to pass through on her way to her next life just to see her again.

She gritted her teeth and sat up.

Roan pushed himself up so she sat in his lap. “We’ve spoken about this. Please let me go.”

“I don’t want to. I would rather be here with you than in the Fixed Realm.”

“If you do not wake and eat, you will die. And I cannot die in peace knowing I have dragged you with me. Bad enough my brother shares my fate.”

Eliza looked away, studying the grass. Her face was set with the pouted lip of a child not getting her way but understanding why.

He cupped her cheek so she had to look at him. “Don’t leave in anger. Wish me well, as I wish you well.”

She sucked in a breath and heaved it out. She was trying so hard to keep together, to not cry in front of him. Part of him was glad; already he was torn into a hundred fragments. The rest of him wanted to see her tears so he would know what his death would mean. How fast would she leave him to chase her future?

“Grant me one final wish…if you can.”

Roan dropped his hand. His heart ached, the gold colder and tighter as the darkness blackened, trying to erase the blot of brilliant white that had invaded his being. He fisted his hand tighter around her ring.

“I can’t use magic.” He bit each word out. The cold current that flowed thick as blood rushed to his fingertips, pleading to be used. The heat from the star faded under the pressure of giving her what she wanted.

She swallowed and leaned back as if sensing the rush of power that wanted to consume him. “No magic.”

“What then?” He eased his hold on her ring.

“Come to my house for dinner.”

Roan opened his mouth.

She covered it with her hand. Her eyes widened. “It can be a farewell party for you and Dai. A gift from me. Don’t die alone in the Shadowlands.” Her words poured out on top of themselves in the race to be heard.

And he gulped down each one, water to a man dying of thirst. But the temptation of another day was tainted by the body he would wear. Her last vision of him would be as the Goblin King.

“Say yes. Please say yes.” She slowly removed her hand and sat back.

Even disheveled and dirty from lying on the ground with him she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. When he blinked, a perfect impression of Eliza was painted on his eyelids. The sun was well risen where she lived, night had moved on. Mere hours separated them from another meeting. Would the caves hold or would they have to abandon them and the gold they contained? Could he eke a half day out of the tattered remnant of his soul? If it were just him, he would fade trying to be there. Dai would argue against any further delay. He couldn’t refuse his brother a warrior’s death.

“I can’t promise.” He lifted his knees.

Eliza stood. She held her hands out to him. He took the offer not because he needed help, but because he wanted to touch her again. They held hands lost somewhere between the Summerland and Shadowlands. He couldn’t spoil the night with a final farewell.

“I will come to say good-bye if I can’t be there for dinner.”

She nodded. “It’s time for me to wake up.”

“I wish it wasn’t so.” He leaned down to kiss her one last time. “Dream of me.” He gently eased her into waking.

Her sigh lingered on the breeze. He picked his belt up and refastened the weapons. Where he had lain on the ground the little pink flowers sprouted. He stepped to one side and squatted down. No flowers sprang out of his new footprints. Only the ones made with Eliza had any life. She was the key, but he had no idea how to use her to unlock the curse and no time to figure it out.

Chapter 19

Cold rolled off the river, even in summer. The lights from the city and boats reflected on the surface as if another city dwelled beneath her waters. Roan leaned against the bridge. His fingers worked over the dreadlocks, twisting the snakes of hair from root to tip. The habit of an unnatural lifetime. The river smelled. Polluted by rubbish and noise, but this was his home.

Or had been.

The ruins of his town lay buried under centuries of life. But if he closed his eyes and ignored the engines of the cars racing by overhead, time fell away. He slid back to before the Roman invasion, to his childhood. His father had taught him to fish in this river. As king he would have to feed his people as well as lead them.

He’d fought mock battles with wooden swords and later real ones that left the river running red with blood. Roman or Decangli, the one thing he had learned was people all bled the same. All screamed the same. All died the same. A look of surprise that twisted to agony as they clutched at the wound. He’d been no different as blood poured from his chest. He’d watched the crows circle after the battle ended, but had woken with his eyes intact, his wound clean and dressed. His father was dead and he was king, handed over to the Roman general as a political prisoner. The freedom Dai had been allowed was removed, so he truly was a slave to the general.

Roan walked a little way up the river, careful to stay in the shadows where his skin and clothing hid him from sight but not the damp in the air. Each time he came, the town had changed. The garrison was little more than preserved rubble. But he knew, even now through the maze of streets and lights, where it had once stood. An open sore on the landscape. A tumor that fed off his town, corrupting his people. Three hundred years later it was gone. The Romans, the language, and the memory of the cursed king.

The legend of the Goblin King had lasted longer. Teenagers had dared each other to call the Goblin King. Depending on his mood he would either ignore them or scare them. Their faces white, their lips moving without sound or thought. Some ran, some fainted. At least they didn’t order him to kill as so many had done. Well, one had. Roan smiled, his wide goblin mouth flashing too many teeth. A night tied naked to a gas streetlight had sorted that young man out.

Not all who had seen him had been so lucky. The death of one young woman was on his hands, no summoner to be blamed. She’d come for silver and paid with her life. As a trained courtesan she’d been good company, both getting what they wanted and nothing more. Gossip and jealousy among her rivals along with her drawings, the ones he’d told her not to make, had brought her before the church. They had been less than forgiving of her profession and her dealings with
demons
.

