the maiden’s blood spilled over the cavern floor, a widening circle of crimson, scarlet, and vivid red. The changeling cried out and ran forward, placing his hands over her heart to stanch the bleeding.
“Help me!” he cried out to the man on the dais. “Help me, please!”
The man lurched upright, pale and wan and unsteady on his feet. The Goblin King. Without the power of the old laws thrumming through his veins, he looked strangely diminished. Less frightening, less otherworldly, less . . . just less. For his entire mortal life, the changeling had heard tales of this man—this uncanny figure—who could bend space and time and the laws of reality as the world knew it, yet the Goblin King who stood before him was not a myth. He was just a man.
And the changeling hated him a little for it.
The Goblin King joined the changeling by the maiden’s side, covering his hands with his own. Together they pushed down upon her chest, feeling the pulse, pulse, pulse of her heart beating beneath their palms.
“Please,” the changeling said, turning his eyes to the mass of goblin hands and eyes and teeth watching with an impassive, implacable, impersonal gaze. “What can I do?”
Do, mischling? the legion of voices was amused. Do what? Save her life? It is too late. She has made her choice.
“She did it to save me!” He turned on the Goblin King. “How could you just let her die?”
Blame him not, the old laws said. He is a hollow husk of a thing. We ate his soul already; he has nothing left to give.
The changeling threw his head back and screamed.
From the crawling, writhing mass of creatures, two small goblin girls clawed and wriggled their way free. Other hands burst forth and grabbed at their ankles, their wrists, their limbs, any bit of their bodies within reach, but the girls were determined, biting and scratching as they fought their way to the changeling and the Goblin King.
“Mischling,” said the one nearest to him. She was slender, like a sapling tree, with a crown of branches wound with cobwebs atop her head. “There is a way to save her.”
Silence! the old laws roared.
“That one,” said the other, a short stout little thing with thistledown hair, pointing at the Goblin King, “has given all he can give. He has nothing left.” Her black eyes were solemn. “But you do, mischling. You do.”
The changeling looked to the man at his side. He was shaking his head, in resignation or denial, the changeling did not know what. “He should not have to bear the cost.”
“What cost?” the changeling demanded.
“Eternity,” the Goblin King whispered. “Unending torment.”
The changeling went still. He knew then what the sacrifice would claim of him, what the old laws required.
A king.
“No,” the man beside him said. “She cannot bear to lose you, Josef. Elisabeth would never forgive you.”
Josef. It was a name he had stolen, an identity and a face and a life he had taken for his own. The fat, sweet little mortal child who had died of scarlatina before he had had a chance to live. The changeling had seen his opportunity, and taken it. He had become the boy in the cradle. He had become Liesl’s brother.
“How?” he breathed. The changeling turned to the face wrought of nightmares. “What must I do?”
“It was never a bride who was needed to bring the world back to life,” said the twig-laden goblin girl. “It was grace.”
The Goblin King gave the girl a sharp look. “Explain yourself, Twig.”
Twig trembled and shivered, buffeted about by fear and eagerness. “Only a person given willingly to the Underground with a whole heart understands the true price to be paid and offers it with joy.”
“Grace, mischling,” said the thistle-haired goblin, “is the capacity to love the world entire. Without regard to self. Without regard to the individual. The first Goblin King understood this.”
The man beside him stiffened. “Then why a bride, Thistle?” he asked. “Why must innocent blood be spilled to wake the world to spring?” The changeling could hear the words the man did not say. Why did I have to suffer? Why did she?
“A sacrifice made with half a heart is worth half its value,” Thistle replied. “You were tricked onto your throne, Your Majesty. The first Goblin King was tricked out of his.”
“By whom?” the changeling demanded.
The goblin girls exchanged glances. “We do not speak her name,” said Twig.
The first Goblin Queen.
“She loved him,” Thistle said. “And she was selfish. When the Goblin King let her go, she returned to the Underground to claim him. To steal him away. And in his place she left another. A mewling, frightened lad,” she sneered. “Who lasted barely a breath before finding another to take his place.”
“But you, mischling,” Twig said softly. “You understand what it is to love the world entire. You have walked amongst mortals, you have lived amongst them. You have even loved them, in the only way we fey know how. Distantly. Dispassionately. But it does not mean it is any less deep.”
The changeling stared at the dagger in his sister’s hand, still wet with her blood. “But I have no soul to give,” he said.
“She gave you a name,” Twig said gently. “And you took it to forge your own soul.”
Sepperl.
The man beside him was shaking his head, but did not say a word in protest. The changeling took the weapon from his sister’s hand.
“Oh, Josef,” the man said. There were tears in his mismatched eyes, and there was great compassion in their blue and green depths. “You don’t have to do this.”
But he did.
“Take care of her,” he whispered to the man beside him. “She deserves to be loved.”
The man nodded his head, but could not speak. Josef heard him anyway. I will.
The old laws were silent and watchful as the changeling took the dagger.
And pierced his own heart.