Page 61 of A Light So Blinding
What if he’d started a fight he couldn’t end? What if he had fought his way through another mercenary group and gotten captured again?
She’d sat with his mother for three days. Three full days of eating, resting, thanking others when they brought her items of food or articles of ill-fitting clothing. She’d done everything she could to remain patient with them all, but she was done waiting.
She needed to find her sister. Rose was running out of time, and even though they had sent a message, the bond between her and Bjorn should have been broken by now. If it was even possible at this point.
Ylva was very secretive in everything that she did. Astrid had tried to pin her down multiple times with questions about where her son was, or if Astrid could make the journey to Trollveggen alone. But the smoke reader was very quick in all her responses.
“I will read the smoke for you to guide your journey. Remain here until Bjorn returns.”
That was the only response she ever seemed to get whenever she asked too many questions. Otherwise, Bjorn’s mother simply took care of her as any good mother might. She made food. She refused Astrid’s offers to help with the housework. She brought her outside and treated her almost as if she were a helpless child.
Careful sitting there.
Don’t touch that.
Breathe easier, Priestess, this will be more comfortable for you to sit on.
Ylva had even fanned smoke away from her, saying if she didn’t want to entertain the possibilities of what she might become through troll magic, then she shouldn’t even inhale the smoke. She was tempting fate, Ylva claimed.
By the third day Astrid was losing her mind. If they weren’t going to tell her where Bjorn was, then she would find him herself. Before Ylva woke in the morning that day, Astrid dressed herself in one of the many dresses that had been brought to her. This one was a little shorter than the others, but it still hit her at the shins. It was made mostly out of leather, dyed a pretty deep red that complemented her skin tone very well. The troll who had made it was clearly extremely proud of her work.
The only issue was that it was shaped like a box. It was clearly made for a troll woman with far more curves, and someone who was much taller. It barely clung to Astrid’s form, one side nearly always falling down her shoulder and off her arm. She’d gathered it around the waist with a belt that was sewn intothe dress, but even then it wouldn’t tighten enough without bunching rather comically.
At the very least, it stayed on her body, and it wasn’t a shirt that she had taken from Bjorn. But maybe she preferred the shirt a little, if only because it was a piece of him.
She headed out along a path, starting in any direction. It didn’t matter where she went, because she didn’t know where he was. She figured she could go anywhere, and maybe she’d come across him.
Astrid explored for most of the day. She came across the farm that the trolls held most of their cattle in. There were so many gardens she could barely keep track of them all. There were some people who who smiled at her, some who were terrified when they walked by, and countless children that were so adorable it was hard not to pinch their cheeks.
But no Bjorn. And no matter who she asked, they also hadn’t seen him in days.
At this point, she was going to ask any troll she could to take her to Trollveggen. She’d done her part. She’d gotten Bjorn out of the dungeons. She’d gotten him into the lands where the other trolls lived. That was as much as she was willing to do right now.
Sometime in the afternoon, she found a path that headed in a direction she hadn’t explored yet. It disappeared into the trees, but not in an ominous way like many of the paths that led out of the grotto. This one was just... pretty. Golden light burst through the leaves of the trees, illuminating the path as if she were meant to go this way.
So she did. She followed the path far from the village, meandering through golden light and emerald leaves until finally she came to bright white pillars. Taller than six men high, they were clearly ruins of what used to be here before the trolls had come. They were stunning creations, reflecting the light in a way that made her eyes water.
Astrid strode up to the first one, freezing when she saw the image of a person behind it. But then she realized very quickly it wasn’t a person at all. It was a stone carving of an elf.
Taller than her by far, the willowy woman was stunning in her beauty, although her arm had broken off at some point. She’d been carved with delicate fabric pooling along her curves, and gently pointed ears that were tipped as sharp as daggers. Her strangely inhuman face, close enough to be eerie, stared down at her with disappointment.
There were more pillars, Astrid realized as she strode past the first goliath. Ten of them on each side, all of them leading away from the village. She glanced down at her feet, and then she noticed that there were small chips of what might have been a floor long ago.
“Elven,” she whispered as she bent down and picked up a shard of the floor. It had once been white marble. This had been a place of worship for the elves, or perhaps a place of revelry. But now, in their absence, it was just the remainder of what had once been beautiful.
The chipped pieces under her feet had been moved by the earth shifting beneath it. Tree roots had popped out in all directions, a stream had meandered through it, and moss ate away at whatever was left. It turned this place into a hidden beauty, a gem in the middle of the forest with no purpose other than to fill the senses with light and wonder.
It was there that she saw his shadow. He was leaning against a pillar, his horns scraping against the white marble and his legs spread wide. He looked... exhausted. Like he hadn’t slept since he’d left her.
Sighing, she headed toward him. The poor man needed to take care of himself more. But if he refused to see to his own well-being, then she was just going to have to do it for him.
She frowned as a glint of metal in his hand caught the sunlight. A needle? What in the world was he doing?
Astrid should have announced herself and not snuck up on him, but she also wanted to snoop a bit. Bjorn was still very much an enigma to her. The man was more mystery than he was reality, and she wanted to understand him.
So she didn’t announce herself, and instead crept up to a nearby pillar and peered around it. What she saw there was not what she ever would have guessed.
Bjorn had his legs spread wide, his pants down around his buttocks, and his cock in his hand. She got stuck on that for a moment, because what an impressive cock it was. It was slightly deeper green than the rest of his body, but the head was such a pretty pink, it was hard for her to even think about anything else. Not to mention the size.
