by Rinelle Grey
The humans’ motivations seemed sound. Yet something didn’t quite ring true. “Then why do you need the gem?” Jasyn asked.
“Having two gems will allow us to have an extra mage working with us to remove the curse from you. It will increase our chances of success,” the mage said. “And to be honest, we don’t trust you.”
His partner, the warrior twin, winced at his words and watched Jasyn for his reaction.
Of course the human mage didn’t trust the trolls. He wouldn’t be much of a leader if he did. But at least he was honest about it.
Someone was going to have to take the first step and offer trust. It might as well be the trolls, since they had the most to lose if the mages didn’t help.
“I like you, you’re honest,” Jasyn said. “We agree to your conditions. My people will return over the ridge and you can remove the curse from my wife first. I’ll watch.”
The warrior twin swallowed, her face a shade paler. Jasyn met her gaze, not blinking.
The tall male nodded. “That is acceptable.”
Jasyn took a deep breath and turned to the trolls. “The humans have agreed to our plan. Go back to camp and I’ll come for you when it’s done.”
For a moment, he wondered if they were going to listen to him. They all stared at him, then they turned and did as he asked. Bekinda and Uma paused a while longer than the others, but then they went, too.
Jasyn breathed a sigh of relief. Being alone with the humans was dangerous, but he couldn’t risk having one of the trolls losing it and starting a fight.
He turned to the humans and held out the gem. “Fix it, please.”
“I’ll do my best,” the tall male said quietly.
15
Transformation
Kriss closed her eyes, unable to bear Jasyn’s intent and hopeful gaze any longer. She was already uncomfortable enough, sitting cross legged on the cold stone floor of the human house. The room was tiny. If she were standing, she’d hit her head on the ceiling, and the walls seemed to close in on her. The feeling wasn’t helped by all four of the humans hovering around her. She had no idea what they were doing. She had to trust that they were trying to remove this curse, even though she couldn’t see it.
Everything rested on their success. Jasyn had been hoping for this for so long. She had no idea what he would do if it didn’t work.
She had no idea what any of them would do.
The truce with the humans was the beginning, but where they would go from here was anyone’s guess. So much depended on whether or not the curse could be undone.
Her eyes flicked open when one of the twins rocked back on her heels and said, “I’m not getting anywhere.” Frustration coloured her voice.
“Keep trying,” Jasyn urged.
Kriss tried to block out the desperation in his voice. It mirrored the feeling in her heart too closely.
“There’s something over here,” the other twin, Kriss couldn’t tell them apart, said.
“What is it?” The two women bent over something Kriss couldn’t see. She tried not to twitch.
The taller, more confident, male human said, “Be careful.”
The twin, Kriss thought it was the one who was his partner, raised an eyebrow at him. “We are trying to remove this curse, aren’t we?”
He sighed. “I know.”
The woman turned back to Kriss and frowned, biting her lower lip in concentration. Kriss almost felt like she should hold her breath. She tried to stay as still as possible as the woman worked
Something felt different. Her ear felt cold. No, not cold. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant. But it did feel like someone had removed a coating of… mud maybe?
Maybe this would work after all.
Instead of stirring up excitement, the thought made Kriss nervous. Would it hurt? Could she face the thought of not being a troll anymore? Did she want to be a human? In all this time, she’d come to just accept the possibility, but now that it was about to become a reality…
She was about to open her mouth and tell them to stop, when one of the twins screamed, making Kriss almost jump out of her skin.
“Your finger is turning green.”
Kriss stared down at the human woman’s finger, its normal pinkish tone replaced by a familiar green. The human jumped back and her finger quickly returned to normal.
“Maybe I should do that?” the man suggested.
The woman shot him a scathing look. “What, so you can turn into a troll instead of me?”
If it hadn’t been so serious, Kriss would have smiled. This twin had spirit.
“Maybe this can’t be done? Maybe we shouldn’t try?” the other twin said. Her face was pale and her hands shook. Kriss tried not to dismiss her as a coward. Being scared was no indication of bravery, Jasyn had shown her that.
“You have to fix it,” Jasyn insisted.
Kriss wavered, torn between wanting this and being afraid of it.
“I can do this,” the plucky twin insisted. “It’s just like unravelling a jumper. But I need somewhere to put the black stuff. Something to wind it onto, maybe?”
Black stuff? What was she talking about?
“It’s magic,” the tall, male human responded. “So you would need something magical to wind it onto. And we don’t have anything.”
Something magical? What could be magical other than… well, magic?
It was all over her head and the feeling of powerlessness was new to her. She didn’t like it. At all.
“The gem! I could wind it on the gem,” the confident twin said.
“You can’t. It could destroy it.” Her partner’s response was immediate.
“We have another,” his partner argued. “It’s the only thing we have. We have to at least give it a try.”
The mage hesitated and Kriss almost hoped he’d say no. But the man handed it over, even though his body language betrayed his reluctance.
