The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Sixty Nine: What Are You Afraid Of

Puck's teeth cut into my skin. Blood trickled from the puncture wounds and seeped down into the dark chainmail beneath the hard plating of my armor. I grit my teeth. My eyes squeezed shut. So close. I'd been so close. Now it was over. In just a moment I would be dead and the worst thing of all was that I'd take our child with me. I mouthed words of remorse with fumbling lips as tears streaked down my cheeks. I'd always been terrified at the idea of becoming a mother, no...I'd hated it. A baby was the one thing I never longed for and when Athane had first told me I was with child, I hadn't wanted it. I hadn't wanted him. Yet now as our deaths approached, I regretted only that I would never get to hold him or name him or even see what Knut and I had made together.

I didn't feel fear upon my death. Only that painful regret.

I wanted to see him. I wanted to hear him call me "Mama". I wanted to teach him how to walk and talk and stab things. Now, I would never get that chance.

Suddenly, a burst of light exploded against Puck's back. The beast behind us yelped as waves of power struck it. Lysander roared as he dove towards the thing's snapping jaws with Aurora and Demetrius right behind him. He and Demetrius grabbed a hold of its neck with a noose of light and slung it through the air, hurling it over the edge of the floating garden, and diving after it as it fell.

At the same moment, Puck jerked with a shriek. Then he jerked again. Then again. On the third, he twisted so, not in pain but in rage, that he threw me to the ground, slipping the blade shallowly across my throat.

I clawed at the ground, one hand gripped tightly around my throat to keep the blood inside. It seeped through my fingers, turning my fingers red. I shot a glance back at Puck as I scurried away. He had turned away from me. He was showing me his back. There were three elven arrows buried there. They'd even pierced the faerie armor. Puck coughed wetly, spitting black clotted blood onto the red splattered green grass below him.

It was then I noticed the elven lords. They leaped about the garden trees, dashing from one to the other like nimble squirrels. Their limbs moved so quickly they seemed to blur together.

In one smooth motion, both husband and wife raised their bows, notched their arrows and drew back on the string. Every motion was in perfect unison, as if the two shared a single mind, a single body. With a zing the arrows flew across the sky, arching towards Puck's chest.

Puck drew himself up, recoiling like a spring. Releasing his muscles, he shot up into the branches in an attempt to dodge the arrows. The arrows curved, strangely following the goblin's motions. They flew together side by side, singing their tune of death as they narrowed in on him, chasing him higher and higher into the branches overhead and away from me.

With him gone, the elf-lords were able to come to my aid. Tova knelt beside me while Stellan watched the canopy, tracking their arrows and quarry with his far-reaching sight.

"How badly are you hurt?" Tova asked, touching me gingerly she removed my helm and set it at my side. "Show me." She gently urged me to pull my hand away from the wound. I watched her face contort into a grimace as a gurgling noise and a gush of blood seeped out.

"I still have some tonics left." She reached into the magic pocket of her second skin of leaves and retrieved a vial of that blessed healing potion. "Just a sip should do. I need to save as much as possible." She held the vial to my lips, letting me take a single swallow of it before corking it and slipping it back into its hiding place. A warmth spread through me, easing the pain in my shoulder at once. The wound on my throat burned a little for a second as the flesh mended then the pain ebbed away, replaced with comforting heat.