Page 15 of A Darkness So Sweet (The Kingdom Below #1)
Chapter Fifteen
MAIA
She clung to him, feeling a little strange with his face so close to hers. Maia had expected to cling to his back, not to be carried like a proper bride across the threshold of darkness.
Soon enough, she would find out if the rumors were true. If the curses surrounding this kingdom would affect her, then soon her eyes would be lost. Perhaps she would learn if it was just blindness, or if it were the trolls that plucked out the eyes of any human visitor who dared to step foot in their kingdom. She wouldn’t be surprised. They were rather bloodthirsty individuals, in her experience, and they were very protective of each other.
Although she was coming to find it wasn’t just that they sought out fighting, but that they were born into it. If they didn’t fight, people took from them. Why wouldn’t they stand up for themselves?
It had only been a week here, and she already didn’t recognize her own thoughts.
She clung to Ragnar’s shoulders, and her thoughts turned to her safe home, a little garden left behind, and all of her things that she might never see again. She feared what would happen next. Would he force her to live underground for the rest of her life?
Ragnar was sure footed as he carried her through what looked like ink. Sometimes she swore she saw things moving in the black, but that had to just be a trick of the mind. She couldn’t see anything in this darkness, no matter how hard she tried. It was a little unnerving not being able to see.
All it did was give her more time to worry about what she would find in this kingdom compared to her own. She wanted to go back home more than she had so far on this entire journey. She wanted her comfortable bed and monotonous life. She wanted her freedom.
Ragnar’s breath was louder that she’d remembered. She could hear her own heart thundering in her ears, and she wondered if that was because all her senses were suddenly stronger.
He said she was his troll wife, now. Maia had no idea what being a troll wife even meant. Did that mean she was meant to stay here forever? Did she service him? She’d certainly attempted to do so, and he had denied her. That rejection had stung more than she wanted to admit.
If she was to be his wife, there were no rules around the role. After all, she knew what being a wife to a human meant.
And she damn well wasn’t going to let him crush her beneath his heel while she still had somewhere she could escape to.
Gasping, she struggled in his arms all of a sudden, trying to get down. He clamped down harder, grunting as she jammed her elbow into his rib, but never releasing her.
“Stop wriggling,” he growled, wrapping his arms around her even tighter. “You’re going to fall.”
“My plants!” The argument was meager, but she could only think of a few things to shout at him that might convince him to let her go home. “My business! We have to go back.”
“We’re not going anywhere but deeper into the mountain.”
“But the law! If a business and a home are vacant for more than two weeks, then it is forfeit to the crown. I have to go back and make sure that I get at least one client, or everything I’ve worked so hard for will be gone.”
“You’re a troll wife now, woman. What makes you think you’re going back home to your flower business?”
Tears pricked at her eyes. “You don’t understand. This was my life! My whole life. I spent countless hours in that garden, poured blood, sweat, and tears into the business. I never married, even after my father’s death, and starved some winters just to keep it. That business is mine, Ragnar. It’s no one else’s.”
Maia hoped he could feel the desperation in her. She had to go back. She had to get the business back on track. Her entire life—her entire being —was defined by that business. And he callously just thought she could throw it away?
His arms tightened even further until she could feel her bones creaking in protest. But then he stopped moving and just squeezed her.
Darkness surrounded them. There was just the sound of his even breathing and her heart beating out of sync. Then, all she could focus on was the tightness of his grip. How easily he held her in those strong arms and the calm, steady thud of his heart that was half as fast as hers. All those sensations broke through the panic, the anxiety, and the downright fear that she had somehow failed her father’s ghost.
Her breathing slowed, until she stopped trying to get away from him and instead, just breathed.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“I guess so. I’m not happy about it, though.”
“The trolls have our ways. We can get your plants from your garden, although I don’t know if they will grow here. We might kill them by taking them underground, and that’s something you have to consider. But your business is gone. You’re a troll wife now. I’m sorry that makes you sad, fire hair. I’m sorry your king did this to you. But I cannot change what has been done any more than you can.”
She leaned the side of her face against his chest. It felt a bit like giving up if she didn’t at least try to argue with him. That was her life she was leaving behind. But her reality was that she’d never chosen anything for herself. She’d done what her father wanted and maybe… Maybe it was time to let that go.
“I think we can both agree that I’m giving up more than you are,” she whispered. It was hard to say the words. She still didn’t like arguing with anyone or even try to tell them her own opinion. “You get to go home to everything that is yours and all the familiar things that you’ve gathered over the years. I have nothing but unfamiliar people who don’t trust me.”
For a moment, she swore he hugged her a little closer. There was a gentleness to his touch that hadn’t been there before, but then it was gone. He was just as cold and stoic as stone. “You will learn,” he finally said. “But first, open your eyes and see the kingdom of the trolls.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d closed them. But then she blinked them open and a new world unfolded before her. She’d been told countless times in her life that the trolls lived in damp, dark caves. That they were little more than rats or moles living in the dirt.
But this wasn’t at all what she had thought. There were trees down here. Tall trees with spiraling trunks that looked like countless trees all wrapped around each other. A dim blue glow illuminated the entire world, turning the leaves into silvery, sky blue creations that hardly looked real. They stood on the top of a rise, with a winding path that was covered in a bed of those same leaves. Far beyond that path, she could see a river running through this world that stretched as far as her eye could see. But the water... it had an almost purple glow. Above their heads, she could see the entire kingdom was bracketed in stone.
