Page 4 of A Darkness So Sweet
“You look like we’re sending you to the gallows, rather than a wedding,” his brother said with a laugh. He leaned forward and smacked Ragnar’s shoulder hard enough that he knocked into the basin and nearly sent it to the floor. “Careful. Your troll wife will wish to know her husband is strong.”
He could still taste the bile on his tongue at the thought of her. He groaned, “You know I have no interest in humans.”
“Yes, you’ve always found them so disgusting. Why was that again?”
“Because they are weak. Their skin is far too pale. They have no talons, no claws, nothing even remotely pretty about them. Instead they are just?—”
Gunnar interrupted him because he’d heard this rant far too many times. “Fleshy bags of weakness that should be hunted into the next realm?”
“Yes!” He burst out. “That’s exactly what they are, and I have no patience for it. I understand the king having no wish to marry his son to one of them, believe me. But why is he sending me, of all people?”
“Because you are the best of us.”
The best of them.
He’d heard it countless times. And he knew that there was some sense to the claim. He was larger than most trolls. Both he and his brother were massive beasts, even among their kind. His chest was broad, his waist trim, his tusks were sizeable but not overwhelmingly large. Their mother had been nearly a quarter elf, which gave both him and Gunnar impressive magical abilities. Any woman would be glad to have him.
Ragnar reached for a few of the piercings in his ear, tugging at the ones that he’d gotten for his wife. Each of them had meaning, but the rings at the very tips of his pointed ears showed her that he had plenty of elven blood to gift their children. There were more piercings as well. Countless of them.
Ones he had gotten for her. The famed mate he had dreamt of his entire life, who would now prove to be a nightmare.
Sighing, he shook his head. “I am not the best of us. If they were looking for that troll, then they should have chosen you.”
Gunnar grinned, his tusks only marginally getting in the way of the expression. “Ah, yes. But I am not meant to have a troll wife yet.”
It was always the same excuse. The same reasoning. Those who were meant to have troll wives were found in the smoke and mirages of those who could see the future. Just like he was now supposed to go see their Bone Reader. The seer who would tell him that he was, indeed, about to meet his mate for life. Confirming what he already knew, because the king’s Smoke Breather had already deemed it so.
Sighing, he ran his hand over his head, scratching at the newly shaved sides that were already growing sharp stubble. “I shaved my head for her. For this woman who I know I will not wish to have as a troll wife.”
“And yet, you look like a mate.” Gunnar opened the flap of his tent and a spear of light filled the room. “Come, brother. Morning is upon us and the Bone Reader grows antsy to get home.”
“At least she can go home alone,” he muttered, and followed his brother out into the sunlight.
He lifted a hand to cover his eyes, the burning light of the sun a blinding white that took long moments for him to get used to. Trolls were not creatures who regularly found themselves in sunlight. Many of them still had the slitted gaze of a cat, or the rounded wide-eyed vision of owls. Twilight was the time when trolls saw best. Not at high noon like this.
Grumbling under his breath, he weaved through a crowd of his brethren. Women and men, trolls of immense power, created a wall between him and his fate. He pushed through muscular bodies, all while listening to the sound of clinking piercings and gnashing teeth. The flashing of fangs and tusks and claws filled his vision until he pushed through the many-colored bodies to the center of their tented circle. And there she sat.
The Bone Reader.
She swayed on the ground, her legs crossed beneath her. Her dark hair was dreaded and piled atop her head in intricate designs. There were bones woven throughout those strands. The remains of creatures she called upon when she wished to see the future. Her eyes were milky white, and her skin a pale lavender that was so thoroughly tattooed it was almost impossible to see what her skin color really was.
She sat cross-legged on a rug someone had laid out for her, a low hum building underneath her breath as she swayed. The other trolls fell silent as Gunnar shoved him into the middle. They all watched, waiting for the moment when they would witness the confirmation of a mated pair.
His stomach rolled again. He did not want this to be his moment. Ragnar had always prayed that he would find a troll wife with certain traits he’d find beautiful. Rounded muscles in her arms. Tusks that were perhaps smaller than his own, but ones that would scrape against his as he kissed her. Light blue skin, the color of the sky just before the clouds came in. And pitch black hair, like coals in a fireplace.
Now, he would find none of those things in the partner he had been thrust upon.
The Bone Reader reached out her hand, her palm full of tiny animal bones. Some of them were rabbit, he knew that from memory. Others, he thought, might’ve been the individual ribs of a snake. They all rattled in her hand as she shook them.
“Ragnar, Seed of Frode, Son of Ingvild. You stand before me in search of a troll wife.”
No.
No, he didn’t.
He didn’t want a troll wife, not like this. He wanted a woman who desired him. Who could see the beauty in the world they shared together. He wanted a wife who didn’t hate his people, like a human certainly would.
But the bones never lied. They rattled in her hands on their own now, magic coursing through them as the icy tendrils of their power coiled around his body. He was forced to take another step closer, bit by bit, until he was right in front of her.
