Gunnar was largely unfazed by all of this. He stalked ahead of her, his shoulders square and those pointed ears of his flicking at any sound that he heard. He couldn't move them as much as a horse or donkey could, but he definitely moved them more than most trolls.
Every now and then he would stoop, looking at the ground for some track that she couldn't pick out, and then he'd change their course.
They didn't talk much, even when he set up the tent for her to sleep in. He'd only brought one, and that was something Torbin had failed to tell her to bring. Of course she needed a tent. Gunnar was going on a journey through the forest, and it made sense that they'd be sleeping outside. But she hadn't thought about it.
City girl, she supposed. Here Rose had been expecting to find an inn somewhere, even knowing that a troll would never be invited into one.
She stood in front of the tent, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. She stared at the open flap that he was holding up, certain that she was brave enough to do this. A tent was easy to get into. He was still Gunnar.
Then he snorted out a breath. "I'm keeping watch. You will sleep in here by yourself, Rose."
"But you need to sleep too."
"Not as much as humans. If you weren't here, I'd still be traveling. I can see in the dark." He gestured for her to go into the tent. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we go faster."
Faster? She'd thought they had already gone pretty fast.
She was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The next few days led them down the mountain at a grueling pace. Rose’s thighs hurt. Her head hurt. She was constantly feeling as though she was somehow slowing him down and also moving too fast for her to control. Rose kept slipping on the smooth rocks, especially when they started down the steep inclines.
It rained one day, and that was the worst. Her cloak helped a little. It kept most of the rain off her face, but it didn't stop her from getting soaked to the bone. And still, Gunnar didn't pause their journey.
He checked in on her. Endlessly. The man seemed certain she was going to die at any point, and that this was the gods’ way of proving that he should not have let her come. Of course, he would have used any excuse to send her right back home. But Rose was having fun, even during the worst of it.
She hadn't experienced this in a long time. She hadn't lived, as Rhydian said. The dead man wouldn’t be able to say a word when she returned to the made-up world in her head with a bossy ghost who liked to tell her how to live her life.
On the fifth day, they slowed down. Finally. And a question burst out of her.
"Where are we going, anyway?" she asked.
Rose still felt a bit like she wasn't supposed to know. Or ask. Or converse with anyone. The whole point of her continued existence had been in disappearing, and being here was still very strange. Her focus was off. She didn't know when to be silent or when to speak, so she had just decided that she would be silent always. Better to wait for someone else to speak with her than to talk at the wrong moment.
Except he didn't seem to want to talk. Ever. Gunnar usually was a wealth of words, talking until he was purple in the face and the other trolls were wandering off, trying to get away from him.
Now? On this journey, he was silent as the grave. This was a version of him she had never seen. Stoic. Watchful. His gaze flicked over every shadow in the forest, every space between the trees, always ready and aware for something to pop out at them. Not that anything ever did.
He looked over his shoulder, finally slowing down. "Right, I didn't tell you, did I?"
"No," she replied sullenly.
"We're heading to escort the prince. We're going to divert him from his current band and journey with him back to Trollveggen alone. That way, no one will know where he is."
"Oh." A troll prince? She supposed that had to make sense. There was a troll king, after all. But she hadn't ever thought about King Egil having a son. "What's he like?"
"Don't know. He grew up away from the mountain. I think people who have lived in the kingdom have only seen him..." Gunnar paused, counting in his head before nodding. "Four times. And that was when he was very young."
"You haven't seen him before?"
"Nah. Ragnar and I were so busy. When we were children, training always came first. Much more than a royal spectacle of a boy who wasn't even going to train with us."
The glimpse into his life sparked her interest. Rose had spent such a long time researching, but she'd never thought to research him. "So you and Ragnar trained often?"
"Most days. If not all of them. Ragnar had to learn how to heal, and someone had to get injured for him to do that."
She must have made some kind of noise, because he looked at her again. A slant of sunlight illuminated his features, and Rose was struck by how handsome he might be. She didn't know much about being attracted to another person. It wasn't in her to do so. At least she didn't think it was. But his jaw was very square. His face was finely made , with a strong nose and arched cheekbones that gave him rather interesting features. His tusks were smaller, but still very much there. And of course, his lovely bright green skin was so... different.
"Why do you ask?" He arched a brow at her.
