It felt like I was in a trance. Sitting there, staring at the place where Knut was only moments before, nothing felt real to me. It had to be a nightmare. Soon, I had to wake up. I thought I would be getting my life back. I thought I'd be sleeping in my own little nest with my babies piled around me, all of us warm and safe. Knowing now that it wasn't over and that my misery was far from done, it felt as if the entire world had been set on my ribs. The pain and loneliness were crushing me, suffocating me.
Titania cackled and ranted, joyously reveling in Knut's defeat. I didn't hear a word of it.
While the tide of the sea of magic was returning to normal outside and the sun reached its apex above the palace, I was led away back to the room I shared with Cerise. I didn't drag my feet. I didn't fight at all. I was numb. My mind was empty, but for the picture of my family gathered around my stolen throne. I imagined Knut sitting in his throne beside mine, shaking as he tearfully told my children that he couldn't save me and that their mother wasn't coming home. I imagined Floki's face crumpling with sadness, Frit's cheeks going red as he fought back angry tears and Odd wailing at the top of his lungs, his tiny clawed hands reaching for a mother that wouldn't come at his cries. My hands ached with the missing of them. My throat burned with the threat of my own imminent breakdown. My body worked on its own, perpetually moving forward. Back to my cage with my fellow pets.
The guards opened our door. Cerise leaped up from where she'd been huddled in a corner and stared at me. Her eyes were questioning, confused. I didn't let my gaze linger on them. "Better luck next time, Empress." My guards sneered. They pushed me inside and slammed the door shut behind me. The heavy bar that kept it bolted tight slid back into place. I shuttered at the sound.
The world was silent for a few breaths as we listened to the guards stomp away down the hall. "What happened?" Cerise asked once she knew they were gone. "I heard fighting. I could hear the goblins screeching. Why are you still here?" There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn't shedding them for me. Every once of her screamed with frustration. She shook with it, burned with it. It was in the grimacing set of her mouth, the way she fisted her hands in her own hair. She was wondering why she was still there, still breathing, more so than why I was still a slave.
"Knut failed," I mumbled.
"How?" Cerise's voice rasped. "You have literal death at your disposal. How could he have failed? I don't understand." Her face was red and blotchy, her voice tired from screaming. Her hands bore wounds and bruises from however long she'd been pounding against our door.
"Bran is no longer under Knut's control." I said softly as if he'd ever held it, "We needed him. Without him, everything fell apart." I practically fell face first onto my blanket on the floor and rolled myself up in it. "We were almost gone. Almost beyond her reach, but the tide returned before Knut could get me out of The Summer Branches. Titania's spell snapped back into place and it was over." I turned my back on her. My eyelids grew heavy as sleep called me into its dark, cleansing embrace. "I'm sorry," I added, apologizing to her and to everyone I'd let down back at home.
I heard Cerise begin to pace the narrow room. Her bare feet padded against the cold stone. Her breath came in heavy, deep breaths. "He'll try again." She assured me. "Knut's known for his intelligence, right? He'll figure out a way to get you out even without Bran. I know he will." She went on, trying to reassure herself more so than me.
"How?" I asked. I wrapped my hand around my throat, over where I felt the noose of Titania's leash tighten. "So long as I'm leashed, Knut can't act. Our only hope was The Winter Solstice and now our chance is gone. I'll have to wait a whole year before we get another opportunity." I pulled my knees up to my chest, curling into a fetal position as I spoke, quietly venting my frustration. I clenched my teeth at a particularly sharp pang of despair. "That's a whole year I will miss of my children's lives. Days, moments, that I'll never get back." Goblin princes already lived such short lives and their mortality had pressed down on my shoulders since the day the twins were born. Every moment I had with them was precious. Just one more thing the faeries were taking from me. Memories that I should have had. I shivered beneath my blanket bending myself into a tighter ball. I pressed my face into the cold stones beneath my head as I bit back a wail of pure pain. My tears wet the stones, darkening them to black. My nails dragged against them. How I wished it was living flesh beneath my nails, that there was something there I could rip apart to relieve myself of this tension, all of this rage. "Back at the beginning, during my war with Mab, I always seemed to have a plan. Even when things were bad and felt hopeless, I had an idea of what I had to do to set it all right. Pull the thread, take the City of Thorns, make a bargain with Athane, follow a goblin soul back to Knut. No matter what I've gotten myself into, I always found a way out of it, but I don't know...I...I don't know what to do now."
It was like everything reset itself once The Winter Solstice passed. The dead were mourned and buried. I watched from the palace as the families of the Seelie soldiers released what was left of their bodies into the sea of magic. They drifted away for a moment then fell apart, turning from flesh and blood to silvery stars that fell away from each other. Some of those stars were pulled into the darkness beyond the sea and vanished while others burned brightly and became a part of the sea itself. Those that still had something to bury were the lucky ones. Others, whose sons', husbands', brothers', fathers' bodies had been devoured or torn into nothing or lost could do nothing but lay their hands into those magic starry waters and pray for them. I watched those people suffer, wishing only for more of it to be delivered upon them. At least they had been allowed to attend their loved ones' funeral. Once the grieving had passed, however, everything went back to normal. Three days after the escape attempt, I returned to my duties as if nothing had occurred.
