White Stag (Permafrost #1)(15)

“Why here?” he asked, as he thrummed his fingers against his thigh. One of his knees started bouncing, and I caught him glancing at the river in revulsion.

“I’m able to be alone here. Goblinkind don’t like the fast-moving water. You can barely keep still, even now,” I said.

He looked impressed. “Not many figure that out.”

“I notice a lot.”

His eyes were still on me, and the curiosity in them had me squirming. “What else do you notice?”

I bit my lip. This could be some type of trap or game to cause me pain. Goblins were tricky. I looked back toward the river.

“What else do you notice?” he said again.

I closed my eyes. “You say you’re ambidextrous and fight with both hands, but you favor your left, so you’re most likely self-taught and biologically left-handed. You always have someone eat some of your food first; I assume because of fear of assassination. Almost every thrall claims they’ve never had the nectar, but almost every one of them is lying. The ones who are telling the truth ironically tend to get on better than the liars.”

Soren was still looking at me; I could feel it. “Anything else?”

I opened my eyes and met his gaze, trying not to tremble. “Your castellan wants to kill you.” The memory of the crimson-eyed goblin was forever burnt into my brain. Besides Lydian, he was the cruelest I’d known, and he made it a point to make sure I knew my place. But he talked like we weren’t around him, like humans had no minds themselves, and therefore I’d heard him plotting.

Soren’s eyebrows rose. “And how do you know this?”

“I heard him talking with another. Some courier, I think. They were speaking of a goblin who used to rule here—C?rus—and how he should be avenged. That you were too young and inexperienced. That you would bring this place to ruin. The castellan said he would take care of it.”

Soren’s jaw tightened, and I waited for his rage. He’d be angry with me, surely, for speaking ill of him—even if they weren’t my words. I knew what happened to humans who mentioned bad news. Why I felt compelled to tell him in the first place, I didn’t know. I prepared myself for the worst.

But he didn’t hit me or even touch me. He just stood, lips pursed, and started back to the manor. “Thank you for your insight, Janneke. Be sure to be back at the manor by sundown.”

I watched him go, shaken.

A few days passed after that, and nothing happened.

Then one day I noticed a new goblin stalking around the courtyard. No one knew where the old castellan had gone; he’d simply vanished. But when I went to my small room that night, on a low table beside the sleeping platform was a note in Soren’s script.

There were only three words written.

“You were right.”



* * *



THE IMAGES IN my head twisted and turned, sharp claws, fire blowing up into the sky. The screams of my family and friends filled the air, and I was running, running through a burnt field full of the dead. Behind me the sound of horses’ hooves was getting closer. Soon they would surround me, and then I would be a goner. As I ran, my feet were sucked down slowly into the burnt earth, until I was prone and vulnerable. The horses surrounded me, and then there was darkness.

I woke up with a shriek in my throat and my heart beating hard in my chest. The nightmare was so vivid I was surprised when I found myself swathed with furs on a sleeping platform softer than clouds. I shook my head to clear it, trying to focus on something else. When I got my bearings, a bead of panic burst in my chest, and I forced myself to quell it.

Soren was by my side, his hand on my shoulder. “You were screaming. I thought I should wake you.”

I caught my breath. “It was just a nightmare.”

“The same one?”

“Every time.”

“Lydian won’t haunt your dreams for much longer. I promise you that.” He squeezed my shoulder, then winced and took his hand away before crossing the room to a drawer. I watched with curiosity as he took out a piece of cloth before ripping it into long shreds and trying to use his teeth to tie it across his palms.

I stood. “Let me help.”

Soren looked wary—showing weakness of any sort, even to someone like me, went against his instincts—but he held out one of his hands and I saw the faint burns across the palm. Sighing, I began to clean the area and wrap it up. “How did you do this?”

He eyed my newly braided hair. “Apparently braiding my own hair in hunting braids doesn’t go against the magic the Permafrost granted goblins, but braiding anyone else’s is considered creation not linked to destruction, and so I’m going to get injured.”

“You could have asked someone else,” I said, changing to his other hand. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

“No, but I would have. I believe such intimate things must be done by those with whom it is most meaningful.”

I made a disapproving noise in the back of my throat as I finished with his burns. “Try not to expose them to too much direct sunlight. You burn terribly and it’ll make it worse.”

Soren flexed his hand, curling each blue-tinged finger. “I swear this is a curse.”

“Come on.” I rolled my eyes. “The other week you were going on and on about how beautiful you looked.” He did, really, look beautiful. Eerie, but beautiful. The odd blue-gray tint of his skin and lips, the white of his hair, and the pale purple of his eyes were not features found on most goblins—only a select few in the Higher North, his place of birth, ever looked like that. It was like the color had been leeched from his body; I’d seen one or two humans with a similar condition.