Chapter 16 Ren #2
Or a goblin skull, Ren thought, stomach souring as the dwarf’s eyes swiveled to them with razor-tipped sharpness.
Swallowing, they forced themself to look at Pansy instead, the dwarf’s bearded face dancing in front of their eyes like a hazy, sun-spotted after-image.
“Pansy,” they said, more forcefully this time, an edge of something like hysteria scraping across their fraying vocal cords. “What’s he talking about?”
For a moment, it seemed like she was going to respond – how she should’ve responded the last time Ren had asked her this question.
Then, her gaze dropped; not to her feet, but to a point on the ground further in, near where Agvaldir himself stood, so tall his buoyant hair nearly flattened against the ceiling. Her mouth snapped shut.
Ignoring the way their stomach churned, Ren followed the direction of Pansy’s stare and found a rug, old and dusty and balled up to one side.
But it wasn’t the rug that was important; it was what it had once covered: a small raised platform, barely wider than a stepping stone.
Although it was difficult to see from their present angle, it looked like something had been carved into the smooth, gray surface.
But as to what exactly, Ren couldn’t say.
Agvaldir shrugged, infuriatingly casual as he passed his staff from one hand to the other. “A bit clumsy, hiding them underneath a dirty old rug, but I suppose I can’t complain. You did manage to keep that unwanted houseguest of yours away while I made my preparations.”
“I didn’t—” Pansy choked, her hands trembling at her sides.
“Then why ask me about the runes?” he intoned, head cocking to the side in a display of mock innocence.
“You were so desperate when you came up to me in the town square that day. You were practically begging me, asking if I was certain that I didn’t know what these runes meant, if I didn’t have any books.
You asked, Pansy. You wanted my help. And more than that, you wanted that goblin gone.
” He grinned, lips peeling back with a serpent’s grace, needle-bright and slick with venom.
Ren wanted it all to be a lie. Every last word. But as they looked to Pansy, saw the recognition twisting across her features like the final throes of a dying animal, they knew that it wasn’t.
Acid burned up Ren’s throat, sliding across their tongue in a fetid tide.
They staggered backwards, their legs unsteady beneath them.
“Why?” they demanded, hating the way their voice cracked.
“Why did you bring him here? Why didn’t you warn me?
I could’ve – I could’ve saved the garden!
My clan—” They choked, their horror a noose around their throat, tightening with the weight of every new realization.
She could’ve told them. She should have. Ren had trusted her with so much; so why hadn’t she trusted them in turn?
Pansy whipped around. Her cheeks had gone shockingly pale, as if every last mote of color had been sucked from her flesh. “Ren, I promise you, I didn’t ask him for any of this. Yes, I asked him about the runes, but that was different. That was before—”
“Before what?” Ren snarled, uncaring of the way their bared fangs made the surrounding halflings gasp. They all saw a monster when they looked at Ren anyway, so why not give them one?
“Before I fell in love with you,” Pansy whispered, glancing up at them through her lashes, a move Ren had once found so undeniably charming, but that now only sent a web of ice fanning across their guts.
Agvaldir barked out a laugh, his expression all disgust and disbelief.
“You love a goblin?” he asked, only to finish with a resounding snort.
“My gods, Miss Underburrow, you should be grateful that I arrived here when I did. To think that you could fall under a goblin’s spell so swiftly.
Never fear, they’ll be the unwanted pest you first saw them as soon enough. ”
“Ren’s not a pest!” Pansy shouted, whirling back around. Rage had splattered a fresh coat of red across her face, rendered all the more stark by her preceding pallor. “Ren’s—”
Not wanting to hear whatever was meant to follow – their heart too fragile, too unsteady, like a cold glass dumped in boiling water – Ren ripped the flower crown from their head and threw it to the floor.
“I never should have trusted you,” they hissed, fixing Pansy with the iciest glare they could manage.
Her words catching in her throat, Pansy stared at them with wide eyes. “Are you…? You can’t seriously be blaming me for this. All I did was ask him if he recognized the runes. Yes, I probably should’ve told you about them too, but I was afraid—”
“And you think I wasn’t? I’m a goblin, Pansy; he’s a wizard! I have every right to be afraid. Plus, you know what sort of person he is. What did you think would happen?”
“Not this!” Pansy snapped, her hands fisting at her sides. “The cottage is my home too, Ren. I don’t understand how you could possibly think that I would ever want to see it torn apart like this.”
“But you’ll survive, won’t you? You can just go back to Haverow and weather out the winter there. But my clan—”
“Don’t you put that on me, Ren,” she said, biting out the words with surprising swiftness. “You know all I’ve ever wanted to do was help.”
“Well, at this point, I think we’d all be better off without your help!”
Pansy flinched, and Ren distantly wondered if they’d gone too far.
Was it really reasonable to expect that Pansy should’ve foreseen all of this?
But the ice in their chest had started to burn, and their own hurt eclipsed this thought not even a second later, answering their question with an emphatic, Yes.
“Fine,” Pansy said after a beat, her words coming out brittle and strained.
“If I truly am such a terrible person, then maybe you should just be rid of me and go. In fact, that’s exactly what you should do.
Far be it from me to subject you to any further consequences of my apparent stupidity!
” Her voice dipped at this point, plunging straight into a vat of venom that splattered over the parts of Ren already left aching and raw.
“No need to tell me twice,” they snapped and spun away from her, doing exactly as she’d suggested even though the motion tugged at something deep in the pit of their stomach.
If Pansy called for them on their way out – regret setting in, as always, the moment reality reasserted itself – Ren couldn’t say. They’d already stopped listening.