Chapter 18 #2
“Who says I’m not already? Happy, that is,” Alys said lightly, making a neat ring of cinnamon buns inside the pan and leaving a hole in the center for Mal’s squished one.
“The three of us are back together, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Well, besides being the one my babies tell all their secrets to instead of Vic.
But I understand why it’s her.” She paused to swat a mosquito that landed on her cheek.
“Of course, this isn’t my first pick of destinations, but Griff’s safety and your freedom matter most. And look, I know we’re taking a risk staying put this morning, but I’ll fight whatever comes our way.
We’re still making good time, even if Her Dreadful Majesty is already getting antsy. ”
Maybe they could rest their feet here just a little longer without consequence, but when it came to Alys’s happiness, Mal still wasn’t convinced.
Ever since they had entered the Mire, there were new shadows gathering at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Maybe the swamp was wearing on her. Or maybe it was years of other people’s expectations—the man she almost but never married who wanted her to be a society lady, the mother who wanted her to be a warrior, when neither of those things was really her.
Maybe she had more to learn about herself than their breakneck journey was allowing.
“Look,” he tried again. “This thing Griff and I are doing—if we’re still doing it,” he added, glancing off the way Griff had gone, “it can wait. We have the whole rest of our lives to explore that once we’re home.
We don’t need to figure it out in front of you when we should all be focused on getting to the treasure. ”
“Why wait?” Alys asked earnestly, no longer fussing with breakfast but really looking at him.
“You two can kiss in front of me. I thought that might happen out here. Hoped it would, even. I’ve known how you feel about each other for a while now, even if neither of you has ever wanted to listen to anything I had to say on the matter.
I suspect you could have figured it out for yourself if you’d paid even the slightest attention to the lines of his songs.
” Her face softened as she added, “He makes you laugh, Mal, like I haven’t heard since we were kids. That’s its own kind of music.”
It took a few minutes for Mal to dredge up more words of his own as he digested this.
In the quiet, Alys continued, “You expect everything of Griff. Have you ever thought about that? There’s no one alive—not even me—who could ever disappoint you the same way he does, because he’s your world, your guiding star, the one you’ve always looked to even when you could hardly stand it. ”
“Alys, if you knew all that already …” He was starting to put a few things together, like her fairy-tale bullshit from the other night. “Going off on your own—were you really hoping to find more of Rhun’s things, or were you trying to give us time alone?”
“Both,” she answered without hesitation, touching her new-old cloak pin.
“And convincing me to ask Griff along on this trip like it’s somehow safer than him staying in town?” Mal asked, though once again he knew the answer.
“It can be hard to hear yourself think in Mayfair sometimes,” Alys said by way of admission.
“Maybe that’s why you’re both such terrible listeners.
And I just thought—after what happened to Griff, and what you had already agreed to do—this trip might be a chance for you two.
I was tired of seeing you both miserable, and I hoped if the three of us could spend some time together, maybe you and Griff would finally see what’s been clear to me for so long,” she concluded, a plea in her gaze for him to understand.
“I love you both, and I thought maybe, if you realized how you feel about each other … we could all stay like this after we bring back the treasure. That we could all be as close as we used to be.”
“Alys,” Mal muttered, wishing he had the right words on the tip of his tongue.
As Griff would soon learn, he hadn’t had a lot of practice at saying how he felt.
“I love you too. Always will,” he finally managed.
She should have let him and Griff figure things out in their own time, whenever that would have been, but she meant well.
“And for the record, if you put this much energy into solving your own problems, I think you could rule the world someday.”
A frantic crashing in the bracken drew her attention then, and Mal reached for his knife as Alys grabbed her sword. The Shadow Queen’s impatience had him even more on edge than usual.
But it was Griff running toward them like a startled hare trying to escape a hound, the ends of his hair dripping as if he had found someplace to splash water on his face and scrub the cooking grease from his hands.
Mal’s tattoo prickled with extra ferocity, and he groaned.
