Page 14 of A Darkness So Sweet (The Kingdom Below #1)
Chapter Fourteen
RAGNAR
He didn’t sleep that night. Instead, he leaned against a tree and watched the firelight play over Maia’s features. He’d decided for her to be his troll wife, and now he wouldn’t go back on that. Once Ragnar gave his word, he kept that word, no matter how hard it was. But what he hadn’t figured out was how to make sure that he could.
His people would be livid to find out that he hadn’t killed her. They were probably all assuming he’d taken her away to make this slow. He would keep the kill for himself, then show back up with her fingers in his pockets and blood coating his skin. He would return victorious, keeping his people safe from yet another human who thought they knew how to hurt the trolls. But that was far from the case.
The seers knew something he didn’t. And he was starting to understand perhaps a bit of what that was.
Maia was softer than any troll he’d ever met. His people had learned to be hard throughout years of war and hiding from the humans while they’d learned how to be people themselves. And that was the most difficult part to get over. They had hundreds of years of animalistic nature they fought against, even now. She would never understand that.
He was no better than the trolls with the least elven magic. Though those families were just starting on their journey out of the mud and the pits of darkness, they were the ones who he looked to first. They were the ones who deserved his attention more than any other. Because they still didn’t entirely have their minds yet. It took time and generations to be able to think rather than react.
As the pink streaks of sunrise crested the sky, his little human woke. She scrunched in on herself at the dawning of consciousness. He’d thought perhaps she would stretch, show off more of those curves that were barely revealed through the slices in his shirt. Instead, she curled a little tighter, as if clinging to sleep for a few moments before all that tension released.
Rolling up into a seated position, she stared at him through bleary eyes with her hair tangled in a red cloud around her head.
“You’re still here,” she muttered.
“Where else would I go?”
“You could have just left me in the woods to fend for myself. I get that you don’t want to kill me, but there are plenty of things here that would, I reckon.”
It would take time for him to win her trust. And time for her to win his trust as well.
Ragnar shook his head. “I don’t want to kill you, fire hair. But we do need to return.”
“Are we finally going to your home?”
“Yes.”
“How far is it?”
He pointed at the mountain she’d been leaning against. The monolith of power stood at her back and the massive rock had kept her safe from the winds last night. “We’re already here.”
All night, he’d listened to the song of the mountain. The echoing cry of the stones that recognized him. This place sang for him, and it called for him to come home. It wanted him to return to the depths, to the safety of where all the trolls lived. But it wasn’t sure if it wanted him to bring a bride who might be dangerous to them all.
He wished he knew the right answer. But for now, he had to trust her. And keep an eye on her. The moment she stepped foot into his home, she would be watched by everyone around her.
Maia craned her neck and looked behind her. Her eyes widened, and he wished he knew if that was in shock or anticipation. Or if she was terrified at what she imagined lived within.
But, after the meager time he’d spent with his troll wife, he should have known she wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut and hide her thoughts from him.
“Trollveggen,” she whispered.
“Indeed. It is.”
What must it look like to her human eyes? He knew what it looked like to him. The “troll wall”, as the humans called it, was a wide swath of mountain that lurched out of the earth as though it was a living, breathing thing. Parts of the mountain range caught clouds within it, and that made it look like the mountain itself was breathing, exhaling smoke into the sky. The peaks were rarely visible, but he’d climbed them when he was young. He’d seen the sun pierce through the veil of clouds that shrouded the sight of the sky and he’d seen tops of those clouds as he peered over them. They looked like he could walk upon them, though he’d tripped over himself when he tried.
“They say Trollveggen is cursed,” Maia whispered. “The darkness inside of the caverns will steal your eyesight if you even try to go into it.”
“It is dark inside, yes.”
“The rumors always claimed that it wasn’t just the trolls who lived within. But giant worms that would devour an entire person in one bite. Bats the size of small horses and... other creatures that were likely just conjured up by a terrified mind. That’s what the smoke is. The mountain breathing, and maybe, the creatures within it causing that breath.” She tucked a strand of that wild hair behind her ear, as though that would do anything to make her appear more presentable. “We’re taught to fear it.”
Ragnar stood, kicking dirt over the fire before he reached out a hand for her to take. “There is nothing to fear here but rocks and stones.”
“Those can be fearsome in their own right.” She reached for his hand, her tiny fingers tucking into his as he easily lifted her.
He didn’t want to bring her to his people looking like this. The tattered clothes on her back and the earrings in her ears that weren’t even remotely the ones he should have given to her. But it would have to do, for now.
Daring to touch her, he brushed his fingertips over those piercings. The tiny hoops didn’t move when he nudged them. Likely because they had been traveling in dirt and earth, making it hard for her body to properly heal them. Sighing, he gave her a small nudge of his magic to speed along the process before turning his back to her.
“Climb up,” he said. “And I will introduce to you to Trollveggen.”
She sucked in a deep breath, and then she clambered onto his back. He hooked his hands underneath her knees, and then they were off. It would be a long day. Traveling without the war band meant he had to travel faster so they could get to food and water at the end. He didn’t have that with him, and his human was likely thirsty. She hadn’t drunk in nearly a day, and he wanted to make sure she would survive.
So he went straight up the mountain, rather than heading toward the passes that were safer, but slower. He’d thought she would be terrified and make that little squeaking sound she often did. His fire hair rarely complained, though. She merely tightened her arms around his neck and clamped her legs tighter at his waist, and held on.
It took hours of grueling labor. Even he was breathing hard by the time the sun had reached its peak on the horizon. He paused to breathe and stared out at the beauty of his realm. The clouds were close above their heads and he could see for miles.
