Page 83 of Lost in the Dark

Chin quivering, she forced her gaze back to Rathbytten. “A… a toll.”

“That’s right, little rabbit. A toll.” He leered at her and licked his lips, smiling as if her very pain pleased him. He circled the table and tapped a massive finger to her throat. “And you, my would-be-wife, are that toll.”

Iam wed to trolls.

Golden gods save me, I am their forfeit.

Hands covering her mouth, Anna fled the dining room.

Tears blurred her vision and the torches seemed to dim as she approached, but by now she knew the way to the twisting stone steps by heart. The castle was always dark, and she’d learned early to navigate the shadows. There was no reason to fight the tears, and every reason to run from the source.

Trying to muffle her sobs, she raced down the hall and caught hold of the carved pommel at the base of the stairs, using her speed to swing herself two steps up. Her eyes couldn’t be trusted, yet her feet knew the pattern, knew where time had worn the step to a basin or crumbled the edges.

The staircase was a menace. Perhaps it would kill her.

Yet the aged steps showed no mercy.

Necklace beating against her breast with each pace, she reached her room and launched herself through the door. She closed and latched the portal behind her—but that wasn’t enough. Trolls could smash the heavy oak. Trolls could do whatever they pleased, for she was at their mercy with nowhere to turn. All she had was a contract—signed by a Chastry priest, no less—that effectively made her property of Rathbytten.

“Oh, Gods,” she gasped. “I am the rabbit.”

She staggered across the room to the window, where fading streaks of red and purple filled the sky, casting the entire estate in an eerie hue. Red shadows as far as she could see, as if the northern moors had already been washed in her blood.

As if she were already dead, and too great a fool to know it.

“Demons take it,” she hissed.

And they had.

They had lured her with promises of salvation, and then trapped her far to the north, beyond reach of any who loved her. Her grandmother would be so ashamed. Unable to bear the confined of her room—her cell—she threw open the latched window and stepped onto the balcony. She didn’t care about the cold air biting through her dress, or the flakes of snow beginning to fall, swirling around her in a frosted cloud. No, she welcomed winter’s touch down her spine.

It matched the fear gripping her insides.

Now she understood what had happened to Rathbytten’s past wives—what Enulf had been hiding—they had been tolls. Taken and used and discarded when no longer useful. No wonder they barely bothered to feed her—she wasn’t expected to survive. She would clean, and then she would die.

The necklace cut into her flesh along with the realization.

I thought I could become a fox.

Foolish girl.

Tipping her head back, she screamed her anguish into the red-streaked sky.

She cursed the sickness that had taken her mother, the mora that tormented her every night, the world that rendered her nothing but a troll’s trophy, to be taken and discarded as he saw fit.

She yelled until her voice ran hoarse and snow mixed with tears upon her tongue.

Exhausted, she folded her arms up on the windowsill and laid her cheek on the cold stone. “I thought I saved my family and found myself a home,” she whispered. “I thought I found a man who loved me…”

A soft cooing filled her ear, followed by a gentle tug on her hair.

Lifting her head, she pushed hair out of her face and found the white dove from her first night perched beside her on the ledge. The bird ruffled its feathers and tipped its head from side to side. It blinked bright black eyes at her, its gaze at once innocent and wholly aware of the horrors inside this house.

Sniffling, she rubbed the moisture from her eyes. “Hello, sweet bird.”

The dove cooed again, and caught a tendril of hair in its beak. Its gentle care brought a smile to her lips.

“I know how you feel,” she said. “There’s nothing here for me, either. Yet where would we go?” Reaching into her dress pocket, she pulled out the bread she’d saved from the table and rolled it between her hands until it was nothing but crumbs. “Here you go.” She sprinkled them along the balcony rail for the bird. “Normally, I’d save half this loaf for morning,” she whispered, “but I expect I won’t see it.”

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