Page 10 of Stealing the Troll’s Heart

“You know what I mean.”

Maybe I’m not as slick as I’ve thought, and Blizzek has caught onto me. I just pretend to be perplexed by his answer, and then I’m off to find my fortune across the sea.

Chapter 5

Telise

The letter was waiting for me at the courier’s office when I returned to the capital.

“I learned of your name while complimenting a man’s leopard-hide cloak,” it reads. “I’ve been searching for a new apprentice to share my trade, and I think that perhaps you would be the one.”

An apprentice? I’ve been an amateur for who knows how many years, and in that time, I’ve picked up on my own most of what an apprentice would have learned. But it’s signed by a name I recognize: Sden Noralt, an artisan who works out of the neutral city of Eyra Cove. It’s on the edge of the Frattern Islands, a highly contested territory where fighting frequently breaks out.

A brave and a foolish place to run a business, but with twice as many potential customers.

What reason do I have to refuse it? I don’t think I want totravel with Deleran again, and I don’t have any other grand ideas now that I’ve cleaned, stitched, sewn, and sold my bear pelts.

“All right,” I write back. “I’m in.” And I get on a boat before he can answer.

It costs me a pretty penny to get there, and I have to carry all of my heavy equipment with me, so I pay for an extra-large room on the ship. But I have a sense that this is the right move, and that if I follow through, something significant in my life will change. And that’s just what I need right now.

Eyra Cove is a bustling, somewhat terrifying place. Everything is in motion all the time, from the piers where a significant amount of the business is done, all the way to the hopping inns and bars and various other hedonistic holes. You can find anything you want in Eyra Cove—and do anything you want, too. It’s just the sort of place for me.

Sden works out of a respectable establishment, and I like him right away. He’s all human through-and-through, but with none of the hang-ups. He barters in Freysian with humans, and switches seamlessly to Trollkin to sell a pair of gloves to an orc. No one seems to bat an eyelash at his prices, either. Every piece he makes is branded with his mark.

“That cloak you made was one of the prettiest I’ve seen,” Sden says when I finally arrive, dragging my piles of gear along with me. “You have a lot of talent, but I can see you’ve never been classically trained.”

“Is it that obvious?” I say.

“Not to most. But I think we can clean you up good, and you could become a master craftsman someday, too.”

That’s a high honor. I could charge double, even triple what I do now for my better pieces with a master craftsman license.

“And you’re doing this for me because...?”

“Well, I’ll take a cut of all your profits while you work under me,” he says. “And you’ll work—supervised—on some of my pieces without pay. That’s the trade.”

Hmm. It doesn’t feel very fair, but I’ll be learning a skill that’s priceless. So I accept his offer, and we shake on it.

“Very good.” Without another word, he gestures to his back room. “Why don’t you get to work?”

I don’t need to be told twice.

A good portion of my money will go towards renting out a room at the inn, which is unfortunate. I won’t get to save nearly as much as I would’ve liked, thinking that surely my new master would put me up.

But I’ve also underestimated how much money one can make with a storefront in Eyra Cove. I sell almost all of the pieces I’ve brought with me within a few days.

“I can tell that fur is your specialty,” Sden says one day, and unveils a whole pallet of furs in need of attention. “One of my hunters brought this in.”

“I won’t need to hunt my own pelts anymore?” I ask. I’m almost disappointed to hear this—hunting and collecting is one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about this trade.

“No. Your focus will be entirely on craft.” He’ll take a bigger cut of pieces I sell made with them, but I expected that.

So I take up residence in the inn, and for months, I work myself nearly to the bone at Sden’s shop. I start to pick up a few words of Trollkin here and there. It’s bizarre to shake hands with orcs as we strike deals. I know how to count, at least, which makes it far easier to bargain and haggle with our customers.

Every once in a while, some fight will break out between a drunk human and an equally drunk troll, but it’s alwayshandled quickly, efficiently, and usually with some blood. Security is no joke around Eyra Cove.

But it’s a lonely place, too. Sden is a quiet, harsh man who works almost entirely in silence, and everyone else is a passer-by. Even though I’ve drowned myself in my work, I’m starving in places I haven’t ever felt before.

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