Chapter 8 #2
First, his hand found her thin fingers. His massive paw enveloped hers, and he gently squeezed in a way that he hoped wouldn’t hurt her. “You could not have known she was here. And getting her out would have been impossible.”
He watched her expression harden. “Nothing is impossible for a priestess. I had the favor of a lord. I could have done anything I wanted, and I would have gotten it.”
“I have had the favor of a lord. I was sponsored by one of them when I first came here. They did nothing to help me.” He released her hands and reached for the blanket in her lap. She stiffened, and he wondered if she was afraid he would take it from her.
But he had no interest in doing so. Bjorn pulled it off her lap, and then gently draped it around her shoulders instead. At least now she wouldn’t need to hold her dress at her shoulders, and he would not see anything she didn’t want him to see.
Warmth, Rabbit had said. Humans needed to be warm, and they needed water and food. He didn’t have any food here, but he did have water.
Moving back to his corner, Bjorn grabbed the water container and brought it back to her. “Here. Drink this. There won’t be much in such a short amount of time, but there will be enough for you.”
“Don’t you need to drink?”
He shook his head.
It was a lie, of course. He needed some of the water for himself, especially if he was going to fight.
But he didn’t want to take the water from her.
He’d figure out another way to get it. Perhaps he would get lucky in his next fight and someone would have a weapon that looked similar to a cup.
He could steal it and bring it back to his room, like he’d done with the cup she drank out of.
The opposite corner worked for gathering water as well. It was just slower.
She finished, her throat working in a swallow before looking at him. “You don’t have to move like that while I’m in here, you know. You can stand.”
“The previous women found my height frightening.”
She winced. “The previous women were likely frightened for many reasons, Bjorn. I have seen your kind before. Your mere existence does not intimidate me.”
He thought this was a terrible idea, but she was telling him to stand, and he hadn’t done so for hours. So he stood.
As his height continued to go up, and up, and up, he watched as the blood drained out of her features.
One of the women who had been in her same position told him that the humans feared creatures with horns.
She called them demons. Monstrous beings that took souls in the middle of the night and who hunted humans down whenever they could.
He could see the same thought on Astrid’s expression. The woman was so pale, he thought she might pass out. Instead, she stared up at him, swallowed, and then held out the cup for him to take.
“Thank you for taking care of me, Bjorn.” The words were said so calmly, he wondered how she was so good at lying.
“You are welcome, Priestess.” He bowed his head, even though he knew that would bring his horns closer to her. Perhaps she wouldn’t be so frightened of him if she could see them up close.
They weren’t sharp or pointed. His horns were more like a ram’s. Blunted, rounded, smooth to the touch. They were good for battering through things, and that was all.
He was suddenly very aware of how thin he was. How his ribs showed and how there was dirt smeared across his body and in places he wasn’t proud of. He knew without a doubt that he looked like a monster. But he didn’t want to look like a monster. Not to her.
Some part of him remembered to be ashamed. There was so much more to being a good troll warrior than just what he was offering here. But he couldn’t remember what the right thing to do was.
The door without a window banged loudly. An armored fist hit it ten times before falling into silence.
He watched as she flinched with each sound, drawing deeper and deeper into herself before suddenly all that fear was wiped clean. As if she had never been afraid, she lifted the mask to her face, and turned her attention cooly toward the door.
“Are you going to answer that?” she asked, barely even there in the words.
“There is no choice but to answer it,” he murmured as the door banged open.
The guard on the other side peered into the shadows of the room, and then appeared surprised to see her sitting there with a blanket around her shoulders. The man didn’t acknowledge Astrid, though. He looked at Bjorn and blurted, “You decided to keep this one?”
Bjorn hunched his shoulders and headed toward the door. “I keep all of them.”
“You kill all of them,” the guard snorted, before waving at Astrid. “Looks like you’re the lucky one, Priestess.”
He didn’t think, just reacted. He reached forward and slammed the guard into the wall. The man wheezed, and Bjorn leaned his weight even more into his hand that compressed the man’s ribs. It would be easy to crack them. So easy to shatter those thin bones even through the armor the guard wore.
With a snarl on his lips and tusks close enough to graze the guard’s face, he snarled, “You gave her to me. Don’t look at her. Don’t talk to her.”
The guard nodded frantically, but he would have done that no matter what. He just wanted to live.
A blade brushed against his side, sharp enough to do damage. He looked over to his right and saw all the guards who normally brought him to the arena at the ready. They wouldn’t kill him—he knew that from experience—but they would do their best to make him bleed.
Bjorn released the man and started down the hall. He didn’t look back at the priestess in his room, but he didn’t have to. He knew without a doubt they would leave her alone while he was gone.