The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Fifteen: Legacy

We sat at the same table as we had nearly thirty years prior, now longer yet more crowded, and ate the same food. The once delicious delicacies now tasted of ashes in my mouth. I chewed the tasteless morsels silently, listening to Knut make the same speeches his father had while sitting in Frode's old seat. 

At the beginning of the meal, to beckon the goblins to set up the humongous stone table, Knut had said, "Tomorrow, many of us shall leave this world. Only one will remain. So, let us drink and fill our bellies in preparation for our ascensions." Reciting nearly word for word Frode's speech from that night. All of it, from the very start of the feast right down to the steady beat of the goblin drums was a reenactment of the last coronation feast. If it were not for the fact that I was surrounded by my children, I might've thought time had reversed itself. 

But, unlike that first coronation feast, the room echoed with laughter and cheerful voices. I looked down the long table at all the boys and Cat with their chosen brides. They tipped their heads back and laughed at something Frit had said. Floki swatted him on the back hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. Odd nearly fell out of his seat and Cat sputtered into her goblet, choking on wine as a giggle seized her throat. Even Bran who'd been stoic and scowling all night couldn't help but smile. 

It was a good sight to see even if it did leave a deep wound. 

A servant that was shaped much like a she-goblin, though with a maw like a bear trap and a body that much resembled that of a toad hopped around the table, topping off our goblets with the finest wines from our reserves. As she hopped up to me, however, I covered my cup with my hand and shook my head. "None for me. Though I will take more cider." 

"Yes, Mistress." The toad she-goblin nodded, wetting her wide lips with a sticky tongue, then hopped away. 

"You don't wish to partake?" Knut asked, sipping from his own goblet.

I glanced up into the infuriating smug expression that was painted on his face. "I am not like Titania." I huffed, gulping down the last of my cider. It was made of golden apples grown only in the Summer Branches and was suitably delicious, but it wasn't faerie wine. It didn't make me numb, didn't fog my mind with pleasure or warm my insides. It was just spiced apple juice. All it did was flood my mouth with sweetness and dampen the pains of hunger that twisted my stomach no matter how much food went down my gullet. 

"That was an...unfair accusation. I am sorry for that. I know you're not like her. I just can't help but worry."

"No," I shook my head. "You were right to say something." I once turned to the faerie fruit to get through an unpleasant time and I was trying to medicate myself again. If I was not careful, it would turn into a crutch. After that, an addiction. "I don't want to end up like that." I still thought of Titania every now and then. I imagined her hanging from iron chains, bleeding and beaten, her wings ripped from her, her children all dead at her feet. It relaxed me, helped me drift off to sleep. However, when Knut had confronted me, I could not help but remember the warning she'd given me so many times in the dreams that soured into terrors. 

"I am your future."

If there was one thing I prayed to The Hollow for it was for those dreams not to come true, that I would survive this and not crumble into nothing, torn apart by my grief. 

"You won't," Knut said, with another, honeyed look, slipping another meat pie onto my plate from his own. "You've set it in stone now." 

"I thought you'd lost that unshakable faith in me."

"Never."  He kissed the top of my head and leaned forward, resting his sharp chin on his knuckles to gaze down the table at the children. "We did well, didn't we? They're a good looking brood."