"Ma Tilda! You came!" Neasa greeted me with a big grin as I entered her room. She hobbled to me and threw her skinny arms around my legs.
"Hello, Dove," I replied wearily. I didn't move or touch her. I turned my eyes to her mother. Aurora stood by with Liber, the both of them giving me pitying looks that turned my belly sour. "Take her, please," I muttered.
"She's so happy to see you. She's talked of little else." Aurora said gently.
I tried to inject metal into my voice, but still, it wavered, betraying every hurt. "I know I'm here to work. I will gladly clean the entire tower for you, but I can't care for her. Not today. I'm not ready for that." I finally reached down and pried the little girl's hands from me, pushing her away. Again, I never looked at her for fear of what would happen if I did. "Please," I began, grimacing as tears began to escape and dripped down my face. No matter how hard I tried to fight them they overcame all my barriers. "I do not trust myself not to hurt her," I said in goblin. My rage was suffocating. I wanted to wrap my hands around Neasa's throat and, press my knees into her chest until she stopped breathing. I wanted to cause someone else the same pain I felt now.
Aurora was taken aback. She stiffened. Her eyes widened, but after a moment, she gave me a nod. "Very well. Do as you please." She came to me and took her daughter by the hand. "Neasa, Matilda isn't feeling well. She'll play with you another time. We can't have you getting sick."
Neasa whined and cried, disappointed that I couldn't play with her, but Aurora stayed firm. She picked her up and bounced her, shushing her with a little hummed tune. "I'm sorry, Matilda," Aurora whispered to me. She reached to touch my shoulder and I flinched away looking at her hand like it was covered in filth. Frowning, she let her hand fall away. "Liber, let me know when Matilda is finished. I'll take Neasa out to play."
"I will." Liber said, closing the door for Aurora after she left. "Would you honestly hurt Neasa?" Liber asked, his hand slipping from the door. He turned to me with that sickening pity darkening his eyes.
"You want me to lie?" I said through clenched teeth, snatching up the toys scattered around the room. "No one in this place gives a damn about my own children so why the hell should I care about one of yours? I should be home now." I sniffled, tossing the toys in my arms into a drawer and kicking it closed. "I should be with them, but instead I'm here, expected to act motherly to a faerie brat while my sons are kingdoms away, crying for me."
"I'm sorry." Liber echoed Aurora.
I whirled with a snarl and shoved him hard, making him stagger. "You can shove your fake concern up your feathered ass!"
"Are you really so full of hate that you can't see when people actually do care?"
"No one does." I seethed. "Not about monsters like me and my family. Not unless they want something from us like bodies for your armies or what's in-between my legs."
Silently, Liber went to a table where a pitcher and some goblets were sitting. He filled two of them and held one towards me. "Seems like you could use a drink."
I wasn't about to argue or pass up the opportunity to drown my sorrows. I gulped at the drink and made a face, disappointed at finding that it was a fruity cider kind of drink and not wine. "Ass," I muttered.
"Alcohol is bad for you," Liber smirked. He sat at the room's small table where he and Aurora often took their meals. "Sit a moment and relax." He motioned towards the empty seat across from him.
"I'm good." I stayed by the window, sipping my cider. It was actually pretty tasty I had to admit.
Liber sipped his cider. His wings shifted, rustling his feathers dappled by the light coming in through the window. "We all might be extremely happy that we aren't dead right now, but we are sorry that Knut's rescue attempt failed. I cannot speak for Aurora, but I know that regardless of everything else, I want you to reunite with your children. I know you don't believe me and you never will but..."
"You're right, I don't believe you." I snapped. "Why would you?" I looked out the window at the garden below. Aurora sat in the bright sunshine with Neasa on her lap. With her pallid complexion and warped body, Neasa looked wrong in this place. She was foreign. Something that didn't belong. It was the same as I had felt for a long time when I lived above ground with people that claimed to be the same breed as myself. Others called my sons halfbreeds, mongrels, but they were wrong. My children were goblin through and through. A goblin was what I claimed to be, it was the blood I chose. I wondered what Neasa would claim. The sun or the darkness of night?
"I know what it's like to have something precious taken from you," Liber said softly. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. "I am from a rather powerful aristocratic line. My family's been the king's right hand for generations. My forefathers have served as generals and advisors, all of them powerful warriors in their own right. I was the seventh son in my family, the twelfth in a batch of twelve. There was no hope of me ever inheriting our ancestral home or titles so I focused on what made me happiest. I went to the healers' temple and committed myself to their teachings. I wanted to serve the crown in my own way, by learning to heal and help others. However, with each fruitless battle, I lost a loved one, first my parents then my sisters and brothers one by one. Over and over again, I sent them out into the sea until I was the last of our house, the only child still remaining. Our title and wealth fell to me and its weight was great. I was forced to let go of my own desires to keep my family's legacy alive, but I would gladly toss it all into The Void to have even a single one of my family here with me. Your friend, Bran, however, is a greedy thing. He doesn't give back what he's stolen." His fingers squeezed his goblet. "Your sons are still alive. There is hope yet that you will return to them."
