Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Gunnar
She'd kissed him.
His sweet, shy, adorable woman had finally come out of her shell and kissed him. It was both good and bad—good because he was so proud of her for being able to even do that in the first place, and bad because now it was all he could think about.
Even as he climbed out of the pool of water and turned to help her out of it, he was thinking about kissing her. About how the hand in his grip had pressed against his chest so gently. How her lips were the softest he'd ever felt. How she had trusted him.
Him.
It was distracting, and he couldn't afford to be distracted right now.
Not when he was in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of the mountain, and had absolutely no idea where they were going.
Thankfully, the pool led to a stream, and both water features were only a small part of this cave system.
They'd already slipped once. The last thing he wanted was for them to slide into the mountain even deeper.
He wasn't certain he could get them out as it was.
The wisps he had summoned were all too happy to follow them around, though.
They trailed along in their path, bobbing in those pretty little lights that had always captivated him as a child.
Rose was quite interested in them as well.
She let out little sounds of surprise as they zipped throughout the cave, highlighting all the rocks that they might have tripped over if the wisps hadn't otherwise shown them.
"They're oddly... kind," Rose murmured as she stepped around a stone he still found strange that she could see.
"Who? The wisps?" he asked before turning around. "Of course. They're helpful."
She stared at him. "Was I supposed to know that wisps are helpful?"
"Wisps are known for that. They guide people to safety. They bring trolls to the ancient places where our people have been laid to rest so that we can enjoy being with our ancestors. Wisps are full of kindness."
Again, she kept staring at him like he was missing something. He had no idea what she could possibly be thinking right now. Wisps had always been friends to the trolls.
"Wisps lead humans into swamps where they will trip and die," Rose replied. "We know them as harbingers of ill will. They lead someone to certain death, but we cannot stop following them because they are so beautiful."
He sucked in a breath. "Right, I'd forgotten that. Humans don't trust them."
"And for good reason."
"Well, you're with a troll. I highly doubt they're leading us any way other than.
.. out." Although now that he was looking at them, Gunnar wasn't all that certain they were leading him, anyway.
The wisps seemed to be clustering around the two of them, but certainly not guiding.
Maybe they didn't even know the way out.
That would make things difficult.
"Do you know where we're going?" Rose asked, her voice chattering a bit with the cold.
"No."
"Ah."
He was doing a horrible job reassuring her. He should be the one who knew what they were doing, how they were getting there, and when they were going to get there. So he had to act more certain they were going to make it out of this than he was currently.
Gunnar took a long, steadying breath and paused as the cave split.
"We're looking for a path. Any path. Trolls always make paths wherever they go into caverns like this, just in case someone else does the same thing they did.
That way, we help others long after we got ourselves into a difficult position.
Which means someone has to have left signs. "
"What if no one has been here before?"
He shot her a look over his shoulder. "There isn't a part of this mountain that hasn't been explored by trolls, I promise you that. We just have to make sure that we find what they left behind. All right? We're going to be fine, Rose."
She nodded, a determined expression on her face, because obviously she was going to help him. Why wouldn't she? The woman had proven to be brave in the most dire of circumstances, and now she was going to continue being brave.
Just a little while ago, he wouldn't have had that thought. After all, she had flinched at everything, withdrawn whenever someone spoke to her, and generally hidden herself from the world. But now he knew those actions for what they were. She hadn’t been hiding.
She'd been healing. And now she was ready to face the world.
He turned, peering through the cavern that was getting tighter and tighter the farther back they went. All he needed was a single sign. Just a rock tower that looked out of place, perhaps some markings on the wall...
"Like that?" Rose asked as she came up beside him.
He'd been looking too high. The crosshatched marks on the wall could only have been made with claws, and in a pattern that couldn’t have been made by an animal.
Relief poured through him. "Yes," he replied. "Just like that."
The crosshatched markings led deeper into the cave, though. He would have gone in the other direction. Perhaps the tunnel was a little tighter, but at least it seemed to go uphill. The path indicated by those markings declined.
Frowning, Gunnar turned to look behind them.
The stream led to a wall of stone and disappeared beneath it.
There wasn't another path for them to take, and it seemed like whatever troll had survived before them had gone in this direction.
Everything in him was screaming this was wrong and they should keep looking elsewhere, but his training told him to trust the troll who had left these marks.
Rose touched his back. "I can see the mountain's magic," she whispered. "It goes this way too."
He had no idea what that meant, but if she agreed, then this was the way they would go.
They continued following the crosshatches through weaving tunnels that were so small sometimes he had to bend over just to fit through them. And all the while, the wisps followed them.
Soon enough, claustrophobia set in. Gunnar had spent years learning how to beat the feelings back, but he didn't think Rose had the same luck.
She was breathing a little harder, and not from exertion.
He heard a little sound come out of her mouth when there was a scurrying from the shadows behind them, almost as though they were being followed.
"Tell me something about your life before all this," he rumbled, his voice echoing in the tunnels. "But remember, we only speak of the good in darkness. You let the nightmares win if you entertain dark thoughts. So we only tell happy stories when we are stuck in situations like this."
"Happy stories?" she scoffed. "I don't have a lot of happy stories, Gunnar.
I was a street urchin. Poor, abandoned, or orphaned, we never really knew.
And then come to find out, we could have been living in a castle because our father happens to be the same king who put me in the labyrinth.
I suppose he was more of a semen donor than a father though. "
Gunnar laughed. "I like thinking of him like that. The man wasn't a father to any of his children. That much was certain. You know I saw the princess when I was in the labyrinth?"
