21
" Those eyes. So pale, so startling, so different. His breath was hot against my face, and we stared at each other. I was stunned to see I was looking into the face of the austere young man, not Der Erlkönig, not the wolf, and suddenly I understood what he had been pleading.
Don't leave me.
A warmth spread from my center, turning my limbs liquid. But when that warmth reached my heart, it turned into pain.
"Never," I breathed.
At my word, his eyes transformed. Hardening into jewels, the mask of Der Erlkönig returned. He lowered his mouth to the column of my neck, a light touch of teeth, his hand moving to rest lightly against my collarbone.
"Good," he growled.
And then with one swift motion, he tore the fabric of my dress from the neck down. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
24
" If- if I could find a way to free you," I whispered, "would you walk the world above with me?"
My back was to the Goblin King; I could not face him. It was a long time before he answered.
"Oh, Elisabeth," he said. "I would go anywhere with you."
I turned around. His eyes deepened in color and for a moment, just for the merest glimpse, I could see what he would have been like as a mortal man. If he had been allowed to live the course of his life, from the child he had been to the man he would have become. A musician- a violinist. I ran back into the circle of alder trees, wanting the circle of his arms around me. I reached out my hands, and his fingers brushed mine, but we passed through each other like water, like a mirage. We were each nothing but a shimmering illusion, a candle flame we could not hold.
And yet, the Goblin King was still here, in the Goblin Grove, with me. He stood in the Underground while I stood in the world above, but our hearts beat within the same space.
"Don't look back," he said.
I nodded. I love you, I wanted to say. But I knew these words would break me.
"Elisabeth."
The Goblin King was smiling. Not the pointed smile of the Lord of Mischief or Der Erlkönig, but a crooked one. Twisted to one side, lopsided and goofy, it cracked my heart open and I bled inside.
He mouthed a word at me. A name. "You've always had it, Elisabeth," he said softly. "For it is you I gave my soul. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
27
" Now," he said, turning me to face him. "Let us dance, Elisabeth."
The musicians struck up another song, one I didn't recognize. The tempo was slow and in a minor key, seductive and sinister. The Goblin King pulled me into his embrace.
He pressed his hand to my lower back, pushing our hips close together. Our hands met palm to palm, fingers intertwined. He was not masked and neither was I. Our eyes met. Despite the closeness of our bodies, it was the touch of our eyes that made me blush.
"Mein Herr," I demurred. "I don't think-"
"You think too much, Elisabeth," he said. "Too much about propriety, too much about duty, too much about everything but music. For once, don't think." The Goblin King smiled. It was a wicked grin, one that made me feel unsafe and excited at the same time. "Don't think. Feel. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
28
" Elisabeth.
A breath on the back of my neck. I am dizzy, I sway, but I stand. A breath, then a kiss. I cannot see, but I know it is him. The Goblin King.
I lean into him, but he holds me upright. He murmurs my name down my neck, down my spine, his long, elegant fingers traveling along the curves of my hips, my waist.
Elisabeth.
I do not know what to call him, but I cry out his name.
My fingers reach, but he is gone. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
29
" And you?" My scalp tingled, and an ache began at the base of my spine, fear or eagerness, I did not know. "What would you ask of me?"
His eyes held mine. "I would ask the impossible."
I struggled to let the Goblin King hold my gaze as heat stained my cheeks. "Bear in mind that I am no saint," I said, "and cannot work miracles."
His lips twitched. "Then I would ask for your friendship."
Startled, I removed my hands from the table.
"Oh, Elisabeth," he said. "I would ask that you remember me. Not as we are now, but as we were then."
I frowned. I thought back to our Goblin Grove dances, to the simple wagers we had made when I was a little girl. I struggled to find the truth hidden within my past, but I was unsure which was memory and which was make-believe.
"You do remember." He shifted closer in his seat. There was something like hope in his voice, and I could not bear it.
The Goblin King lifted his hand. The table beneath us vanished, swallowed up by the earth once more.
He placed a finger against my temple. "Somewhere within that remarkable mind of yours, you kept those memories safe. Too safe. Hidden away."
Was the Goblin King the friend I had imagined- remembered- as a child? Or was he truly the Lord of Mischief, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality? I was restless and itchy within my own mind.
He left his seat and kneeled before me. His hands rested on the armrests of my chair, but he was careful not to touch me.
"All I ask, Elisabeth," the Goblin King said, "is that you remember." His words were a bass, their notes resonating in my bones. "Please, remember. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
31
" Light shone through a large crack in the wall of the maze ahead of us. A slim, slender silhouette cast a shadow against the passage floors. Der Erlkönig. I did not marvel then that I knew the shape of his body as well as my own reflection.
I watched the Goblin King's shadow play his violin, his right arm moving in a smooth, practiced bowing motion. Käthe tried to pull me away, but I did not go with her. I moved closer to the light, and pressed my face to the crack. I had to look, I had to see. I had to watch him play.
The Goblin King's back was turned to me. He wore no fancy coat, no embroidered dressing gown. He was simply dressed in trousers and a fine cambric shirt, so fine I could see the play of muscles in his back.
He played with precision and with considerable skill. The Goblin King was not Josef; he did not have my brother's clarity of emotion or my brother's transcendence. But the Goblin King had his own voice, full of passion, longing, and reverence, and it was unexpectedly... vibrant. Alive.
I could hear the slight fumblings, the stutters and starts in tempo, the accidental jarring note that marked his playing as human, oh so human. This was a man- a young man?- playing a song he liked on the violin. Playing it until it sounded perfect to his imperfect ears. I had stumbled upon something private, something intimate. My cheeks reddened.