The woman went back to work on something only she could see. Kriss bit her lip. She wanted to stop the woman, to say they should reconsider this. But Jasyn’s hopeful eyes, watching her intently, stilled her words. She had to give this a fair try. She owed it to him.
So Kriss sat as still as she could, while the plucky twin worked, the gem hovering in the air in front of her.
Then the woman moved back, staring at her. In fact, everyone in the room stared at her. Kriss looked down at her body, half expecting it to have changed. But she was as green and muscly as ever. She didn’t feel any different.
“It didn’t work,” the nervous twin said, disappointed.
A twitch travelled up Kriss’s spine, like an incredibly intense itch that she couldn’t reach. She tried to twist her body to scratch it, but by then it was radiating out through her arms and legs. Suddenly, it was like a thousand bugs were crawling over every inch of her skin.
Then someone set the bugs on fire.
No one had warned her that this might hurt.
The pain intensified, and a groan escaped her lips. The worst battle wounds she’d ever received had never come close to this. She felt like someone was stretching and pulling her apart.
She looked over at Jasyn, wanting to tell him to stop this, to stop trying to lift the curse. But even as she tried to speak, the world around her began to blur. The worried faces and voices faded out, then everything went black.
*****
The low groan that emerged from Kriss’s throat sent chills up Jasyn’s spine. Her body wrenched and her bones seemed to roll under her skin. Her colour changed, fading to a human pink as her bones shrunk. Then she slumped onto the floor, still and pale.
It had worked. She was human.
Somehow, that wasn’t much comfort. Jasyn rushed across to her, pushing past the humans, barely noticing their presence. Was she all right? He rested his hand on her chest, his fingers huge and ungainly compared to her delicate body.
He should have been the one to do this first. How had he ever thought it was a good idea for it to be
Kriss? What if removing the curse killed her?
The thought sent panic and adrenalin flooding through his veins.
He’d hurt her terribly by insisting she try this. She’d been afraid, he’d seen it in her eyes. He should have stopped it.
Why had he put his own desire to be human over her health and safety?
Her ribs rose and fell and her heartbeat echoed faintly in her chest.
“We need to put her somewhere comfortable,” the twin with the yellow magic said. She seemed softer and more caring than her warrior sister. “This transformation must have been rough on her body. It will take her some time to recover.” And she began issuing orders to the other humans, to bring a mattress and blankets.
Jasyn ignored the fuss around him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Kriss.
“What are we going to do with it?”
Was the human woman talking about Kriss? Jasyn jerked his head up, but she wasn’t looking at them. Her attention was on the gem, lying in the middle of the floor.
“I don’t know, but if this works, we’re going to have a problem,” the male said. “The other trolls are going to want to be human as well, and we only have two gems. If we can’t purify this one, then we can only heal two.”
Only two? That wouldn’t do. Jasyn opened his mouth to say something, but the woman beat him to it. “But we don’t necessarily need to use the gems, you said any magical item would do.”
“Perhaps. But that still leaves us with the problem of what to do with it. I don’t think this sort of thing should be left lying around. To any ordinary person it would look like just an object, but if they picked it up…”
The possibility made Jasyn shiver. The gem, with the curse wrapped around it, could be a horrible weapon.
But that could wait. Right now, he was more concerned by Kriss being a human while he remained a troll. If anything spelled the end of any possibility of a relationship between them, it was that.
He stepped away from her side and over to the humans. “It’s my turn now,” he said.
The warrior twin looked at Kriss, then back at him. “We need to wait and see if she wakes up first. This might not be safe, she still could die.”
Jasyn shied away from the thought. Kriss couldn’t die. And if she did, he didn’t want to live. “It’s my turn,” he repeated. “If the curse can’t be lifted, I don’t want to live. This is no life for a man.”
“There might be a better way,” the warrior twin insisted. “You should wait.”
Who was she, to tell him what he should do? They had an agreement, and he would see that she honoured it.
Jasyn put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “It’s my turn,” he demanded.
“Here now, take your hands off her,” the tall male human demanded. “No one is going to help you if you threaten us.”
He’d intended to give her a fright, not hurt her. He’d forgotten how much bigger he was than the humans. How much bigger he was than Kriss. He didn’t want to risk hurting her either.
He took a deep breath and released the woman. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please. It’s my turn.”
“We have a problem,” the tall male mage interrupted. “We used the gem to, well, store the curse from your wife. But we only have two. We may not be able to cure any more than two trolls.”
“What? Not able to cure all of us? No. That’s not acceptable. You have to cure everyone,” Jasyn said.
“We’ll certainly try,” the tall man said smoothly. “But we can’t guarantee it. Before Brianna tries to remove the curse from you, we had to tell you that.”
Brianna. That must be the warrior twin’s name.
Jasyn looked at both of them, then nodded. “I understand. We will find a way.”
The man handed the gem to Brianna, and she began to work over Jasyn as she had over Kriss.
