20. A Lovable Pain in the Ass
20. A LOVABLE PAIN IN THE ASS
ELOWYN
“Y’owe me,” the goblin said in a rough grumble that had become as familiar as the soft footfalls that shuffled beyond my room at all hours of the day and night. Crouched over a mortar and pestle at my bedside, Edsel pounded into dust an herb that smelled a bit like rosemary. The corded muscles of his forearms stood out as he angrily ground in circles, which was, I’d learned, the way he did pretty much everything—angrily.
Edsel didn’t realize it, but he owed me . He’d been the one to return to my room before I’d been able to locate the source of that little agreeable voice—a potential ally. When he’d finally left hours later, whoever I had heard was gone.
“Ye’re healed enough now to make yer way in the world. Ye’ll have to take it easy for a while, sure, and ye might have a limp even after ye’re all good and as fixed as ye get, but ye’ll be fine. Just fine. And that’s ‘cause of me. So, y’owe me. ”
“Actually, most of the progress I’ve made is due to my body’s natural healing abilities,” I corrected, mostly to be contrary, which had become our way over the last few weeks, the precise length of which I hadn’t been able to keep track of. “Your tonics and herbs and salves can only do so much. They stimulate my body to do what it’s designed to do all on its own.”
A fact I was so certain of since he himself had told me that shortly after I’d become lucid and found myself in his care.
He ceased his irate grinding to glower at me.
In truth, I did feel like I owed him a fair bit, regardless of his questionable bedside manner. But that wasn’t the pattern he’d set for us.
“Besides,” I said from where I sat up in bed, leaned against a pile of pillows. “The king’s paying you handsomely to help me.”
When Edsel only scowled, I added, “Isn’t he?”
The goblin resumed his furious grinding and grunted an unspecified, “Hmmmph.”
“He’s my father, you know,” I blurted without any reason I could fathom.
At that, Edsel glanced up, his arm stilling. He studied me with those large, dark eyes for so long that I began to wonder what he saw when he looked at me, and why I’d told him about the king when I barely thought of the man in those terms.
Eventually he resumed his task. “Aye,” he pointed at the fully conquered plants in his pestle. “Figured as much. Couldn’t see any other reason for him to protect ye like Dashiell says he’s done.”
Exactly how easily the queen had convinced my father of her need to kill me before Rush stabbed me through the heart flashed through my memory. The king had stood by while his freaking daughter died.
I looked away so the goblin wouldn’t examine my eyes. A tweak of pain suggested that while my condition had improved nicely thanks to my advanced fae healing and Edsel’s undeniable skills, I wasn’t yet ready for reckless movements.
“He’s not like a real father,” I told the gradually darkening sky outside the window. “If he’s shielded me so the queen can’t find me here, it’s probably ‘cause it suits his purposes for some reason. Not to help me.”
I studied the twilight for so long that I was torn from a melancholic trance when Edsel finally spoke.
“I figured who he was to ye since Dashiell made a point to show ye to him, all cut to pieces like ye were.” His words, so rarely gentle, were soft.
I blinked away the surge of moisture pricking at my eyes before facing him again. “I take it he didn’t give much of a fuck?” I asked, embarrassed to hear my voice thick with disappointment.
Edsel scowled and set aside the mortar and pestle. “Don’t ye mind him. I learned a long time ago. Ye don’t let anyone determine yer worth but yerself.”
I chortled. “You sound like Zako. He was the one who?—”
“I know who Zako is.” Abruptly, he slid off his stool and began scooping the newly powdered herb into an open jar. “Mostly I figured the king was yer pa ‘cause Odelia’s yer ma. Never seen two fae more in love than them two.”
“Smooth change of subject,” I said with an I see what you’re up to chuckle. “But I want to know about Zako.”
He whirled on me. “And I wanna know about my gran’gobbler, already! Ye owe me that much, and by dragonfire ye damn well know it.” His face flushed green across his neck and cheeks. His fists bunched. His inhales heaved his barrel chest up and down.
“Whoa, okay, okay. No need to get so feisty. I’m not your enemy here, by sunshine. It’s not like I’m withholding information about Pru on purpose. I was just trying to get some information of my own first. No one tells me much of anything. I’ve had to figure most of it out on my own, the very hard and very painful way. So I thought I’d try to?—”
“Use my gran’gobbler to get what ye want. On purpose .” He shook his head while muttering under his breath so I couldn’t understand him until, “Yer all the same. It’s always the same.”
