Page 27 of A Spark So Bright
Once again, the ghost of a priestess’s voice whispered through his mind.Her name is Rose.
Rose slipped her hand into his, and he closed his claw around her delicate wrist. "Rose,” he said. “It's very nice to meet you."
Then he swung her up into his arms and joined the others in their mad dash back to freedom. Back home to Trollveggen.
Eleven
Rose
Her first glimpse of Trollveggen was darkness. Rose hadn't realized how long it would take for them to even see a hint of light, and she felt herself spiraling.
Rhydian wouldn't let her back into her hidden realm. He continued to block her, no matter how much pain she endured, no matter how hard she fought to get back to him. The only thing she could find was an empty field, left there to remind her how alone she was right now.
It was terrifying. Every time she stepped out of her body, it was like she had been blocked from all her reasons to stay alive. She'd been cut free, left to drift in this realm that wasn't right. Nothing here served her. She was just made to serve others.
So when this massive troll stepped into the darkness with her dangling in his grip, she couldn't even breathe. What if something was wrong with her? What if she had gone blind? What if this was all a trap, and they had brought her here to eat her?
Anxious thoughts. He'd proven that he didn't want to hurt her, and she had promised to trust him when she hadn't trusted anyone else in a very long time. She was... Rose. A plaything for others. A body without a mind. That was all she had become, and that was all she was good for.
Perhaps she made some kind of noise, because the troll's arms came around her a little tighter. He tucked her against his chest, her head pressed against his heart so all she could hear was the steady, confident thud beyond the cage of his ribs.
He wasn't nervous. He wasn't frightened. But why would he be? This place had been made for his kind.
And then the world opened up.
Light bloomed in the distance, blues and purples and greens that were so vibrant Rose wondered if she had ever actually seen the colors before. She tilted her head back to look up at the leaves that were larger than she was tall, their outlines traced in neon light. They turned the world blue around her.
She looked at him, Gunnar, this troll who had promised he wouldn't hurt her. The light played across his features, making him somehow even greener than he had been before, and she didn't think it was possible for him to be even more colorful. Purple light traced along his smaller tusks that jutted up from his bottom lip, and those dark eyes looked down at her with a soft smile on his face.
"My brother will heal you soon," he said.
Her world came crashing down again. No, she wouldn't let anyone else touch her. She couldn't. She couldn't be touched again when Rhydian wasn't letting her run from this place. There was no safety for her. If another person touched her, did what they wanted, tore at her flesh and skin and bone, there would be no reprieve from the pain and the torment.
Gunnar took her reaction the wrong way. He tightened his grip on her, hushing her with soft words that were meant toreassure. “It’s different,” he said. “I know it’s different. But you’ve survived worse than this.”
She saw the others look at them, and her gaze traced all the terrifying features there. The scars, the tusks, the suspicious gazes.
They looked at her and saw something broken. Something bleeding. They saw weakness, and she knew that was dangerous to show in a place like this. They would pick at her, just like every creature did when it saw something weaker than itself.
Her breathing turned erratic. She could feel that she didn't have a good hold of it and that if she wasn't careful, she was going to hyperventilate.
"I'm bringing you to my home," Gunnar was saying. "I would bring you to our childhood home, but I gave that over to Ragnar a while ago. He's got a new wife, you see, and I think you'll be fine in the barracks. I'm sure they'll understand once I get you there. Then we'll have a healer look at your leg."
"No," she gasped. "No one can touch me."
"I'm touching you now, Rose. You are going to be fine if someone else heals that leg of yours."
"No!" The sound was almost a shriek, unbearable even to her ears. Panic set in, and for a moment, she wasn't even human. She was a feral creature, kicking and clawing at him, leg be damned. If she broke the damn thing again getting away, at least she would be free. She wasn't in the labyrinth.
She wasn't with the king.
The knowledge seared through her, finally sinking in that she wasn't within King James's grasp any longer. She didn't have to fight any longer if she didn't want to. Holding herself together, clutching at the tattered pieces of her soul had been so exhausting, and now all she wanted to do was scream.
So she did. She screamed until her throat went raw. Even feeling him place her down on a cot and hearing him begging forher to stop didn't end the sounds that burst forth from her body. She couldn't control them. She couldn't stop them either. They weren't human sounds. They were raw and blistering rage that had been pushed down for such a long time.
Until she slipped away. Until finally her mind snapped and she slipped away to that other realm where Rhydian waited for her with a disapproving expression on his face.
"That was rather dramatic," he scolded.
