She lifted the forgotten drumstick and ate it, then raised a brow at me.
“More.”
After she ate another one and some of her vegetables, I nodded at Mergle. The next line entered. One of them kept their headdown as the others looked about nervously. He barely raised his chin when he faced us. Calista leaned forward with a squint.
“Him.” She pointed, and the two innocent ones stepped back staring in disbelief at their brother. He didn’t budge, though. His guilt pinned him to the very spot.
Mergle started forward but halted when I pushed the chair back. I walked around the table and stopped in front of him.
“Your High—”
“Do not venerate me when you seek my downfall, Gulian. Our downfall!” My voice boomed, causing the others to scurry away from us. “Did you think taking the one thing I ever desired would get you what you want faster?” He shook as I towered over him. “Answer me!”
Gulian stuttered over his words as he pissed himself.
“You disgust me,” I sneered. “Who else was involved?”
He clamped his lips shut and shook his head.
“I already have Pearce, and you’re going to die regardless. Give up their names or your clan will die with you.”
Gasps filled the room. Some of his clan were in attendance to witness his treason. The others were shocked by my declaration. They would quickly learn the lengths I would go to protect Calista and our future.
With a sob, he dropped to his knees, his ratty cloth breeches soaking up the small puddle of urine beneath him.
“Tell him!” a female goblin shouted from the corner of the room. “I will not be sentenced to death for your crimes!”
Gulian sobbed as he called their names.
One by one, Jessandra tossed their wriggling, fighting bodies into the room. Each one attempted to escape, but both exits were blocked. They dragged themselves to the center of the room and cowered at my feet, glaring at Gulian and cursing his cowardliness as they spat on him.
“Silence!” I turned to Calista’s ashen face as she regarded them with sympathy. They didn’t deserve her compassion. They certainly didn’t deserve my mercy. “Are they all here?”
She gulped, the knot in her throat bobbing and refusing to go down. I approached the table, blocking her view of them. “Calista,” I whispered. “I need your answer.”
“You-you didn’t say you would kill them.” Her voice quivered when she could finally muster up her voice.
“What did you expect to occur?”
“I thought they would go to goblin jail.”
I tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. She had always been tenderhearted, finding redemption where there was none. May she find a thread in me after this was over. “Your naivety is endearing.”
The traitors trembled as I advanced on them. My blade sung when I pulled it from its sheath. The realm’s magic pulsed in the handle as I gripped it. I tugged at the fingertips of my other glove and slipped it from my hand. Mergle approached when I held it out, and he took it from me. Approval etched the lines of his face before he retreated to his station.
“Death is less than you deserve, but a swift punishment. Tonight, you shall die twice. The first for her, the second for me.”
Calista’s gaze darted around the room at the horrified goblins as she tried to make sense of my words. They clung to one another, some burying their faces against their neighbors, unable to watch.
Gulian squirmed when I picked him up and set him on the table in front of their future queen. He pleaded for mercy when I raised the knife to his throat. I held her gaze. Her face turned as white as her knuckles gripping the arms of the chair. As much as I wanted to drag out his suffering, I couldn’t put her through it. I yanked the blade across his flesh in the same spot Pearce had marked her. Blood spurted from the wound, his tiny handsclutching at his gargling throat. Calista gasped and covered her mouth. An anguished cry tore from her as she watched the life drain from him.
Before he bled out entirely, I wrapped my ungloved hand around the gaping wound and unleashed my magic. Unhindered, it roared to the surface, propelled by the bloodlust pumping through my veins. The glow of the candles on either side of us dimmed when the vine-like shadows slipped from my fingertips.
With my mouth next to his ear, our motto spilled from my lips laced with agonizing fury. “Forever forgotten, but always remembered.”
I spoke my silent goodbyes to him as the shadows wove around his tiny form. They plunged into his chest in search of the borrowed life force they had lent him. Wrinkles formed on his skin, his body withering as my magic leached every last drop. Then the realm greedily fed, devouring Gulian’s essence until all that was left was his shriveled mummified remains.
Calista gaped when I stood the miniature statue in front of her. Its expression frozen with the last one he would make. Like a veil lifting, awareness crashed over her, and she sagged in the chair beneath its weight.
One after the other, I presented them to her, spilled their blood in retribution, and siphoned their hopes and dreams. They would never leave the labyrinth. The one place they desperately tried to escape had become their eternal nightmare. Their essence stitched with the realm as I forced it out of them and would become the fuel that kept it and us alive.
I set the final statue in front of Calista. Lined up before her, her faraway stare barely flicked in its direction. Redemption was nowhere in sight for me. The journey to claim her would be long and arduous, but one I was willing to trek. One I would slick with blood even if it were my own. I rounded the table and droppedto a knee beside her. Her chin trembled when she finally looked down at me. I presented her with my knife covered in the blood of her enemies and tapped into the stone long enough to plant a seed for her to take the gift I offered her. Hand shaking, she picked it up. A mix of terror and disgust washed over her as she held it. She dropped it on the table in front of her and snatched the blood spackled napkin from beside her plate.
Magic crackled over my skin as I stood and drew her up next to me. My arm slipped around her, pulled her flush to my front, and held her steady. Her heart pounded furiously beneath my splayed hand. I stared down my brethren, daring them to be foolish enough to test me. “For any others involved who did not act this time, know this. If even one hair is harmed on Calista’s head, you will incite a destruction upon this realm the likes of which you have only dreamed. I will not hesitate to kill you all.”
