But she dared not chance it, so she stood like a statue, her gaze fixed anywhere but on the floor.
And Corgar, his voice rumbling deep as the night, continued. “I’ve always thought I should like to be king. Who would not wish to sit upon a throne? I did myself proud in the war with Rudiobus and caught the queen’s eye. Now’s my chance! I told myself.”
He turned to her suddenly, his eyes narrowed and shrewd. “You’re quiet this night,” he said, “small warrior.”
Leta took another few paces back, hardly realizing she did so. She felt the heat of the library hearth behind her, warm on her feet though the fire was low. The rest of her was as cold as the winter-locked stones of Gaheris. “I have been working much,” she said.
“Where have all your questions gone?” he persisted, still standing by her desk, where the candlelight caught the sharp edges of his face, casting the rest into masklike shadow. “Where is the fighting spirit?”
She shook her head. “I have none,” she said. “I am tired.”
“If you have no questions yourself, do you think you might answer one?”
For a crazed moment, Leta wished she could step back and be consumed by that feeble hearth fire. He would ask! He would ask what she knew, and he would know if she lied. Had he not guessed the secret of the hidden key? Somehow he had read her face, had wrested her secret and taken it without a thought.
“Please,” she said, “leave me alone. Until morning at least. I am tired.”
“Not too tired, I think, to answer me this,” Corgar said. His one hand pressed into the desktop, and she saw how his claws tore into the pages lying there. “Tell me, little maid, why should Vartera have all the beauty?”
The words circled round Leta’s mind. It took several moments before she realized what he had asked. Then she shook her head and looked down at her feet.
“She takes it all for herself,” Corgar said. “Feeds everything into that enchanted pot of hers, boiling it down so that she may drink the brew. Witch that she is! She’s drained all Arpiar. Drained it of everything that you, with your mortal eyes, might once have thought fine. Drained all of us, her people, of any graceful proportion, any fair feature we might once have boasted. Now she alone of all the goblin folk may be considered beautiful. But it won’t last! No, it will fade, and she will need more fair things to feed her pot. Things like the Flowing Gold of Rudiobus, which we failed to obtain in the war. Things like the light of the last House, which you mortals cannot hope to defend.”
Leta listened but understood none of what he said. She was aware only of his great bulk across from her, as yet unmoving. But his chest rose and fell with increasing breath, as though he prepared for battle. She trembled where she stood but could retreat no farther.
“When the Murderer came to Arpiar,” Corgar said, “and told her that we should be able to breach the Near World on a certain dawn—the dawn of a nobleman’s death—Vartera took my hand and said: ‘If you bring back this prize for my pot, I will make you king. How do you like that?’ And I said that I would like it well. Fool that I am!”
His hand clenched into a fist, crumpling parchments, tearing paper. “A sip from a brew made from the light of Asha will cause Vartera to shine like Hymlumé herself!” He snarled. “But why should she have all, and we none? Why may I not take a little beauty for myself?”
Leta reached one hand back, grasping the fireplace mantel. Using it as support, she slid around to the other side, behind the bulk of the chimney, wishing to hide and knowing she could not. Corgar’s eyes followed her movements. Darkness offered no protection from him.
“I have been thinking,” he said, “as I stood down below and saw your candle in the window.” He seemed to realize what his fist was clutching and let the crumpled parchment fall to the desk and roll to the floor below. “I have been considering the question of beauty.” His eyes flashed. “What is your opinion, mortal? Do I deserve some beauty, goblin though I am?”
Leta pictured the Chronicler earnestly urging her: “You’ve let yourself be made into something you were never meant to be. Tell me, have you not longed all your life to prove them wrong?”
If she did not answer, she feared what Corgar might do. So, though she clung to the cold stones of the chimney, Leta whispered, “We are never obliged to be only what they have told us we are. Not if we were meant to be more.”
“Meant to be?” Corgar repeated. “And what was I meant to be? More than a warrior? More than a destroyer? More than a slave to my queen’s every whim? Was I meant to be more than these?”
“I don’t know,” said Leta.
“And what of you?” persisted the monster. “Do you know what you were meant to be?”