Page 28 of When the Woods Go Silent

It’s a relief to leave the mines, even though the execution of an unworthy gobbelin was satisfying. I don’t love being a figurehead the way Julianna does. I have no need to conquer the fae, either. I don’t care about her bloody history with them, or the mixed blood in my own veins. The gobbelins would hate living in Aralia. We’re a people of ice and darkness, not flowery meadows and court finery.

As soon as I emerge from the soil into the forest again though, I scent him, as if in thinking about the fae, I’ve conjured one.

Stepping out of the shadows of the cave, I see through his glamor of invisibility easily enough.

“Ronan.”

“Hello, brother,” he says, enjoying the way I chafe under the title.

“Our blood is not that close,” I growl, though we do share a father. “How did you escape your palace duties this time?”

“Brigance has the usual bug up his ass about something, and Kier is traveling again. I only came to tell you that your whore of a mother has been snooping.”

“No surprise there. Why don’t you just catch and execute her?”

“And start the war we’ve worked so hard to avoid?” Ronan rolls his eyes and shakes back his dark hair. We both know we’ll be fighting each other one day soon, if we can’t find a different solution.

“And what has my desperate mother been hoping to find?”

“Exactly what Brigance was trying to hide from her. Evidence that the changeling is real.”

I suck in a breath at his wording. “So there is evidence?”

Ronan chuckles darkly, and I know he won’t answer further. Like all full-blooded fae, he prefers to play games with information. “I know why she chose this town for your little cafe. I can tell you that her instincts are as keen as ever. But if Brigance finds the changeling first, he’ll force a union and destroy every ice-grubber in Haret. If that happens, I’ll have no choice but to have Kier destroy your pet project here.”

I glare at the old slur for gobbelin, but I chose my side years ago, when I decided to play my mother’s game of shells instead of trying to survive under the chaotic cruelty of Ronan’s mother, Ignea. None of her sons were disappointed to see her die, even though it’s given Julianna the opportunity she’s waited a lifetime for.

We have a complicated family tree, and Ronan and I are hacking it apart at the roots to destroy what’s left.

“I’ll watch Julianna’s activity more closely, but I’ve scented nothing fae here. Except the stink you brought,” I add.

“You won’t scent a changeling. Not one hidden as well as this one. We’ve had hunters looking for her for two decades.”

I raise an eyebrow. “It’s a woman, then?” Julianna was right about that, too.

Ronan curses good-naturedly. “That was no secret, little play prince. Though it would be amusing to see Brigance try to matea male instead. Maybe he’d be more pleasant with a fat cock up his ass.”

I can’t help my grin as Ronan flips me a rude gesture and disappears in a blur of glamor.

Ronan never misspeaks, and he’s made it clear that he only deals with me now because he expects me to choose the fae in the end. Julianna theorized long ago that the magic of these woods would draw the changeling to them eventually. Tonight, he wanted me to knowGoblin Marketis in the right place.

Sooner or later, the changeling will wander into Clearwater, and if the fae don’t catch her first, I’m expected to kill her myself to keep my mother from getting such a choice bargaining chip.

CHAPTER TWELVE

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