Close Kin Read online

  For my daughters, Valerie and Elena,

  who read it when they were homesick,

  and for Kristyne, who loves Sable best

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Prologue

  Sable sat beside the dead body of her best friend, too miserable to cry. Only seventeen years old, she had already seen three elf women die in childbirth. She and Laurel had grown up together, and she couldn’t comprehend yet that Laurel had left her to face life alone. Instead, another thought held her attention with cold finality. Sable was now the oldest girl in the camp. She would be the next to die.

  As the weeks passed, Sable struggled with her grief. Laurel’s death had left a gap that was almost like a visible thing: a blur where she should have sat with her weaving, or a blank where she always swam and splashed in the lake. Life was fragile. Sable had always known this. But did it have to be so predictable? She felt the pain of her loss turn into a new determination. Little by little, she made her plans.

  The full moon came again, magnificent in its pale perfection. Sable sat on a hill above the camp, watching it rise over the lake. An elf man came to sit beside her.

  “I looked everywhere for you,” he said. She didn’t reply. He looked at that flawless face, those dark blue eyes, that long hair that was blacker than the night. She was the most beautiful thing he knew.

  “It’s your marriage moon,” he said softly, thinking about how long he had waited to see it. She was a woman now. She was eighteen.

  “It’s not my marriage moon,” she answered. “It’s just the moon. I told you I won’t marry you, Thorn.”

  The man gave a grimace of annoyance. He had hoped that, once she wasn’t a child any longer, she’d stop this childish talk, but he had already been expecting trouble. Sable should have been at the evening meal to renew the vows they had made years ago at their engagement. Then he would have given Sable her food, as he always did, and that simple ceremony would have made her his wife. But when he had woken up in the twilight, she was already gone. The band had eaten its meal without her.

  “I’ve hunted your food since you were twelve,” he pointed out. “I’ve sheltered and fed you since before your father died. I’ve been good to you, Sable. You know that I love you.”

  Sable looked at the man then, at his bright blond hair and gray eyes, his broad cheekbones, firm mouth, and strong chin. She had always idolized him, just as Laurel had idolized Rowan. “I’m not going to die like that, Thorn,” she said. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t want me to.”

  Thorn studied her, puzzled and impatient. She’d been so moody these last few weeks.

  “Of course I don’t want you to die,” he protested. “But I don’t make the rules. It’s just life. If women don’t die, there won’t be any children.”

  “Laurel died, and there wasn’t a child anyway,” whispered Sable.

  “That happens sometimes,” said Thorn with a shrug, “and we all miss her, but she and Rowan were happy for a whole year and a half. And she wasn’t sorry, either. She knew that’s a woman’s life.” He put an arm around Sable, stroking that glossy black hair. “We’ll have a happy year, too. I promise.” He bent his head to kiss her. Sable had waited years for that kiss, but she pulled away.

  “No,” she said steadily. “I won’t marry you.”

  Thorn was angry now. Nature hadn’t blessed him with a very large store of patience, and it was rapidly running out.

  “We’re getting married,” he said. “I don’t care how silly you’re going to be about it. Your father would have beaten you for this kind of talk; you know how much he wanted you to have a child.”

  “My father killed two wives to have me, just so his own name could pass on!” cried Sable. “I’m not going to die like that, Thorn! I’m not!”

  “Sable,” growled Thorn, taking her face between his hands, “who gave you every single meal you’ve eaten for the last six years?”

  “You did,” she whispered unhappily.

  “And whose tent did you wake up in this evening?”

  “Yours,” she said again.

  “Are you going to hunt your own food from now on?”

  No answer. Sable wouldn’t look at him. He looked at her instead, at that beautiful face, that perfect white skin, and he remembered again how much he loved her.

  “No, you’re not,” he concluded. “Because you’re going to be my wife, and I’ll be your husband, and I hunt for you. And it’s our marriage moon at last, and that’s how it’s going to be.”

  Sable glanced up, her blue eyes grave, to study the man who loved her. The man who wanted to kill her. She stared at him for a long moment, calm with despair.

  “Then I need some time to get ready,” she murmured and hurried back to the tents to gather the things she would need. Four cloths should be enough, and she retrieved the treasured triangle of broken glass that once, long before her birth, had been part of a hand mirror.

  Sable propped the fragment of mirror carefully in the corner of the tent and took her father’s hunting knife from under her sleeping pallet. She looked at the bone-white color of the true elf blade that never lost its edge, the way their metal knives did. She started to cry, thinking about what she must do, staring at her face in the shard of glass as if she were trying to memorize it. It was the last time, she decided. She would never look at it again.

  Watching in the glass, she made the first cut, and the good elf blade hardly hurt her, it was so sharp. She made that whole cut before the smarting came. The blood covered up her cheek so that she couldn’t see what she was doing, but she finished the two parallel cuts and then paused, a little dizzy. Should she go on to the other side before she did the really hard part? What if she fainted before she was done?

  “Sable?” Irina was at the tent opening. “Thorn says you’re going to repeat your vows soon. Are you getting ready? Can I help?”