"I will," I said, downing the last of the sweet drink. "I don't know how yet, but I will find it. I'll get back to them even if it kills me."
"Of that, I have no doubt," Liber smirked again. He approached me slowly and held out his hand to me. "Why don't we join Aurora and Neasa in the garden? The fresh air will do you good."
I stared at his hand. He had long elegant fingers, like Knut's but prettier. He really did remind me of him in small but many ways. Setting my goblet onto the windowsill I wrapped my arms around myself. "I told you, I don't trust myself around Neasa. I'm so angry, Liber. All I want to do is hurt and kill. It doesn't matter who."
"You won't hurt Neasa." He said without a shred of doubt in his voice. "I have seen you with her many times. Even though you feel guilty for it, you love her in your own way. No matter how angry you might be or how morally gray a character you are, I cannot fathom you ever intentionally harming her."
I thought of Neasa, her metamorphosis from that suffering barely alive lump of flesh into the happy child she'd recently become. I was proud of the role I'd played in that change and cherished every smile and word of affection, even though I knew my hatred one day drive me to kill the very thing I'd grown to care for and sought to save. "Trusting me isn't good for your health," I said as I took his hand. "One day, once I have the opportunity to strike, I'm killing all of you."
He squeezed it and smiled at me, bright and friendly. "Perhaps, but that day is not today."
Liber and I made our way down through the palace corridors, making our way towards the garden where Aurora and Neasa sat playing in the grass. As we walked, we passed many other slaves. They kept their eyes averted and their heads bowed as they always did, pushing me out of the pack, setting me aside as other. To them, I might as well have had the twisted sharp form my claimed blood called for.
"I still don't think this is a good idea," I whispered.
"Like I said, the sunshine and clear air will do you good and playing with Neasa will lift both of your spirits."
"I prefer dank caves, personally."
I saw her approaching from across the long hall and I instinctively stiffened. Mary's horselike face stood out among the sea of beautiful slaves. Whoever stole her must have been cross-eyed. She was carrying a basket of clean laundry. I continued my chat with Liber, trying to ignore her, but I knew from the smile slowly creeping across her face that she wasn't about to make it easy. I hurried my steps. The hall exit was close by. Once we were out of the enclosed space, I could get Liber to fly me the rest of the way to the garden. Then she started to giggle. "Surprise, surprise, you're still here." Mary sneered as we passed one another. "I thought your dear husband was going to rescue you. What happened, Empress, was he honestly stupid enough to pick a fight he had no hope of winning or did he just find some other slut willing enough to spread their legs for him?"
I stopped cold in my tracks. "What did you say, bitch?" I asked her, my voice calm, but the words biting. Slowly, I turned around to face her. My hands tightened into fists at my sides.
She did the same. "You heard me." She laughed. Her eyes cruel and taunting. "You make me sick." She shook her head. "Every one of us was stolen from our homes, our lives and families, but you willingly went with that goblin of yours and cursed everyone you left behind whether they ever did you harm or not."
"You know nothing!" I shouted.
Liber grabbed my arm. "Matilda, forget her, let's go." He urged me. I shook him off with a swift jerk of my arm.
"I know enough. You hated your older brother for selling you, but you just sold yourself, traded your body to that disgusting goblin for a title and a fancy house. I hope it was worth it, letting him fill your belly with those abominations. If you ask me, you should have hung with your kin like all filthy thieves and murderers should. It's what you deserved." She tossed her hair and turned her back to me, continuing on her path while something in me snapped.
If she had only insulted me, I could have overlooked it, but she hadn't stopped there. She had mocked Knut and worse yet she'd called my children abominations. This I could not forgive. I put one more strike by her name. The fifth tally crossed over the other four in my mind.
All my rage came rushing out in one shrill scream. I leaped at her before Liber even realized what was happening. I grabbed her by her hair and jerked her head back. My thumbs jabbed into her eyes while my teeth sank into her throat. With my Hollow given strength, my teeth easily broke through skin and muscle and veins. I shook my head, tearing away her flesh as she screamed. Her blood gushed out, bathing me in it and slicking the floor, splattering the walls. Liber's power finally slammed into me. It knocked me off my feet sending me rolling down the hall. When I finally came to a stop, I hoisted myself onto my knees. Liber was knelt over her, trying to staunch the blood flowing from the mangled remains of her throat. His eyes widened and all color drained from his face. He lifted his eyes to me. Fright burned in them. "She's dead." He said breathlessly.
I grinned. Her blood oozed out between my teeth. Bits of flesh were still in my mouth, tucked against my cheek like a savored morsel. "Good." My laugh turned into a cackle. "It's what she deserved."