"Liesl."
My sister's voice sliced through the sound of the Goblin King's playing like a guillotine, stopping the music mid-phrase. He glanced over his shoulder, and our eyes met.
His mismatched gaze was unguarded, and I felt both ashamed and emboldened. I had seen him unclothed in his bedchamber, but he was even more naked now. Propriety told me I should look away, but I could not, arrested by the sight of his soul bared to me.
We stared at each other through the crack in the wall, unable to move. The air between us changed, like a world before a storm: hushed, quiet, waiting, expectant. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
32
" What did you think the answer would be, Elisabeth? I toy with you because I can. Because it gives me great pleasure. Because I was bored."
An inarticulate scream of rage strangled me. I wanted to destroy something, to spend my anger against the unfairness of everything. I wanted nothing more than to grapple with the Goblin King, to tear him limb to limb, a Maenad against Orpheus. I tightened my hands into fists.
"Yes," he murmured. "Go ahead. Hit me. Strike me." The invitation was not just in his words, but his voice. He advanced. "Use your rage against me."
We stared at each other, scarcely half a breath between us. This close, I could see that his gray eye was flecked with silver and blue, his green one ringed with amber and gold. Those eyes mocked me, inviting and inciting me into a passion. If I were a smoldering ember, he was the poker, stirring me into flames.
I retreated. I was afraid. Afraid to touch him for fear of starting a fire within me.
"What," I asked tightly, "do you want from me, mein Herr?"
"I already told you what I want," he said. "You, entire."
We did not relinquish each other's gaze. Let go, his eyes seemed to say. But I couldn't; if I surrendered to my fury, I wasn't certain what else I would give up.
"Why?" My voice was hoarse.
"Why what, Elisabeth?"
"Why me?" My words were barely audible, but the Goblin King heard them. He had always heard me.
"Why you?" Those sharp, pointed teeth glistened. "Who else but you?" Even his words were sharp, each slicing through me like a knife. "You, who have always been my playmate? "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
33
" It isn't just the life of a maiden I needed, you know," the Goblin King said quietly. I glanced sharply at him, his tone had changed. "It was what a maiden can give me."
"And what is that?"
His smile was crooked. "Passion."
Heat flared in my cheeks.
"Not that sort of passion," he said quickly. Did I imagine things, or were his cheeks tinged a faint pink? "Well, yes, that too. Passion of all sorts," he said. "Intensity. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
34
" Hours, or days, or minutes passed before I felt the light touch of a hand on my head.
"Elisabeth."
A young man looked down at me, his mismatched eyes soft, the tilt of his mouth tender. It was the tenderness that undid me, undid the strings I'd bound about my heart. Longing, fear, grief, resentment, and desire came tumbling out. I began to cry.
The young man reached out to wipe my tears away, and in his touch there was nothing but kindness. I wanted to take his compassion and wrap it about me for comfort. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
37
" That one," the merchant said, pointing to Käthe, whose head lolled against my shoulder, "burns like kindling. All flash, and no real heat. But you," he said. "You smolder, mistress. There is a fire burning within you, but it is a slow burn. It shimmers with heat, waiting only for a breath to fan it to life. Most curious." A slow grin spread over his mouth. "Most curious, indeed. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
38
" I was about to march straight into the Goblin Grove and drag my sister back home to safety when the stranger drew back his hood.
I gasped.
I could say the stranger was beautiful, but to describe him thus was to call Mozart "just a musician." His beauty was that of an ice storm, lovely and deadly. He was not handsome, not the way Hans was handsome; the stranger's features were too long, too pointed, too alien. There was a prettiness about him that was almost girly, and an ugliness about him that was just as compelling. I understood then what Constanze had meant when those doomed young ladies longed to hold on to him the way they yearned to grasp candle flame or mist. His beauty hurt, but it was the pain that made it beautiful. Yet it was not his strange and cruel beauty that moved me, it was the fact that I knew that face, that hair, that look. He was as familiar to me as the sound of my own music.
This was the Goblin King. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
39
" Hello, Elisabeth," he said softly.
I stood dumb and silent. How did one respond to Der Erlkönig, Lord of Mischief, Ruler of the Underground? How did one address a legend? My mind spun, trying to reel in my emotions. The Goblin King stood before me, in flesh and not in memory.
"Mein Herr," I said.
"So polite." His voice was as dry as autumn leaves. "Ah, Elisabeth, we need not stand on formalities here. Have we not known each other your entire life?"
"Liesl," I said. "Then call me Liesl."
The Goblin King grinned. The tips of his pointed teeth gleamed. "I much prefer Elisabeth, thank you. Liesl is a girl's name. Elisabeth is the name of a woman."
"And what do I call you?" I strove to keep my voice from shaking.
Again that predator's smile. "Whatever you like," he murmured. "Whatever you like."
I ignored the purr in his voice. "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
40
" This was the Goblin King. That was my sister in his arms. This was my sister tilting her head back to greet his lips. That was the Goblin King bending down to receive her kisses like sacred offerings made at the altar of his worship. This was the Goblin King running long, slender fingers down the line of my sister's neck, her shoulder, her back. That was my sister laughing, her bright, musical bell of a laugh, and this was the Goblin King smiling in return, but looking at me, always looking. I was entranced; my sister was enchanted.
Enchanted. The word was a dash of cold water, and my senses returned with a jolt. This was the Goblin King. The abductor of maidens, the punisher of misdeeds, the Lord of Mischief and the Underground. But was he also not the friend of my childhood, the confidante of my youth? "
― S. Jae-Jones , Wintersong (Wintersong, #1)
