Of Fairytales and Magic by Emma Hamm

Chapter 19

“Hello Freya,” the owl man said.

He knew her name. And of course he did. She knew him as well, although her mind insisted they had never spoken before in her life. Those weren’t her memories, though. She had met him a thousand times over because her very soul stretched with happiness when she saw him. It was like some piece of her heart started beating again at the sight of him.

“Goblin King,” she repeated. “Why do I know that name?”

He tilted his head to the side, and a slight breeze ruffled the feathers of his cheek. “I don’t know. It’s familiar to me as well.”

So he had no memories either. Or if he did, he was keeping them close to his chest while she struggled to find her own. The weight of that unknown magic pressed down on her shoulders, and the Goblin King reached out to steady her again.

“Are you well?” he asked. There was a sincerity in his words that she doubted any of the other creatures here were able to voice. As though he did fear for her wellbeing, and that if she hadn’t been well, then neither would he.

“I’m fine,” she muttered. Freya pressed a hand to her forehead and shook her head. “It all feels so muddled up here right now. Like I’m supposed to be somewhere else or know something about what’s happening.”

The fog in her mind remained strong and true. No matter how hard she fought against it.

He blinked a few times, brows furrowed as though he knew there were memories to remember in his own head, but he couldn’t quite do it either. The Goblin King looked down at his clawed hands and raised them between their bodies.

She stared down at those fingers, and the faintest hint of a memory grazed the back of her mind. She swore those hands had touched her before. Freya could feel the whispered sensation of them stroking down her back. Candlelight flickered along silver skin poured over strong muscles that flexed underneath her fingertips. Claws scraped down her spine, not with the intent to hurt, but because he couldn’t seem to touch enough of her.

She remembered that. It wasn’t some strange thought put in her head by a magical presence, not her own. That memory was all hers.

Holding tight to that knowledge, she looked up into his eyes filled with galaxies and tried harder. But all that brought was more pain thundering through her skull. Someone was trying to stop her from remembering.

“Perhaps,” he started, clearing his throat before continuing. “Perhaps if we dance?”

“I’ve been dancing already,” she replied. “It didn’t help.”

“But you weren’t dancing with me. And I think... I know we should dance together.” His fingers flexed, then flattened between them. Waiting for her to put her hands in his. “I don’t know why, but I think we were meant to do more than just dance.”

Goodness, he was right.

She could see an entire lifetime together, happiness in abundance and their future laid out as though it had been paved with gilded stones.

No, that wasn’t right. Those were fanciful thoughts from a little girl who thought she could step into a fairytale. Stories like that didn’t happen in real life. Only in books. And she knew better than to imagine a life like that, especially when she lived in a place like this.

Freya lived here. Of course she did.

But even with those scolding thoughts in her mind, she still reached for his hands and took them in her own. “A single dance couldn’t hurt,” she whispered through the screaming in her head.

She knew it could do more damage than a knife to her chest. He lifted her right hand in his own, cradling it out to their sides as those strange eyes stared into hers. Her other hand he lifted to his shoulder and laid it there with utmost delicacy. She flexed her fingers and the round muscles of his shoulder were familiar. Like she’d touched him a thousand times before and knew the warmth underneath her palm.

The Goblin King set his hand against the indent of her waist and pulled her closer. She let out a tiny gasp at the sudden jerking movement, air catching in her throat.

Lips parted, eyes wide, she couldn’t pull herself from the abyss of his eyes. Freya didn’t want to. She wanted to remain ensnared in his eyes like a rabbit before a coyote, waiting until she was devoured whole.

His eyes crinkled at the edges and the feathers shook with the slightest hint of a smirk. “Do you even know how to dance?”

Had he said those words to her before? Or was she imagining that?

Freya swallowed those thoughts and let her own lips fall into a smirk as well. “I know how to dance light as a feather, Goblin King. But do you know how to handle a partner who can dance better than yourself?”

He threw his head back and laughed, bright and loud. “You are dangerously interesting, little mortal.”

“I don’t think that’s what you call me,” she replied. Brows furrowing, she wondered how she knew.

The Goblin King seemed to pause, then nodded. “You’re right. I don’t call you that.”

“It was something like a storybook.” Where were these words coming from? She didn’t know these things, and yet... she did.

“My hero,” he muttered.

“Yes, that sounds right.” The words filled her with a courage and a bravery she hadn’t felt since she’d woken up on the floor.

Shouldn’t she be worried about that? Any other person might have been a little more fixated on why she had woken up and not remembered lying down, but the thought was pushed from her mind before she could latch onto it.

“Shall we?” the Goblin King asked. His voice eased all the anxiety in her chest.

“Yes,” she replied. “I think I’d like to dance again.”

The music swelled in the air once again. Violins and flutes that she couldn’t see, but assumed were hidden somewhere in the crowd of people who watched them with their hands pressed to their chests.

But, as she whirled past another couple, their smiles didn’t sit right on their faces. Almost as though the smiles weren’t actually there. Her vision flickered and the sea of grinning faces turned into sneers worn by creatures who were hungry.

No, that wasn’t right. She was in a ballroom surrounded by her own people who loved her. Wasn’t she?

The Goblin King leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Does something not feel right here?”

“I thought I was the only one.” Freya wrenched her gaze from the crowd of creatures and turned her attention back to the Goblin King. “I can’t remember who I am. Or why I’m here. Or why neither of those things bother me, when I should be worried about it.”

