His mother had looked at her and immediately assessed everything she lacked. And then left her, abandoned, not even bothering to try to raise her.
Fragile.Puny.Needs fixing.Needs toughening.Not troll enough.Not enough.
It didn’t matter that Gunnar was trying to reassure her. It didn’t matter that his voice was velvet-soft and his hands gentle. Those were words she’d heard before. In foster homes. With potential adopters. With people who promised things they didn’t mean.
People left. People always left.
She swallowed hard, her vision blurring around the edges. “Gunnar, I…”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t hold the softness there. Couldn’t bear how much he seemed to believe what he was saying.
“You don’t understand.” Her voice cracked, a tiny fracture. “You think I’m something I’m not.”
“Wren.” His brow furrowed. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
If she looked, she’d fall apart.
Instead, she pulled the furs tighter around her, curling in on herself, trying to make herself small. Invisible. Safe. Her pulse roared in her ears. Her breath hitched too fast.
All she could hear was Gryla’s voice.Puny. Fragile. We’ll toughen her up. We’ll make her suitable.
Wren shook her head sharply. “You don’t get it. I’m not cut out for this. For your family. For whatever you think we are.”
His eyes darkened with confusion, and something like fear.
“Wren, you are my…”
“Don’t.” The word tore out of her before she could stop it, too raw, too sharp.
Gunnar froze.
She pushed on, voice trembling, arms wrapped around her body in a vain attempt to comfort herself. “Please. Don’t say things you don’t mean. Don’t pretend I fit in your world. I don’t. I never have anywhere. I never will.”
His chest rose in a slow, pained breath. He reached for her again but she recoiled.
Barely an inch. But enough.
Gunnar went still, as if her flinch had pierced straight through him.
The silence between them thickened into something brittle. Something breakable. Something already cracking.
Wren looked away, because she couldn’t look at the hurt in his expression, couldn’t look at the hope she would inevitably destroy.
Because that’s what always happened. People like her didn’t get families. They didn’t get happy endings. They didn’t get trolls who wanted them forever.
Her throat closed, and her next breath rattled out shaky and thin.
She whispered, “I can’t do this, Gunnar.”
She didn’t see him break. But she felt it.
A quiet, devastated stillness that sucked all the warmth from the cave.
Gunnar didn’t argue. Didn’t roar. Didn’t beg. He simply drew back, the distance between them suddenly a chasm. He rose to his full height, shadows carving deep lines into his face, tusks low, eyes glacial.
The storm might have stopped outside—but the one inside the cave had just begun.
