The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Thirty Seven: Binding

We returned to a village enraptured. Both flutes and voices sang, producing a light, bright music that flooded the entire forest with an intoxicating joy. All around elves swarmed, each, man, and woman alike, bearing a crown of pink flowers on their heads. Tova and I gathered with her family while Signi's mother painted her face with the new red clay we'd made with the deer's fresh blood. Red stripes were made across her brow, down the center of her nose and lips. The women stood back when they finished, gushing over Signi's apparent beauty. In her heavy furs and painted with fresh blood, I thought she looked closer to a witch than to a bride.

The music changed in tempo. The flutes faded into nonexistence and were replaced with drumbeats that sounded remarkably goblin.

"It's time," Tova said, sounding breathless. All the elves' eyes turned towards the bonfire the men had built at the center of the village. Their gaze had a faraway look to them, instinct taking them over in a way that reminded me of the fights in The Hollow's arena when the goblin crowd lost all humanness amid the blood baths below.

Signi strode ahead, moving slowly, weighed down by the bulk of her many furs. She took her place at the head of the line, while the other members of her family trailed behind. I waited until they were many steps ahead before following and joined the rest of the onlookers as soon as possible. Tova would have never shooed me away, but I knew it wasn't my place to walk with the family. I looked around, scanning the crowd for Knut, but couldn't find him. The elves were packed together like the overlapping branches beneath our feet. I sighed to myself, growing more impatient by the second. We'd sent the finished flower crowns ahead of our return and I couldn't wait to see Knut's ugly face ringed in pink flowers. I already wanted to burst into laughter at the very thought of that ridiculous image.

Signi stood before everyone on a stool behind the fire, the stool tall enough to allow her to look over it like a queen from her throne. The fire lit her pretty face, forming shadows along her youthful features that made her look older, almost ancient. The drums quieted to a soft pounding in the background as elf men made their way towards the flames, dragging behind them fresh kills that left streaks of blood across the ground in their wake. They presented Signi with the animal carcasses as if they were gifts of great value, chests of gold or precious jewels. Signi's head turned, her gaze sliding from one to the other. She never looked at the men's faces. Her focus was solely on their kill. You could practically see the gears of her mind turning, picking out ones that were of worth and dismissing those that were not. After a moment, she slipped from the stool and made her way around the flames, taking closer looks at the men's gifts. She went straight past a young man who'd presented a large stag. The man stared at her in surprise as she walked by but lowered his head and didn't argue. She stopped at the body of a young doe. She cocked her head, studying it carefully, but then lost interest the moment she seemed to notice the faint spots on the doe's body. She was young, not yet fully grown. Around she went until she stopped at one man's gift. It was the smallest kill of any of them. Only a pair of gray furred rabbits. She knelt and picked them both up by their feet, holding them up for all to see. It was then I realized what it was she wanted us to see. The rabbits had both been killed by an arrow that had passed through their eyes. A shot that would have required remarkable marksmanship to make on the quick-footed prey. It would have been difficult to make on just one rabbit, but he'd done it twice.

The music picked back up as Signi grinned at the hunter. Her mouth moved as she said something to him. His mouth curved. Signi's mother took the rabbits from her, and her small hands began to peel away her thick coats of fur, revealing a plain dress beneath, made of the softest, whitest rabbit fur. The simple dress came only to her knees and left her arms bare. A man, who I believed was her father possibly, stepped from the crowd and helped her place the fur coat around the hunter's shoulders. The man grinned with pride, with each layer, his eyes scrunching in the corners. He seemed much older than Signi, possibly even the same age as her father. The branches that wove through his hair were long and bore many green leaves like that of a mature tree and most of the older elves. Now that I looked at all the candidates more carefully, I realized that they were all older. None had the small, thin twigs of the adolescents as if the younger men were not even considered.