“I only know that I want to dance with you,” he replied. “But I also know that I’ve seen you before. A thousand times over. You make me feel like I was a person before all this, and that I should pay attention to what is happening. But I can’t seem to think of one thing long enough to really pay attention.”

“I’m glad it’s not just me.” Only, she wasn’t. The pain in his voice was difficult to hear, and she wanted to understand why this was happening to the two of them.

Had they done something wrong in a previous life? Were they terrible people who had been sent here to serve out time for a punishment?

No. Why would they be in a castle like this if they were being punished? But if they weren’t being punished, then why couldn’t they remember anything?

The only logical jump was that they shouldn’t be here at all. That the two of them had been thrust into this room, their memories ripped away from them, and that they were supposed to be good little entertainment. Two people whirling about a dance floor, hoping their captor would clap his or her hands and send them on their way.

“Perhaps we can help each other,” the Goblin King said. “What do you remember?”

“Nothing.” The lie slipped off her tongue so easily, but it burned the back of her throat and made her cough.

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a pointed stare. “That didn’t sound like nothing.”

Why couldn’t she lie? Freya found herself so caught up on that thought that she almost forgot to answer him. “Um.” She shook her head to clear the fog as he led her into a complicated waltz. “When you put your hand on my waist, I remembered something. It was like you had done that before, except, somewhere else.”

Her cheeks burned in embarrassment. How did she tell a man like this that she thought they had shared a passionate night? That neither of them remembered?

His hand flexed in hers, his fingers curling around her own and clamping down tightly. “When you put your hand in mine, I remembered a starry night where we held hands like this. We were walking down a beach and a million stars twinkled above our head. The only thing I could think about was how delicate your hands felt in mine. And how much I wanted to kiss you.”

Oh, those words were distracting. She wanted to languish in them, bask in the glory that a man like this had been so flustered by her touch.

“So,” she whispered on a ragged breath. “It seems we remember things when we touch each other. I’m not sure what that means.”

“That we know each other from before this moment. Or from another life.”

She supposed that was right, but... What if she touched him again? Freya released his hand that he’d held aloft and brought her fingers to his chest. She laid her palm flat over his heart, and another memory bubbled to life.

A vision of him appeared in her mind. He stood between her legs, smiling down at her with a grin that should have split his face in two. He had his hands braced on the table beneath her, on either side of her hips, and he was scolding her for teasing him when he had to work. She knew that he was a busy man, but he hadn’t seen her in so many days, and she wanted his attention. She wanted him.

Was it hot in this room?

“I know you,” she said. “As if you were part of my very soul. Why do I know you?”

Freya tried to hold herself together as they slowed in their dance. The Goblin King brought them to a halt in the center of the dance floor. He took the hand she’d freed and placed it on her cheek.

“I remember a cave,” he whispered, the words echoing through the room like a prophecy. “I was so scared I lost you. I thought you had died in front of me, but then you were there again. Like magic, walking through the fog of a spell and proving that you were alive and well. That you would never leave me like that. Not you.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. Why did she feel like crying when he said that? She didn’t know this man, and yet... she did.

“I don’t know who you are.” She wished she did, though.

“You do,” he muttered. “And I know who you are.”

His hand flexed on her jaw, and then he drew her in for a kiss that blistered her soul. His velvet soft lips shouldn’t feel like a bad omen, but all she could sense was magic uncontrollably screaming within her.

The spell shattered as if she were made of glass and the Goblin King’s kiss was a hammer to her skull. All the memories that had been suppressed came rushing back through her mind.

Saving her sister.

Defeating all those court leaders.

Traveling throughout every faerie court and falling more and more in love with this place. These people.

This man.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips. “I love you more than life itself. My king. My heart. My soul.”

His lips curved into a smile against her own. “I know, my hero. I know you do. Now end this spell once and for all, would you?”

The magic coiled inside her like a snake twisting around itself, ready to strike. All it wanted was for her to let it loose so it could attack every person that might try to hold them back.

So she did.

Freya loosed all the magic inside her and reveled in the feeling of utmost power and control. Her power spread like wildfire. It spread through the room and burned every candle to the base of its wick. All the creatures who wore sneers disappeared in the wake of her light.

The only thing that remained was an empty ballroom and a cluster of shadows at the very back of the room. The teeming mass of darkness pulled in on itself until she could see the vague shape of a man.

“There you are,” she growled. “End the spell, or I will burn you with the rest of it.”

The Horned God shook himself and pushed back on her magic. The darkness spread around him like a dress spilling from his hips, pooling on the floor in an ink stain she knew would never come out of the floor. “You’ve proven yourself enough, would be Autumn Thief. Let go of your magic and I will end the spell.”

“I don’t trust you.” He’d taken from her everything that mattered. All her magic. All her memories. Everything that made her Freya had disappeared because he wanted to play in her mind.

“One of us will have to trust the other first,” he replied. “And I am happy to put you both under the spell again. It will be harder to break the second time. I see my folly was putting you two together. If you were alone, you might never have noticed.”

Freya met Eldridge’s gaze. He nodded, and she let the power slowly recede from the Horned God. “Fine, then. You’ve been bested. Now what?”

He grinned, and the light spilled out of his mouth in a mockery of a smile. “Now, the real test begins.”