Chapter 18
Eighteen
Rose
Her first glimpse of the outside world made her feel as though a weight had been pulled off her shoulders. She hadn't realized how heavy it had been just existing. But she hadn't been outside, like this, in... years.
Ten years.
She'd been taken by the king, stuffed into a single room without any way to get out.
Of course, the realm she had created in her head had gotten her outside.
But those were all pieced together memories of a time she had forgotten.
She was surprised the flowers still had color after all these years of forgetting the outside.
And then she'd run with the trolls. Pressed against his chest with her face tucked into his neck, the outside had been the last thing on her mind. She'd been so terrified of living that she hadn't even looked around.
But now? Now she had time to heal. She'd had time to be in Trollveggen, deep within the heart of the mountain that pulsed around her. She'd been able to hear the sounds of it breathing and to know that there was no one around her with hands that would hurt.
They stepped out from the dark mountain tunnel into the sunlight, and she had forgotten sunlight felt so good. It was warm and comforting, easing a tension in her shoulders as she turned her head toward the heat. Rose lifted her hands just a little, almost reaching for the sensation.
Then she registered the birdsong that fluttered through the air. They trilled, bright and light and so pretty it made her heart hurt a little to hear them. They were so small to make a song that was so infinitely beautiful.
What a bright world existed here. What a lovely, wonderful, heartwarming place and so many people took it for granted.
"Rose?" Gunnar asked.
She glanced over at him, surprised he was still here. She'd threatened him with a knife, by the gods. He should have been far angrier with her than he was.
Frankly, she'd expected him to argue with her more. He hadn't wanted her to come. She had actually tracked him and followed when he didn't want to risk her life. There were plenty of reasons for him to be furious. But he wasn't. He just stared at her warily.
"Still here?" he asked. "I know you haven't been outside in a very long time."
"I haven't." Talking to someone this much felt strange.
She was a little rusty at conversation, but knew this was part of living.
Rhydian wouldn't let her back if she didn't at least try.
"I didn't talk to anyone in the labyrinth all that much.
The men that visited me, or the ones that I visited later, they didn't..." She shrugged. "They didn't talk."
A dark expression passed over his features. "I know they didn't, Rose. They should have. I imagine they would have found you a much more interesting person if they had."
Memories filtered through her mind. All the men who hadn't even said a word as they stalked into her room. Or the one... The one man who had tried to talk to her.
"One did," she whispered. "I killed him. I didn't mean to. I just knew if something scary happened around me, that I could disappear into my mind. So I tried to get him to be mean to me, but I didn't realize that hitting someone over the head with a vase could kill him."
The act still haunted her. He was the only person who might have been kind to her. If she’d had her wits about her, if she hadn't been going insane for years, she might have seen the opportunity for what it was. If anyone could have gotten her out, it was that man.
Gunnar grunted. "Don't hold on to that guilt for too long, Rose. If he was visiting you in that place, he wasn't a good man. Even if he couldn't go through with it."
She realized he was right. That man had still been connected to the king. He'd still come to her room, still planned on fucking her when he should have known how wrong that was.
More of the weight came off her shoulders, and she felt a little braver. Maybe she did know how to protect herself after all. She'd just never trusted that she could do it again.
Rose followed Gunnar for the rest of the day, marveling at the world that she had missed.
It had been so long, and she had never gotten out of the city when she was a child.
She remembered being so wrapped up in becoming a priestess that it was hard for her to look around herself and really enjoy what she was seeing.
But now she did. Now she saw the emerald green of the leaves above her head in a canopy that rang with sound.
She noticed the tangled roots that were pulling out of the ground as they headed down a steeper side of the mountain than she had expected.
She saw little eyes in the hollows, hiding away from her sight as creatures watched them pass.
She wanted to stop and look at everything. Thick vines hung from the trees, and she swore one of them moved when she looked a little closer. Was it a snake? Or was it some other creature she had never seen before and therefore desperately needed to see?
And of course, there were all the smells.
Rose wasn't sure she'd been in a forest before, but she hadn't realized that it would have a scent.
Sometimes she could smell the leaves crunching underneath her feet, an earthy, loamy smell that reminded her of the gardens in Trollveggen.
Sometimes she'd catch something sweet, or something horribly stinky, and then moving past whatever animal had left that scent, the air would bloom again.
Fresh. Clean. Better than the city she'd been in her entire life.
Gunnar was largely unfazed by all of this. He stalked ahead of her, his shoulders square and those pointed ears of his flicking at any sound that he heard. He couldn't move them as much as a horse or donkey could, but he definitely moved them more than most trolls.
Every now and then he would stoop, looking at the ground for some track that she couldn't pick out, and then he'd change their course.
They didn't talk much, even when he set up the tent for her to sleep in.
He'd only brought one, and that was something Torbin had failed to tell her to bring.
Of course she needed a tent. Gunnar was going on a journey through the forest, and it made sense that they'd be sleeping outside. But she hadn't thought about it.
City girl, she supposed. Here Rose had been expecting to find an inn somewhere, even knowing that a troll would never be invited into one.
She stood in front of the tent, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. She stared at the open flap that he was holding up, certain that she was brave enough to do this. A tent was easy to get into. He was still Gunnar.
Then he snorted out a breath. "I'm keeping watch. You will sleep in here by yourself, Rose."
"But you need to sleep too."
"Not as much as humans. If you weren't here, I'd still be traveling. I can see in the dark." He gestured for her to go into the tent. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we go faster."
Faster? She'd thought they had already gone pretty fast.
She was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The next few days led them down the mountain at a grueling pace.
Rose’s thighs hurt. Her head hurt. She was constantly feeling as though she was somehow slowing him down and also moving too fast for her to control.
