Free In The Coils Of The Snake by Clare B. Dunkle

this
were really true.
    “Arianna,”
he asked in a low voice, “would you like to be a King’s Wife?”
    Even on the brink of
disaster, Arianna didn’t cry. She stared up at those eyes that didn’t belong
together, and felt in confusion that two
people were looking at her instead of one. She looked from one eye to the other, baffled and repelled. Blue to
green and back to blue again. “I’m
promised to Nir,” she
whispered faintly.
    “Oh,
are you?” remarked Catspaw, and that settled something in his mind with a
neat finality. He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Elf
lord,” he said in a loud voice, “I’ll sign the treaty for this one.”
    Released
from the terrifying force of those eyes, Arianna finally understood
what was happening. A wave of icy dread poured over her. She turned her head
and looked in mute appeal toward her fiance, but he still had his back to her.
She tried to call out to him, but no sound came. “Agreed,” she heard
Nir say, and Arianna’s world shattered. When
she opened her eyes again, that thing had her around the waist.
    The elf woman who
had been crying before was crying again, coming
to take her in her arms. The goblin said, “Mother, stand back. You
know how dangerous desperate magic can be.” But Arianna used none of her
quiet, prodigious magic. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the right. She wasn’t a
stolen bride who could fight her way back to her people. Nir had said she had
to go and so she had no choice. On the verge of unconsciousness, Arianna gasped
in a breath. She wondered how many more breaths she would have to take before
she could finally die. There would be so many, she thought in despair. Millions
and millions. She closed her eyes and began drearily to count them.
    Seylin
spread the treaty out on a stand, and Marak Catspaw came to sign it, his human arm around his drooping bride.
He dipped his paw into the bowl of golden ink
and put his print on the treaty, holding out the paw for Seylin to wipe clean.
The elf lord came up then, eyes averted from
the horrible sight as the goblin King guided
the faltering Arianna away. Dipping his fingertips quickly in the ink,
he signed in a sideways W Then he jerked the towel away from Seylin and rubbed the ink from his fingers, turning to the stars again.
He wouldn’t watch the goblins leave the truce circle.
    “Elf
lord,” asked Seylin with interest, “why did you sign like that?”
    Motionless,
face still, Nir glared at the stars. “Why?” he murmured absently.
“Because it makes it binding.” He thought about what it had bound him
to do and felt a rising sickness.
    “But why didn’t
you sign your name?” persisted Seylin.
    Nir continued to
gaze at the stars, ignoring the goblin completely. He was bound by the treaty. He wasn’t bound. Arianna was the one bound now, bound, shackled, and enslaved.
He had known her fate months ago as soon as
he had known what he had to do. He had warned his elves that the goblins
might take any unmarried girl, even a small child. He had given them the chance
to leave, but he had known that they couldn’t leave him, and he had known, too, that Arianna hadn’t paid any
attention. She had been his responsibility since she was thirteen, and
she couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t protect her.
    For
all those months, he had eaten with her and slept by her side, and he had never
once told her of her danger. He might as well have wrapped that horrible snake around her himself. He had
betrayed her into hell. His magic had told him to do
it, and his magic was always right. It was the best thing for his people, he
had always known that. But he had destroyed
a sweet elvish life because it was the best thing for his people. He
only wished that he could have destroyed himself.
    “Seylin,”
he heard the little goblin girl say as they walked off, “I don’t
want to go back. I want to be an elf.”
    “I know just
how you feel” was Seylin’s reply. And then they were gone.

Chapter