  Sable quickly put down the knife and turned her uninjured cheek toward the child.

  “No,” she gasped, Irina’s face dim before her eyes, and the cloth in her hand warm and wet. “Wait…. Yes, you can, dear. Go and gather me some flowers.”

  “What kinds? What colors?” asked Irina happily, pleased to be of use.

  “Oh, anything,” Sable roused herself to answer. “Something pretty.” And the child was gone.

  Hands shaking, she made the twin cuts across the other cheek, watching in the glass to make them even. That’s stupid, she told herself. Why would it matter? But it gave her something to think about besides the sting of the blade. Blood was running down her neck. It made her hands sticky and slippery, and it was hard to hold the knife.

  Now for the hard part, and then I’ll be done. She paused for a second and blinked until the mirror swam back into focus. Like butchering deer, she told herself firmly. Like flaying hide. And she sawed the sharp knife between the two cuts on her right cheek, peeling away the skin.

  Blood was everywhere. She couldn’t remember what she was doing. She couldn’t quite understand why all this had to happen. “Butchering deer,” she whispered, and gave a sob as the skinned cheek blazed with pain. Automatically, she turned the knife to the stretch of skin on the other cheek. Almost finished now.

  “Do you want more of these?” It was Irina again.

  Sable dropped the k
nife and stared at the blood running onto her dress, at her red hands holding the pieces of bloody skin. The red knife, the red hands began to turn gray before her eyes. I need air, she thought. I can’t breathe. She crawled toward the tent opening.

  Irina screamed and dropped the flowers as she scrambled away. Crawling from the tent, Sable heard shouts and running feet. Something must be wrong, she thought. I wonder what it is. She saw Rowan run up and then stop, pale and staring. She heard Thorn call her name and felt him grab her by the arms.

  “Sable, what did you do?” he yelled frantically. As the world spun, she saw his handsome face for a second, twisted in horror and disgust. “Oh, Sable, no! You’ve—you’ve made yourself ugly!”

  Ugly, thought the bloody girl. Yes, that was what was wrong. She was ugly, and she would never be beautiful again. But she was safe. She wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t marry her now. She slumped unconscious in the arms of the man who had loved her and wanted to kill her.

  Chapter One

  Seylin hurried through the maze of hallways in the great underground goblin palace and knocked on Emily’s door. They had been close friends since childhood, but Seylin wasn’t a child anymore. He was one of the King’s Guard now, and his black uniform matched his black hair and eyes. The girl he had played with had grown into a young woman. By human standards, Emily looked quite average, and the elvish Seylin looked quite remarkable, but Seylin was the one who found himself daydreaming about Emily’s brown eyes and warm smile. He couldn’t even tell if she cared about him.

  There was a scramble, and Emily’s door popped open to reveal his friend Brindle’s little daughter, her snake eyes gleaming up at him. In her arms she clutched Talah, Emily’s monkey, rolled up in a blanket like a doll.

  “Where’s Em?” he asked, and the little girl pointed wordlessly behind her. He found Emily seated on the terrace, teaching a very small goblin boy to fasten a buckle. Emily was always surrounded by children. They appealed to her high spirits and love of excitement. Goblin babies were more fun than human babies, she said, because human babies never bit large chunks out of the furniture or tried to take off on awkward wings and crashed into the wall.

  The handsome Seylin was an embarrassing anomaly in an ugly goblin world. His parents had almost died of shame over their son’s striking features. Having grown up with teasing, inaudible whispers, and sympathetic glances, the sensitive young man had always enjoyed the company of Emily’s many visiting children because he never felt that they were mocking him or gossiping over his looks. But, lately, he had found all the bustle and confusion a little hard to take.

  “Can’t I ever see you alone?” he asked crossly, sitting down beside her.

  “Goodness, I am alone,” responded the young woman. “Just Brindle’s two before class this morning. This afternoon I’m expecting a dozen. We’re going to the kitchens to bake cakes.”

  Seylin sighed. She was right. This was as alone as she ever was.

  “Em, I’ve been thinking,” he began. “We’re older now, and I wanted to talk to you. After all, we’re not little pages anymore.” He paused. “We need to talk.”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too,” declared Emily with some force. “Ever since you came back from that trading journey last spring, all you do is stand around and goggle at me. You hardly say five words, and if I look like I’m having any fun, you glower at me just like an old governess.”

  Seylin was glowering now. He tried to make himself stop. “That’s not what I want to talk about,” he protested. “What I wanted to say is that I won’t always be a guard—”

  “Nothing wrong with the Guard,” remarked Emily breezily. “Thaydar told me last night he thinks the Guard’s never looked better. Sweetie, we’d better run you to the potty,” she added, standing up with the tiny goblin.

  “So Thaydar was here again!” snapped Seylin.

  “Not now,” called Emily, hurrying off and leaving him free to glower unobserved. Thaydar, the cat-eyed commander of the Guard, was his most serious rival for Emily’s affection. Thaydar made no secret of the fact that he wanted the prestige of a nongoblin bride, and he was one of the most important men in the kingdom. To make matters worse, he was Seylin’s commanding officer. Seylin had spent many evenings on patrol duty knowing that Thaydar was keeping Emily company back home.