He held his breath, waiting for the pain to come. He felt it start in his spine, radiating out through his body. His hands convulsed, shrinking and changing colour before his eyes.
He saw them turn human right before he lost consciousness.
*****
A loud crash startled Kriss awake. She looked at the strange wooden roof above her. Where was she?
“So, have you made any progress on the twin marriage?” a loud voice demanded.
Who was that?
Memories flooded in. The humans crowding around her, then the pain. The curse had been lifted. She was human. Wasn’t she? Kriss lifted her hand, marvelling to find it so pink and small. Was that really her?
The pain she’d felt was completely gone, but she was left feeling weak. Was that from the transformation, or just what it was like to be human?
Then the words she’d heard seeped into her brain. The twin marriage. The humans said they had disobeyed the law. This man didn’t seem to agree with that. Did he have some sort of authority?
She tried to focus her eyes on the new human. He was older than the others, and his bearing and arrogant attitude seemed to suggest that he was some sort of leader.
The tall human male spoke calmly. “It won’t be happening.” His voice was flat. He stepped closer to the woman and took her hand. “I’m staying here with Brianna, but I have no wish to marry her sister, even if she would have me.”
“It’s against the law.” The older man’s protest was faint this time.
“Then change the law and make it official,” a soft voice said beside Kriss.
She twisted around and saw a strange human sitting next to her, his brown hair in many braids. Was that...
Jasyn? Her husband?
“Why should I?” the older man argued. “That law has stood for centuries, why change it now?”
“Because you should be able to see that love is more important than power. And that’s the only reason for the twin law, power. Are you going to let your need for power be greater than your love for your son and his love for this woman?” Jasyn said.
Kriss’s jaw dropped. How did Jasyn learn so much about power and love?
“Love is all well and good, but it doesn’t protect your kingdom,” the old man said firmly.
Spoken like a true leader. Kriss couldn’t help agreeing with him.
“It saved this one,” Jasyn said calmly. Even his voice sounded different, smoother and more sensual. “Watching four people who were prepared to choose love over power is what stopped this war. When I saw all four of them together I realised that they, of all the people in this village, would understand our plight and might be sympathetic to it. We oppose the twin law for just that reason. People have the right to choose who they marry, whether they’ve been born at the same time or not.”
Jasyn always had had a way with words.
“You should know, Father,” the tall human man said. “Look where marrying for power got you. If you’d married mother in the first place, not caring about her low power, then things would have been different for you.”
“It’s not that simple. If I had bonded with your mother first, I wouldn’t be as powerful as I am now. Other mages, those with more powerful wives, could have challenged me and perhaps wrested the kingdom from me. It’s happened before and it’s never peaceful. Power helps keep the peace.”
The humans weren’t that different to them after all. Their kingdom seemed to be ruled by might—magical rather than physical admittedly, but might after all.
But some of them wished for change, just as she and Jasyn had.
“We have more than enough power,” Brianna said firmly.
“Maybe,” the older man said. “Lyall is certainly the most powerful mage on Isla de Magi, but that’s just for now. New mages will be born and grow into their power, and who knows what the infusion of these new people will bring. There could come a day when someone will be powerful enough to challenge Lyall’s rule. Do you want to risk that someone killing him?”
It was so similar to the reasons Mugos had always given for his constant training. Was there no rest
for anyone? Even those at the top still feared.
Except Brianna wasn’t afraid. She actually laughed at the suggestion. “The twin law is a trick. I don’t know who came up with it first, but it isn’t the greatest power combination. It may make one person more powerful than anyone else, but when the four of us work together with three different bonds connecting us, then no one can beat us.”
Of course. She wasn’t afraid because she was comfortable in her ability to remain the leader.
Kriss wished she had that confidence. Would she ever? Even if the trolls found peace, could she ever really believe in it? When did she get to stop?
“It’s true,” the tall mage, he must be the one called Lyall, said quietly. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Father. In fact, Brianna, Mianna and Terion working together managed to heal me from the magical damage inflicted by one of the trolls.”
Kriss exchanged a look with Jasyn. Uma had told her that magical damage couldn’t be healed. Apparently he was wrong. Magic was hard enough for her to understand—this level of magical power was beyond anything she could imagine.
“What?” the man demanded. “No, that’s not possible. Is it?”
Lyall lifted up his shirt and Kriss saw silver scars crossing his chest. “I was dead and they brought me back.”
Jasyn had killed him? And the others had revived him from death?
Kriss shuddered. This was way out of her comfort zone.
The expression on the older man’s face changed completely. “This changes everything. Do you know what this means, Lyall?” he said eagerly.
The younger man smiled. “Yes. The four of us together should have no problems healing mother. She will be able to walk again.”
Had she heard them correctly? The thing they most wanted to accomplish was healing someone?
Maybe there was hope for the humans after all.
There better be, since she was one of them.
Then a little human child burst into the room in a whirlwind and threw herself onto Brianna. “Mama, Mama. You awright?” The child burst into tears.