by Nicole Hall
“Trust me. Hold on tight and don’t let go for anything.”
“What are you babbling about?” Before the question left her mouth, Aiden changed from a man to a sleek, dappled grey horse. His coloring resembled the wolf, and his eyes remained golden. Maddie reached out to pet his soft nose, and he snorted on her hand.
Cassie taunted Will again, louder, but Maddie wasn’t sure if it was because they were moving closer to the stable or if Cassie was trying harder to warn them. Either way, they needed to leave. She spotted a stool in the corner of the stall across the aisle and dragged it next to Aiden. His unexpectedly slick back reached past her shoulder.
She’d grown up in Texas, but she’d never spent any time around horses before. Even with the stool, she couldn’t figure out where to put her hands to boost herself up. In the end, he knelt down while she tried not to slide all the way across his back and onto the stable floor. He stood, and she clenched her hands in his mane to keep from falling off.
Maddie leaned low over his back and whispered, “Mush.”
Aiden turned gingerly toward the open door, then with a burst of speed they flew over the grass. The cold wind pushed her hood back and tossed her hair behind her. Maddie wanted to squeeze her eyes shut in fear, but she trusted Aiden. He wouldn’t do anything to knock her off. She stayed low on his back, and in the distance behind them, she heard another yowl. The cry sounded like a cat in pain, but she didn’t dare shift her weight to look back.
They eschewed the path in favor of following the coast, keeping the peak of the hills between them and the Tavern. The trip back the way they’d come passed in a fraction of the time even though they took a longer route, and Maddie wondered why they hadn’t ridden in the first place.
The silhouettes of the stones appeared over the next hill, and Aiden slowed to a walk. He stopped in the darkness next to two of the stones, sweaty and panting, and Maddie finally looked back. A shadowy hillside marked the stillness behind them. She slid off and wobbled on the ground, but didn’t fall. Aiden shifted back into a man and swayed unsteadily. He reached out for the rock, and Maddie pulled his arm over her shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here.”
He nodded, and the familiar tingle of magic washed over her. The space between the stones shimmered, and sprites floated into view. Aiden didn’t say anything as Maddie took some of his weight. Her feet dragged a bit, sad to leave the respite and Cassie’s unexpected protection behind. Maddie planned to come back some day and ask her why she’d helped.
Aiden regained strength as time passed. At some point, he reclaimed his weight, but he didn’t move his arm. Maddie kept pace next to him, concentrating on breathing evenly, though her pulse raced both from the close escape and his nearness.
“Thank you,” he said.
She waved his thanks away. “Why were you weak all of a sudden?”
“The wolf comes easily, but the horse is trickier.”
Maddie nodded as if that made sense. “Sure. I’ll bet the polar bear really takes it out of you.”
He grinned. “I’ve never tried a polar bear.”
“Not a yeti then, huh?”
“Nope.”
They walked for a long while on a gravel path in the pre-dawn twilight, but the trek came to an abrupt end at a copse of trees. The trail disappeared, and they found themselves standing in a forest of pines at sunrise, but distinctly different from the forests back home. The woods in Texas brimmed with heat and bugs and underbrush. This forest in Norway boasted sparse beauty. Bright green moss covered the ground, and a trail of loose stones led between the trees.
The sky faded to light blue, though the sun hadn’t crested over their particular area yet. Snow lingered in the shadows under the trees, sparkling in errant shafts of sun as the branches shifted in the breeze. Maddie’s breath fogged in front of her, and she groaned.
“Why didn’t I put on more layers? Every place we visit is colder than the last.”
Aiden hugged her against his side for a second, then let her go to take a few steps up the path. “At least it’ll be daytime here. Almost no time has passed since we left Scotland.”
Maddie’s face scrunched. “How do you know? I always have to check my phone.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “I don’t think you’ll have much luck of that here.”
