Page 90 of The Stolen Heir

“So we’re prisoners?” I whisper.

He sighs. “We are indulging the fiction that we are not.”

I take a bite of the sweetened black bread. Then I take two more, practically stuffing the thing in my face.

“For how long?” Tiernan asks.

Oak’s smile is tight. “As short a time as possible. Let’s all keep our eyes open. Meanwhile, Wren, maybe I can look at your leg.”

“No need,” I say, but he ignores me, rolling up the bottoms of my pants. There’s blood, but it’s truly not so bad. That doesn’t stop him from asking for bandages and hot water.

Since I left the mortal world, no one cared for my wounds but me. The gentleness of his touch makes me feel too much, and I have to turn my face, lest he see.

An old troll man arrives carrying a wooden bucket full of water, sloshing over the lip when he moves. He has a patch over one eye and white hair in two long braids on either side of his head. In his ears, a half dozen gold hoops glitter.

“Let me take that,” Oak says, getting up.

The troll man snorts. “You? You’re little enough to take a bath in it, like a babe.”

“Nonetheless,” says the prince.

The old troll shrugs and sets the bucket down, indicating Oak should give it a try. He lifts it, surprising the troll.

“Put it on the fire to heat,” he directs the prince. “It’s for your lady.”

Oak places it on the hook of the metal tripod over the flames.

The old man sits to watch it boil and takes out a roll of bandages from his bag, handing it over.

Oak kneels by my feet. He has dipped one of the bandages in the water and uses it to wipe off the blood and clean the cut. His fingers are warm as he wraps, and I try to concentrate on anything but the feel of his hands on my skin. “I worried you might have been poisoned back in the woods.”

A troll child comes to sit next to Oak, saving me from having to answer. He shyly asks one question and then another; a second child comes over with more questions. Oak laughs as the kids compare the points of their ears with his, touch the small horns growing from his brow and the smooth keratin of his hooves.

“Grandfather,” one of them says in a high, childish voice that belies his size. “Will you tell the prince a story?”

I was almost certain they knew who Oak was, but the confirmation does nothing to quiet my nerves.

“You want a story to pass the time, princeling?” the old troll man asks.

“I do love a tale,” Oak says.

“Perhaps the story of the kings trapped in stone,” I put in. “And the curse.”

The troll man looks toward me, narrowing his eyes, then back toward the prince. “Is that truly what you want?”

He nods. The children’s giggling has ceased, and I worry I have broken some taboo by asking.

He begins with no hesitation, however. “There are two versions of this story. In the first, the kings are fools. That’s the story featured in songs we sang and plays we put on when I was a young man and given to laughter. When leaving the forest for longer than a handful of days seemed unimportant.

“They were supposed to be brothers, these troll kings. They shared power and riches peaceably for many years. Decked out in gold mined from deep in the earth, they had everything they wanted. That is, until they met a mortal boy, a goatherd, lithe of limb and with a face that ought to have been carved in marble. So comely that both the troll kings desired him above all others.

“He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the pretty goatherd had a wise mother, and she told him that if he chose one of the brothers, the other would surely prefer him dead rather than see his brother have what he wanted. If the goatherd wanted to live, he had to be sure never to choose.

“And so, the goatherd and his mother came up with a clever plan. He offered his love to the troll king who could hurl the largest boulder. First one and then the other threw larger and larger rocks until they were exhausted and no one could tell who had won.

“Then the goatherd told them that whosoever could defeat the other in a game of wrestling would have his heart. And so the brothers fought each other all through the night, and when the sun came up, both were turned to stone, and the goatherd was free to give his love where he pleased.”

I can imagine the funny play that might make, and how much it must annoy the cursed kings if they know about it. “What’s the serious version?”

---