“Yes, I did,” he interrupts, and glances pointedly between me and the darkness ahead.
“Yes, you did, what?”
He looks irritated, as if explaining himself is physically painful. “I did have to follow you.”
“Worried that everyone would be angry if you let me die?” I ask. He nods once, and it’s my turn to scoff. “Story of my life.”
He doesn’t answer, but raises a brow in question. I pretend not to notice, and he clearly doesn’t care enough to ask out loud, so at last we’re silent as we edge deeper into the cave, our footsteps muffled against the icy floor.
The passage is long and winding, but finally the light changes ahead, and I can see that it opens up into a wide cavern. Fox sees the cavern at the same moment I do, and he stiffens ahead of me. He reaches for one of his swords with one large hand while holding the other arm out to signal me to stay back.
“Wait!” I hiss. Instantly, the glowing orb in my hand winks out, and we’re plunged into semi-darkness. I barely notice, my fingers flying to my potion belt. “Let me go first.”
Fox spares me half a glance. “Stay there.”
“No!” I say again, louder than I intended. I lower my voice back to a whisper. “Put that sword away! You don’t need it.”
This obviously surprises him because he stops and looks back at me fully, eyes wide with incredulity. His gaze flicks to the small sword still strapped to my belt.
I huff an exasperated breath. “That’s just in case something goes wrong. I don’t want to kill anything if I don’t have to. Here—” I pull one of my potion vials out of my belt “—this will juststun the troll. If it’s even here at all, which I’m really hoping it’s not, see?—”
Fox puts a hand up to stop me from talking, his expression somewhere between amusement and disgust. “Fucking witches,” he mutters again.
“I’m not a witch,” I say again. “‘Witch’ is a human word. Maybe you could say I’m a sorceress, but that’s usually referring to a witch with official training, which obviously I’ve never had, so?—”
Fox shoots me a look so withering, the only possible meaning is: “Shut the fuck up.”
I close my mouth, affronted, but don’t talk again as he creeps forward to peer into the cavern. I tiptoe after him, still holding my breath.
If he tries to kill the troll while it’s sleeping or something, what am I going to do? I can’t just let him slaughter an innocent creature. Maybe I could stun both of them with my potion? But then how would I explain that to Daemon and Alix when I get back to the estate?“See, what happened was, your guard captain was trying to protect me, so I knocked him out. He’ll be fine…probably…in a few days…a week at most…”
No, that definitely won’t go over well with the new king and queen.
“Wait—” I whisper. “Maybe we should?—”
Before I can finish speaking, Fox relaxes ahead of me and lowers his sword. “There’s nothing here.”
A spark of satisfaction shoots through me, and I resist the urge to whoop. “I thought so.” I grin. “I timed this perfectly. Good thing, too, because I never would have let you kill a troll unprovoked.”
He scoffs again, which is clearly his preferred method of communication. This time I take it to mean:“I’d like to see you try to stop me.”
I ignore him, stepping lightly around his large frame and into the cavern.
Weak sunlight spills through a jagged hole in the ceiling, illuminating an enormous circular chamber where the skeletons of hundreds of animals lie scattered around what can only be a troll’s nest.
I dart toward the crude bed, lined with straw and matted fur, my boots crunching over more small animal skeletons. I dig excitedly in my belt for an empty potion vial. There’s plenty of hair to collect, silver and shimmering among the filthy straw, and I waste no time plucking the shining hairs from the nest and stuffing them into the bottle.
“Hurry,” Fox mutters darkly.
“Calm down,” I hiss. “This will only take another minute. Trolls are nocturnal. Anyway, if it’s not here now, it probably won’t be back until dawn. We’ll be fine.”
I’m not expecting him to answer me, so I’m slightly surprised when he asks: “What were you going to do if it were here?”
I uncork another vial with my teeth, and my answer comes out muffled around the cork in my mouth. “I guess I would have had to fight my way out.”
He snorts a derisive, disbelieving laugh. “Do you even know how to use that sword?”
“Not exactly, but how hard can it be? It’s a giant knife.”
