"It's not safe for me to bring you where I’m going. Of course I wasn't going to bring you. You are safe here." He stood, trying to keep his movements slow and controlled when he was growing angry at her. "I will bring you back."
"I'm not going back."
"You are going back," he argued. "You will be watched by Torbin. He's a good man. You can trust him as much as you trust me."
"I'm going with you. Wherever you are going, I can go too." She stood as well, and even though she was still shaking, he could see that she had no intention of changing her mind.
Gunnar was stumped. The whirlwind inside him calmed at the thought of her coming. He'd know she was safe, and he would keep her with him, which felt, for some reason, better. But this was a woman who had only a few days ago relied on leaving her body behind when she got frightened. What would she do in the world beyond?
"Rose, you are not ready for this," he reasoned.
His words exploded in his face.
"How dare you?" she hissed, stalking toward him with that little knife raised as though it were a threat. "I get to decide when and what I am ready for. You don't get to speak for me. No one gets to speak for me anymore!"
Her words echoed around them, repeating until he swore he could hear it in different voices. Countless of them. Men and women who wanted him to remember the last sentence she had said.
He lifted his hands, a small smile crossing his face. "You are the one with the knife. I suppose you can do whatever you want."
"I'm going with you," Rose repeated. "I have no interest in being parted. I lost one of my safe places already. I will not lose the other."
Fractures burst in his chest. He was her safe place? He hadn't known that. Gunnar knew that she liked being around him, but he was the only troll who had made an unbreakable vow to keep her safe. Of course she felt as though she could trust him. He hadn't realized her loyalty to him, her comfort, went this deep.
Dropping his hands, he took a deep breath and made his decision. "Fine. You can come with me. But it's not going to be easy."
"I know." She slowly let the knife drop. "I didn't think it would be easy."
Gunnar wanted to laugh. Joy was hard to hide because he realized something very important as he started up the correct path toward the passage that led out of the mountain.
It only took a few moments for her to read him like a book. "What are you snickering about?"
"This is the longest conversation we've ever had. And it started with you stabbing me."
When she didn't immediately reply, he looked back to see that she was troubled by that. Her cheeks had a little color, not much, but a bit. And she was staring at his side where the knife had cut through his shirt.
Without thinking, he lifted his shirt for her to see the small red mark she'd left behind. "Troll hide is hard to break through. You held that knife right and let my body do the rest of the work, I imagine."
She licked her lips. "I'm sorry for that. I didn't really want to hurt you, I just?—”
"Don't apologize for keeping yourself safe. It's impressive, fair lady." He shot her a wink. "You can stab me any time you like."
Rose just stared at him. Any other woman might have rolled her eyes at his jest, but she seemed to take it to heart. "I will. If I need to."
She had teeth. Who'd have thought?
"Where has this woman been hiding?" he mused, gesturing for her to head into the darkness of the passage ahead of him.
"Not here," she muttered. She pulled her hood up over her head and ducked into the darkness. "I don't usually face the world often. I don't think I like it."
"I do." Gunnar didn't even have to tell her where to go. She seemed to know, walking around rocks as if she could see them. "Can you see in the dark?"
She didn't reply.
"Rose?" he asked, wanting to know how hard he could push this version of her.
"I can see the magic in the rocks," she said quietly. "It runs like veins through this mountain."
"Magic? There's no magic here."