Griff stumbled and nearly lost his balance as something shook the ground like an earthquake. In the distance, a few trees swayed before cracking and falling. “Run!” Griff gasped as he approached. “Fuck the map, fuck the treasure, just—untie the mule and let’s go!”
But neither Mal nor Alys moved. Instead, they glared a challenge in the direction of the fallen trees.
After all, they had both graduated from Wynnie’s school of never turning their backs on a fight.
Was the queen so pissed that Mal had taken the time for breakfast that she had sent another lackey to try to eat him?
She should really be grateful he was sweating his ass off in this miserable swamp in the first place when she wasn’t willing to come get the gold and baubles herself.
Frowning as the ground shook again, Mal adjusted his stance and drew a second knife. Alys grabbed the pike that held Leo’s head with her free hand, as if the sight of it were going to scare off more than mosquitoes. Well—maybe the stench of it could.
Griff might have been upset with Mal when he left, but now he didn’t hesitate to grab his arm the moment he reached him, trying to tug him toward the trees as their terrified mule brayed and bellowed at the end of its tether.
“It’s a whole fucking—troll! It came to get a drink at the creek and it saw me, and we just—” He tugged again, harder, but Mal resisted.
“Need to—” There was no outrunning something of that size, even if Wynnie’s training would have allowed him to consider it.
Already he could see the looming shadow of the heavy creature with skin the color of sun-washed stone and a head like a mossy boulder growing worryingly taller as it bounded toward them.
“Go,” Griff concluded on a panted breath of defeat.
He drew his maul, and Mal made sure to catch his eye and nod his approval.
Griff stood a little taller after that, those strong arms holding the maul aloft, bracing for the impact of the creature’s arrival as it tore a blackberry bush out of the earth, thorns and all, and burst into their camp.
Even Leo the Head looked a little more wilted and pitiful on his pike when the troll rolled its massive shoulders, stretched up to its full height, and roared.
Mal winced and rubbed a bit of spittle off his cheek.
“Fucking fish breath,” he muttered as his tattoo throbbed, trying to cover up the fact that he knew his knives weren’t going to be much use against this thing.
They would likely be more of an annoyance, and the last thing they needed was to make this creature madder.
“Hurry up already!” the troll bellowed in a voice hoarse with disuse. The rough shape of a raven on the thick skin of its shoulder marked the creature as a thrall of the Shadow Queen’s in a manner too similar to how Mal had been branded for him to look at it for long.
Mal didn’t dare look at Griff, though the words could be explained away easily enough—trolls weren’t known for their cleverness, only their strength.
He tried to arrange his features into a mask of calm and polite confusion as he took in the broken piece of tree trunk the troll was wielding like a club, the smattering of fish scales clinging to one corner of its pale mouth, and the unmistakable deep scars surrounding a gaping hole in its forearm that must have been made by a blade that had shattered.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you blabbering inconvenience,” Mal said firmly to the creature, keeping his eyes trained on that club—much as he really wanted to make sure Griff wasn’t about to pass out.
The troll didn’t seem to care about his insults, nor did it seem interested in having a conversation. It swiped at him with its club, the motion clumsy thanks to whatever tendons Rhun had managed to sever in its wrist before it shattered his elven blade years ago.
Mal dodged the first strike easily. The second, however, came close enough to blow the hair back from his face and would have easily shattered his nose if he hadn’t been quick enough to duck.
It seemed to be focusing most of its attention on him despite Alys repeatedly striking it with her sword, which suited Mal just fine—this was still his mess—but in the process of backing him up against a wide tree hemmed in on either side by thorny brush, it also knocked Griff off his feet while lumbering past.
The sound of Griff’s maul glancing off its arm was like metal scraping stone.
They were so fucked.
Or at least, he was, because he had nowhere to go but up the tree at his back, and the troll would have no problem plucking him out of the branches.
It also seemed to have forgotten any instructions it had been given about not actually killing him while he was still within the bounds of the deal he’d made with Kage.
“Gonna grind your slow bones to pulp!” It gnashed its teeth, confirming Mal’s fears as he got his footing on a low branch. He quickly started hauling himself up, scrabbling at the bark like a rat on the run again until he was several feet off the ground.
