Page 89 of A Darkness So Sweet

“The king has requested you,” she said, apologies in every word. “I know you would rather be here right now, Ragnar. And truth be told, I’d rather you stay here as well.”

“But the king waits for no one.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

He cast one glance behind his shoulder, but Maia wasn’t going to wake any time soon. He’d made sure of that. His wife would sleep for hours on end, and deeply after what he’d done to her.

Grinding his teeth, he gave up the thought of crawling into bed with her and resting. But he wasn’t going to leave her alone. Not again. So he held up a finger to the king’s messenger, and returned to his bedroom.

Bracing a knee on the bed, he brushed her hair away from her face and murmured, “Someone is here.”

“Come back to bed,” she breathed.

“I can’t, fire hair.”

As much as he wanted to join her, he knew better than to ignore the king. He left her cozy in his bed, closing the door behind him and joining the king’s messenger on the long walk to the castle.

Once there, he headed to the throne room, where he knew the king waited for him. What he wasn’t expecting was to find the room full with all the generals and warlords who had been fighting in the town. They all watched him enter, a few of them wearing guarded expressions that he couldn’t quite make out.

At least, until he stood next to Gunnar who seemed much better. Clearly the king’s healers had seen to him, still, Ragnar immediately asked, “How’s that wound?”

“Magic can fix a lot of things.”

“And?”

Gunnar sighed. “And it still hurts like I ran straight into a boar, but I will be fine. The healers sent me home with plenty of your healing potions, and a strict order to rest.”

“Good.” Ragnar crossed his arms over his chest and left it at that. If the healers thought he was well, then he had to be well enough to be standing here.

His brother cleared his throat. “She is well?”

He glanced around to see every other troll in the room watching them. Waiting for his answer.

“How fickle you all are,” he muttered. “Just mere days ago, you were reminding me that she could be a spy.”

Gorm grumbled under his breath, “She could still be a spy.”

But the general was silenced rather quickly by a few of the other trolls next to him. “She wouldn’t have healed our people if she were a spy.”

“Even if she would have healed them, my cousin said she held his hand through the entire thing and then tucked him in,” another added. “That’s not acting.”

“She stabbed that human in the thigh. Right through it. I saw her from the battlefield, and that was real terror afterward.” The female troll who said the words then crossed her arms firmly over her chest. “You don’t pretend to be affected like that after a male attacks you.”

Watching trolls stand up for Maia warmed his heart, but also infuriated him to no end. Where was this support only days ago? Why did she have to suffer for them to see her worth? Rather than encouraging their behavior, he turned his attention to the king.

Their leader wasn’t sitting on his throne. Instead, he sat on the floor in front of it, his legs hanging down the stairs and his crown in his hands. Perhaps all the other trolls were focusing on Ragnar, because the sight before them was hard to look at.

Finally, King Egil sighed and looked up. He met each and every one of their gazes slowly, as though he knew this was a terrible burden for any of them to bear.

“The mountain will never be ours until we can prove to them that we can keep it,” the king started. “And I know many of you would fight to your last breath to prove that this land will not be under human control. But we do not know why they fight so fiercely for it.”

“It’s hatred for our people,” Gunnar snarled. “They don’t care a mite for this mountain. All they care about is that it’s not currently theirs, and that we have it.”

A few trolls grumbled in agreement.

But it didn’t sit right with Ragnar. There had to be more to it than just a blind hatred. King James was too cunning for that. At least, that was what he’d seen so far.

“Why send scouts to our home?” he asked. “If it’s blind hatred, they would just chip away at us. One by one. Instead, they seek out entrances to our home, strategically sealing us inside of the mountain. Why?”

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