Curse of the Troll by Emma Hamm (novels to read .txt) 📕

Gods, she didn’t know how to answer that. There were too many avenues she could take. Instead, she ended up being truthful. “I don’t really know, to be honest. But I’d like to find out, so I need you to take me to him. I need to find out what he is to me.”

The buggane clasped its hands to its chest and sighed. “Oh, a love story.”

Elva held up her hand. “That’s not what I said—”

“You love him!”

“I really don’t think that’s the reason I want to find him, and besides—”

The buggane held up its hand, mirroring her movements and censoring her with a harsh look. “We love love stories. There’s nothing we honor more than a woman trying to find her mate.”

Her mate? She didn’t have a mate, and Elva didn’t believe in soulmates to begin with. Love was finding someone she could stand living with until she couldn’t stand them anymore.

But then again…maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she was wrong.

“Oh!” The buggane turned and slapped the shoulder of the one behind her. “Did you see? Did you see the moment she realized?”

“I don’t love him,” Elva said again. It wasn’t possible that she loved him. They’d only known each other under strange circumstances and for such a short time. She’d have to be mad to fall in love with a man that quickly.

Even if he was kind and thoughtful. Even if he understood what was going through her mind, and when he didn’t, he gave her the space to figure it out on her own. It didn’t matter that he’d seen more than just her beauty but her strength as well, and no one else had ever seen that in her. That didn’t matter. It couldn’t be love. Not this soon.

The buggane watched her carefully and then nodded firmly. “I’ll take you.”

One of the other creatures, the one who hadn’t spoken yet, whispered, “My love—”

“No.” The buggane shook her head. Elva was certain it was a “she” now. “I’ve made up my mind. I want to take her. And in return, she’ll tell me the entire story so I can tell the others over the fire.”

A small price to pay. Elva glanced back at the bushes she’d come out of and signaled a thumbs up to Angus. The dwarf wasn’t visible, but she was certain he was watching. She hadn’t wanted him to come with her anyway. This was a journey that was far better off on her own.

“All right,” Elva said. “Do you need to get ready?”

“Not at all.” The buggane held out its arms. “Come along, faerie. I’ll carry you the whole way.”

She was going to have to be close to all that wet fur? Elva tried not to wrinkle her nose. It would take her years to wash the smell off her skin. The things she was doing for this foolish dwarf who’d gotten himself into a ridiculous mess. Donnacha had better appreciate her efforts to find him.

Elva stepped into the creature’s arms and let it sweep her up. The journey was swift, over the hills and dales as only a buggane could run. Elva was shocked at the creature’s pace. She’d known bugganes were quick, but she hadn’t realized their magic was in their ability to travel from place to place.

The creature ran like the wind itself was underneath its feet. They raced past villages without a single person seeing them. The fur rustled around her, but it didn’t seem as though they were running that fast. She would have thought it was only a comfortable lope if she hadn’t seen the earth moving by them so quickly.

“Tell me the story,” the buggane whispered, its voice somehow easy to hear even though they were running.

And so, Elva did.

She left out no detail, even her own emotions that she hadn’t given words to yet. She poured all her abilities of storytelling into the tale. She embellished the cursed bear, the ice castle, the places outside of the world they knew.

Each moment she said something remotely romantic, the buggane would sigh in her ear. Elva admitted the story did seem fantastical. Now, she was racing to the man’s side so that they could defeat the Troll Queen and take down a kingdom of evil creatures who punished those who didn’t deserve to be punished.

She’d never been a woman who wanted to be a hero. In the beginning, she just wanted to live a quiet life of luxury, and then it turned into wanting a life that was just quiet, solitary. Elva had wanted to learn how to protect herself, to push everyone away so no one could hurt her again.

Until a bear appeared. A terrifying, monstrous creature who could have torn her limb from limb easily. Except, he hadn’t. He’d been kind, sweet, and generous in his ability to understand her pain and hardship.

By the time they stopped, she felt as though all her emotions had been wrung out. Maybe they had. She didn’t know how the bugganes found their magic. Perhaps, they were creatures who ate stories like this.

The buggane let her down and patted the top of her head. “You’ve done well, little faerie. Now, go find your man.”

“But where are we?”

The buggane pointed down the hill they were on. “There’s your troll kingdom. Might I suggest starting with the princess? She’s your best bet at learning how to get in there.”

As the creature behind her raced away, Elva feasted her eyes on the kingdom below. Stone buildings, roughly hewn and clearly without any guidance, dotted the horizon. Twin lines of creatures stood at the roadside, and they were more disgusting than she’d ever seen before. She thought the bugganes were hard to look at? The trolls were even worse.

Stone hides, leather, bark, all the textures that shouldn’t have been on a creature’s body. Not to mention the sparse hair growing in places it shouldn’t grow, the small eyes, the tusks, even strange second limbs poking out of