I let her guide me back into the tree. She lets me go after I shut the door, moving to the far wall to trace one of her skulls. “I’m not just any warrior. I am D’Atainna.” She chuckles softly. “Of course, that means nothing to a slacker like you. It was more than a little refreshing to see someone not react to my last name.”

I’m sorry. Forgive me for my lack of sincerity. I promise to do better in the future. “Your last name. It means something then?”

A small quirk of her lips. “Atainna is the name of the royal family.”

…eh?

Did she just say the word royal? I am a noble. That word makes us do funny things. Like, cower. That’s what I do when I so much as hear one of the royal family is coming to town. I don’t care how great your reputation is or how many commoners sing your praises, someone with that much power terrifies me. Seriously. A royal can end you in so many ways for just the slightest offense. Oh, saints protect me. Didn’t she say she wants to take me back to her home? Have I been sleeping with an elf princess?

I am dead. I am so very dead. I think I might want to just stay here after all. The tree isn’t so bad. The company’s great and there’s plenty of wolves around to snack on. Yeah. Let’s stay here and avoid your mother who may or may not be a queen. I am so dead.

“Lou? Are you alright? You look pale.”

“Are you a princess?”

Kierra snorts. That sound is the best sound in the world to my battered nerves. That sound says I’m ridiculous to even suggest such a thing.

“No. That would be my cousin.”

“Um…do you mean your second or your third-”

“The Queen Regent is my aunt, mother’s older sister.”

I swallow. Hard. Okay. This could be worse. She’s not the princess and not in line for the throne. That would have been a crap storm of epic proportions. No, she’s just a blood relative of the queen.

I am so dead.

I glare as she laughs. “What’s funny?”

“You!” She leans against the wall as her snickers begin to double her over. “A moment ago, you look ready to fight a dragon and were spouting claims about taking on whatever beast has kept me trapped here, but I explain my family name and you’re ready to slink off into the shadows.”

“We’re talking about nobles. Royals. I can’t imagine anything more vicious or savage or deadly than a royal you’ve managed to piss off.”

“Hmm. Well, you might not be wrong about that.” She recovers and takes a seat on one of the mats, patting the spot beside her. I obediently come over. “The Atainna bloodline has strong mana. Most of us are born with two affinities. I’m an even more special case. I was born with a pure physical affinity.”

I whistle in appreciation. Pure affinities are practically unheard of among humans but fairly common among the other races. My tutors described it as those who are loved by an element. They instinctively grasp them in a way people will never understand, allowing them to circumvent the whole casting process entirely. Wah. That explains how she’s leaping through trees and casting so easily.

“I see you understand what that means. Those of the Atainna who have not ascended to the throne have always served as warriors. My mother was born with a null affinity and is well-known. There were great expectations for me. And I met them. Until that night.”

Her eyes go distant as she remembers the past. I reach over to grab her hand. “What happened, Kierra?”

“Trolls.” She gets up and grabs a skull off the wall, bringing it over for me to examine. Haha. It’s not the biggest one but of course, it’s the one with the largest teeth. Oh, wait. That’s not teeth. Those are tusks, jutting out from either side of its mouth.

And is that a horn? My fingers trace over a square nodule of bone on the forehead. Most horns have a circular base so it’s probably not that.

“Enchanted trolls are tough and savage. Like elves, they are drawn to forests. Unlike us, they could care less about their surroundings. They strip the forests of everything and slaughter prey indiscriminately, all the while reproducing like rabbits. Their tough skin can stop arrows and every one of them is born with a pure affinity for earth. They specialize in shifting the ground, which they use to build their dens. Fifty of them could be slumbering beneath your feet and you’d never know until they’ve grabbed you.”

Oowah. I was thinking I would have to hunt one thing down, not a pack of monsters. Isn’t this a little too hard? “That sounds impossible.”

“They are not infallible. Trolls are little more than beasts. While they have minimum organization, they can not strategize effectively and seem unable to process threats to their lives when confronted. They have only one response: attack. That can be taken advantage of.

“When the foresters came back and told the queen they had spotted trolls meandering through the forest, we went out to handle them immediately. They had already dug deep into the Enchanted Forest before approaching the lands closer to the village. Hundreds of them meandered through these trees. We were divided into teams of eight. Four confronted the beasts head-on, drawing their attention while leading them to a more favorable position for the other four, the ranged units. We provide support from the trees and wait for the kill shot.” A finger taps her eyebrow.

Thank the saints for small mercies. She can kill the things. Why the heck is she trapped here? “I’m guessing something went wrong?”

Kierra nods slowly. “As we pushed further into the forest, we couldn’t return home easily at the end of the hunt. The trolls were beginning to feel threatened and retreated. They may be beasts but even beasts run from a storm. The more of them that escaped, the more likely they would be back to infect the forest again. We took to camping in the forest. That night, our sentry, the idiot, fell asleep. The trolls had been tracking us as well and ambushed our camp. They were on us before we knew what was happening.”

The tension in her voice and the faraway look in her eyes makes my breath catch. “I woke to the sentry’s screams. A troll was right over me. Too close for me to run. Behind him, I could see signs of the battle taking place but the one over me remained still. My bow and knife were in reach. My only chance was to kill it before it killed me. But I…froze.”

Pain and regret. I have never seen them displayed so clearly on a face before. “I was the captain. They needed me. And I froze. Reinforcements arrived, drawn by the sounds of combat. I managed to survive but my entire team was slaughtered. The queen did not blame me but my mother was livid. She gathered a team and slaughtered all the females. A band of five males were put here as a test, trapped in this cage with me. The price of my admission back home is all five of their heads.”

“Five! You just told me you hunted these things in a team of eight and she wants you to fight five alone!?”

The elf shrugs. “My mother is not an easy woman to please. Ever since then, I cannot face a troll. My bow wavers and my arrows don’t fly true. To redeem that stain on my honor, I cannot merely return to my old form. I must become better.”

Okay. I understand the situation now. It’s hard but it could be a lot worse. The more I think about it, the more doable this seems. I have a durable body so I can serve as a distraction while Kierra remains in the background. The same as they did before. “We can do this.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“No, no. We’ve got it. Look, I’ll be your distraction. You know how strong I am. And you can fire your bow as far away as you like-”

“That’s not it!” Kierra pops to her feet and paces in front of me. “It is not about distance. I cannot fire. I cannot kill them.”

“That’s crap.” I grab her arm, bringing her to a stop, and shove the troll skull in her face. “This is yours, right? Your kill? Or do you hang other people’s trophies on your wall?”

Her lip turns up in offense. “Of course it is mine.”

“Then you can kill a troll. Don’t tell me you can’t because I’m holding the proof right here.” I push the skull into her face until she bats it away. “Everybody screws up sometimes. The important thing is that you don’t let it dictate the rest of your life. Come on. It’ll be the same as when you hunted them before and this time, there’s no chance of them sneaking up on you. Surpass your limits.”

She still looks unconvinced, turning her head away from me. I start to feel a little angry and my voice is clipped. “Unless you want to stay here. Do you?”

“No!”

“That’s not how you’re acting! Just tell me right now, because I’ll leave tomorrow-”

“No, Lou!” She throws her arms around my neck and hugs me fiercely. “I want to leave with you. I don’t want to stay here.”

“Then we are going to kill those trolls. Together.”

Kierra nods against my neck.

“Don’t worry, stubborn elf. I’ll get you out of here.”