Read Online Goblin Ball by L. K. Rigel - Free Book Online

woman’s descendent. His friend Kaelyn, who knew her, had once said Igraine never had children.
    “And what was the message from the high gods?” Lily said.
    “I was to protect both children from the sanctification so they would retain their free will, unbound by Idris’s commands.”
    “There’s your sign right there that Idris was trouble,” Lily said. “How did you do it?”
    “I created a fabric from Dumnos iron, starlight, and lost wishes—you know the dandelion florets people wish on? Sometimes they reach the realm of fae too late to grant. We call them lost wishes.”
    “That’s so sad.” Lily said.
    Max shrugged. Nothing new in that. Human existence, being mortal, was permeated by sadness. “I imbued the fabric with a charm.” He might as well say it. Besides, he didn’t get many chances to talk about his successes.
In the glimmermist no charm shall find you.
In the glimmermist no charm shall bind you.
    “That seems so simple—but of course there was more to it than that,” Lily said.
    He just grunted.
    “But why did the high gods choose you, do you think, to be Dandelion and Cissa’s protector?”
    It was a hit to the pride to even hear the question. Who else in all the faewood or all the vales could have attempted such a thing? But in truth, Max had never asked himself the question. And now, a surprising answer occurred to him.
    “Perhaps they were giving me a chance to atone.”
    “Atone?” Lily looked at him quizzically. “I can’t imagine you ever doing something that required atonement.”
    “That’s kind of you, but I did create Mistcutter . For that, Brother Sun and Sister Moon cursed all goblinkind. We weren’t always so ugly, you know.”
    Lily was quiet then. She watched Lexi, who’d fallen asleep in the cot, but her mind seemed far, far away. Finally she seemed to make a decision and stood up.
    “Would you come with me for a moment?”
    He followed her to her chamber and waited by the window where there was a good view of the ruins of Tintagos Castle, the bay, and the Severn Sea.
    “This secretary has belonged to all countesses of Dumnos starting with Lydia Pengrith Bausiney in the 1870s.” Lilith ran her fingers along the bottom of a roll-top desk. “My father’s wife,” she added with droll humor. A side door popped open, and she took out a brass key and unlocked a compartment inside the roll-top.
    She laid the compartment’s contents out.
    “A peacock feather?” Max said.
    “Apparently they were the rage. She’s wearing peacock feathers in her portrait in the rogues gallery. Perhaps this one had a special meaning for her.”
    “Sun and moon, that’s a bottle of Morning Glory’s love potion.” Max held up a clear bottle with a silver stopper and containing a red liquid. “And half-empty.”
    “I had a feeling… but I thought that was just a story.” Lilith set the bottle aside, and as she did so she furtively palmed another object among the treasures and shifted it back to the compartment, behind the love potion, under the feather.
    Max said nothing, though he recognized the object. It was a double-banded ring, one silver and one gold. A ring of power—and of danger too. The ring Merlyn had made to enhance his powers, but at such great cost that to remove it meant death.
    Max knew the ring’s power and its danger well, for he was the one who’d removed it from Merlyn’s hand.
    “And I believe you will recognize this.” Lily was speaking, holding something out to him. “Max?”
    “What—oh! I…” Max felt a smile tug at his mouth. “I always wondered what happened to that.”
    Lily laid a scoping glass in the palm of his hand, and he fingered the bright-cut apple blossom design.
    “You carved that design, Max, a long, long time ago. You were sitting in the Avalos sunshine beside Igraine of Kaelyn’s cave as she tried to get you to talk about Mistcutter , not knowing you were the sword’s maker and ignorant of all the pain it had caused