Tiny green and blue lights dotted the ceiling of stone like stars, but then she realized they must’ve been some kind of glowworm. She’d heard about them in a tavern once, when a caver had mentioned that sometimes there was light in the darkest parts of the realm. She’d never thought to see them herself, though.
As Ragnar moved throughout this marvelous place, stepping foot on the path and drawing them into the blue forest, she realized the leaves were larger than she was. These trees were old. And they weren’t anything she would have seen outside of this place.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“The home of the trolls,” he replied. “We call it the heart of the mountain.”
A wind stirred around them, and she caught a sweet scent in the air. It was a bit like honey and chocolate all mixed into one, although she thought perhaps that was her own wishful thinking. She’d wanted nothing more than a sweet this entire journey. And now, she swore she could smell them.
They didn’t walk on the path for long before he turned off it. Now there were lanterns lighting their way. They were spindly in creation. She thought perhaps made of iron, but she’d never seen such a slate gray metal be used to create something so delicate. The globe on top was clearly made of glass, because there were wisps contained inside of them. But the metal that rose up over it was like a blooming spiked flower.
The pathway of leaves turned into a pathway of stone. It was this path that Ragnar brought them to, his feet sure as each clawed toe hit the stonework and drew her deeper and deeper into the forest.
“Are we going to your home?” she asked, nerves setting in again.
“No. We’re going to the king.”
Every hair on her body rose and every part of her suddenly turned to stone. She swore she didn’t even have a heartbeat left after he said that. “Excuse me? We’re going to see the troll king?”
“Of course we are. All troll wives are presented to him before they’re brought back to their home.”
Maia resumed her struggles. She knew what kings did when they were presented with new brides. They took, and they tore and they did everything they thought they deserved to make women suffer. No man was going to do that to her. Not after everything else she had suffered at the hands of these brutes. She would not go through that. Not in her life. She’d seen enough women go through it in her own kingdom and she knew how to get away from that future.
Run. Run fast, far, and even if that meant she had to dig herself into a rocky crevice that these trolls were too big to get to, that’s exactly what she would do.
“Would you stop doing that?” he hissed, obviously trying to juggle her writhing form again.
“I will not go see your king!”
“Nothing is going to happen. I don’t know why you’re so?—”
“I know what kings do to brides!” she shouted, her voice echoing through the trees. It was only the second time she’d shouted in his presence, but he froze at the sound of it. Perhaps she’d finally startled him into submission. “I won’t let you take me there.”
But then he bounced her in his arms, so high that she was afraid she would fly out of his arms, only to catch her again. “What do you think kings do to troll wives, fire hair?”
“Kings...” She gulped, swallowing down the fear of saying this to him. “They take the first taste of the wife. That’s how it has always been. And I’m sorry—I’m just not... not able to...”
Her words trailed off. She didn’t want the king, or any man at all right now. Not even her own husband, which was an entirely different fear. She could barely consider sleeping next to him, let alone think about how terrified she was about the differences between their bodies. She’d hardly had a chance in her life to even look at a man naked, let alone explore all of that . And now she had a troll before her, one the other troll women had hinted had a pierced cock, and it was so overwhelming. She’d tried not to even think of it, but it had been hard not to while running her hands down the impressive ridges of his abs.
Ragnar sighed, and his hands curled around her. He turned her in his arms until his hands were underneath her armpits. He let her dangle from his grip. “Listen to me, Maia. And I want to make sure you are actually listening, so you are going to repeat everything I say. Do you hear me?”
Miserable at her own fate, she sighed and nodded.
“The king does not take troll wives from their husbands.”
She muttered the words, but she didn’t believe them. Kings always took—that was what they did. It was their right as a king to sample brides before they were taken by their husbands. It was the way of things. If Ragnar wanted to lie to keep her pliant, then she’d let him do that. But she wouldn’t believe him.
“No self respecting troll would ever let another man touch his wife.”
She repeated that. But then he shook her, bringing her closer to his face so he could stare into her eyes.
“Listen closely, fire hair. If another man touches you, I will first cut off his fingers. I will make him watch as I eat them, one by one. I will savor the taste of his blood and his pain before I cut off his hand for ever having it graze your skin. If he survives that, I will hunt him down. I will run him through the forest until his breath saws from his lungs and until he knows what it feels like to be prey. Then I will skin him alive until he dies. I will wait for him to wake up if he passes out. I will continue until the end,” he said. “Do you hear me? Trolls are not humans. We do not use our wives as play things, nor would we ever allow a woman to be traded around like that. You are not in your human kingdom with your foolish men.”
That got through her anxiety. Maia’s hands shook where she held his forearms, and she finally gave him a quick nod. “Okay.”
“You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“What will I not let happen?”
“No one will touch me,” she whispered.
“No one but me.”
She hadn’t expected that to be quite so reassuring. She shouldn’t want him to touch her, either. He was a troll. A terrifying creature of the mountain who would likely drag her deeper into this realm.
But somehow, she trusted him. With the blue leaves behind his head and harsh juts of his tusks against the shadows, he looked every bit the beast she had always thought him to be. But this time, she saw him as her beast.
He would keep her safe.