The Goblin Market (Into the Green) Read Free

greedy little pig, that one.”
    A voice more powerful and commanding than all the others observed, “A greedy pig indeed.” It was musical in its incantation of that simple observation, but Christina was so consumed by her desire to devour she hardly acknowledged the regal power behind that voice.
    She dug her fingers into a basket of berries, her hasty touch bruising and squeezing while she stuffed as many into her mouth as she could fit. Other hand reaching, she barely gasped when a hard grip seized her by the shoulder. The small escape of breath that left her was not surprise, but fear that she might be denied one more taste of the sweetest, most perfect fruit she had ever sampled.
    “Tell me little girl,” the hand spun her around quickly and she stifled a cry of protest. “Do you always take far more than you are offered?”
    His shadow alone overpowered her slender frame as peculiar shades of twilight mixed with the otherworldly green light of the lanterns. She looked up into the carefully etched features of his face, which hovered inches from her own. He was handsome in ways Christina had never even dreamed men could be. He was tall and the rippling fabric of his cloak lay over broad shoulders. Unlike Wil, who was strong from hard work, this man was powerfully built, an obvious warrior born from a long line of men bred for battle.
    He looked down the length of his slender nose at her, one eye hidden beneath the sleek cut of his ebony hair, while the other reflected the light back at her. The slow wind moved through his hair to reveal the other eye, milk white beneath the slice of a hideous scar.
    She shied back with a frightened intake of breath that forced her to swallow the mouthful of berries she’d only just pushed between her teeth.
    “I had no coin… and the little man, help yourself, he said…” Her frightened voice tapered off into a whisper. “He said to help myself.”
    “No coin, said he?” Amusement colored the man’s tone. “But surely you didn’t think that meant no payment.”
    Christina wrenched herself from his grasp and dove toward a display of juicy grapes. She popped one into her mouth and then another, her teeth busting through the skin as the juices exploded against her taste buds. “I’ve never tasted grapes so sweet.”
    “Perhaps the color of your eyes,” he said, “or a year’s worth of memories.”
    Her jaw tightened as she turned to look back at him over her shoulder. “Who are you?”
    “I am Kothar,” pride lifted his sharp chin. “I am king.”
    Laughter bubbled from deep inside of her so powerful that even she was surprised by the sound of its peals echoing off the silent hillside. “A king, you say?” She croaked and clutched her sides, which ached with her own unexpected amusement.
    Kothar’s gaze narrowed over her, and his mouth tightened with disdain. “Not a king. The king.” A throng of shadows circled around him and stared hungrily at Christina. “Name a fair price for the damages done here tonight,” he urged the small army behind him.
    “Three of her curls!” A sluggish voice leapt from the crowd.
    “I want her teeth!” another said.
    “Let’s take her eye.”
    “Now, now,” Kothar held up a hand to stay their demands. “Perhaps the debt can be paid with truth.”
    Christina’s mind grew numb and stupid with the slow poison of indulgence. She wavered unsteadily where she stood, the spinning inside her mind making it difficult to remember even the simplest of things. She lurched sideways, her head dizzy and her belly sick. Her throat tightened and constricted with spasms of nausea, but no matter how her desperate body heaved in protest, she could not expel the goblin’s fruit from her body.
    The man in front of her stretched and wavered right before her eyes, and she reached toward him to try and steady herself. Christina tumbled forward, the fabric of his cloak slipping through her trembling fingers. When next she turned her head, she