Share
Beasts
“Lilith!” I cry out, awaking in my bed from the strangest of dreams. Lussi is watching me in bemusement, but there are molten glitter salt trails on his eyes – meaning he had one of his night terrors, from back when Eleleth used to torture him, in order to “fortify” his son. Lussi may sacrifice himself during Harrowings to Lady Lashtung in order to secure his kingship, but Eleleth preferred to sire a sacrificial, cursed scion on Rahab’s watery breast for the sole purpose of bearing the Harrowing for him.
Lussi startles. “You speak of the Fates?”
“We call them the Norns, in Laushtian.” I rub sleep grit from my eyes, unable to remember anything but the words “Unsung Hero”, “War,” and… and… and?
The taste of lemons. No, it was, lips like limes. No, a peach tart! A madrigal kiss?
“Ugh!” I cry out, stuffing my face into the pillows. “I hate dream
Kaugnay na kabanata
The Troll Queen's Bride Sterile as Snow
“Dia, calm down, collect yourself! You’re literally burning alive in my arms,” Lussi frets, concerned, as he lands in the ice garden in the royal courtyard. Diamond Vidagol pears and crystal fruits grow, tender to the taste in this orchard of beauty and sorrow.“I hate you and Lexa’s parents,” I seethe. “Not one goddamn immortal has ever parented well. If – if we had kids, if Malik and Lexa had kids – we’d be different. We’d love our bairns and sing them songs of moondrop fairy lullabies and give them all the treasures of the world. I don’t care if you’re a tyrant to some – you’re a fair ruler. And I’m sick of mock murdering you.”I walk a pace away from him and sit by the Norn’s fountain, with Lilith, Eisheth, and Agrath carved in Triplakon, giving Chavah’s fruits out in watery spouts of offerings.I dab at my eyes in anger. I am w
The Troll Queen's Bride In the Heat of the Moment(um)
After what seems like an eternity of torture at Eleleth’s hands, we split apart, fully dressed and reformed, my violet fire having simmered down to a slow burn. Lussi kneels, sobbing.“I did not want you to see that. What have you done, Dia?” he cries. “Every Harrowing, you must now endure my travails.”I fiercely yank him up into my arms, and hold him so tight, around his waist and wings, I could break him with the gristle of my biceps. “What kind of godsdamned wife would I be to let you endure that alone?” I comb his flaxen hair, take a bit of rose oil from my pocket and rub it into his horns. He smiles softly as I wipe his tears away, wrapping his wings around us. “Lussi, my love, let’s go hunt the damned white hart.”We fly to Barri Woods, our marital birch grove where we met as blushing virgins on our wedding night. We scout the snow for tracks of the elusive white harts that live here. Lussi has h
The Troll Queen's Bride Full Circle
“These books don’t yield their damned secrets, do they?” Lussi sighs, in an ice blue suit with gold embroidery and ruffled white undershirt. I am in a ribbon-dotted tiered cherry blossom pink dress with crinoline like a princess’ wedding cake. I wobble in my white high heels as I carry a stack of books – we had to dress up for Matron Lucifuge to grant us access to her library, not in “roguish hunting gear, but outfits befitting a King and Queen.”Lussi steadies me, smiling softly, then lifts me and the books into a seat by the bay window that looks out onto the ice gardens and Seething Sea. The waters foam, waves crashing into salty spray against seaweed spires as the Midnight Sun lights the library with pristine fire through the frosted pane.“This could give us an advantage, Dia,” he murmurs as he pushes my seat over, leaning over me on his huldra legs, tail wrapping around my ankle.I sigh remorsefully, an
The Troll Queen's Bride Prologue: A Flowering Thorn
Thick ebon blood boiled in the veins of the Troll Queen, black as congealed tar.The Beast's curse was bearing fruit.Queen Jarngrimr of the Sorrows waited on the frosty tip of Utgardr's tallest mountain, her steed - a blue roan marked with a white death mask, the gallows itself incarnate - whinnying as the Troll Queen's awaited visitor hiked past the mountain laurel and fir, the girl's stang helping with her belabored, fitful steps."I am here, dearest Jarnja. I brought you Lady Freida's most sacred treasure, stolen from the sanctum of her hall Folkvangr in Valhalla for a terrible price. It is all for you, in return for protection for my three children. This cursed rose is my only possession after this godsdamned truce, sweet Jarnja of the Sorrows, daughter of Wotan the Raven and Sithgunt the Seeress, guardian of the Isa tribe of my land of the midnight sun. Please. I have nothing left to give but the petals of this godsvow."The princess
