The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Thirty: Silence

Ib stomped towards me, his every motion full of rage. "Is it true? Are the rumors true?" He demanded, his violet eyes full of anger and...hurt?

"I don't think I'll ever get used to how quickly word travels among fae." With my back against the cool stone wall, I stretched my legs out on the floor. I couldn't keep my annoyance at being interrupted from my breakdown out of my voice. "What are you-"

Ib cut me off with a furious shout. "Did you steal a child!" Did you create another poor bastard like me, was what he meant.

"Does it count if I took her father too?" I muttered, staring listlessly at my hands in my lap. His hateful glare didn't lessen a bit. I rolled my eyes. "She is not stolen. She is my niece. I've arrested my brother for the crimes he committed against me. Her mother is dead, and her father will never breathe another free breath. We intend to look after her."

"I knew you were capable of a lot of horrid things, but this.... this I was not expecting." Ib leaned against the opposite wall, facing me. He was dressed in a plum-colored outfit. It was rumpled, and he'd missed a few buttons on his vest as he'd hastily thrown it on. He'd dragged himself out of Mab's bed the moment he'd heard just to come here and shout at me. I bowed my head, casting my face in shadow. "Taking a child from her world, ruining her life...all for the sake of revenge...I hope it was worth it." He spat. "But what bothers me most is that Knut let you do as you please after everything I went through...after everything he endured."

"I think you forget what he is sometimes, Ib." A weird noise seeped from me, something between a whimper and a laugh. "He is a goblin and goblins are not as kind as you seem to imagine. Especially not towards people that have wronged them. Jasper hurt me. Hurt me badly. I think Knut hates him more than I do. Were it not for me, that girl wouldn't even be breathing now. She'd be nothing but ash scattered on the wind." Ib's Adam's apple bobbed. "I am greedy. I know I am, but Jasper is worse than I could ever be. He sold me and our brothers to make a new life for himself. He sold his own wife to line his pockets until her body began to rot. He'd do the same to his daughter eventually. It was just a matter of time. I saved her." I growled. "So don't you bloody dare compare what I've done for her to what Mab did to you!" I cringed at how loud my voice was in the empty hall. I just went back to looking at my hands, pressing my lips together to keep from screaming all my frustrations.

Slowly, Ib's expression softened. "Have you been crying?" He asked quietly. He sat beside me, stretching his long legs out across the floor. "I don't think I've ever seen you look so..."

"Ugly?" I snorted. " I'm sure my face is all puffy now."

"I was going to say, 'human.'" His scowl transformed into a small smile. "You've always seemed...hard...like you were carved from stone. Always strong. Always calm even at times when you should have been terrified. All Mab's managed to do is piss you off. You actually seem like a real person right now."

A heavy silence fell over us. It crushed down on me until it forced words out of my throat. "It wasn't like what I thought it would be." I sighed, angrily wiping my face on my sleeve. "I thought that once I confronted Jasper, all this hurt," I rubbed at my breastbone, at the ache there, "would just vanish...it didn't. Seeing him just brought it all back, made it worse. I got all the answers I've been wanting, and they were no different from what I'd feared. He got rid of us so he could live his life. We were that...expendable to him. I hate him with all my soul."

Ib's pale brows furrowed. "But you spared him. Why?"

I fidgeted with the belt of my robe, twisting it between my fingers. "I don't know. I had him dangling by the rope. He was dying. All I had to do was let him. But despite all my hate and anger, despite everything he's done, I couldn't stomach watching him die. So, I settled for arresting him instead. My hate hasn't been erased. It's still there, eating away at me. I still want him dead. I could go down to that cell right now, slit his throat and be done with it all, but I can't bring myself to do it. And I don't know why."