Page 22 of A Darkness So Sweet

ChapterNine

MAIA

Maia quickly realized her new husband had not been joking about the travel she would have to endure. Ragnar, she was coming to find, didn’t embellish much. When he said it was going to be a hard travel day, he meant exactly that.

At first, he’d tried to throw her over his shoulder just like he had the first time they’d traveled together. Unfortunately, that had worked for only a few minutes before she struggling against him, swearing that she was going to vomit again.

That was a lie. She hadn’t felt sick at all, but the bruising on her stomach had hurt significantly worse than she’d thought it would. Not to mention her injured wrist made it impossible to brace herself on his back like she had before. A little lie didn’t hurt anyway, and besides, she knew that speed was important to him.

Instead, she’d offered to hold on to his back. If they needed to run at this breakneck speed, she couldn’t keep up. But she wasn’t weak, and she could cling to him with her arms and legs.

He let her, and that meant they traveled even faster. She’d had to press her face against his neck and pray to all the gods that would listen to her because the speed at which the trolls ran was terrifying. She’d only ridden a horse once in her life, but this was the same sensation. All she could do was trust that he wouldn’t run them both into a tree, because she certainly couldn’t tell if they were going to or not.

By nightfall that first night, she stumbled into bed and fell asleep so fast she didn’t even remove her clothing. It felt like her eyes had only just closed before he was waking her again. They ran. For days on end. And at the end of the second day, he started dunking her in whatever pool of water he could find. Sometimes it was a stream, sometimes it was a vernal pool, but every single day she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder and woke to him tossing her into frigid waters.

He claimed it was her stench. She thought it was more likely that he just enjoyed hearing her squawk of disapproval.

Her patience was wearing so thin. Soon enough, she feared she would explode. She’d start yelling at him, screaming that he wasn’t treating her right and that he was a beast of a man who had no idea how to treat a woman.

Except, she knew she wasn’t what he had wanted in a partner, either. The other trolls laughed at the way she had to wear their clothing, and they thought it was hilarious that her own mate had to convince her to wash.

Maia was just waiting to get sick. Soon enough, she would feel the dripping of her nose and the sniffles that wouldn’t leave. A cough would set into her chest, and she would lose her voice.

He was making her wash every single day, which meant she was at risk of getting sick, but strangely, it hadn’t happened yet…

No, she wouldn’t admit that he was right. She didn’t care that she felt better after she washed. She didn’t care that her mind even felt lighter after washing the day’s grime off her body. It didn’t matter. She would not fall into his trap and believe that her own people were wrong.

A troll didn’t know more about her own body than she did.

Sitting up in bed, she stared at the flap of the tent and waited for Ragnar to come through. But the light filtering through it this morning looked a little different. Brighter, somehow. As though he’d let her sleep in.

But that couldn’t be possible. He’d woken her as the sun crested the horizon for three days straight now. Maia was just getting used to this grueling torment and was ready to get onto his back and hold on until her arms were quaking and her thighs ached.

She should have told him days ago. But the longer she let it go before telling him that she wasn’t even the princess, the more it seemed likely he’d kill her once she did tell him. Why did she let it go this long? It just hadn’t felt like the timing was right, or worse, that she had knowingly withheld the information rather than being such a pushover that the words just refused to leave her tongue.

The longer she stared at the glimmering light, the more she was certain it was later in the day. He hadn’t come for her.

A small glimmer of hope blossomed in her chest. Maybe, if she was lucky, he’d decided she wasn’t worth the trouble and would just leave her in the woods. At this point, she thought that was preferable. She knew nothing about surviving in the forest by herself, but maybe she could figure it out.

Still, she should make sure she was alone. No use getting her hopes up if he was about to stomp in here and yell at her again.

Maia rolled out of bed, sighing as her feet touched the ground and her thighs started to ache again. Just using them flared all that pain bright and hot once more. Limping over in nothing but the shirt he gave her to sleep in, she eased the flap aside and squinted her eyes in the bright sunlight.

There were four trolls around the fire in front of the tent. One she recognized, but she’d recognize him anywhere. She’d been mapping the goose bumps on his back while pressed against him for days now. But the other three she didn’t know at all.

Stepping closer, she realized they were women. Female trolls, which she hadn’t realized she would see this early in her journey.

They were all thinner than their male counterparts, and smaller. But they still looked strong, with broad shoulders and bulging muscles that set them apart from any human woman she’d met before. It was interesting to see them and how different they were. All the women had tattoos, and some of them had piercings in their ears that jangled when they moved.

They were all speaking in the black tongue. The melodic, rhythmic speech was something that Maia was still getting used to. But it wasn’t quite so strange to hear it now, even if she didn’t know what they were saying.

Ragnar looked over his shoulder at her and then stood. “Good, you’re here. We are soon for Trollkin Mountain. They’ll help you prepare.”

“P-prepare?” she stuttered. Maia had no idea what was going on.

Was he leaving? He was. He just walked away without another glance. But that left her here by herself, with three women staring at her like she was supposed to know what was happening.

And she was in nothing more than a threadbare shirt.

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