As a gray hand roughly the size of his head reached toward him, Mal edged back behind the tree trunk as best he could, nearly losing his footing.
Down below, he was amazed to see Griff back on his feet already, maul in hand.
He managed to catch the other man’s eye for a second, nodding subtly at the branch beneath him and hoping Griff understood.
Strong fingers gripped the folds of his ratty cloak, struggling to get better purchase as Mal frantically tried to jerk free at the same time—while lacking anywhere to go. As he cursed and stabbed at the hands, the branch beneath him finally gave way.
He was falling, suddenly free of the troll’s grasp, his torn cloak fluttering around him as he plummeted several feet toward the ground and into Griff’s waiting arms.
Just in time. As Alys shouted something to regain the troll’s attention, Griff flashed a brief, shaky grin at Mal and cradled him against his chest.
Mal was still alive. Safe in the arms of someone he was starting to count on.
Wrapping his own arms around Griff’s neck, he licked his dry lips and finally panted, “This easier than chopping wood, you fuck? You’re unbelievable.”
“Just another feature of the Boyfriend Special. I could do this all day if you let me.”
“You get that line from a library book or something?”
A hint of color returned to Griff’s face. “Only original poetry here. You inspire me.”
Mal couldn’t help but laugh.
Griff’s grin widened for a moment, but whatever he was about to say became a worried murmur. “Alys! What the hell does she think she’s doing?”
The ground had finally stopped shaking. At first, Mal thought Alys must have cut the troll somewhere vital, as it was now sitting by their fire with its back to them, its club resting against its knee.
There didn’t seem to be any blood whatsoever, and Alys wasn’t even holding her sword anymore—it had been discarded several feet away.
But rather than trying to get back to it, she was sitting calmly across from the foul creature, holding up her orc’s head.
Bewildered, Mal crept closer once he was on his feet, keeping a hand on Griff’s arm as they crept toward the troll’s back together, maul and knives at the ready again.
“And then, if you can believe it, Bluebell told me I couldn’t have any more pie until I paid for the ones I’d tasted, when I was the one doing her a favor by making sure they were good enough to sell in the first place!” Alys was saying conspiratorially to Leo and the troll.
“Not fair!” the troll whined in response, making Mal’s teeth rattle.
“Exactly!” Alys said indulgently, her eyes wide and her smile gentle. “Say, Gossamer, I have an idea.”
The icing on top of Mal’s chaos cake had a name? One that Alys was speaking like they were old friends, no less.
“Would you like to hear my son’s favorite song? Maybe Leo and I could sing it for you while we take a little walk back to your cave, where it’s not so bright …?”
Mal exchanged a stunned glance with Griff, who looked equally confused and somewhat awestruck.
The troll wasn’t climbing back to its feet. But it still seemed to be listening to Alys, considering her words, much to Mal’s amazement.
“You know, my son gets mad sometimes too. Sometimes he gets so mad that he thinks about running away from home. Feelings are confusing, aren’t they?
They can get your stomach all knotted up, like eating a bad fish.
Especially when you’ve got someone telling you to do things you know deep down aren’t very nice.
That really doesn’t feel good,” Alys continued, slowly and carefully rising and extending her much-smaller hand toward the troll.
When the creature reached for it, she didn’t flinch, her smile still in place.
“That’s it, Gossamer. Let’s take that walk and learn a fun song, and I bet you’ll feel better,” she said again patiently.
“And I’ll make sure I’m back by noon,” she added over her shoulder as she started to urge the troll back down the path of destruction it had created.
“Ready to double the pace and make up for lost time.”
“That,” Griff breathed quietly beside him as they watched Alys lead the troll away, its club forgotten by the fireside, “was some damn good parenting.”
“That,” Mal agreed, knowing full well he would never understand how Alys had the instincts to handle a situation like that without her sword when it was all she had ever been taught, “showed so much more skill than Rhun in any battle he ever fought. Guaranteed.”