The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Nineteen: Pyre

The night of the failed coronation, I dreamed about The Hollow.

I saw it in its full grandeur against a starless empty void. The sea of magic swirled around it, its waves licking at its dark bark with the ferocity of a storm. Its branches reached up into that darkness, half bare and half full of green leaves, a narrow space of red autumn leaves and flowering blossoms filled the place between the lands of Summer and Winter. There in the sea of red leaves, an owl perched staring out at me with round moon-like eyes. The roots were mirrors of the branches, stretching down into the blackness, entangling and knotting with each other. The End slithered there, tying himself into a knot and joining with the indistinct mass he called his home. He bit into a root, ripping and tearing at it like he was taking meat from a carcass. What stole my attention, however, was the golden snake winding around the trunk of The Hollow like a belt. It spun and spun, his scales flashing like coins in the sun. Its tale was in its mouth, its fangs dug deep and black blood oozed from its jaws. Forever and ever it spun in a continuous motion. A circle without end or beginning. All the while, a roaring filled my ears. A roar that turned from hateful to pained. I knew not from which creatures it had come from or if it belonged to anyone at all but myself.

I woke to the smell of pipe smoke. Groggily, I lifted my head from where my it rested against the foot of the brooding chamber's bed. I groaned, my back screaming its complaints about having slept in such an awkward position, sitting in a chair by Magni's bedside. A blanket slipped from my shoulders as I righted and my eyes met the cold reality of an empty bed.

Magni was gone.

With a cry, I leaped up, panic ripping apart my ribs. I shoved Knut's shoulder. He stirred slowly, blinking open his eye as he lifted his head from the cradle of his arms on the other side of the bed. 

"What's the matter?" He yawned loudly. 

"Magni's gone!" 

"Magni's right here, Mother Dearest." 

We turned toward the breakfast table which sat over in a little alcove surrounded by bookshelves heavily stocked by children's stories and textbooks. Odd sat sideways in one of the chairs, his long legs slung over an armrest, puffing smoke from his elf pipe. "Good morning." Odd greeted, biting at the mouthpiece of the pipe. On the table was some tea, thick slabs of bacon, freshly toasted bread and several jars of preserves. Magni sat in the chair across from him, biting into a piece of marmalade slathered toast with an audible crunch. 

"What are you doing here, Odd?" I asked, relief immediately sweeping through me as I watched Magni chew his mouthful, making happy sounds in his throat. Sticky marmalade was smeared all over his mouth. 

"Better yet, how are you here?" Knut asked.

"Frit's not the only smart one," Odd replied, with a thick plume of acrid smoke from the narrow spaces between his flashed teeth. "I've figured out your trick, Old Man. When you sleep, all the goblins are on autopilot and it's easy enough to shove your influence aside to make room for my own and shoo away all those pesky guards. As for the traps, those were child's play. Could you really not do any better than that?"

Knut raised his eyebrows. "Impressive."

"Aren't I always?" Throwing off his legs, he swung around in his seat. "Come, I've brought breakfast. He slathered a piece of toast with marmalade and held it out toward me. He jabbed his sticky spreading knife toward a satchel leaning against the wall. "I've brought some old clothes of mine as well. I figured they'd fit him better than Father's hand-me-downs until the goblins can finish making his new wardrobe."

I took the toast warily. "That's...uncharacteristically kind of you. What's your game?" I sniffed the marmalade. It would be quite easy to hide poison in it. The powerful flavors of sugar and citrus would easily mask it.