Page 112 of A Light So Blinding
Not a word was shared among them. Astrid remembered walking here her first time. She’d been so scared and had to fight so hard to not look as though she were trembling. She hadn’t wanted any of these people to know she was actually terrified.
But now she didn’t have to be afraid. Now she was the one with the power, and she would release all these women from their torment if it was the last thing she did in her life.
Soon enough, they made it to the cells where the women were kept. It was so eerily quiet in these corridors, like no one beyond wanted to move a muscle in case attention was cast upon them.
Another priestess, this one with long red hair, walked up to the first door and waved her hand over it. The lock clicked audibly, and then she moved down to the next, and the next.
Astrid waited as some of the other priestesses went into the rooms, but then she went into one herself.
The woman inside had likely not been here long. Though her dark hair was greasy and lank, she was still far cleaner than some of the other freed women who walked by. She sat on her cot with her hands placed in her lap, staring at the door with some sort of expectation.
“You knew I was coming,” Astrid said as she walked to the woman’s side.
“I did. There were a few others here who can see the future, and they said you were going to set us free today.” She looked up at Astrid with a soft smile on her face. “You are a surprise to all of us. I don’t think anyone believed them when they said you were coming.”
“I couldn’t leave any of you here.”
“Because of your sister?”
Astrid smoothed a hand down the woman’s head, brushing her hair back from her face. “Because none of you deserves to be here. This is not a fitting punishment for any crime.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“The sisterhood will hide you. I can’t promise it will be better than where you came from, but it won’t be here.”
The woman nodded. “It will be better no matter where they place us. But what if we don’t wish to stay in this kingdom?”
Astrid hadn’t thought of that. Her own sister hadn’t wanted to return, knowing what had happened to her. Many of these women likely wouldn’t be able to look men in the eyes or even find the help they needed when they knew so many people were aware of what had happened to them.
Some would have been traded to wipe away debts, just like Astrid had been. Some of their families might have been the very ones who sold their lives to darkness. Perhaps some of them had committed crimes, but as Astrid had said, this was not a punishment worthy of any crime.
So she answered for the trolls. “If you wish to go to Trollveggen, they will take you. I don’t know if any of you heard the declaration from months ago, but the troll king has set a decree that if you wish to live with the trolls, they will take all women who wish to do so.”
The woman smiled, and it was a bright, bubbly expression that broke Astrid’s heart. “I think I’d like that. I can tell the others, if you wish. There’s a lot more you need to do.”
“More I need to do?”
“Of course. You’re going to destroy this place.” Then she stood and wandered out of the room, gliding like a priestess was trained to do.
As Astrid followed her, joining the others, she saw a small group of priestesses who had set themselves off to the sides. They were the ones with physical magic, and their anger boiled around them. It stretched, sticky and powerful in all directions. Red veining spliced through the air, wanting to harm and maim and tear.
They were the ones who were going to turn this entire labyrinth upside down with the magic that boiled inside of them. Astrid could choose to go with the others, get them settled, be safe. Or she could stay here.
Whooping calls flooded the halls around them. It sounded like the trolls were surrounding them on all sides. Their shouts and cries of anticipation were surely because they were about to fight, which meant Astrid had run out of time.
“Start on the upper levels,” she told the other priestesses. “Tear it down from the top to the bottom so you don’t trap anyone within. Make sure there are obvious escape routes so we don’t leave the trolls behind, do you hear me?”
They nodded and darted away, each of them looking for the structures that supported the labyrinth. Soon enough, this place would be nothing more than rubble.
Astrid joined the women escaping, rushing through the crowd so that she was ahead of them all. “Let’s go, ladies. This way!”
She remembered how to leave, but she didn’t anticipate running into a wall of guards. Apparently, they’d caught wind of the escape plan. These men were far too prepared, and she knew without a doubt this was going to cause a problem she could not control. The guards all had swords in their hands and hard expressions that made her nervous.
She skidded to a halt, feeling the tension radiating at her back from so many women who had power they had yet to use. “You will let us pass,” she told the men.
“Those aren’t our orders.”
“Whose orders?” she hissed.
