The cat yawned, entirely unrepentant, and began to lick her paw with regal disdain.
Gryla, Queen of the Trolls, devourer of disobedient children, and eternal thorn in his side, looked infuriatingly regal in her frost-rimmed cloak. Her hair shimmered like spun silver, her horns polished to a mirror sheen, and her expression carried the particular smugness of someone about to ruin his evening.
“Gunnar,” she said, sighing as though simply speaking his name was exhausting. “Still single, I see.”
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “And yet, somehow, the world continues to spin.”
She ignored the jab, gliding toward the fire with exaggerated grace. Frost clung to her footprints until the heat hissed it away. “Your brothers are all out doing something with their lives. Ketill’s found a mate. Stenrik is cooking for tourists. And Njal is learning the old ways of healing. While you—” she waved a hand at the cluttered cave, “—are making knickknacks.”
“They’re charms,” he corrected. “Functional art. Protection, if you must know. Rowan keeps away bad luck.”
“Functional loneliness,” she countered.
Gunnar pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mother.”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me, boy. You’ve hidden yourself away here for decades. It’s unnatural. Trolls are meant for purpose—for passion!”
“I thought we were supposed to scare children and terrorize the villages,” he replied dryly.
She narrowed her gaze at him. “We haven’t done that for at least a century.”
“Because no one believes in us anymore.”
She grunted. “No one is scared of us anymore.” Then she waved her hand as if tossing away uncomfortable thoughts. “No matter! Trolls have always been known as passionate beings. Your father, for example.”
“Oh, stones. Not my father. Please spare me the oversharing about your sex life. I’m surrounded by it,” he groaned. “Besides, I have passion.” He gestured to his workbench. “Look at this grain pattern.”
Her dramatic groan rattled the delicate statues on the shelves. “You are impossible.”
“That’s what all the best sons are.”
Ketty leapt from the bench and wound around Gryla’s legs, tail flicking smugly. “At least someone appreciates me,” the queen murmured, scratching the cat’s chin.
“She’s using you,” Gunnar said darkly. “The moment you turn your back, she’ll shred your cloak.”
“Ketty is a delight,” Gryla said sweetly.
“She’s a menace,” Gunnar countered.
“Family resemblance, then.”
Gunnar muttered a curse that made the runes flicker in protest.
Gryla paced, the hem of her cloak whispering across stone. “I worry for you, my dear boy.”
He arched a brow. “I thought you worried about everything.”
“I do,” she admitted cheerfully, “but especially about my ungrateful, romantically useless sons who are turning into hermits. Do you want to end up like Uncle Eirik? Turned to stone mid-sulk?”
“I wouldn’t call that a sulk. He was meditating. For the patience to deal with you.”
“He was pouting,” she corrected, then lifted her chin and clapped her hands. A swirl of pale blue light flared in the air, coalescing into a hovering image—a woman wrapped in a red coat, a bag slung over her shoulder, cheeks flushed from the cold. Her hair glinted auburn in the illusion’s glow.
“This one,” Gryla declared. “She has potential.”
Gunnar squinted. “You’re conjuring strangers into my cave now?”
“She is a human artist,” Gryla said, proud as a cat presenting a dead bird. “She makes art sculptures with natural things or something like that. Very spiritual. She’ll appreciate your gloomy aesthetic.”