“Yeah, I know. Cell reception is spotty, but Oskar has a satellite phone. If I can find service, he’ll answer my call.” Maddie pulled her phone out of the special pocket in her backpack and checked. No service at all. Not really a surprise. “We’re going to need to walk for a bit. At least it’ll warm us up.”
They settled into silence as Aiden created a path of his own between the trees and rocks. The air smelled crisp, and the spicy scent of pine needles wafted up to Maddie as she walked. Her muscles warmed as they moved, and she let her mind wander. She was pretty sure Aiden didn’t know where exactly they were, and she was absolutely sure he had no idea where they were heading. Her phone would vibrate if it connected, so she stuffed it in the thigh pocket of her leggings where the warning would be impossible to miss.
Aiden hadn’t answered her question. He’d sidestepped it handily, which made Maddie think he’d had some practice at deflecting. Any other information she requested about magic he provided without hesitation. When she asked him something personal though, he found a way to not answer.
Maddie got that. The shard of ice and the guilt inside her never went away. She understood the sentiment of not wanting to reveal the terrible things she’d done. Maddie didn’t blame Torix for all of them. In the beginning, she’d had more control. She’d reveled in the power, indifferent to who she hurt.
Sera and Jake knew about the actions, but they didn’t know that she’d secretly liked the sense of power it gave her. The rules that had caused so much pain no longer applied to her.
Before Sera came to visit and Torix took control, Maddie’s life had been focused in a different direction. She flexed her left arm and tried to straighten it out in front of her. A twinge of pain at her shoulder made her wince, and she dropped her arm back to her side. Ten years later, and the nerve still ached when she used those muscles.
She’d been an archer, a good one. Good enough to be in training for the Olympics. An accident on the way to dinner one night had stolen that dream from her. Her car had been side-swiped by a giant truck that ignored the stop sign at an intersection. The impact shattered her bow shoulder, and when it healed, the scar tissue caused reduced movement. She couldn’t hold her bow in the proper position, so no more archery, no more Olympics. No more future.
Maddie had shrugged off the loss to Jake and her parents. She’d told them it was no big deal, that she’d been getting bored with it anyway, but a part of her died when she’d packed away her bow. She’d spent the following months making consecutively worse choices, then she’d found Torix in the Wood.
He’d promised her power, which intrigued her, then he’d tapped into her greatest wish and promised healing. Or at least, that’s what she’d heard. Maddie couldn’t remember his actual words anymore, but he’d never had any intention of fixing her shoulder.
After being jerked around by fate, she’d craved the ability to protect the future she wanted. It turned out she couldn’t even protect herself.
“Maddie.” Aiden’s sharp voice snapped her out of her reverie. Her steps had slowed, causing Aiden to pull ahead of her. He stalked back, a frown marring his pretty face. “What’s wrong?”
Maddie hesitated with ‘nothing’ on the tip of her tongue, but pushing aside her pain had started this whole mess, hadn’t it? Maybe the time had come to stop hiding behind a façade of apathy.
She stared at Aiden’s feet as he approached. “I make bad decisions.”
Aiden stopped within arm’s reach of her, and her eyes flicked up to his face. “No, you don’t, marenkya. At least not always. I’m particularly fond of your decision to try to save me from the salamander.” He rubbed h
is chin like he was thinking. “And the one where you crawled into my bed. I felt like that was solidly in the good decision category.”
She smiled, but shook her head. “See, that’s what I mean. I decided to lower my shields, and Torix found me. Bad decision.”
“Only if you look at it that way. Without that decision, you wouldn’t have come back for my help. Without you, I wouldn’t be this close to the artifact.”
Maddie sighed and gazed out into the forest next to them. “And you wouldn’t have drawn Torix’s attention without me.”
He reached out and picked up her hand, cradling it between his. “That was going to happen no matter what. I don’t regret any of the time I’ve spent with you, and I’m glad I got to know the real you.”
She blushed. All the years they’d spent together sowing disaster for Torix didn’t provide a great foundation for a relationship. “You don’t know the real me.”