Her arm appeared over his shoulder. Her finger pointed to the right toward two rocky fingers reaching up toward the clouds. “We call those two peaks the watchers. It’s said they see everything the humans do and mark all of our activities so that the trolls know everything about our movements.”
The two peaks were well known to his people. They stood close together, thin as needles in the sky. They were nearly unclimbable, even to the mountain goats that lived in this region. The sharp peaks did not grow any trees at all, merely a few patches of pale green and yellow lichen that were difficult to see without being right on top of them.
But it was funny that the humans had thought up such a gruesome story for the twin peaks. He reached back and hitched her a little higher up his back before turning his attention to the climb again. “We call them Bruda and Brudgommen.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is an old human tongue. When the trolls were first made, we took on your language before creating one of our own. The old words mean the bride and groom.” He felt her arms spasm around his neck, and it made him grin. “Our legends say those were the first two trolls to be made. They did not wish to fall into line as the elves wanted them, so instead, they stood on the mountain range to provide safety for all trolls. They are our guardians, in a sense. So I suppose the watchers are not all that wrong, either.”
“The bride and groom,” she murmured.
He glanced over his shoulder to see her looking back at the twin peaks. The breeze played with her red hair, sliding tendrils over her wind burned skin. Those green eyes never stopped looking at the mountains, though. Not even when her hair blew in front of her sight. And for some reason, he suddenly realized she could be beautiful.
A wild creature, she was. Elegant and free in this moment, unlike she’d ever been in her life, he would guess. This was what he could give her. This was what he could offer to the human who had walked into his life and commanded far more of his attention than he’d thought she would.
Ragnar continued to climb. He pushed them harder as he moved throughout the mountains. And though he would have loved to bring her to above the clouds, the sun was already on the opposite side of the horizon and he wanted to get home.
Traveling was always an adventure, but he’d grown tired of adventure at his age. He wanted a warm hearth, a mug of hot mead, and a quiet bed to rest his head for the night. A familiar place—that was all he asked for.
So when he got to the fork in the mountain, worn down by countless years of troll feet, he felt some knot inside of him release. He was so close to being able to let down his guard and finally feel safe.
“You said something earlier,” Maia murmured, her voice almost impossible to hear. “Might I ask a question?”
“You don’t have to ask permission to ask a question, fire hair.”
She tightened her arms around his neck and then slowly released them. “Perhaps I could walk for this?”
He didn’t see why not. They were so close to his home that soon she would have to, anyway. Although he did worry she would get too cold when she wasn’t pressed up against his much warmer skin. “For a few moments,” he relented, releasing his hold on her legs and letting her slide down to the ground.
She stomped her feet a few times, and he had to wonder if she’d lost feeling in them. “When you were talking about the spires, you said the trolls were created. That’s not my understanding of your people. The humans assume trolls have always been here. I remember my father talking with some of his clients, saying that the trolls were angry at us because this mountain has always been yours and we built too close to it.”
“You did build too close to it.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Those big eyes stared up at him, and he hated that it softened something inside his chest. “The trolls were created? By who?”
He didn’t have time for this explanation, but then again, he supposed she deserved to know the answer. It was, after all, a good question.
“It’s not common knowledge that the trolls were made. Elves created us out of mud and stone and fur. They wanted slaves. We did not wish to be slaves. Because of that creation, though, the elves gifted us the smallest bit of their magic.” He reached out and touched a stone that loomed over their heads. The granite created a small bridge where trolls would walk earlier in the day toward another cavern. They ducked beneath it, toward the shadows beyond. “In the early days, trolls were little more than animals. The fur and scales and wings that were used to create us were all that we knew. But that spark of elven magic gave us a hope that someday we would be more. The first troll who mated a human with a spark of elven blood, they were the ones who created more magic. That troll born, the one who’d been gifted elven blood, he would go on to become our first king.”
He looked down at her, seeing her eyes grow even larger than before. She watched him with a slightly open mouth, rapt attention never moving from his lips.
“So that’s why you wanted an elven bride? A woman with more elven blood than me.” She blinked a few times, then looked away from him. “You’re all seeking to become... elves?”
“We were born of mud and ash. We will never become elves.” They approached the mouth of the cavern that led to his home. It was a crack in the very realm, it seemed. He loved it. Staring into the pitch black of something that was so eerie and terrifying reminded him that he was very, very small.
Moss hung from the top of the cavern in tendrils that reached toward their heads. A faint breeze always tunneled through it, toying with the ends of his long hair and making the shaved sides of his head even more obvious to him. It was hard to focus on words when he could smell the loam in the cave and the slight mildew scent that always reminded him of home.
The sound of chittering bats could be heard from where they stood, and beyond that, the faintest clang of metal and the rumbling of deep troll voices that echoed from so far into the earth that it was impressive they could hear them at all.
The open maw that led deep into the ground swallowed all the light. It was easy to find if someone was brave enough to climb Trollveggen, but even then, it would be difficult to get the rest of the way down. He knew the rest of this tunnel was a labyrinth that sometimes led into only darkness and there was no getting out of it if one did not know the way.
Maia looked up at him, and he expected a question about where they were going. She was a curious little human, and he appreciated that about her.
Instead, the question that dripped from her lips was about what he had already said. “What are you trying to become, if not elves?”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, lifting her easily so they were face to face. He searched through her gaze, trying to know if she wanted to know the answer or if it would terrify her even more. Ragnar assumed the best he could do at this moment was to be honest.
“We are trying to become the darker version of them. Elves made of grit and power and mud.”
“Dark elves?” she whispered.
He didn’t have to reply. Instead, he drew her into the black maw of the cave, where the shadows swallowed them both whole.