Prologue

The Under Goblin

“Come in, Goblin.” The rusted, and ancient sounding voice of the forest witch, Baba Yaga, bade him enter.

Wrapping the hunter green cloak tighter around his body, he stepped through the door of a house unlike any other in all of creation.

A rickety, dilapidated structure of wood with a pointed roof, a chimney poking through that was full of holes, and moss that seemed to grow from every conceivable nook and cranny.

But that wasn’t the strangest part of the house at all.

Oh no, that dubious honor belonged to the mammoth sized chicken feet the decrepit building sat upon.

He hated coming here. Hated haggling with the three-faced witch.

She sat on the floor, a withered frame covered in warts and rags, and tossing sun-bleached chicken bones down by her feet as she murmured excitedly to herself.

Baba Yaga was in crone form today.

It was said that her moods matched her facade.

The Goblin, as he was called by all—his name had been lost to time, even to himself—clenched his jaw. Eyeing the strange house whose walls literally breathed in and out with every step the chicken feet took.

Baba had nothing in her home. No curtains to shade the windows. No table to eat dinner. No kitchen. No rooms.

This was nothing more than an empty room the size of his water closet back home.

And though he loathed the very thought of haggling with her, there were few quite as powerful as she when it came to the dark arts.

“Why have you come, male?” she asked and he shuddered. That screechy tenor of her voice could no doubt break glass.

Listening to her talk was like hearing the wailing, echoing song of a ghost at dawn.

Opening his mouth, he never got a chance to speak. Because she tossed down her bones again.

Cackling softly to herself, she tsked beneath her breath. “Aye, I see. Ye’ve come for a bit of revenge against the woman of ice.”

He swallowed, stomach churning with anger. No one ever interrupted him and lived.

But Baba wasn’t just anyone.

Her power was far greater than his.

Swallowing his pride, he nodded. “Yes.”

She tossed her bones down again. Her back still to him, she stared intently at the grayish-white knuckles. “I see no fault in her. You’ve a pettiness to your soul, Goblin. A darkness that festers and boils and will someday be your demise if you let it.”

Nostrils flaring, he bunched his fists by his sides. “Whether she agreed with him or not, made no difference. Luminesa had become a thorn in his flesh.”

Tossing the bones once again, she cackled. The sound hollow and empty like the rattling of dead leaves over gravel.

“She spurned you once. Ah, the vanity of pride.”

“Will you help me?” he snapped, daring to take a step toward her.

And still without turning, she snapped her fingers and one of the vines of moss that’d been nothing but a harmless bit of greenery had suddenly snapped down around his throat, banding with the strength of a constrictor.

“Mind your manners, boy.” There wasn’t even an inflection to her voice.

She didn’t fear him.

The Under Goblin rather thought she might fear nothing.

“Coin is coin and that’s an end of it,” she said. “Aye, I’ll aid you. But you know my fee if you fail.”

The band around his throat lessened so that he could talk. Coughing to clear the grit from it, he nodded. “I know. But I won’t fail.”

She laughed. “We shall see. Come, stand before me, boy.”

Hiding the fact that his knees currently shook, the Goblin walked around to the front of her, keeping a wary eye on the moss dangling like rope from the wooden beams above his head.

Then he dropped to his knees and turned his gaze on her and wished he hadn’t.

Her face looked as though it’d been dipped in wax and lit on fire. Parts of her jaw and cheek had been peeled back, showing exposed tendon and muscle beneath.

Lip curling with disgust, he shook his head. By all that was holy and precious she was a terrifying sight.

She inhaled deeply, smiling broadly, as though to taunt him. “Your fear tastes sublime.”

Swallowing thickly, he shook his head in denial. But there was no fooling the witch of darkness.

From beneath her robe slithered the golden body of a snake and it was all the Goblin could do not to jump to his feet and run away.

The Golden adder was deadly to any and all inhabitants of Kingdom. It’s magick so dark and noxious that it was said just a single flick of its tongue to flesh would stop the hearts beat.

He gazed on in horror as that ghastly beast wound it way up her arm, before settling itself like a golden choker around her shriveled neck, it’s pearl pink tongue flicking in and out in the Goblin’s direction. Those ruby red eyes trained solely on him, letting him know without a doubt that should he even flinch it would come at him.

“Three souls,” she said, holding up three gnarled fingers with nails tipped in black, “a brother, a sister, and a centaur male. A world within a world, built of ice and snow and demons that blow. And from the heavens, a mirror cast from the tears of a fallen angel.”

She held out her hand and suddenly there was a mirror on it and the Goblin felt the pulse of its dark magick throb against his flesh.

“Take it.” She thrust it out to him.

The mirror was nothing but a sheet of silver glass, thin around the edges. He reached for it, and the moment he plucked it from her palm, he felt the slick, oily residue of its darkness cling to him.

He curled his lips.

“Allow no piece of it to fragment into you. Only once the world has been set, then you shatter it. Choose one from among the three to infect. The mirror will do the rest.”

Pocketing the object with a curl of his lip, he shook his head, wanting to rid himself of the object of power as soon as could be.

“Why the centaur?”

The Goblin knew very little of the herds of Luminesa’s plains. Centaurs were generally considered to be wise and knowledgeable creatures, and difficult to enchant because they were mostly immune to the effects of magic.

Benign magic anyway.

Baba Yaga’s magick was as dark as it came and more powerful than even that of the fairy council’s combined.

“He is her mate in every way.”

Thrusting out his jaw, he couldn’t understand why taking Luminesa her mate was important.

But Baba snorted. “Think about it, you fool. With her mate around, and the magic of that bond working powerfully between them, how could she possibly focus on finding the key?”

What she said had merit, he’d not thought of it that way. The mate bond was legendary, and primitively powerful in its own right. But what exactly did she mean by the key?

“What key?”

A little flash of light flared across her palm, and then he saw it. An antique brass key no bigger than the length of her palm.

“Look into my eyes Goblin and see the rest.”

Leaning forward, he saw the colors roll through her eyes which had turned an opaque white. The hell Baba had created, the future Luminesa would suffer, and he smiled...

“Oh, dear Gods, that is brilliant.” He grinned when it was over, astonished by the witch’s cleverness.

“Aren’t I always?” She rubbed a finger across the head of her contented adder.

The Goblin made to leave then, having all he needed to put his plan into play.

But Baba snatched him by the wrist, her grip surprisingly powerful for someone as frail looking as she. The Golden adder, which had been practically purring with contentment just a second ago, had closed the gap between them, its tiny pink tongue flickering close to the Goblin’s nose as Baba tugged him down to her.

“The rules are firm, Goblin. If she accepts her fate, then you must let her be, and payment will be mine,” she said, licking dried and cracked lips.

“I won’t lose.”

She released him so quickly, that he stumbled backward, and almost fell.

“Even the mightiest towers fall.”

And with those final parting words, she snatched up her pile of chicken bones and tossed them again.

Cackling with delight when they settled. “Oh look, Balthazar,” she crooned to her adder, “more visitors are coming soon and such beauties they are.”

Shaking his head at her nonsense, the Goblin ran from there, only able to breathe once he’d put at least a mile of distance between him and her royal craziness.

“There is no way I shall lose.”

Finally, after all these years, Luminesa’s downfall was nearly at hand...