The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Twenty One: Taking Hostages

I had to admit, it felt good to be in armor again. I wasn't clad head to toe in a skeletal iron cage as I had been during my battles with Mab. It was just a set of the simple leather tunics and leggings the brides wore for the coronation darted with iron fasts and embellishments, yet I felt much more at home, stronger, somehow, just by wrapping myself in leather. It held me together, reminded me of the task at hand and how important it was that I revert to my old ways for the sake of those trailing behind me as I walked that path toward the room where my allies' children slept peacefully unaware that they were about to be betrayed. 

With each step I took, I reminded myself over and over again to be ruthless. To be vicious. 

Care for nothing but yourself.

As we came to the door, I settled my hand over the sword Serafini had made for me to use during our attack on the Summer Branches. The wicked blade was sharp at the point and serrated towards the middle like a saw for cutting down trees. Knut had affectionately called it "Wingclipper" always with a sinister little cackle following it. I tried not to imagine it now as I turned to my sons. "I will go in first. I'll call for you when I'm ready for you." I said to Floki who carried the weight of several long iron chains slung over each shoulder. "Be careful. Augustus may be timid, but he'll protect his sister with his life. Does everyone have iron?"

Odd twirled his spear in one hand. Several knives gleamed at his waist. Frit halfheartedly flashed the one short sword he'd brought, looking down the whole time. "Is there really no other way?" He asked the same question for the thousandth time. 

I gave him the same answer. "If given the choice between their own family and ours, they'll choose their own every time. We have to watch out for ourselves now. Do as you're told." I shifted my sword around to my back and pulled my cloak of midnight closed around me so it was hidden from sight. I didn't know if the cloak still worked with Knut gone, but that hardly mattered. He'd given it to me. I'd worn it at all the highest and most difficult points of my life and I'd wear it now. Opening the door, I carefully slid inside, making sure the boys couldn't be seen out in the hallway.

Augustus and Neasa looked up at me with wide eyes as I entered. They were huddled together on one of the two beds in the room. "Ma Tilda, what's happened?" Neasa asked, standing shakily. The movement of her crooked legs unveiled by the short nightdress she wore, nearly made me wince. She, however, moved toward me as if she didn't feel the pain, focused only on me. "We heard you screaming. We tried to go to you, but Mr. Ib told us to wait here." Her eyes, bright gold along the outside of the iris then darkening to black toward the inky pupil. They left my face finally, drifting down to my clothes, catching on the iron pendant at my throat. She clutched the soft fabric of the cloak between her fingers. Her brows furrowed and her eyes switched back to mine, shining wetly in the dark. "Oh no," she whispered, mostly just mouthing the words. She could feel it now, I sensed, the tipping of the scale of power. Something left empty and hollow. 

"Knut is dead," I said in an unnervingly matter of fact tone. Beneath the cloak, I reached behind my back for Wingclipper. I heard Knut's cackle just at the thought of that name. 

"I don't understand." She said. "You called off the coronation because of Mag-," she stopped before she finished saying his name. "He wasn't what we thought..." 

"Magni is a monster. He murdered Knut and stole the seed. He's gone now. All the goblins are gone." What face was I making? Why did my voice sound so strange? So detached? "Forgive me." 

A flash of light and heat struck me with enough force it actually made me stumble. Power wafted off of me, detesting the bits of iron hidden in my clothes, the pendant, the very deadly weapon on my back. "Get behind me!" Augustus shouted, wrenching her back from me during the blow. He put himself between us, aiming his hands at me as light pulsed off them.