The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Sixty Five: To Dance Again

His brothers were as surprised as I was that I was calling him near. None more so than Magni himself. He stared at me a moment, uncertain, afraid. "Go ahead." Ari reassured him. I suppose she could sense I meant no harm. I don't think she would've let me near him otherwise.

Magni quietly walked over to join his brothers, Cerise and I. He wore his satchel with its precious cargo over his new suit and clutched the strap like a lifeline.

"Cleans up nice, don't he?" Frit threw his arm over Magni's neck, that devilish glint in his eye ever present. "He's almost as good looking as me." He snickered, swatting Magni in the chest.

"Good thing you shot him in the chest and not his face." Came cackling from the rafters. 

"Stop hanging on him." I shooed him off and smoothed my fingers along the lapel of the green coat. The shimmering color glowed against my skin. "The color suits you." I said, lifting my gaze to his own. A question that had been building on my tongue for days slipped out. "If I am kind to you, will you give your father back to me?" My voice was soft and gentle, almost pleading, but the words themselves struck like a whip.

He winced at the question. All hope immediately drained from his eyes and he suddenly looked like he was about to cry. "It was not my doing that brought Bran back. I wish it was. If I could give him back to you and undo what I did, I would, Mama." 

"I figured." My laugh was brittle and hoarse. "I just thought I'd ask." The image of him crouched over Knut, elbows deep in gore, Knut's pale face, staring blankly up at me, flickered across my vision. I let him go as if his very touch was poison and turned my back to him, the sight of his face once again souring my belly.  "Come," I called to the others with a smile, ignoring my youngest, for fear of my motherly feelings rising up in me again. I could not let him and my old love for him, make me forget what he'd done. "We're already late." I said, rushing from the room to put distance between myself and the child who's corpse I'd once clung to. 

The sound of merry music lured us to the city's center where humans and fae alike danced around the glittering fountain and shadows were thrown wildly about by the writhing flames of a bonfire at the opposite end of the city square. Those who weren't dancing, milled about the clearing, gossiping or flocked about the tables to gorge themselves on our stores and get hopelessly drunk on faerie wine. 

Frit's face lit up with excitement at all the new dances he'd never danced, the music he'd never heard and food he'd never tasted. Everything here was new to him and he soaked up the flood of knowledge eagerly, lapping it up like honey. 

Some girls in pale toned dresses began to call him over to where some youths were gathering to begin a new dance. It was a human style dance where men and women traded places in parallel lines, coming together to touch hands  at the center and spin around each other. 

Taken by the excitement, Frit  started to run off almost immediately, letting them lead him to the other dancers. Odd, uninterested in it all, rushed to the buffet table and Magni and Ari wandered off. I didn't pay attention to where he went. I couldn't look his direction at all. Every bit of my energy, my focus, was on breathing and keeping my feet firmly planted where I was. After that day...after what happened to me and what cost me Magni...parties had become a thing to be avoided and still my anxiety rose with the number of people around me and the level of noise that came with them.

 Floki and I stood together, watching the dancing. After a few minutes, Neasa hobbled over to us, clutching the fabric of a dark gown darted with silver stars that twinkled as the fabric shifted over her body. "You all came." She smiled. A circlet studded with more stars framed her small, pretty face and kept her long hair from hanging into it as it normally did. I sometimes forgot just how lovely she was. I saw her eyes shift, searching.