My skin flushed from extreme offense. “Uh, excuse me? Are you saying you think I’m the same as that cruel, callous cunt of a queen? That I’d do a single thing to hurt Pru when all I keep thinking about is how I hope she’s alright? You think I’d hurt anyone I care about? Or who doesn’t deserve it, for that matter? I’m not like any of them! ”
I leaned forward so I could thump back into my pillows. If I could get out of bed and leave this room to get away from him, I would. But merely ambulating around the room at a turtle’s pace took everything I had.
Careful of a particularly bad slash across my ribs that had been slow to scab over, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him, my own breath coming heavy now. “You say you knew Zako? Well, Zako lied to me. For twenty-two years.”
That made me realize my birthday had probably come and gone while I was convalescing.
“I believed Zako was my father, that my mother was dead. ‘Cause that’s what he told me, and stupid me I trusted him. But then one fine day I was abducted and shot and all sorts of unpleasant shit, only to find out that Zako, my father , wasn’t my fucking father at all. Turns out the king, who couldn’t give a flying fuck about me, is actually my father. And the queen wants to kill me like it’s her main mission in this fucked-up world. I’ve never even heard of someone with such lust for murder. But yeah, she’s out to get me. It’s been peachy. She’s almost had me killed more ways than I care to recount right now. And oh, here’s another good one. I thought I was half human. All my life I was told my human mother was dead. But guess what? That’s right. Another fucking lie. I’m fully fae, and my mother— my mother —is actually alive and here. Where I am. Somewhere. Though no one will let me see her or tell me about her. As if I mean nothing. Like I’ve never meant a fucking thing to anyone.”
Xeno’s betrayed face floated through my mind. After Zako, he’d loved me before anyone else.
Next, Rush’s.
Saffron’s.
For a few beats I had to close my eyes. When Edsel remained uncharacteristically silent, I said, “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
It did, of course it did. But perhaps it didn’t matter in the same ways it had before. Maybe I could forge a life beyond the queen’s shadow.
Maybe.
“You’ve been through major shit too,” I said—a peace offering. “And whatever I still need to figure out, I’ll figure it out eventually. But you’re right about one thing: I shouldn’t use Pru as a bargaining tool. I love her. Anything I can do to help her in any way, I will. She’s?—”
“Ye love her?” Edsel asked in a tone I’d never heard from him. It was awed, I finally settled on. Disbelieving, perhaps.
“Yeah. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve professed my undying love to her or anything.” I snorted. “But sure, as a friend, I do love her.” Never mind that I hadn’t really thought about the matter much. It felt like the truth.
He climbed the stool and sank down onto it with a heavy plop. “Ye love her,” he repeated. “Goblins an’ ladies of the court don’t mix. But ye love my gran’gobbler.”
I waited.
He shrugged. “She is lovable.”
A barked laugh slipped out of me, surprising us both. “She’s a pain in my ass a lot of the time, but yeah. She’s lovable.”
His depthless eyes shone with pride. “So where is she? She hasn’t been answering my messages.”
I swallowed. “Be forewarned, I don’t think you’re gonna like it…”
I intended to tell him just about my time in the Sorumbra with Pru, but in the end I told him almost everything. The words bubbled up and out of me as if they had a purpose of their own. The only thing I held back was the secret of exactly how precious the bond between Rush and me was, and how he’d forgotten all about it. All about me.
When I finished my story, he studied me for such a long time that he had to create lumoons to light the room. Even after, he stared and stared and stared.
At first I was tired from the recounting, and the unexpected intensity of the feelings it dredged up. But now impatience simmered to a boil.
“Well? Are you just gonna look at me all night or are you gonna say something?”
“I’m thinking,” he grumbled.
“I didn’t realize you were this freaking slow at it.”
I expected irritation at my sass. But he only looked up at me with more of that earlier awe .
He rubbed his chin, scratched a callused hand over his short hair. He shook his head—more of that awe.
And finally, “Ye can save the Mirror World.”
The exhaustion that had begun abating again pushed across my body, sinking me more deeply into the bed.
“The dragons. The bloodline. The land’s magic,” Edsel muttered with constant incredulous shakes of his head. “Mate magic, even.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
But he didn’t look at me, deep in thought. “It’s how ye survived the stabbing to the heart,” he mumbled, as if partially to himself. “The scar that hasn’t healed. I’d been wondering ‘bout it.”
So much for my sole secret…
“Willing to make blood oaths with a goblin,” he went on. “And scaled, too. Chosen by the dragons. By the land.”
After all that shaking, he finally nodded. Stood. Shuffled toward the head of the bed. Took my hand when he never had before unless it was to treat a wound.
