The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Twenty: Memory

The room was deathly quiet while Knut and I were dressed for our departure to Mab's palace. The solstice wasn't until the next day, but we were expected to arrive a day early as the party would be a twenty-four-hour affair. Ask synched me into a shimmering copper gown with a thick skirt and fur around the collar, then fastened a wolf fur cloak around my shoulders. Knut had his back turned towards me as he stood stiffly, letting his manservant fasten the cufflinks of a dark brown fur-lined coat. No one was saying a word. Not even the little goblins helping to attend us chattered among themselves. In all honesty, it felt more like we were getting ready for a funeral than a party.

"Are all these layers necessary?" I sighed. More to end the silence than to complain.

"Do you want to freeze to death?" Ask whispered. She peeked over her shoulder at Knut as she readjusted my hat. "Stay close to your man, My Queen. I don't like this melancholic mood he's in."

"Neither do I." I frowned at his back, wishing he'd turn towards me with an annoying, teasing grin plastered on his face and not the scowl that had taken its place in recent days.

As if knowing my thoughts, he turned to me, but his face was dour, pinched with worry, deathly pale against the locks of dark gray hair that had already escaped the ribbon that held the rest back. "For you." He said, holding out a glittering chain. From it hung a small, plain and ordinary, tear shaped pendant.

I turned my back to him and pulled up my golden ringlets. "Can you do the clasp for me?"

His lips tweaked ever so slightly, almost daring to turn into a smile as he looped the necklace around my throat. "It's iron. I made it from your letter opener. It'll keep them from casting magic on you at least. Wear it at all times even at home. However, if you start feeling strange, take it off immediately and come tell me."

"Why?" I asked, turning back around to face him. "It's not like iron can hurt me."

"No, but I'm afraid it may hurt the baby." He said. My eyes bulged and my breath caught in my throat. A sound, a strangled chuckle, echoed through his chest. "Don't worry, I don't believe you're with child yet, I'm just warning you in case you start showing signs."

I clasped the iron pendant at my breast. My heart was pounding, hitting my ribs like a hammer on an anvil. He sounded almost...disappointed. Had he been trying to make me conceive before the solstice? Was that what all his neediness these past few months was about? If so, why?

We rushed down to where our carriage waited, sparkling in all its glory. The goblins that had once been glamoured to look like horses, showed themselves in the flesh. They hunched their bony spines like hissing cats. Leathery wings flapped restlessly, and long claws dug into the earth in anticipation. We climbed inside and as soon as the door closed, the driver's whip cracked, and the carriage lurched forward at top speed. Again, we sat in silence. Knut clutched the top of his silver cane, staring out into the nothingness outside the window, his expression mournful and void of any trace of the Knut I knew.

I clutched my pendant, felt my heartbeat against my skin beneath my hand, and bit my tongue to keep from screaming at him. "What's wrong?" The question tumbled out. "You haven't been acting right at all and I don't like it."

He pressed his thin lips together and swallowed the answer forming on his tongue, refusing to answer me.

"Stop it, Knut!" I yelled, my unease finally getting the better of me. His deep-set eyes shifted towards me. "You're scaring me," I added in nearly a whisper. "If not Mab, then what is it that you're so afraid of?"

The carriage tipped. My side of the carriage went up as if we were going up a steep mountainside. I tumbled off my seat, falling straight into Knut's arms. As I tried to get off of him, I noticed just how badly he was trembling and how hard his heart was beating. I could hear it just as plainly as I would if I held my ear to it. I met his eyes. Those hollow, sparkless eyes, I hardly recognized. At any other time, he would have taken this opportunity to pat my backside and make some crude remark or dirty joke, but he just stared at me, blank as a starless night sky. "Knut, please." I breathed, clutching the soft fabric of his coat in my gloved fingers.