Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Bjorn
Bjorn tried to stay away for as long as he could allow himself. He had known his emotions were going to be a problem. He’d felt them bubbling up more and more the longer they were here.
This was complicated. He wanted to feel like his old self, but he also knew that wasn’t possible. He wanted the memories of his time in the labyrinth to disappear, but they couldn’t.
He wanted to stay bonded with the woman who made him feel more like a man than he had in ages.
But that wasn’t going to happen either.
The forest held no answers for him. He could hear the trees whispering, their leaves shifting against each other as they surveyed the son who had returned to them.
But none of them knew how to ease the torment in his chest. They could not move.
They had not seen the battle and rage and blood that he had seen.
And when he returned to his mother’s home, he did not know what to do with himself. All he knew was that life couldn’t be the same as it was before. He would have to be the one to disappoint more people, telling them that he wasn’t who they expected him to be.
His mother stepped out of her home, quietly closing the door behind her.
He hadn’t expected her to still be awake.
The moon was high in the sky, nearly rounding the highest portion and then turning down into the later parts of the evening.
She should’ve been asleep in her bed, not worrying about her son.
“Mother,” he said, lowering his head and hoping she saw that he was trying his best to respect her. “I should apologize for my actions—”
“You apologize too much,” his mother said. She headed toward him, keeping their conversation from her house. “That woman in there is resting, and I expect you should want your troll wife to sleep.”
He winced at the term. “This is what I need to speak with you about.”
“She told me.”
The words hung between them, sharp and unfriendly.
He hated that the first person he’d brought to his mother was someone who didn’t even want the bond with him.
He should have brought a young woman who was just as obsessed with him as he was with her.
That was what a troll wife and husband should’ve been.
But then he looked at his parents, at the hate that had brewed between them, and he couldn’t find it in himself to believe that all troll wives loved their husbands. He’d seen the truth of that in his own parents.
“Bjorn,” his mother said, “my advice to you, if you wish to hear it, is that you should try. She is a good woman. You are a good man. The match that was made in that blood witch’s hut was intentional.”
He shook his head. “It was a mistake. She does not wish to be bonded to a troll.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“As certain as I can be. She is a priestess to her people, and is used to a life I cannot give her. I have not made jewelry in her honor. I cannot even make her clothing. You should have seen her before all this.” He took a deep breath, remembering the glimmering outfit with all those stones.
“She was dripping in pearls, Mother. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. All golden and gleaming.”
“And yet, you say she must leave you because you have not proven yourself to be a worthy husband. You haven’t even made her clothing, so you say.” His mother shrugged. “Then make something for her.”
“What?”
“Make a dress for her, Bjorn.”
Anxiety burned in his chest, and on the tail of it came the rage that always ruined everything. “I have not sewn or even thought of making clothing in years. Ten years of pain have burned away my memories.”
“Those memories are still there. You just have to awaken them.” She looked him in the eye, peering into his soul. “I will care for your troll wife while you relearn what it is to be a troll husband. This is what I have seen in the smoke. You will do it.”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t deserve this chance. Astrid should find someone who would take care of her better than he ever could, and some part of him wanted to argue with his mother. So he shook his head, denying the words.
“I have no money. No ability to pay for anything that is necessary.”
“You will figure it out,” she replied. “Don’t come back until you have something worthy of her, my son. And if I might suggest a path for you? Perhaps you would find yourself in the farthest part of the forest to the north, as you did when you were a boy.”
She headed back into the house, and he wasn’t all that certain what she was talking about. His memories weren’t entirely there. He didn’t know what was in the northern forest, but if that was where she wanted him to go, then that was where he would go.
He didn’t wait to see Astrid, although every part of him wanted to peer in through the window of the second bedroom just to see her sleeping. To make sure that she was all right.
The grotto wasn’t far from many of their resources, so it wouldn’t take him long to get to the northern forest. Bjorn put his feet on the path, and started out.
He followed the cobblestones until they stopped, and then continued going, keeping the moon on his left so he was headed in the correct direction.
Throughout the short journey, he reminded himself that it was all right to take his mother’s advice. She still believed in him, somehow.
The forest appeared in front of him as the sun rose on the horizon.
The streaks of pink and hues of bright lavender filled his vision along the darkness of the trees.
They were so thick it was hard for him to wander among them, pushing aside branches that were as thick as his arm and ducking underneath leaves that were larger than his head.
It was a vibrant barrier to the woods, but then it was so dark even he had a hard time seeing what was in front of him.
Why was he here? His mother had said he’d been in this forest before, but the memories were so thin.
He didn’t know what reasoning he would have needed to be in the forest. And if this was supposed to get him some form of money to pay for fabric for Astrid’s dress, then maybe there was a treasure here for him to find.
Then he heard a sound above his head. A creaking groan that made memories flood through his mind.
He froze, listening to the noises of the forest as the birds went silent and all the bugs stopped their chirping. He stared straight ahead of him, watching in horror as what he had thought was a fallen log, moved out of his way.
That wasn’t bark. It was hair. And that log had been the leg of a legendary monster.
He ducked, remembering the stories of creatures who lived in these woods. Massive spiders, orbweavers, who had grown larger than horses. These were their lands, their world, and he’d only come here once when he was a young man on a dare.