“Then tell me.”
“And ruin all the good feelings you have going. I don’t think so.”
“Try me.”
He stood there, holding her hand, and patiently waiting for Maddie to choose to expose herself. No more hiding. She couldn’t meet his eyes, but she could stare past his shoulder and talk.
“I’m not a good person. My whole family has this image of me that isn’t me. Torix gave me a choice, and I chose power. He didn’t even have to coerce me to do most of the early stuff.”
“You forget, I was there. Your early stuff was pretty pathetic for an evil genius.”
She stiffened. “I never said I was an evil genius.”
His thumb traced a line down her palm, and she looked up at him without meaning to. “You enjoyed the freedom of it.”
Maddie’s shoulders relaxed. He understood. “Yeah. Suddenly, I was the one making the rules, and my rules were all about me. Torix nudged me along toward making bad decisions, but I was already on that road.”
A fleeting smile crossed his face. “I don’t think your bad decisions were all that bad.”
“I took advantage of Evie and tried my best to make Jake’s life hell.”
“Yes, it was a dastardly plan of befriending a lonely old lady and annoying your brother.”
She yanked her hand away. “It’s not the actions that upset me. It was the intention to cause harm.”
He cocked his head. “But were you intending to cause harm? Evie taught you useful magic skills, and it made her feel useful herself. Nothing you did was actually harmful to Jake. Could it have been more that you didn’t care if your actions harmed someone?”
Tears gathered in her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. “I tried to sacrifice him to free Torix.”
Aiden wiped away the wetness. “That wasn’t you anymore. We’re talking about teenage Maddie. How long did that phase last? A couple of months? By that point, Torix was already leaning more heavily on you, and you weren’t even out of high school yet. I know. He had me watch you before he had us work together.”
Maddie opened her mouth, then shut it again. Her selfishness in the beginning had bothered her, but she’d never examined how long exactly she’d reveled in the joy of having power. Knowing that Aiden had watched her, had seen all the things she’d done, surprisingly made her less nervous about her admission. If he’d seen, then he already knew all her worst parts. Her eyes widened as an event near the end of her senior year surfaced in her memory.
“How often were you watching me?”
He looked away for a second, and when he met her gaze again, there was way too much secret knowledge in his eyes for her liking. “Probably more than you’d be comfortable with. If it makes you feel better, Torix never let me shift away from the wolf, so it was hard getting into buildings.”
It did make her feel better. “I’m going to need you to swear to secrecy about anything you saw during that time.”
His eyes glittered with mirth. “I’ll keep your secrets.”
Maddie sighed. This conversation had gotten off track in a big way, but some of the wounds she’d been punishing herself with had stopped hurting so bad. Her past would never be a source of joy, but maybe Torix deserved a larger portion of the blame than she’d assigned him.
She’d have to spend some time alone sorting through painful memories.
Aiden wasn’t done though. “Did you ever consider that your family accepts you and loves you anyway, mistakes and all?”
“No, that would make it hard to wallow in self-pity.” A small weight lifted off her chest. She’d never doubted that her family loved her, even Sera made it clear. What she’d doubted was their ability to accept the bad things she’d done. But without talking to them about it, how would she know?
Aiden smiled, and she detected a hint of smugness there. Calm acceptance was not the reaction she’d expected. He knew a lot more about her than she’d thought, and it made her wonder what he’d done under Torix’s bidding…and what Torix had promised to him in the first place. She remembered his deflection when she’d mentioned the long time between his visits with Seth. What had Torix possessed that Aiden wanted?
A craggy new voice with a heavy Scandinavian accent broke the moment. “Are you two done sharing yet?”
Maddie’s gaze shot to the pile of rocks next to them. One of the rocks blinked slowly at her, then began to stand. It rose up and up until it reached almost twice Maddie’s height. Once it stopped moving, she recognized the square stature of a troll. Patches of moss covered his mottled grey skin, and a tattered piece of cloth that might have once been white hung around his waist. A black satellite phone clipped to the fabric at his hip pulled the material dangerously low. She blinked, then grinned at him.