  After a few minutes of gloomy contemplation, Seylin wandered back into the apartment to find Emily breaking up a fight between the two children. Each of them had one of Talah’s arms and refused to let go.

  “No monkey for either of you,” said Emily, prying them loose. Talah bounced into Seylin’s arms, and he sat down on the couch with her.

  “Em, I don’t want to be a guard all my life,” he continued earnestly. “There’s nothing to guard. It’s so boring. I don’t want to be a lore-master, either, teaching the Unlock Spell over and over to crowds of pages, and I don’t want to be a scholar. They just study things. I want to live stories, not read them.”

  Emily was pouring drinks and barely paying attention. She had heard all of this before. The little boy promptly dumped his cup down his front. She carried him over to the couch and sat down, scrubbing him off with a towel.

  “Did I tell you that Jacoby was here last night,” she said, “and he choked on a piece of caramel? I had to whack him on the back for a long time before it went down. I’ve learned something, Seylin. Goblins with beaks shouldn’t eat chewy candy. They don’t have any way to chew it.”

  “Why do I ever try to talk to you?” cried Seylin. “You never listen to a word I say!”

  “I’m listening,” she protested. “You don’t want to be anything.”

  “Right,” he confirmed, trying to ignore the fact that the little girl was staring at him fixedly with her hypnotic snake eyes. “Right, I won’t always be a guard, I promise. I’ll be something more. I know I don’t have much to offer you right now,” he continued as the little girl dragged Talah from his arms. “But I think I will later.”

  “Thanks, I don’t need anything,” answered Emily absently. “Did you see Jacoby’s new sister? Isn’t she adorable, with those little pink bird-feet?” Seylin gritted his teeth, glaring at his heedless beloved. Here he was, sitting right next to her, and she might as well be a thousand miles away.

  “Kitty, kitty,” giggled Brindle’s daughter, patting his knee.

  “Very good! Kitty,” said Emily encouragingly. “Seylin, change into a cat for her.”

  “Em, I am trying to have an important conversation!” shouted Seylin. “I will not change into a cat!”

  Brindle’s daughter drew back and buried her face in Emily’s lap.

  “And I suppose it’s more important than making a little child happy,” said Emily angrily, stroking the girl’s hair as she cried.

  “Yes! Yes, as a matter of fact, it is,” declared Seylin, breathing hard.

  “Well, go have it somewhere else, then,” ordered the righteous young woman. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “No, you don’t, do you?” exclaimed Seylin, beside himself. “But you want to hear Thaydar, don’t you? You drink in every word he says!”

  This wasn’t true. Thaydar spent as much time holding babies and repeating himself as Seylin did. He was just more philosophical about it.

  “Thaydar isn’t rude,” Emily replied tartly.

  “Rude? I’m rude? You never even listen to me, but that’s not rude.”

  “I heard every word!” cried Emily. “You want to talk, you won’t be a guard, you don’t want to be anything, and I don’t care. All you ever do is complain. Thaydar never does.”

  “Well, why don’t you just marry Thaydar, since you’re so fond of him?” he demanded.

  “I certainly wouldn’t marry you,” declared the wrathful Emily. “Not if you were the last goblin on earth.”

  Seylin stared at her, his anger evaporating.

  “Do you mean that?” he asked incredulously.

  Emily was still furious. “Of course
I do,” she snapped, rising and catching the little boy as he made a dash for the terrace. Seylin stood up and stared after her for a minute, but she didn’t turn around to look at him.

  “Fine,” he said bitterly. “Marry Thaydar, then.” And he stormed out of the apartment.

  Seylin found the goblin King in his workroom, giving his wife her magic lesson. The young man stopped in the doorway to watch, bending down to give Kate’s drowsy dog a pat and exchanging a quiet greeting with the guard on duty in the hall.

  The goblin King’s Wife had required years of convincing before she had agreed to learn magic. She always felt uneasy about what her father would have said about it. Kate had been raised a perfect English gentlewoman, and she had been shocked to learn that her great-great-grandmother was an elf. Even though she was technically an elf-human cross, she was so strongly elvish that the goblins called her an elf, too.

  Kate no longer noticed that her husband looked alarming, but the first sight of Marak had been enough to startle her into hysterics. The goblin King’s body was powerful and bowlegged, with long, wiry arms and big, knotted hands. His magic hand had six fingers. His face was broad and bony, with sunken temples and deep eye sockets, and the eyes that gleamed brightly from under his bushy eyebrows were two different colors, one green and one black. Marak’s skin was pale gray, and his lips and fingernails were a rather gruesome shade of dark tan. His hair was as coarse and straight as a horse’s tail.

  Kate still noticed that hair. It fell in an unruly shock to his shoulders and into his eyes, and he had the habit of running his hands through it as he thought. Most of it was light beige, but a black patch grew back in a cowlick above his green eye, sending strands of black hair falling over the pale hair in what looked like long stripes. Kate disapproved of anything so untidy and kept their young son’s hair short as a precaution against his developing his father’s taste in hairstyles.