Page 47 of A Spark So Bright
"Just curious, is all."
"You're curious about me?" He pressed a hand to his chest and faked that he was shocked. "I never would have guessed. Who is this person who decided to travel with me? Surely this isn't the Rose I know."
She rolled her eyes, the movement as foreign and unfamiliar as it was to be talking to another person this much. "I would like to know my captor."
"Captor. You could leave any time you wanted and I wouldn't stop you."
"Other than to make sure I didn't walk off a cliff." There was one conveniently right next to them. She headed over to it, dangling her foot over the drop that was at least ten of her heights down. "You're always so worried I'm going to do that."
The drop was still, somehow, intriguing. Not that she wanted to jump down to her death, just that it was possible. It wouldn't be the worst thing for her to die. Another adventure, she supposed.
"Rose," Gunnar warned.
"I know.” She stared down at the abyss where she could jump if she wanted to. "I'm being careful."
There wasn't much below them. Just a small, sparse clearing with dotted bushes. Hard to see when it was so dark out. Usually they had made camp by now, as the sun had already set in the distance and twilight emerged. It was rather green down there, though. Everything around them was always green.
Then the strangest thing happened. The bushes below shook, moved, and out rolled a caravan. A whole contingency of them. Four, no, five caravans that were brightly colored, lit by lanterns swinging on the sides. Each of them had patterns of swirls, brightly colored and standing out among the forest. Blue, orange, yellow, green, nearly a whole rainbow as they rolled into view.
She furrowed her brows, watching them as Gunnar came up beside her.
He cursed. "Of course. No wonder the king wanted me to intercept them. He's traveling with damned minstrels."
"Minstrels?"
"Trolls have all kinds of professions. These are..." Gunnar clearly struggled to find something nice to say. "They entertain. That's all they're good for."
The caravan train rolled to a stop, and then a slate gray troll leapt out of the one in the front. He was tall. Much taller than she'd seen before, and lean. For a moment, she saw him as another person. As Rhydian. Standing there with much darker skin and white hair, staring back at her.
Who was this man? She could see even from here that his snow white hair wasn’t just on top of his head. He had white eyebrows as well, with the longest ears she'd ever seen on a troll. And then, strangely, a spiderweb of black spiraled around one of his eyes.
"Don't jump!" he shouted up to her, with a melodic voice that she could listen to for hours. "I promise, there is much to live for."
She tilted her head, staring at the strange man. "Is there?"
"I'll prove it to you, maiden!"
Gunnar let out a low growl beside her and shouted down, "Get back in the caravan, your highness! Your father sent me to detour you straight into the mountain. Away from so much attention."
Then she swore she heard Gunnar add under his breath, "But apparently you’re here to flirt with anything female."
She shot him a look. "I think I like him."
Gunnar looked her up and down, his face darkening. "No, you don't."
Nineteen
Rose
Rose watched the prince of the trolls climb up the side of the mountain, and she still couldn't quite believe he wasn't an elf. Where the other trolls she had met so far were blocky—more an axe than a sword—this man was a rapier.
He was lean, but still somehow powerful. His body moved with an ease that was almost sinuous. Like a big cat. Like he knew how strong he was and how to use those claws on the tips of his fingers if he needed to, and yet it also seemed as though he was very much holding himself back. It was in the coiled bunching of his muscles as he crested the top of the cliff's edge she stood on, and how he stood there before them, tense and tightly wound.
"My father sent you?" the prince asked.
"King Egil was concerned you would be too easy to pick out on your travels, and considering the state of affairs here, he wanted to make sure his son arrived in one piece." Gunnar looked around him to glare at the brightly colored caravan onemore time. "He was correct. The humans would see you coming from a mile away."
"Perhaps that was part of the point. It is possible to hide in plain sight."
