The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Forty Seven: Close the Gate

Llinos' body went up like tinder beneath my sons' magical flames. His flesh sizzled and popped, curling away from bones. Flesh and organs that once did not exist were laid bare and turned to ash in the wash of flames. Though our work was far from done, and the urgentness of our task pressed on our spines. My family and I lingered around him, watching the goblin's body revert to ashes. Cat cried beside me, wearing her grief on their sleeve. The boys, however, were quiet. The flames flickered across their dark eyes, their expressions somber and tense. I wondered what they were thinking, if they were remembering their childhoods under Llinos' direction, Knut's death, or if they were reflecting on their own mortality and imagining themselves on their own funeral pyre. 

I couldn't know my children's minds, no matter how close to them I thought I was. I could only know my own. For me, all of these things filled my head. Llinos was an old goblin, especially for one of the created ones. He'd first been made Knut's grandfather just like Agi, his design reused again and again, as it stuck within the minds of the young heirs. He'd died several times in that lifetime, most of them during his time with me. With each death, he'd been remade, reforged, and made sharper. Until now. There was no reforging a weapon as broken as he was now, his soul disconnected from the seed, and his flesh rendered entirely mortal. 

Knut and I had been reduced to much the same. The seed granted Knut immeasurable power, but as soon as it was stolen from him, he was powerless to stop his end. I gave up my Hollow-given blessing to save my children and now was struggling to overcome the limitations of a body that was now completely foreign to me. 

While we watched Llinos burn, I saw myself in his place. The flames licked at my skin, burned away the piece of clothing covering my eye. The fire's golden tongues writhed through the locks of my hair, lighting my body with bright gold-white light. My skin peeled away in flecks of ash, revealing a pale grey face beneath. When my lips curled away from my teeth, they were sharp, too many crowded my mouth. Pink flesh burned away from my fingers, revealing vicious claws pressed against a ribcage encircling a large seed-shaped thing that sat among my entrails, in the place where my children once grew. It glowed with bright green light, pulsing...whispering in a tongue I didn't understand. 

My ears popped, roaring dulling the voices of my children. I closed my eyes and shook both the thoughts and sounds away. When I opened my eyes again, Llinos lay where he should be and the only voice in my head was that of my first born.

"Mama?" Frit called to me, his face pinched with concern. His hand laid heavily on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I cleared my throat and quickly turned my gaze away from my dead old friend. "I just hate we had to kill him, is all. Cat, dry your face and come with me to fetch the Unseelie. We need to get this underway." 

Cat and I hurried back through the tower, to where we'd left Cerise and the other girls with the Unseelie to keep the goblins from pouring into the tower. I could hear her sniffling, trying to reign in her overflowing emotions. "Tell me the truth, Cat." I said, watching the path ahead. "Are you going to be able to do this? There's going to be a lot more bloodshed before this task is done and still we'll have the coronation to get through. If you don't think you can, if there is even a small doubt in your mind, then say so. I'll find a safe place for you, if you choose to back out."

"Did you not just argue with Odd that I have as much claim on the seed as he does?"

Again I felt like I'd put my own foot in my mouth, talking to her. "You do, but if it's really not what you want, or if you think you will hesitate and become more of a hinderance than a help, then I'd prefer if you were elsewhere." I glanced back at her. "I get you want to honor Knut's wishes, but there's no sense in you throwing your life away over something that you don't really want. I just wanted to make sure you knew, you still have the option to bow out. It's a luxury my sons don't have. No one would look down on you for it...okay, maybe Odd would, but the rest of us wouldn't."