“My mom was notorious for harshly refusing anyone that came at her. But her father was adamant she marry and carry on the bloodline. There were tons of suitors, I was told, but none managed to ever win her heart.”

I could picture it. A woman who looked vaguely like Soren, laughing in the face of any goblin brute at her feet, scorning the idea that they would ever be good enough for her.

“She challenged any suitor she had to a competition of her choosing, and she beat them all, one by one. It started to get to be quite the spectacle because goblins from all over the Permafrost were going north to where she lived. That included my father and Lydian and their father.”

A montage of the vague woman continuing to succeed and succeed without stopping, hundreds filling a home suited more for dozens, and the crackling of flames filled my senses. The mantle of the stag was letting me taste the past.

“My father was the younger son, so the idea was for Lydian to court her. Despite Lydian still being … Lydian, at the time. He continued to compete over and over, trying to find her weakness. Because her challenge didn’t limit the amount of times you could go head-to-head with her. But while she was fighting suitors by daylight, by moonlight she was meeting my father. Tanya says they were absolutely infatuated with each other from the first moment they laid eyes on each other.”

A couple meeting in secret. Soft kisses in the rain. The giggle of a woman’s voice and the throaty laughter of a goblin brute. Clothes soaked from walking through the snow and underbrush at night, explained away with any excuse they could find. Two hearts beating as one.

I ached to share this experience with Soren, what I was feeling now, but I wasn’t sure how.

“They got caught eventually, and her father put down his foot. He proclaimed my mother would travel away from her home and that night, any suitor who wished could ride out and try to catch her. A hunt, if you will.” A slow smile spread across Soren’s face. “So that’s what they did. A dozen goblins clambering after another one, trying to get through the thick fog and ice of the tundra of the High North, unable to see even an inch past their faces. All except one.”

I was leaning forward now, my heart beating with anticipation at Soren’s story. Something about it struck me as familiar, personal, though I’d never experienced anything like that. But her desire, her will, to make her own choices was something I’d always possessed.