I threw out my arms and closed my eyes, as though I could embrace the whole of creation, feeling the intensity of summer sunshine upon my face.
The light changed.
I opened my eyes to see a cloud pass over the face of the sun. But it wasn’t just the veiling of the sun that changed the light around me. It seemed suddenly thinner, weaker, grayer. The hot Föhn winds that ordinarily seared the valleys beneath the Alps kissed my cheeks with a cool breath.
I glanced at the changeling in confusion, and recoiled. His lips were pulled back in a feral snarl, and those black goblin eyes glittered with malice.
Chill hollowed out the air around me, and frost began to rim the edges of the branches and leaves, a delicate lace made of ice.
Winter.
I leaped to my feet and ran back into the Goblin Grove. “Why didn’t you stop me?” I cried.
The changeling laughed, a sharp and brittle sound that pierced my ears. “Because I didn’t want to.”
And then, bursting from beneath the roots of the alders, a myriad of arms and hands. I shrieked and jumped away as they clawed at the earth, a whole host of changelings emerging.
“The Goblin Queen may never again set foot in the world above,” the changeling said. “But you have broken the old laws, mortal, and now we are free to roam the earth.”
“You tricked me!” I rushed forward to grab him, to wrestle him to the ground and strangle the life he so desperately wanted from his body. But he sidestepped my attack with ease, grabbing my wrists in a superhuman grip.
“Of course,” he scoffed. “Of all his wives, you were the easiest to fool. Your soft and tender heart could be shaped and twisted like clay. All it took was a little pity.”
His features shifted. The lower lip softened, his shoulders drooped, his lashes lowered decorously. I gasped as the shadow of my little brother emerged.
“I didn’t even have to change all the way with you. I can, you know. We all can.”
I blinked. I was staring into Josef’s face, perfect in every detail, from the tilt of his nose to the freckles that lightly dusted his cheeks. Perfect save for one small thing: his eyes remained the flat, inescapable dark of goblin eyes.
“You monster,” I hissed.
The changeling only smiled.
“Take me back,” I said. “Take me back!”
“No.”
“I wish you would take me back!”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Your power is broken, Goblin Queen,” he sneered. “You can no longer compel me.”
I shook my head. “Then I shall go back without you.”
“Too late,” he crooned. The others, his brothers and sisters, took up the chorus. Too late, too late, too late. “Once you’ve crossed the threshold, mortal, there is no returning.”
Clouds swirled overhead, dark and ominous. I felt the icy bite of a snowflake land on my cheek before it melted away. A blizzard was coming. I had doomed the world above to eternal winter, all for my selfish desire to live.
I collapsed to the forest floor. The weight of my guilt and horror bore down upon me, pressing me into the earth.
Oh, God, I prayed. Oh, God, forgive me. I’m so sorry. Please save us. Please.
But God did not listen. The snow was flurrying in earnest now, dusting my shoulders, my back, my hands. My glance fell on the wolf’s-head ring around my finger, its blue and green eyes twinkling in the light.
With this ring, I make you my Queen. Sovereignty over my kingdom, over the goblins, and over me.
“Please,” I whispered to the wolf. “Please. Of my own free will, I gave unto you myself, entire. Take me back, mein Herr. Take me back.”
I would have called his name if I had known it. But he had no name, only a title, and I did not know if he would or could hear me now.
Although ice rimmed the branches of every tree, I was suddenly warm and oh so sleepy. The temptation to lay down my head overpowered me. I could close my eyes and sleep forever, never waking up to the world I had destroyed.
“Elisabeth!”
I knew that voice. I struggled to lift my gaze to meet his, but my lashes had frozen shut. I was blind.
“Elisabeth!”
Arms encircled me, lifting me from the forest floor.
“Hold on, my darling, hold on,” the voice murmured in my ear.
“Of my own free will,” I croaked. “I gave unto you myself, entire.”
“I know, my dear. I know.” He held me tight, and warmth—real warmth—flooded through me. Not the false heat of freezing to death.
I opened my eyes to see the Goblin King gazing down upon me.
“Do you accept my pledge?” My throat was hoarse, but my voice was steady.
“I do, Elisabeth, I do.” Those mismatched eyes were alight, shimmering with … tears? I reached up to brush them away, but my hand fell to my side.
And behind him, the skies cleared, turning blue and cloudless, as the leaves crowning him returned to green. My last thought before unconsciousness claimed me was that I had not known Der Erlkönig could cry, and wondered what it betokened.
ZUGZWANG
I awoke to shouting. I was a child again, back under the covers with Käthe, listening to our parents argue downstairs. Over money, over Josef, over Constanze. When Mother and Papa weren’t kissing or cooing at one another, they were screaming.
“How could you let this happen?” The sounds of destruction shattered the room. “I told you not to let her out of your sight!”
More smashing, more breaking. I opened my eyes to see the Goblin King raging at Twig and Thistle, who cringed and cowered at his feet. Their ears were pushed back and they shuffled forward on hands and knees, making obeisance to their king.