The Troll Queen's Bride Hagalaz
As I stand in the Beast's rose garden, years down the line, I remember my first love. The thorns are aflame, the sky is scorching, and my heart is torn in twain:Between the Troll Queen, and my first love, once mortal, now a handmaiden of the warrior goddess.This is how my tale begins:We were sixteen summers old, but time for me, and my soon to be Valkyrie, was never enough.We strayed to the banks of the Maroon Sea Bay by midnight, my best friend and true heart's companion, the stable lass Yolanda, glimmering under Mani's moonlight like a Valkyrie of Mother Freida the Wanderer's own dauntless making. She was chosen by the Goddess for glory, after all.My sweetheart, the Lady of Love and Luck's fierce devotee, was bold and free and wild as she rode aback her stallion like a sunburst striking the gods' rainbow bridge of Bifrost, high in the stars above.Yolanda's long, wild, velvet black hair was a curling bear's man
The Troll Queen's Bride Spirited Away
That was the night - the first rosy night that my Beast began to call on me, and never, ever, ever did my monstress queen cease drawing me down submerged in to her unholy, trollish web.Now, I am never alone.By the candlelight after Skadhi had carried me to my room, me unable to stand, I slit my wrists that gloaming, my prayers to dead mama, Queen Aslaugh, unanswered.I could not give up the ghost. No, I was the Troll Queen's draugr – an undead scion, cursed. Now, I was of the zombie armies that had eaten father's berserkers alive.A grave of a girl. Belonging to none other than Jarngrimr of the Sorrows from mother's ill-fated curse, last of the Cunningfolk witches.The Beast peered back at me in my looking glass, the Troll Queen's red dead eyes cold and lustful. She smirked, a yellow fang agleam as she watched me with wicked delight and decrepit fascination.I picked at the black, black clots of blood, ignorin
The Troll Queen's Bride In the Grimnr Shadow
"Come back with my letter from Dominic! Don't you dare read it," Yuri squealed, chasing Rosy out of my room at high horsepower full throttle down the tower hall.The windows had opened of their own volition, and a ferocious winter gale picked up, blowing my door slammed shut behind my wee sisters.The mourning dove's holly berries began to bleed, and the well fed bird discarded the overripe succulents onto my floor.The mourning dove fled to the peal of an elfin horn:"What was that call, just now? And that insurmountable wind like lindworm breath?" I murmured to myself, shuddering as I looked out the window:In rode a terrible train of huldre, Jotun, alfar and dokkalfar, dwarves, nixie, mara and trolls of the Dark Court from the depths of the woods. The Cunningfolk's allies in the Northern Holds of Utgardr, and Arcadia's sworn enemies.What were they doing here? How in Helheim did they get past mama's Magick barrier
The Troll Queen's Bride Skadhi
I was in a blue huntswoman's dress with red and white trim, the traditional Isa attire coupled with brown snowshoes, standing atop an icy fjord as winter snow piled high and impenetrable onto the mountain's blue gray peak.My patroness stood before me, ells tall like the wall around Asgard, as icy as the snow itself.The As goddess Skadhi, lady of the hunt, winter and skis, with her white wolves stood sentinel over me, and I knew it a familiar dream. Skadhi was the ancient patroness of my mama Aslaugh's Northern Cunningfolk tribe, the Isa. Known for her icy demeanor, wry humor, and frosty dominion, she was unparalleled among huntresses, and always made sure I knew it, too. She grew up saying she had hunted my soul from the Maroon Sea, and claimed me as her mead dark priestess, just as she had mama years before.Skahdi came to me in dreams often to teach me of my Magick, and as I stood in Northern Cunningfolk garb atop the glacial terrain, my breath s
Pinakabagong kabanata
- The Troll Queen's Bride Full Circle
- The Troll Queen's Bride In the Heat of the Moment(um)
- The Troll Queen's Bride Sterile as Snow
- The Troll Queen's Bride Beasts
- The Troll Queen's Bride Tears of Lilit
- The Troll Queen's Bride Swan Down Arms
- The Troll Queen's Bride Porphyry
- The Troll Queen's Bride Enough
- The Troll Queen's Bride The Ball
