The Goblin's Throne

Chapter Sixty: War Drums

Tears dripped onto the ancient map beneath me, onto the burned carvings of twisted roots, the image marking the location of my nest, the place I and my family were supposed to feel safest. Even that, the Seelie lords had taken from me. My sense of safety in my own home. 

I woke from nightmares, my hands reaching for Knut to find comfort just in knowing that it was him beside me and not Lysander. I stared with wide eyes around the cavernous room waiting for the earthen walls and floor to turn to open sky and polished marble. Even then, I was unconvinced. Just like in nights before, I went around to each of my sons' beds and leaned over them to listen to them breathing and laid my hands on their chests to feel their heartbeats.

Now, hours since, the overwhelming feeling of dread still held my guts in its claws. I'd come to Knut's office, hoping that work would help to settle me, but instead, it was as if my mind took it as the perfect opportunity to completely collapse in on itself. I sobbed helplessly at Knut's desk, burying my face in my hands. With only the crackling of the fire to drone out the silence and my own heaving, I could still hear Lysander's low voice in my ears, promising my children's deaths and the roar of a river of blood sweeping through my city's golden streets.

We'd set our departure for the next day. It would be my final night at home and now I was second guessing even going. A part of me, the shattered, painfully raw part, wished only to barricade myself inside our palace and hold my sons for as long as The Hollow allowed me. It wanted to forget revenge, let Lysander live if only to avoid returning to the place where I'd been torn down to my bones. I had never in my life felt so full of fear, not even when I fought Mab or I knew that Magni was going to die. I took solace in knowing that my hatred was greater even than this raging fear. My cowardice was trying to beat it, but I knew it would never win. 

My hatred for Lysander and his kin was just too great and terrible a thing, as endless and unfathomably powerful as The End himself. 

Still...I sobbed...I wept...mourning the breaking of the next dawn when I'd have to say goodbye to my children for what felt to me as permanent a farewell as the one on their coronation day would be...if I lived to see it.

I jumped at the sound of a heavy book slamming onto the floor and jumped from my chair so suddenly it shrieked in protest as it was shoved back across the floor. 

"Sorry, I didn't think anyone was here. I did knock." Ib said, quickly snatching the book up from the ground where he'd dropped it. He was dressed in his nightshirt and pair of breeches he'd hastily pulled on beneath it. 

"Why are you here?" I hissed, shrinking from the firelight and bowing my head so my hair veiled my red-rimmed eyes, my tear streaked cheeks. 

"Couldn't sleep. I thought I might find something heavy enough to knock myself out with," his lips pulled up in one corner in a small smirk as he weighed the thick book in one hand. "Or at least something interesting to read to pass the time, but alas Knut doesn't seem to have any smut in his collection."

"He does. I just made him hide it where the boys can't find it." I tried to laugh, but the sound was hollow and wrong. I pulled Knut's chair back to me and sank back down in it. My body felt so heavy...like The End was curled around my shoulders. "Just grab something and go." I jabbed a finger toward him. "And don't you dare breathe a word of this to anyone."

His handsome violet eyes accessed me and quickly filled with pity. "You're not doing as well as you've let on, are you?" Instead of leaving, he dragged up a high backed chair and sat beside me where The Boughs bled into The Winter Branches on the map. 

"I told you to leave."

"I know. I'm ignoring you." He leaned forward, resting his cheek on his knuckles. "Does Knut know you come here to cry your heart out?"