Bjorn made sure he was far beneath the canopy of the trees where the beasts lived.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like any of them had realized he was here yet.
Their webs were farther above his head, and he was lucky that he hadn’t stepped on any of the points where they stretched nearly invisible to the ground, waiting to catch prey.
Suddenly, he could hear them speaking as well. Their words were so easy for him to pick out, as though he had always heard them speaking.
“Scarce food lately,” one of them said, her voice deep even for a female. “We must hunt, soon.”
“There will be food that wanders into these woods. There always is.”
“Humans hunt now. Trolls hunt. The lands grow sparse.”
The other voice snorted. “Then humans or trolls will wander into the woods. They seek food, then they become food.”
Why had his mother sent him here? Just to awaken the magic inside him even more? Perhaps that was the lesson she wanted to teach him. He could pay for the fabric of his troll wife’s dress if he remembered how to use his own power.
He needed to leave. That was the only choice.
Bjorn turned, then froze as a leg longer than he was tall lowered onto the ground in front of him.
The orbweaver heaved itself out of the trees, the heavy abdomen dragging down a nearby tree so hard that it stripped the bark from the trunk.
Her body was black obsidian, so dark it gleamed even in the meager moonlight that barely filtered through the leaves.
The legs of the beast were longer than any he’d seen. With fine hair dusted all over them, they helped move her massive form carefully. Right in front of his face, a spinneret the size of a sword waved in the air before she walked a little farther away.
“We need more webs,” the spider muttered, one of her massive legs reaching between the others to pull silk out of her spinneret. “More webs mean more food.”
“You’re wasting your time,” the other said, one massive talon waving above their heads. “Rest. Conserve energy for when there is food.”
“We haven’t had food in ages.”
Bjorn watched as she wove a complicated net and then ducked deeper into the undergrowth when she turned to climb back up the tree.
If he wasn’t careful, they were going to realize where he was.
And considering how much they were talking about food, that could end very poorly for him.
He wasn’t even certain he could fight something that large.
He touched the knives at his side, knowing they wouldn’t be enough to fight these creatures if he had to.
The weapons weren’t long enough to even break through those tough hides.
He needed to leave, but as the massive spider belly moved past his sight, all he could do was stare at the beauty of the webbing that was now in front of him.
That was what it was. The orbweaver webbing wasn’t sticky like a normal spiderweb. Their webs were long cords, thin, but impossibly strong. You could saw through them with a knife, but they wouldn’t stick together.
He’d stolen some of those threads for his mother.
As a teenager who was dared to go into the forest, he had run through it and gathered as many pieces of that webbing as he could.
She’d crocheted a miniature web out of them, winding the threads into knots, and hung tiny crystal beads off of them to look like droplets of water hanging off the web.
This was perfect.
This was... everything.
Astrid deserved to be covered in gossamer weavings with tiny drops of diamonds decorating the entire dress. She’d look beautiful in a dress like that. Beautiful in a way that he could never replicate, but he now desperately wanted to try.
Be a troll husband, his mother had bid him.
And so he would.
With a deep, steadying breath, he raced out of his hiding place.
This would take more than just precision.
It would take every ounce of his speed, his effort, his energy.
He ran through the clearing to the sound of the spiders gasping in surprise.
He sliced through the first strand, yanking it out of the ground where the female had attached it. Then another.
There were five strands in this clearing alone, each of them anchoring the webs that made up the spider’s home above him.
Their anger and rage filled the clearing as he darted from it, leaping over fallen logs and coiling the threads around his elbow and up to his hand as he bolted.
The nests were easy to find when he was now looking for them.
He could see them in the trees, and how they were anchored.
Was he ruining their homes? Yes. But he wasn’t going to stop now.
He continued, running through the forest and dodging the angry legs that speared down at him from above.
One got close enough that he felt the needlelike hairs pierce through the skin of his arm.
He’d have to pick those out later, but for now, he would ignore the sharp sting.
He just had to get an armful of these strands and then he’d be able to make a dress worthy of her beauty.
“Rage!” a spider female screamed above his head. “Intruder!”
His breath sawed in and out, his heart thundered in his ribcage, but the fear that had gripped him was no more. This was what he was good at, what he’d always been good at. Hunting, seeking, adventuring—this was as much part of his soul as anything else.
And when he’d gathered enough of the silk, he ran free from the forest. There were at least fifteen spiders trailing him now. The sound of their thundering steps as they ran through the forest after him was enough to put all the hairs on his arms on end. He was so close.
The sound of wind whistling over his head made him duck. He tripped, flying through the air and certain he was about to be devoured by snapping jaws that would tear into his flesh with ease.
Bjorn rolled into the sunlight. He palmed his blade, turning onto his side and holding it toward the massive spider that lurched onto its back legs, screeching as the light burned the many eyes dotted across its face.
Breathing hard, he stared as it slunk back into the darkness. It was breathing heavily, glaring at him along with the many, many others who had gathered along with it. They all remained at the edge of the forest, drool falling off their fangs in wet plops.
He held up the bundle of threads that he had stolen, brandishing them like the treasure they were. Breathlessly he called out, “My troll wife thanks you!”
They were already muttering about rotting corpses and hanging him up by his toes.
But he’d done it. He’d proven himself worthy of the material to make a dress that many troll wives would dream of for years to come once they saw his wife wearing it.
Now, he just had to make it.