Rose kept slipping on the smooth rocks, especially when they started down the steep inclines.
It rained one day, and that was the worst. Her cloak helped a little. It kept most of the rain off her face, but it didn't stop her from getting soaked to the bone. And still, Gunnar didn't pause their journey.
He checked in on her. Endlessly. The man seemed certain she was going to die at any point, and that this was the gods’ way of proving that he should not have let her come. Of course, he would have used any excuse to send her right back home. But Rose was having fun, even during the worst of it.
She hadn't experienced this in a long time. She hadn't lived, as Rhydian said. The dead man wouldn’t be able to say a word when she returned to the made-up world in her head with a bossy ghost who liked to tell her how to live her life.
On the fifth day, they slowed down. Finally. And a question burst out of her.
"Where are we going, anyway?" she asked.
Rose still felt a bit like she wasn't supposed to know.
Or ask. Or converse with anyone. The whole point of her continued existence had been in disappearing, and being here was still very strange.
Her focus was off. She didn't know when to be silent or when to speak, so she had just decided that she would be silent always.
Better to wait for someone else to speak with her than to talk at the wrong moment.
Except he didn't seem to want to talk. Ever. Gunnar usually was a wealth of words, talking until he was purple in the face and the other trolls were wandering off, trying to get away from him.
Now? On this journey, he was silent as the grave. This was a version of him she had never seen. Stoic. Watchful. His gaze flicked over every shadow in the forest, every space between the trees, always ready and aware for something to pop out at them. Not that anything ever did.
He looked over his shoulder, finally slowing down. "Right, I didn't tell you, did I?"
"No," she replied sullenly.
"We're heading to escort the prince. We're going to divert him from his current band and journey with him back to Trollveggen alone. That way, no one will know where he is."
"Oh." A troll prince? She supposed that had to make sense. There was a troll king, after all. But she hadn't ever thought about King Egil having a son. "What's he like?"
"Don't know. He grew up away from the mountain. I think people who have lived in the kingdom have only seen him..." Gunnar paused, counting in his head before nodding. "Four times. And that was when he was very young."
"You haven't seen him before?"
"Nah. Ragnar and I were so busy. When we were children, training always came first. Much more than a royal spectacle of a boy who wasn't even going to train with us."
The glimpse into his life sparked her interest. Rose had spent such a long time researching, but she'd never thought to research him. "So you and Ragnar trained often?"
"Most days. If not all of them. Ragnar had to learn how to heal, and someone had to get injured for him to do that."
She must have made some kind of noise, because he looked at her again.
A slant of sunlight illuminated his features, and Rose was struck by how handsome he might be.
She didn't know much about being attracted to another person.
It wasn't in her to do so. At least she didn't think it was.
But his jaw was very square. His face was finely made , with a strong nose and arched cheekbones that gave him rather interesting features.
His tusks were smaller, but still very much there.
And of course, his lovely bright green skin was so. .. different.
"Why do you ask?" He arched a brow at her.
"Just curious, is all."
"You're curious about me?" He pressed a hand to his chest and faked that he was shocked. "I never would have guessed. Who is this person who decided to travel with me? Surely this isn't the Rose I know."
She rolled her eyes, the movement as foreign and unfamiliar as it was to be talking to another person this much. "I would like to know my captor."
"Captor. You could leave any time you wanted and I wouldn't stop you."
"Other than to make sure I didn't walk off a cliff." There was one conveniently right next to them. She headed over to it, dangling her foot over the drop that was at least ten of her heights down. "You're always so worried I'm going to do that."
The drop was still, somehow, intriguing. Not that she wanted to jump down to her death, just that it was possible. It wouldn't be the worst thing for her to die. Another adventure, she supposed.
"Rose," Gunnar warned.
"I know.” She stared down at the abyss where she could jump if she wanted to. "I'm being careful."
There wasn't much below them. Just a small, sparse clearing with dotted bushes. Hard to see when it was so dark out. Usually they had made camp by now, as the sun had already set in the distance and twilight emerged. It was rather green down there, though. Everything around them was always green.
Then the strangest thing happened. The bushes below shook, moved, and out rolled a caravan.
A whole contingency of them. Four, no, five caravans that were brightly colored, lit by lanterns swinging on the sides.
Each of them had patterns of swirls, brightly colored and standing out among the forest. Blue, orange, yellow, green, nearly a whole rainbow as they rolled into view.
She furrowed her brows, watching them as Gunnar came up beside her.
He cursed. "Of course. No wonder the king wanted me to intercept them. He's traveling with damned minstrels."
"Minstrels?"
"Trolls have all kinds of professions. These are..." Gunnar clearly struggled to find something nice to say. "They entertain. That's all they're good for."
The caravan train rolled to a stop, and then a slate gray troll leapt out of the one in the front. He was tall. Much taller than she'd seen before, and lean. For a moment, she saw him as another person. As Rhydian. Standing there with much darker skin and white hair, staring back at her.
Who was this man? She could see even from here that his snow white hair wasn’t just on top of his head. He had white eyebrows as well, with the longest ears she'd ever seen on a troll. And then, strangely, a spiderweb of black spiraled around one of his eyes.
"Don't jump!" he shouted up to her, with a melodic voice that she could listen to for hours. "I promise, there is much to live for."
She tilted her head, staring at the strange man. "Is there?"
"I'll prove it to you, maiden!"
Gunnar let out a low growl beside her and shouted down, "Get back in the caravan, your highness! Your father sent me to detour you straight into the mountain. Away from so much attention."
Then she swore she heard Gunnar add under his breath, "But apparently you’re here to flirt with anything female."
She shot him a look. "I think I like him."
Gunnar looked her up and down, his face darkening. "No, you don't."