Page 23 of A Spark So Bright
But now, with the sunlight beaming upon his features, she could get a real look at him. Like all trolls, he had the usual tusks jutting up from the bottom of his lip. They were strange to look at, mostly because they warped his bottom jaw and gave him far too square of features. His skin was an odd shade of green. Moreemerald and reminding her of green plants rather than what she had seen before from his kind, which was a greenish tone that was more stone-like than reminiscent of a living thing.
His face was framed by rather luscious locks of hair. Short, though. He only had hair down to his shoulders, but the locks were black as night and glistening in the sunlight. Lank, of course. Disgusting, like all of them who had been trapped in the labyrinth. They had the promise of beauty, though. And perhaps even a hint of a curl.
He glanced down at her, and she was caught in his spearing emerald gaze. Green, just like the rest of him. That gaze was powerful, though, so vivid that she wondered if he could see straight through to her soul.
"You're awake?" he asked, as though he wasn't sure if she would answer.
Right. He must have seen that she wasn't with it most of the time. Most of the time, Rose was wandering. She could hear others running nearby. How many of them were there?
"I am."
"Then all I can ask is that you hang on for a little while longer. We'll stop for camp soon and I will tend to you."
Tend to her? She was more focused on the strange cadence of his tone than whether or not she needed tending. The way he said the words wasn't entirely an accent she was used to. Everyone in this kingdom had different ways of speaking. She had heard many accents in her time there, and then of course there were visitors to this kingdom from others. But he spoke almost like Rhydian did. The strange way he wrapped his tongue around the words made her think of her friend rather than the men in the labyrinth.
Then he leapt over a log, or something. She wasn't looking forward so she hadn't the faintest idea what he was jumpingover. The movement jostled her leg and sent blinding pain throughout her entire body.
Throwing her head back, she gritted her teeth, so she wouldn't scream. She knew how to stay quiet through pain. She had done it her entire life, it felt like. But this was something else. This was a pain she had rarely felt.
"Sorry," the troll ground out. The muscles of his jaw ticked as she turned her attention back to him. "There's no good way to get through a forest while holding a woman with a broken leg. Like I said, hold on a little while longer. I'll set the leg once we're safe."
Set it? How bad was it?
Rose tried to sit up in his arms, but the best she could do was twist her body so she could lean over his massive bulk and see that her right leg was at an angle that just... wasn't right. It was awful to look at, clearly hanging off her body at an unnatural angle. Dangling there, so swollen it didn't even look like her limb.
She tried to fade away. Tried to slip back into that safe place where an elven man waited for her to read books to him, but he didn't let her. She could actually feel Rhydian blocking her, and the mocking words he sent into her mind: "This pain was of your own doing, little Rose. You will have to deal with it all on your own."
She'd forgotten that rule. She could hide from the pain others wanted to cause her, but she couldn't hide from the pain she had given herself. It was how he had gotten her not to kill herself over the many, many years of torment she had endured.
Rose had been the one to jump. She'd trusted Maia that it wouldn't kill them, but she had been the one to break her own leg.
So she gritted her teeth against the pain and endured. As she always did. Because Rose was good at enduring all manner of pain.
The troll carrying her slowed after what felt like hours. The others continued on, a few of them looking over their shoulders as he stopped beside a stream. She could see a small band of them stopping with him. Another troll, purple-skinned and tattooed, paused with the redheaded woman who was familiar.
"Why are we stopping?" she asked.
"To set your leg."
"Is it dangerous to stop?"
He paused beside the stream, gently lowering her onto a flat rock that was somehow still warm even as the sun set in the distance. "Very. But we are smart, and we have better hearing than you. No one will get close to us."
Rose watched him walk over to another troll and grab something off their back before he approached. Carefully, so carefully she knew he thought she was some feral creature who would snap at any moment, he draped the troll's borrowed cloak over her shoulders. The heat immediately enveloped her.
She hadn't realized how cold she had been. The temperatures outside had dropped, and the sudden warmth made her shiver. It was the opposite of how her body was supposed to react. She should have shivered while cold, not while warming up. It made no sense.
Then again, none of this made any sense at all. These trolls had taken her with them. She was in danger here, even more so than she had been in the labyrinth.
And still, her magic did not allow her to hide.
She wanted to wrap herself into a ball, but that couldn't protect her. Her leg hurt so badly she couldn't even curl up. Pulling the hood of the cloak over her head, she hid from the rest of the world and did her best to not exist.
Pretending like this wasn't as good as being with Rhydian, though. The darkness didn't hide her from the rioting thoughts and terror that pulsed through her veins, making her heart thunder in her chest and her stomach revolt against her own saliva.
She flinched when footsteps approached, the sound obviously intended to be loud so she knew he was coming.
Then a clawed hand, black tipped, peeled the hood away from her face. She would have screamed in terror if she hadn't recognized the soft, kind expression on his face.
