Page 57 of A Darkness So Sweet

“Oh.” Back home, she would have needed to. There were plenty of people who would wander into a house that was unlocked, and they would take whatever they could carry. But here, apparently, the trolls didn’t do that.

They walked down the street only a few steps before Inkeri spoke. “I’m certain you can see that this is not like the human kingdom.”

“That would be hard to miss,” Maia replied with a soft chuckle.

“You would do well to forget all the rules you know and all the injustices you faced. Humans are, at their core, greedy and cruel. They take whatever they wish. They end relationships over petty arguments. They are weak-willed creatures who have no right to have as much power as they already have.”

The words stung a bit. Maia tried very hard to see it through the eyes of the trolls, but she couldn’t. Quietly, as they turned a corner and started up a small hill, she said, “I am human, though.”

Inkeri stopped so suddenly that Maia almost ran into her back. She had to side step and nearly toppled into a bush, just trying not to run into the troll woman who stood so still, it was like she wasn’t breathing.

What had she said? Was it the reminder that she was human? It wasn’t like she could hide where she’d come from. Being human in this kingdom felt like uttering a dirty word. It felt as though she wasn’t meant to say it in mixed company because the mere thought of humans made the trolls’ skin crawl. But it was the truth.

Inkeri turned her head, eyeing her with sudden disgust. “You would do well to never say that again.”

The malice in her tone made every hair on Maia’s body stand on end. “I’m sorry for whatever I said, but... I am human. It’s hard not to say it when that’s the truth.”

“You are not a human any longer. You are a troll wife,” Inkeri spat. “We are the women who run this kingdom. We are the throbbing, bloody heart of Trollveggen. Every step we take, every word we say, it fuels our homeland. Our men are nothing without us. This mountain is nothing without us. We wouldneverwillingly allow a human to step foot on these hallowed grounds. You are a troll wife. You said the words and claimed them as your own. Never say that you are human again. Do you understand me?”

The words flowed over Maia. She wasn’t sure what to think of them. Because yes, she was the wife of a troll, but that didn’t define who she was. Without Ragnar, she was still herself, and that was important to recognize.

Inkeri started walking again, and Maia supposed she had no choice but to continue to follow the other woman. But now, she wasn’t sure where they were going. She didn’t want to join this rather cult-like experience of being a troll wife above everything and anything.

The leaves crunched under her feet. The breeze toyed with her hair. It was like the mountain itself was trying to calm the nerves that churned in her belly, but nothing would get rid of the wrongness that had spread from Inkeri’s words. She was not owned by any man, and she never would be.

When Inkeri turned down another forest path, Maia couldn’t help herself. “I don’t want to be a man’s property. Back home, I refused every offer of marriage so I could keep my father’s business as my own. You make it sound like being a troll wife is a gift, but if that gift comes only at the hand of a man, then I do not want it.”

Inkeri shook her head. “You misunderstand my words, fire hair. He does not hold all the power in your relationship. You do.”

Using her arm, the troll swiped away a curtain of leaves that hung from a tree branch and revealed a glen beyond. It was filled with troll women, each one of them dotting the landscape like brightly colored flowers in a meadow. They had countless objects with them. A loom that was carved out of the tree in the far right, like the plant had grown it just so that a troll wife could use it while sitting in the grass. Other women were at a table, each of them carefully setting gemstones into complicated metal loops. There were others whispering enchantments into jewelry, armor, and weapons.

A small stream ran through the center of it. Four women stood in the calm waters, their skirts tucked up in their waistbands as they slowly moved their hands left and right. As Maia watched, a small ball of water rose between them and danced in the air with their movements.

The air crackled with energy. She could feel it toying with the ends of her hair and suddenly singing in the piercings in her ears. Like the entire world lit up with power and energy just from her walking into the glen. Or like it had been here the entire time, and all that magic had been waiting for her to arrive.

“A troll wife is not bound to her husband,” Inkeri said. “You took your human ideals, and you brought them here. That is why we do not welcome your kind. You hear my words and think I mean to bind you to him. But the stages of troll lives are different. A troll maiden hears the sound of the mountain. She wishes to join us in this glen, but she has not yet proven herself worthy of the ancient foundation of our world.”

Inkeri held out her hand for Maia to take, and she didn’t hesitate to place her fingers in the much larger hand. She allowed the troll to draw her toward the women in the water as though in a trance.

“A troll wife knows what it is to have her magic bound to another. To feed off another’s life essence, which means we can also spread that throughout the mountain. We call her Móðir, the mother of us all. She is the mountain that feeds our magic, and the one who teaches us how to use our powers and make them stronger. It does not matter if our husband has given us that power or not. He may die, and still the mountain soothes us.”

Inkeri pointed to the side, where Maia recognized Hulda among a group of older women. All the trolls were weaving in that corner, some of them sewing stunning jewel toned fabrics into impressive gowns. “The troll crones have gathered all the magic they can from this place. They do not have their husbands for the most part, but we have not forgotten the crones. They are still here. They still have access to all the earth’s magic, but they are an integral part in teaching all of us what they have learned. In doing so, we do not have to learn through the same hard ways that they did.”

“So when you call me a troll wife…” She didn’t know how to end the question. Other than knowing the accusation she had made still stood strong in her mind.

“When I call you a troll wife, I mean the wife of the mountain. We mean the mother of magic that will grow and learn and develop here. We mean a troll.” Inkeri cracked the last word off her tongue, harsh and filling the word with so much emotion. “You are no longer a human if you are here with us. You are a troll wife. You are one of us, Maia.”

And that was the first time she’d felt truly welcome here. As though she belonged with the trolls, rather than simply being the uncomfortable person in the room. Even though she was surrounded by people with countless skin colors and patterns and piercings. Trolls who should have made her terrified, this was the first time in her life that she had been given permission to be herself and be loved for it.

“I don’t know that I fully understand,” she said, looking down at the water at her feet and then up to the women practicing magic. “But I would like to.”

“That’s all we can ask,” Inkeri said. She placed a hand on her back and drew her toward the older troll women, who were all working on many articles of clothing. “Come with me. We’ll get you clothing that doesn’t have holes in it and that fits you far better than this bag he’s placed on you.”

“What if he doesn’t want me to wear your clothing?” It was something she was concerned about. Ragnar had made it very clear that he wasn’t interested in her as a wife back then. And frankly, they were so new to each other that it was hard to believe he had changed his mind.

Inkeri raised a dark brow. “Then he can rot. He mingled his blood with you, which means you are ours as much as you are his. And we take care of our own.”

ChapterTwenty-Four

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