The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Thirty Two: Severance

Ask didn't even flinch when I pressed my knife to the side of her neck. She blinked at me, outwardly unfazed, though her throat flexed with a hard swallow. Cat grabbed at my arm and yelled at me to stop, to withdraw. "Don't ever let down your guard," I warned her and her protests quieted. I glared at Ask, staring into her eyes for any sign of The Hollow's influence. There was none, nothing but plain dark pupils. "Such pretty words. Too bad they don't mean anything anymore. The others have turned on us. Why not you?"

"Matilda, please," Cat pleaded in a hoarse voice. She could've ripped my arm away from Ask very easily. She had that Hollow given strength that I no longer possessed. She chose not to. She chose to let me bare my teeth at her dear Granny Ask because even her unfaltering faith had lost its footing after what we'd endured that day. 

"The others have made their decision and so have I." Ask rasped. "I choose to be what I've always been. I don't desire anything else." That word. Desire. It held a weight to it as if it were a new word she was just discovering the meaning of. She glanced over her shoulder back at the field where the wheat bent over under the weight of a thick layer of ice. "There are more goblins in the woods surrounding this place. More will be coming soon." Her eyes shifted back to me, fixated on my own. "I suggest we make our escape."

"We can't leave. Magni must still be close. Why else would the horde swarm here so?"

"This is not the horde." Ask answered. "Just a tiny fraction of it. Our numbers are far greater than what Knut or any of his forefathers combined created in their lifetimes. I doubt there is a scrap of earth the goblins have left untouched within the human lands." She saw my confusion and the fear tainting it, rotting it until it was something unfathomable. "I promise you, Magni is not here. If he were, they would've already killed him and would not still be searching for the seed."

Slowly, I withdrew my weapon. It shook in my hand so hard I nearly dropped it. "What is going on, Ask? Why is this happening?"

"Why?" She echoed. "I'm afraid I don't know the why, but I will explain to you what I do know, once we are all in a much safer place. At least, let us go inside. We can decide what to do next once we've put some walls between us and them." 

I nodded heavily. My head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. It ached and throbbed, overcome by the very idea that as vast as the human lands were, they were now crawling with goblins. Once it would've brought me great joy, to see the horde devouring everything in its path in this wretched land, but I had dreamed of being the one in charge of the humans' destruction, not another casualty. 

We returned inside. The boys leaped up, grabbing at their weapons when they saw Ask come in through the door. "Relax," I said, raising my hand to still them. "She claims to be on our side."

"She can make all the claims she likes, doesn't mean it isn't a lie." Frit hissed, gripping the hilt of a sword at his side. 

"Were I meaning to kill you, I would've attacked with the others. One goblin against the lot of you isn't going to last long. Our strength is in our numbers." Ask said.

"In the past, that would be true, but we don't know what you're capable of anymore," Frit growled at her through his clenched teeth.

Ask smirked at him. "Finally using that good mind of yours?" 

Frit glowered at her, but the tension in him eased. "Good to know you still enjoy giving me a hard time."

"Should we return to the fae lands?" Neasa asked in a whisper, nervously eyeing the she-goblin at the middle of the room. "Now that we have a moment to breathe, one of us can open a portal back home."

"Not yet," I whispered back as quietly as I could. I was sure Ask could still hear me quite well in this small space with her keen ears. "Not until we know what is going on." I didn't want to say it aloud. That there was a great possibility that home was more overrun with them than the human lands were. The fae territories were so much smaller, so much more easily occupied. I knew that from experience. The human lands, with the great distances between its larger cities, may be the safest place for us.