Page 64 of A Darkness So Sweet

“She’s my troll wife. Mine. We’re bound to protect each other until the very end.”

“This isn’t magic binding you to her.” Gunnar grunted as Ragnar’s fist hit his belly. “This is more than that. Blind loyalty isn’t like you.”

“She’s earning my loyalty.”

“Then tell them that!”

Ragnar wriggled free from his brother’s grip, slithering out of his brawny arms and unlocking their tusks with a harsh click that made his very skull ache as the tips of their tusks scraped against each other. Shaking his head to clear the pain, he staggered away from his brother. “They won’t listen. You know it as well as I.”

They stared at each other, yet again. Both of their shoulders heaved with breath and their eyes widened in shock. Ragnar didn’t know what to say to his kin. And Gunnar likely didn’t understand the change that had overcome his brother, who hated humans just as much as every other troll.

Ragnar held out his shaking hands, trying to make his brother see. “She is no longer human,” he said, his tones pleading. “She is a troll wife. The moment I accepted her, the moment our blood mingled, she became a troll wife.”

Gunnar shook his head. “They’ll never see her that way.”

“Others do.”

“Kinder trolls. Trolls who have never found a body buried in rubble or seen the remains of a child after the humans have found it in the forests. They’ve never seen the suffering her people have caused.”

His mind was so twisted, so wrong now that he knew her, because his first thought flew from his lips. “But my wife has never seen the bodies we left in the forest. She’s never seen how we hung them from the trees, their skin flayed from their corpses to look like wings. Should we assume she would hate us if she knew that truth?”

Gunnar’s jaw dropped open before he snapped it shut. “Do you hear yourself? We gave them the justice they deserved for what they did.”

And yet...

And yet.

Ragnar turned away from his brother, his mind running wild with all the wrong and the right that filled it. But he knew, deep in his gut, that what he had said was true. He just didn’t know how to live with those thoughts.

ChapterTwenty-Seven

MAIA

The market was lovely on days like this. Maia was used to the human markets, which had their own level of charm. The village near the castle was always full of vendors on any day of the week. But usually those vendors had recognizable food that she could sometimes afford.

She’d loved going into town and searching out the freshest bread she could find. There hadn’t been a lot of time for her to bake, not when there’d been so much gardening to do. Some part of her missed that, as well.

Walking through the troll market was so different, namely because she was surrounded by plants. It seemed everyone had something alive they wanted to sell, whether that was flowers, green leafy beasts with long stalks, or piles of leaves the size of her head.

She missed being around plants. Nothing was more satisfying than being wrist deep in the earth, convincing the plants to grow better while she pulled weeds or rotated the soil for the next year. Of course, none of her plants had been useful for anything other than their beauty. The plants here were all food or herbs. Maia could sense the medicinal properties in some of them. The way some of them would burn if she were to put them on an open wound, but they would convince the skin to heal faster. Sometimes there was even the faintest hint of magic in their leaves, but those were usually only in roots that were bundled together by heavy twine.

The trolls were all very kind and aware of each other’s presence. There was no loud shouting or screaming from vendors for her to come look at their wares. They all were merely there, waiting for someone to see what they had brought. It was a more polite way to gain customers, even if it was unfamiliar to her.

As she had for three days now, Maia wandered down the market with a basket full of her bread. She supposed she could have asked if Ragnar wanted her to start selling it, but he hadn’t been all too particular about her buying ingredients and giving the bread away. After all, the city needed the help.

While there were plenty of trolls who had pieced their homes back together and were ready to sell their regular wares, many trolls still appeared to be struggling, depending on where they had been during the collapse. But Maia still walked by some homes that were little more than rubble, and it made her entire heart ache.

She walked by a troll who had a bandage around his head, still injured from when Ragnar couldn’t heal him during the entire madness that had befallen this kingdom. She walked up to him first, pulling a loaf of bread from her basket with a soft smile.

“Here. I know it isn’t much, and it won’t help that head of yours, but everyone needs to eat.”

The troll looked at her as though she had crawled out of the shadows. His eyes widened, seemingly horrified by her actions, before he staggered away.

Had she said something wrong? Perhaps it was rude to point out an injury among their people. The next person she would approach quietly, and perhaps not with so much eagerness.

So she walked to the next person, who appeared to be quite injured. The woman was leaning on a cane, wincing with every step as she made her way down the street.

Maia walked up to her, getting her attention from afar before she gestured at her basket. “I made enough bread for many people. Would you like one? I hope it will help.”

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