The Goblin's Heir

Prologue

For as far as Floki could remember, he could only recall his father lying to his mother once in his life. It happened the spring he and Frit turned twelve and although he liked to think that it was Frit's fault for wandering to a place forbidden and dragging him and Odd along with him. He knew he was just as much to blame. After all, it was a lie they would all keep even decades later.

"We're going to get in trouble," Floki pleaded with his twin for the hundredth time, struggling to keep up with Frit's quick, purposeful strides. They went quietly down the golden hallway, stepping as softly as cats, just as their mother had taught them, as they went past their parents' chamber.

There was a fire lit in young Frit's eyes and an excited grin plastered on his face that told Floki that he might as well have been talking to one of the will-less little goblins that were made for mopping floors and nothing else. Once Frit got an idea in his head, he had to follow it through. It was like he had no choice in the matter. "Of course we will. Lots of trouble." He flashed Floki his teeth over his shoulder. "But only after we've had our fun." 

Seven year old Odd mimicked him as he crept alongside him, nearly crawling on all fours, showing a mouth full of horrifically sharp teeth he loved more than anything to use. "Floki's a scaredy-cat." Odd chimed in his raspy voice. 

"Floki doesn't want to run a hundred laps around the entire kingdom again." Floki scowled at what their parents affectionately called The Little Monster. If he didn't know for a fact that his mother had given birth to him, he would have sworn Odd was just another of his father's creations, a monstrosity he'd conjured in his head. 

"Don't pretend you're not curious," Frit said, his grin growing when Floki's frown deepened. He knew Floki, as well as Floki knew him. He was a timid child, especially close to their mother, but he was every bit as goblin as they were. He enjoyed causing mayhem with equal vigor. He just hid it better than they did.

The three princelings slipped into Frit's bedroom and Frit made sure to bolt the door behind them. It would be bad if they were interrupted. He'd already gotten everything prepared. The room was lit with every candle he could manage to steal without the servants noticing. He thought the flickering light would make the spell casting more...spooky and mystically. A book was open on the floor with a map laid out beside it. A map, not of any part of their empire, but of that no-man's-land above their heads. The haven where the humans fled eons ago and lived in blind and ignorant bliss. A stone lay on the place he was most curious about. The place where their mother had been born in a crumbling shack. London, England. 

"This is a really really really really really really bad idea." Floki picked nervously at a his thumb claw. 

"Worry wort." Odd hissed.

Frit stepped into the ring of candles. "We're just going to have a peak. Five minutes tops. Five minutes in the Underground was five hours up above. Frit knew this. "Plenty of time to go and return before Ask comes to wake us. We could stay there for days before Mama and Papa wake up. You want to see where Mama grew up too. I know you do."

"If we get caught..."

"Then you can tell her it was my idea as usual." He set to work, drawing the outline of a door on the wall with a finger while reading the spell from the book between his feet. 

"It's usually the truth." Floki sighed.

"And sometimes it isn't." Night shine flashed across Frit's black eyes as he slapped his hand against the wall. His skin smacked against the stone and the sound shook through the space of his room as light filled in the doorway he'd drawn. "We'll be very careful, now put on your disguises."