The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Sixty One: I am Back

  I blinked in the early morning light as I took my first steps out of Athane's nest. The wind bit into my skin with its chill, carrying with it fallen crimson leaves. Beyond the branch, there was the void, the inky blackness that existed at the edge of reality itself. Below us, the tree went on and on forever, baring the weight of all the other kingdoms.

In the Branches, the faeries gathered for their reverie, arrogantly parading their power and opulence. In the Boughs the elves groveled, licking the dirt at the faeries' feet, gnawing on the bones that were thrown to them. In the Trunk, humans crawled through their cities and villages like maggots through a rotting corpse, oblivious to the birds and beasts that ruled their world and feasted upon them. And down below, where the roots twisted, the goblins continued their age-old task of defending The Hollow's forest of saplings, serving their maker with the blind faith of children.
I craned my neck, peering up into the branches overhead. Above us, the upper branches swayed. Somewhere high over my head, was Mab's glittering castle and within that castle's deepest dungeon was Knut. Waiting for me.

"Are you certain you cannot stay a while more?" The branch beneath my feet creaked and bounced as Athane crossed its length to my side. Her body was that of an owl, though her face remained that of the crone.

I fiddled with the strings of my cloak, tying them tight at my throat. The fabric of midnight billowed around me, melding with the brightening sky. "Afraid not. Perhaps some other time." I said.

"That would be lovely." Athane smiled, her lips stretching grotesquely, squinting her eyes to near nothing. "Before you go," she began. Reaching into her feathers with wings tipped with fleshy hands, she procured a woman's slender finger. Only bone and bits of flesh remained, stretched taut over the bones and flaking away in the wind. Upon that finger, glistening in the newborn sun's light, was a large gold ring encrusted with an onyx as black as Athane's own eyes. She slipped the ring off of the finger and held it before my face. "Take this as a gift."

The ring was hideous.

When I made no move to take the gaudy ring, she snatched my hand and shoved it onto my finger. A gilded demon snarled at me with a wide-open mouth as it clasped the black jewel within possessive claws. Its forked tail wound around my finger tightly. The ring was warm. As warm as living flesh. I swore I saw its fingers shift, scraping claws against its jewel.

I yanked my hand out of her grasp. My finger was red from where she'd forced the ring on. I tried to pull it off, but the harder I pulled, the tighter the demon's tail wrapped around my finger. It refused to budge. I wore the ring, but the ring wore me in turn. "Get it off me!" I hissed.

"Don't be so ungrateful." Athane huffed, ruffling the mane of feathers around her round head. "You can't arrive at a royal wedding dressed in a dead man's clothes and your hair died pinkish with old blood, can you? I very much doubt that you were able to bring a wide selection of ball gowns on your war march." She snickered at my raging. "Turn the thing three times, and you'll be clad in a gown best suited to your person." A chuckle shook through her broad chest. "The faeries will dance in wisps of sunshine and frothy seafoam, but the goblin queen will come draped in death."

"I hope this dress is worth chopping off my own finger afterward," I growled, still trying to pry the vicious ring off my finger.

"It will also carry you to the wedding instantaneously. I suggest you do not lose it. The magic it holds is only temporary." She explained. "Once Midsummer is over, it will become an ordinary ring. Once that happens, you may toss it into your jewelry box at your leisure."