She had been the last woman before Eliza. In that five-hundred-year gap, he had lost more ground than in all the previous centuries. He sucked in a breath and released it slowly. The anger that had fueled him for so long was gone. The scales were almost balanced. Because of the curse, he’d met Eliza. For someone like him it was enough. More than he’d ever thought possible.

Behind him the shadows rippled and tore. The hairs on the back of his neck spiked. Roan remained facing the ruins. “Greetings, brother.”

“I thought I’d find you here longing for the past.”

“Making peace with it.” He turned, his beads silent for the solemn occasion. The sight of Dai’s face rearranged to be goblin cut every time he saw it. He looked away. “There is little else to do. You?”

“I am done.”

They stood in silence as a boat glided over the inky water powered by machine, not man. He’d watched the world change in ways one man should never see. The world he knew was long gone. While he’d watched the changes, even caused a few of them, he had never been part of them. Never lived in the moment or experienced the dawning of a new era.

“Could you step back in and join the flow of time?”

Dai scuffed his boot in the mud. He folded his arms and shook his head. “I would try, but men like us no longer exist.”

“
Men
like us are everywhere. Have you not noticed how many more goblins fill the Shadowlands? Men fight for money, not honor. War for wealth, not survival.” The world was obsessed with gold and its lightweight paper sibling. Men like they used to be no longer existed.

“The spirit of Rome lives on.” Dai’s face was grim as he stared across the river. His eyes were seeing something else. He dropped his gaze and looked away. “You know where to find me when you’re ready.”

Roan reached for his brother’s arm too late and grasped nothing but air thickened by the night. He took one last look at where he had been born and then followed Dai into the shadows.

The shelves were bare. Not a scroll. Not a tablet. Not a book to be seen. Dai had emptied his library. Roan blinked and turned, hoping he’d mis-stepped and ended up in the wrong cave. Odd golden artifacts littered the floor. The polished desk usually hidden by maps and texts was bare except for the gold-rimmed spectacles.

Dai reclined in his leather chair, his fingers pressed together. “I wasn’t expecting you to follow so fast.”

“What happened?” While Roan lacked Dai’s expertise in the written word he’d appreciated the volume of knowledge stored in one room.

The time spent deciphering and then the thrill of the wild goose chase as they’d hunted for a mythical cure only to find it useless. The hair from a dragon. Amulets. Spells. Prayers to gods that no longer listened. Holy water. Penitence. Confession. Pilgrimages. Voodoo. Witch doctors. Poison. If they hadn’t tried it, it didn’t exist.

“I cleaned up. Dead languages held little appeal, but I felt guilty about leaving them to rot here so I added them to the vault at Birch.”

“They were your life’s work.” Roan dropped into the other chair. For Dai to give up everything he’d collected…he studied his brother in the glow of the candlelight. His skin was paler, but not gray. His eyes were blue, but yellow burst around the pupil.

Dai smiled and leaned forward. “Are you looking for goblin?”

“Do I need to?”

“My latest finds have appeased the greedy golden-eyed monster. I didn’t even feel the bite taken from my soul in payment.” Dai touched his pendant. He reached into his drawer and pulled out two books. He laid them on the table. “I kept these for you. Shall I?”

The last two in the Harry Potter series. Listening to Dai’s summary would be the same as admitting he wouldn’t live to see the films. He wasn’t ready to concede defeat. Not while there was still time. Still a chance to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Battles could turn in a moment. The clanging of axes on rock mocked his hope. The only reason his cave hadn’t been invaded yet was because the goblins kept attacking each other.

Roan eased back in his chair and feigned relaxation. “Tell me over dinner.”

“Dinner?” Dai tapped the cover of the final book. “Why dinner?”

“Eliza has asked—”

“Eliza.” He swept the books off the table. “How long will you dance to her tune?” Dai ran his fingers through his hair. He frowned at the books on the floor then checked his hands, looking for the gray stain that announced the fade. Dai had lost his distraction. His love of learning for learning’s sake was gone, and with no buffer he was vulnerable.

The daily battle was one Roan was familiar with, but since taking Eliza as queen the darkness had slowed its attack. Or maybe his defense had gotten better as gold had lost its lure and was replaced by lust.

Dai’s breath hissed out, but his skin didn’t change color. The black diamond held him safe from the darkness of the Shadowlands. He was as human as he would ever be unless the curse broke or Roan succumbed. Roan knew which side the good money was betting on. Hell, he knew which he was betting on and it wasn’t the outcome he wanted. The only way to spare his brother becoming goblin was death.

Roan spoke quietly. “I will not let you fade. But I do not wish your death either.” He stood. “She has offered a farewell dinner. I didn’t accept. I did promise to say good-bye.”

He clenched his teeth. He wanted dinner, knowing it wouldn’t ever fill him. It wouldn’t be enough, but they were standing on the edge listening to the rocks break away and bounce down the cliff into the abyss. The grip he had on his brother was slipping.

“The decision is yours, Dai.” Roan turned and left his brother in the empty library. If his brother was forced to hold the life of others in his hands, to feel the weight of care, maybe he wouldn’t rush to extinguish what little spark remained.

***

Only a few brave photographers camped outside Eliza’s house. The rain had forced them into their cars. Their telescopic lenses peeked over the tops of windows like one-eyed sightless monsters. They’d got some photos of her going grocery shopping. If that made it to print, there was something truly wrong with the media.