They’d found Oskar.
8
MADDIE
“Hey Oskar, how’s it going?” Maddie remembered that trolls liked their personal space and kept her distance.
Aiden craned his neck up at Oskar, then stared at the much smaller pile of rocks where he’d been hiding. “How’d you do that? I didn’t sense any magic until you announced yourself.”
Maddie smirked, excited to finally know something he didn’t. “He was in his natural state. It requires magic for them to take humanoid form.” She nodded in Oskar’s direction. “He has to use magic to maintain it. Once he’s done talking to us, he’ll go back to being a rock.”
Aiden nodded and murmured, “Interesting.”
Oskar chuckled, and it sounded like the crunch of gravel rubbing together. “I don’t remember you being so forthcoming, Maddie.”
She shrugged. “I’m getting verbose in my old age.” Oskar bent over laughing, and Aiden gave her a questioning look. “It’s an inside joke because Oskar thought I was a child when he first met me. I hadn’t recovered my sense of humor yet. It made for an awkward conversation.”
“I’ll bet. How did he find us?”
“When I asked him last time, he said he followed the melody. He couldn’t explain it better than that because we didn’t have the right words in English. I think that’s how he experiences magic, by sound.”
“Okay.” Aiden didn’t ask any more questions, and he seemed content to stay back and observe.
Maddie’s shoulders relaxed, grateful that he let her take the lead in this situation. Oskar was kind, but he didn’t much like being challenged. She didn’t want to find out what would happen if he started to view Aiden as competition.
She waited until Oskar had straightened up again before continuing their conversation. “I need your help.”
He spread his hands out. “I can’t change your past, mitt barn.”
She shook her head. “Not with that. We’re looking for an old magical necklace. Some pirate a long time ago stole it from a selkie and brought it to this area.”
“That is a very vague description.”
Maddie put her hands on her hips. “You’ve had more than one pirate show up with a necklace stolen from a selkie?”
He mimicked her pose, but it was a lot more threatening
coming from a ten-foot-tall troll. “We don’t ask for histories of the treasures we keep.”
She grinned. “So you do have treasures.”
His eyebrows came together. “I forgot you are clever.” He stared at her, and Maddie felt like he was searching for something. She held her breath, then sighed in relief when Oskar smiled. “Yes. You are clever, and a treasure of your own. Come. We’ll join the others, and you can attempt the test.”
“Test?” Maddie sputtered.
“All treasures must pass the test. Come, mitt barn.” He turned and lumbered through the trees.
Maddie threw a panicked glance at Aiden, but he only shrugged and followed the path Oskar had made for them.
The troll encampment hid at the edge of a river winding through the national forest, far enough back from the shore that any wayward humans wouldn’t notice giant moving rocks. Maddie used the word ‘encampment’ generously. A large fire marked the central space, and the trolls mostly lounged around wherever they could find room.
Maddie warmed her hands by the fire while Oskar consulted with two other trolls away from the rest of the camp. Aiden took his time joining her.
“Are you sure you trust them?” he asked quietly.
Maddie stared at the fire. “I trust Oskar. I’ve never met the rest of them. I’m also not okay with being tested.”
“If it gets us the necklace…”
“Then you take the test.”
“So far, none of them have acknowledged me other than when we first saw Oskar. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Great, and what happens if I fail the test?”
Aiden’s silence unnerved her. At least he wasn’t offering her trite reassurances. Neither of them knew what the test involved or the repercussions of failure. Maddie glanced over at Oskar. Come to think of it, he hadn’t explicitly said she’d get the necklace if she passed either.
The three trolls nodded at each other, then headed back toward the fire and Maddie. Her head began to swim from holding her breath. Oskar, flanked by the unknown trolls, stopped in front of her as she sucked in air.
