The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Fifty Seven: Lost

The gates began to swing open, the light between them growing brighter and brighter. Inside, we could just see him, Bran, his body outlined in silver starlight, beckoning us in. Around us, I heard happy, hopeful cries. The mass of humans moved quicker, eager to get inside the faerie city. We rushed forward and were nearly at the threshold when, just as suddenly as they'd opened, the gates began to swing shut again, the light growing dimmer as Bran was enveloped in darkness. 

"Bran?" Ib called out to his son, his entire being tense with worry.  We could see him standing just inside, see the pain written all over his face. 

"No, no you cannot do this now!" Cat moved toward him then,  reaching through the crack in the gates to him. "Bran! Take my hand! Remember who you are! Remember! Hold onto me! I'll keep you grounded!"

Bran didn't reach for her. Instead, he moved away, backing into the darkening City of Thorns.

The darkness oozed from Bran, blotting out everything else we could see of the City of Thorns. "No," he groaned, holding his head in his hands. He shook his head, his fingers digging into his curls, which lifted from his scalp and writhed around his face. "This is my body. It is not yours. Mine! I am not The End! I am not you! You are a parasite! A worm! Nothing more! " He shouted through bared pure white teeth, the grimace showing every sharp point.

"You are nothing! A discarded husk of flesh! Given to me for my use!" A darker voice snarled through his lips.

 "I am your vessel no longer!" Bran staggered, nearly falling to his knees. We could all hear his grunts and groans of pain, see him twist in his agonies as his body throbbed and twisted. He lifted his head for a moment.

Several eyes, like flickering candle flames, dotted the left side of his face. Black, hair-like tendrils had grown along his cheek and down his neck and chest to an arm that now ended in vicious claws. The End fought against his will, trying to transform into the dragon that had consumed Bran's mother, trying to force Bran to become a beast that would be eager to devour us.

"I am Bran, son of the changeling Ib, Governor of the City of Thorns. I am Bran, husband of Catherine, heir to the goblin king. I am Bran. I am Bran. I am-" He was cut off by a piercing scream. His spine bent backward, nearly splitting in two. Black sludge poured from his lips. Black blood like those corrupted by the void, like Athane's, poured his mouth, ears, and eyes. 

The gates slammed shut in our faces, the vines moved once more, shoving itself further and further away, across the river and into the fields beyond it until it stilled and the City of Thorns went silent and dark.

"Shit!" I heard Ib spit. 

I turned to Ib, hoping to see some glimmer of hope that we weren't about to die. "What does that mean?" I asked shakily. 

"Bran's been fighting The End for some time. He's  finally lost." He said, hanging his head. 

Slowly, Cat turned to us and the remaining humans. "We are not turning back now! We cannot! The horde is at our heels! Keep moving!" She shouted at them and continued her march. We fell back in line, following the same formation, forever towards the city in the distance. 

We didn't make it very far before a sharp cry rang out from above. Neasa's light flickered and dimmed. Peering through the red haze, I could see Neasa floundering. A spear with a long shaft had been stabbed through her side. The point jutted out of her back. Her fiery wings faded and her twisted, grey-feathered ones snapped closed as she slumped against the shaft. Then, her candle was snuffed out. Her light died completely and she plummeted towards the horde below like a stone.

I heard Frit let out a terrible scream. With a kick against his flyer's sides, he started to charge off into the horde to save her. The horde quickly killed his flyer, ripping out its throat with their hungry teeth and snapping off the wings. They dragged him from his back. Claws scraped over his skin, ripped at his clothes. They clung to him, biting and clawing. "Neasa!" He cried out, his breathing nothing but shuttering sobs, was louder than the gunshots going off in my ears. He flung the goblins off with a grunt of pain. A pulse of power, shoved the earth at his feet away from him in a circular pattern, the force of it, made the goblins scatter and he moved ahead, not caring that he was drenched in more of his own blood than theirs, that there was a jagged wound in his own side where a goblin had stabbed him with its claws and ripped away the flesh.