She stuttered, tripping over a rock before righting herself. "I forgot you were in there too."
"Many do."
"It's just... There are a lot of people who were in there for years. But it must have been very frightening for you."
Dark thoughts. He didn't want to think about the other trolls he had killed in that place, or the mercy kills he'd performed when he had seen a mortal wound that would only fester and slow their death.
He'd been trapped only for a little while, and still he had been made to do awful, terrible things.
No, he wouldn't think about that here. Not while he had to focus and look for signs that they were going to be well.
Noticing another crosshatched design, he kept moving and started talking. That was, after all, what he was best at.
"Ragnar and I grew up apart from the others.
I told you that. But we've been blessed with a lot of support from this community.
When I was younger, though, I hated that.
I couldn't get away with anything without someone telling our parents.
And if I wasn't lucky, then it would be the neighbor who managed the situation themselves. "
"Did they beat you?"
"Gods, no. They would humiliate me. I remember the first time I tried to steal from a shop owner.
Just took a piece of bread off a cart and started walking away with it, all thinking that no one would see me because I was small.
" Gunnar snorted. "She grabbed me by the ear and announced to the entire street that I was going to become a thief when I got older. "
He still remembered the shame that had made his cheeks burn dark green.
"And then?" Rose asked. "Were you... banned from the street?"
"No, she handed me the bread and kicked my butt until I went home to my father.
She still moves her bread away from me when I walk by, but if I buy something from her, she always sneaks me extra just so she can tease me about being a thief.
" A soft smile crossed his face. "She even hand stitched me a shirt that says thief on the front in the black tongue.
I wear it with pride on the anniversary of that day every year. "
Rose had stopped moving. She stood there, staring at him with her brows furrowed and her hands clenched into fists.
He couldn't tell if she was mad or frustrated.
"I don't understand. I stole like that when I was a child too, even though Astrid told me not to.
They put me in the stocks for a week. People threw food at me, and that was the only thing I could eat at night when Astrid came up to feed me.
Rotten food that had been thrown by people who had known me my entire life. "
Gunnar’s heart shattered for her. How could anyone live like that?
"Children need their communities," he said quietly.
"They will make mistakes, and they need more than their parents to prove to them that those mistakes aren't the end of who they are.
Yes, she'll tease me about it until the day I die, but she doesn't hate me for the mistake.
I'm sorry they did that to you, but they never should have.
You were starving and needed help. Someone should have seen that. "
Tears made her eyes glitter in the wisp-light. But she did not let them fall. Not his brave girl. She swallowed them down and nodded. "I still don't understand, but I think I am coming to realize that Trollveggen is far safer than anywhere I have been before."
"No one will hurt you here if you make a mistake.
They'll tease you mercilessly until you want to strangle them for it, but that doesn't mean you will be shuffled to the side or that they don't want you to do well.
" He patted the mountain, his palm slapping against the stone near their heads.
"This mountain is full of love, Rose. That's why none of us are willing to leave it. "
“But mistakes…” Rose shook her head. “Some of them are unforgivable.”
She stared at him like her soul ached. He hated seeing her like this, but also knew she needed to hear it. And then it clicked why she was so upset. He took another step closer to her. Another.
He didn't know if she would want to be touched after that kiss, but he knew that she was very likely to be hesitant. She didn't even try to move away from him though, and he took that moment to take the liberties he'd always wanted to take.
Gunnar scooped his hand beneath her hair at the back of her neck, holding on to her and drawing her face toward his.
He pressed his forehead against hers, so that his words would perhaps vibrate through her.
"I do not blame you for the fall," he murmured.
"It was a mistake on my part, if I'm being honest. I shouldn't have tried to move you so forcefully. "
"I shouldn't have been standing on that cliff edge scaring everyone," Rose whispered.
"I didn't know anyone would care, honestly.
Or that anyone was watching. I wasn't going to do anything.
I just... I like to feel alive sometimes.
And if that ends up being me standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling like I could fall at any moment, I see nothing wrong with that. "
He did. But mostly because it terrified him that she'd make a wrong step and end up tumbling over the edge. They were fears he knew he couldn't force her to understand, however.
Breathing out, he tried to be as reasonable as he could be while also being terrified of what that meant for him in the future. "I can bring you places where you'll feel alive, Rose. But please, don't stand on cliff edges anymore. Look at where I brought you now."
Gunnar withdrew and gestured with his arms around them. He made it very clear that this cave was an adventure, and if she didn't think so, then she wasn't looking hard enough.
She twisted her lips to the side. "Really, Gunnar? We're lost and might never get out of here. Now is not the time for jokes."
"Sounds to me like it's the perfect time for jokes. You can't take anything too seriously, especially in life threatening situations." He backed away from her as he spoke, mis-stepped, tripped over a slippery stone, and fell against the wall hard.
Damn it, that was supposed to look a lot better than it had ended up.
Rose sighed and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. "Would you like me to go in front? Perhaps I am the steadier one."
He shook his head, trying hard not to rub at the sting in his shoulder from where he'd bumped it a little too hard against the rock wall. "No. I think I can lead just fine."
But he noticed when he turned around that there was the smallest, softest smile on her face. Not the kind of smile she'd given when she was wandering, which wasn't really her, anyway. A smile that was for him. Because she found him funny.
And he could admit to himself, quietly in his own head, that knowing she thought he was amusing was the best kind of feeling.