“I’ve been waiting for ye and didn’t even know it. Been wondering why I wasn’t ready to die. Why my body kept ticking past its time, and on these rickety wompa legs too.”
He patted my hand. “I’ll find my gran’gobbler and then I’ll join ye.”
“Join me for what?”
“Ain’t it obvious?”
I frowned. “If it had been, I wouldn’t’ve asked.”
“If we’re to take down the queen at long last, then ye’d better believe ye’ll need an army. We need to come at her with everything we got. Knowing her, we’ll only get the one chance, especially now that she’s been doing all that blood magic, going ‘round thinking she’s immortal.”
“Immortal,” I eked out, but it was too thready for him to hear, even standing next to me.
I tried again. “She can’t be immortal.”
“No, she can’t. No blood magic I ever heard of gives ye that. But it might come pretty damn close.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Dashiell. Apparently the queen called off the Fae Heir Trials. Said she doesn’t need heirs anymore since she’s gonna rule forever.”
While I reeled from that news and its many implications, he tapped my hand again. “I get my gran’gobbler and then we get ye an army.”
The burden of the savior role he was shoving onto me sat on my chest like a fat dragon too happy with its lot in life to ever leave me alone. I could scarcely breathe through the weight.
But I did. I managed it. And I said, “Okay. But I’m coming with you to find Pru and everyone else with her. They’re all my friends.”
He released my hand, frowning so severely he opened deep grooves beneath his cheeks. “Ye can scarcely walk.”
“You’ll need me to get through the Sorumbra. ”
He hmmphed . “Fae’ve been going into them Wilds an’ surviving them since King Spiro created the damn Mirror World.”
“True enough. But your chances of survival increase significantly with my glowy connection … thing.”
“Yer power. It’s yer power. Now ain’t the time to shy away from it. That time’s passed for good now.”
That was precisely what I was afraid of.
I swallowed. Cleared my throat. Swallowed again. “My power, then. It won’t help Pru if you die going after her.”
“I can’t wait till yer healed well enough. My gran’gobbler might need me now.”
That, she might. Or she and the others might be dead already. Either way, Edsel would need me to get past the umbracs or whatever nasty monsters laid in wait in the Sorumbra.
Sliding up the pillows to sit, I beamed an encouraging I’m feeling great smile.
His brow lowered as he squinted at me. “What’re ye doing there? Ye got gas? I got a remedy for that,” he offered, already turning.
My hand shot out to grab his before he could step away. “I’ll heal fast.”
He snorted. “That ain’t something ye can just make yer body do.”
“I can.” At the very least, it sounded good. “And I will. I’ll need to see my mother before I go, though. I won’t come this close to her and not see her. ”
His shoulders rose and fell with a laden sigh. “Fine. I’ll wait for ye. But only if yer fast as ye say ye’ll be.”
“Great.” I released his hand. “I’ll heal right up. Then I’ll meet my mother. We’ll find Pru and the others. We’ll get Rush and his friends. We’ll follow the map to free the others the queen’s draining of power. Then we’ll free the dragons?—”
“What map?” Edsel asked sharply.
So maybe I’d held on to more than one secret…
I updated him about the mysterious map that had appeared on my skin, and my suspicion that it would lead us to others like my mother. How I thought it was what had brought me here, though I hadn’t shared that possibility with Dashiell.
Edsel’s dark eyes grew larger and remained that way. “We might actually stand a chance,” he croaked. “After all this time, all this waiting, we might actually be able to do it. Take her out. Free the fae.”
Though I didn’t shake the discomfort at how very much of the responsibility landed on me, I said, “Yeah. I think we just might.”
Edsel straightened his shoulders as if he were already preparing for battle. He grew a whole inch so that his entire head reached above the bed while he stood flat on the floor.
Craggy face tilted up toward me, he said, “We do all that, and then we get ye an army.”
“Then we murder the queen,” I said in a venomous snarl.
“Aye,” he growled back like he was about to launch into a rallying battle cry. “Ye’re the hope we been waiting for. The only one we got.”
“Great, more pressure,” I muttered.
“I’ll start making preparations,” Edsel said, and bustled over to his chest of supplies. “I’ll need to take lots of medicines for ye. I’ll be ready the moment ye are.”
“I’ll be ready too,” piped up that tiny voice once again. “If you’re going to take down the fat, ugly queen, I’m coming with you.”
A diminutive fairy, much like the ones who’d tripped me during the Gladius Probatio, zipped across the room with a buzz of fast wings to hover in front of my face.
And Edsel rushed over to swat at her with a harsh scolding, “No!”