Page 86 of A Light So Blinding
Yet now he stood with the weight of the troll kingdom on his shoulders yet again, with all their expectations as they stared at him and cheered, knowing that he would lead them in a fight they could not lose.
He just wasn’t sure they were right. The humans had bested him before. And now he had something to lose.
Perhaps that was why his father had never truly loved his mother. Dag had been pragmatic. The man had always known that a woman could be his greatest downfall.
The king stood along with the other warlords. They all watched King Egil, waiting for the moment they were released. With a snap of his wings, their king nodded his head. “Go. Be with your people now.”
Then Bjorn was swarmed. Just like in the grotto, too many people touched him, lingering hands that made him want to snap at them. He would bite through their flesh if that was what it took for them to give him air, but he held himself together.
Barely.
He was near snapping when he saw a familiar face. Lavender colored features and tattoos down his left arm, it was hard to miss Ragnar where he stood at the back of the crowd. His oldest friend had his arms crossed over his barrel of a chest, waiting for all the others to get through.
So Bjorn did the same. He waited, enduring all the touches and well wishes with a nod of his head and what he hoped looked like a convincing smile. Until everyone had filtered out of the room and all that remained were he and Ragnar.
The last time he’d seen this purple-skinned bastard had been in the labyrinth. He’d had a troll wife then, although the redhead was nowhere to be seen at this moment. Apparently, only Astrid’s sister was brought along for important meetings like this.
Alone with his oldest friend, he had no idea what to even say. The last time they’d seen each other, Bjorn had been little more than an animal running on instinct. He knew there was no way to sugarcoat that. He’d killed in front of Ragnar, given them the only chance he’d known at getting out, and even then it hadn’t felt like enough.
Bjorn had scared Ragnar’s troll wife. He’d done the worst thing a male like him could do. Even though he’d tried not to, he knew what state he had been in when Maia had seen him.
The same state he’d been in when Astrid had seen him, although at least she had come upon him when he’d had a little more hope than before. He hadn’t been quite so animalistic as he had been before... well. Before.
Shaking out his hands, he snarled, “Are you going to say anything?”
Ragnar was too silent. Silence was usually a precursor to something horrible happening. Someone was going to attackhim, he could feel it. That itch crawled up his spine until Ragnar’s arms dropped to his sides.
“I don’t know what to say. Seeing you here, in your home, is strange. You are not the young man who used to live here, and yet, I see so much of him in you.” Ragnar’s face creased into a smile that was supposed to be reassuring, but it wasn’t.
Bjorn couldn’t parse out why it wasn’t reassuring. He didn’t want to be here. His soul felt like it was trying to crawl out of his body, as though if he could just get out of his skin then he could find a safe place to rest. To reset.
Then Ragnar was right in front of him, his hand on the back of Bjorn’s neck. They were both big trolls, always had been. They had trained together as young men, fighting, rolling, always locking tusks when they were younger.
Perhaps that old muscle memory was why he lunged forward and did just that. Their tusks locked, breath fanning against each other, the very air they breathed battling as they both held themselves just out of reach from fighting. They were not going to lose control just yet, but he could feel that it was close.
One of them was going to snap, and he was almost glad for it. Bjorn needed to fight. He needed to release these horrible emotions so he felt more like himself. He needed this.
But then Ragnar lifted his hand again, gently placing it on the back of his neck, and pulling him in a little closer. It was a gentle touch. Not one meant to fight, but to console.
Ragnar’s breathing wasn’t out of control like Bjorn’s was. He was steady and calm, his heart beating slowly, each inhale calculated and measured. Louder than it needed to be. As though he was trying to guide Bjorn through quieter, steadier breaths.
And it worked. Perhaps he was aided by the cool guidance of Ragnar’s magic as well, but he felt his anger simmering down tothe place it usually was. Manageable. Just out of reach in case he needed it, but he didn’t right now.
Their tusks unlocked. Their foreheads touched. And he stood there breathing with the man who had given up on him. The friend who hadn’t spent his lifetime searching for him, when he had been right there.
“You have every right to be angry with me,” Ragnar said, his voice pitched low. “I expected that. I knew that if you were going to make your way back to us, there would be a long time where we had to mend what we had.”
“You left me there.”
“I did. I didn’t know you were alive. None of us did. But the moment I found out you were there, I sent people after you. We tried. We tried to get you out, and we failed. I am sorry for that, brother.” Ragnar’s voice was unsteady at the end of it. As though he was honest in his words, but it was hard to believe them.
“Ten years,” Bjorn said. “Ten years of fighting. Ten years of losing myself, bit by bit until I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I buried every memory of this place, of the people who loved me. I hid in the violence, and it lives and breathes inside of me now.”
“This is not a wound I can heal.”
“No, it is not. But it is my reality, and the reality of so many others. You want to attack the castle? You want to take them back?” Bjorn breathed in and separated himself from Ragnar, reeling until his hands were pressed against the table. A map spread out before him, nowhere near detailed enough to get them into the castle the right way. “What if you lose all of them, Ragnar? What if we lose and all of them are trapped in the same place that we escaped?”
“It’s a risk we have to take. We could get them back. We could have gotten you back if we had tried hard enough, and wedidn’t.” Ragnar didn’t move, but Bjorn could feel his eyes on his back. “You would leave them there?”
