The Goblin's Throne

Chapter Sixty Seven: Following Instincts

"Hurry. Hurry! HURRY!" That word repeated over and over in my head, growing in urgency with every painful stride forward. I could see my home through the portal. Those familiar tunnel walls. I could already smell the scent of damp earth. It grew stronger the nearer I came. Then, as if to mock me with one final insult, the portal slammed shut.

"No!" I shrieked, my hands falling sickeningly through empty space. I fell forward onto my knees. Pain ripped through my legs and back. "No! No! Open back up!" I clawed at the air uselessly. "We had a deal!"

"He said he'd let you go to them. He never said he'd make it easy." I froze at the soft male voice. Slowly, I turned my head.

Bran was awake. He squirmed on the ground, trying to lift himself up. His arms shook and his head again fell to the ground. His wings flapped weakly, making him look for all the world like a fledgling that had fallen from the nest in a storm. 

Aurora acted before my brain recovered from its stupid, frantic state. "Don't move." She hissed, pressing her foot down on Bran's spine. In one hand, a star again began to flicker to life. 

I glanced towards the pillars where Titania and Daphne had been chained. Titania's had fallen, but Daphne's remained. Her body still hung from her chains, limp, lifeless and brutalized. "Let's chain him. I doubt it will stop him from calling on his friends, but it'll at least stop him from using the Unseelie side of his power and hopefully hold him until I can get back to my children." With a limping jog, I stormed towards him. 

"No," he cried, weakly trying to move away from us as Aurora and I grabbed him beneath each arm and ripped him up off the ground.

"I'm sorry." Bran whimpered, trying to lift his head to look at me. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. It wasn't supposed to happen. I tried to stop him, to fight him, but he's too much. He overcame me...I lost. Forgive me." He pleaded. "Please."

I bit at the inside of my mouth to distract myself from the pitiful terror on Bran's face. "I believe you, Bran, that you can't control him. That's the problem." We laid him down again in front of the pillars. His knees sank into a thick puddle of blood coagulating beneath Daphne's body. 

"You really didn't hold back, did you?" Aurora said, looking down at her little sister's head laying a ways away from the rest of her. 

I repeated the same line I'd told Knut. "I'm sorry." It was the only thing I could say. The only thing that would allow my tongue and raw throat to form it. Silently, I reached up and removed Daphne's hands from the chains. 

"Stop, Matilda. I'm the only one here who should feel ashamed." Aurora said in a rough, cracking voice. She caught her sister in her arms. I don't think she'd ever really seen Daphne as family until that moment, holding her lifeless body in her arms. There had been too much resentment between them. Resentment that had existed well before Oberon married her off to a beast that defiled and tortured her. She had wanted more than anything for her father's wife to treat her as a daughter, to love her just as much as Daphne. But she hadn't. No matter what she'd claimed, there had been a difference between how Titania treated Daphne and how she treated Aurora. To her credit, I don't think Titania ever saw it herself, and I do believe she tried to be a mother to Aurora. She'd just fallen short and in doing so, she'd carved a rift between the two sisters. A rift that had filled rapidly with jealousy and anger, growing too deep for either of them to cross.

Until now...now that one of them was dead.

As I locked the shackles around Bran's wrists, Aurora carried Daphne away. She cradled her like something precious as tears fell, leaving streaks in the grime covering her skin. She whispered words of remorse to her body in the Seelie's tongue, begging her for forgiveness. For being so full of jealousy she'd stopped seeing her as a sister. For letting her die the way she did...for being the cause of it. She apologized for a great many things. None of which, I knew she'd ever feel forgiven for. Aurora released Daphne into the sea, first her body then her head, carrying and letting her go with the same care and the same words on her lips.