Page 14 of A Spark So Bright
"You have always played nice," the king scolded. "And now you decide to fight? After all this time?"
Rose trembled. She could feel the bed shaking beneath her with the force of it. "He planned to deny your wishes. I was trying to get him to come back, to use me as you had gifted me to be used. I was just... just trying to follow your wishes."
"Were you now?" He leaned down to stare into her eyes, looming over her as a dark shadow that maybe, maybe, could send her into that other realm.
But he never touched her. Not once. That young, naive girl who had been so confident before seeing him, trying to tempt a king, shriveled underneath that blank stare. She'd wanted him to love her so much and romanticized what her life would be like with this king who had seemed larger than life. She had thought she would become a queen with all the power of the realm at her fingertips.
And now look at her.
"You know," King James said quietly, his hand soft and gentle as he brushed his fingers through the locks of her hair. "I have found your use to be less and less these days. Now you're killing the people I send to you? Little Rose. You were so much fun for such a long time, but I think my toy has finally broken. You should have been grateful for all the kindness I’ve shown you for these long years. Now you're going to see what life is like when you are no longer in my favor."
Her heart stuttered in her chest, but then maybe... maybe this was good. The worse her life was, the more likely she was to hide from all of this.
If she survived.
Six
Gunnar
Gunnar perched on top of a roof, trusting the darkness to hide him from the prying stares of the people who walked beneath him. There were plenty of humans on the streets, but they never looked beyond the glowing orange lights that illuminated their steps.
The people in this kingdom were never aware of their surroundings. They were so stuck in their routines, following the same paths every day, seeing the same people, that they never even considered there might be any deviance.
Like a troll lurking above them.
He crouched on the slatted shingles, his claws digging into the shards of stone that kept him locked in place. This had been a long time coming. Years, in fact. But finally, after all this time, he was going to have the final piece in a puzzle he'd spent a long time trying to put together.
This home belonged to a nobleman who had been very busy in the black market. He'd been buying up all the items he couldget related to trolls. Jewelry. Spells. Even little bits and bobs that were children's toys at best.
Gunnar was here for one reason though, and that was for this man's newest acquisition. He'd finally bought something that the trolls simply could not allow him to have. King Egil knew better than to send someone who would bludgeon their way into the house or dig through the basement and make it painfully obvious who had stolen from this nobleman.
No, when something like this happened, he sent Gunnar. Silent, smaller, quicker Gunnar, who could slip in and slip out unnoticed.
The king should have known better in this situation. Because Gunnar had absolutely no plan on getting in and out quietly. Not from this house. He had a vendetta, and he planned to make sure the debt this nobleman owed him was paid in blood.
He waited until the right moment, when the lights guttered as the candles within them burned low. Someone would return soon enough with a new candle and a ladder, but until then, darkness hid his lithe form as he climbed down the wall of the building and entered through a window.
The home was quiet. Everyone was fast asleep in the depths of the house, all of them tucked into their beds without a single idea that a monster had just crawled into their midst.
He stayed low, crouched on the floor so no outside light would catch him from the windows as he moved through the building. First, he would get to the storeroom where he knew the artifact was kept. Then he would find the nobleman's bedroom, and he would make him bleed. He couldn't get a scream out of the man like he wanted, but he absolutely could make the villain pay in silence for all the pain he had wrought.
The house was full of plush carpeting, likely because this building was very old and the nobleman was just as ancient as the stone that surrounded him. He must’ve felt the cold worsethan most. The thick carpets beneath Gunnar’s bare, clawed feet hid the sound of him moving stealthily through the shadows. No one would be the wiser.
He reached for the first door, gently nudging it open and praying the hinges were well oiled. They were, thankfully. And he looked inside to see the room was one of the nobleman’s daughters, stuffed to the brim with toys that surrounded the little girl in a pile on the bed.
Gunnar didn't want her to wake. The last thing he needed was a child terrified of the monster she had always known was beneath her bed. He pulled the door shut quietly and went down to the next.
This entire house was full of people, it seemed. That made things infinitely more complicated. How many little girls were in this house? There seemed to be ten of them, but he had heard the man was prolific. How he had enough funds to care for them all, Gunnar had no idea.
Finally he got to the rooms that were clearly more private. There was a library, which was not what he wanted. A study with a warm, crackling fire still rolling inside of it, and servants' quarters that were meager at best, mostly barren. Everyone remained asleep.
Finally, he got to the old man's collections, which were numerous. Gunnar slipped into the room filled with glass cases and then closed the door silently behind himself. He stretched out his back as he moved through what looked like a small museum that the old man had set up. Really, it would have been impressive if it wasn't so repulsive.
There was a little hat on one stand that had once part been of a child's festival outfit. The next was a small knife that they usually kept in their boots, truly an interesting item to collect, and he wasn't sure how the man had gotten that. A small toy thatwas in the shape of a rock had been leaned against a stand so a viewer could see that it opened to reveal the gemstones inside.
The walls were covered with framed pieces of clothing that trolls had once worn. Some of them even had the bloodstains still on them from when the troll had lost their life. One corner had a full set of armor on what looked like a wooden frame so someone could stand beside it and see how large the troll had actually been.
It was all insane. All of it.
