Chapter 4

Raz'jin

F inally, we're back in civilization. I usually don't mind the isolation of life as a prospector but roughing it does get old after a while. I wouldn't mind a beer, a meal, and a soft bed once we sell off our gold.

I've forgotten how smelly this place can get, though. Unwashed trollkin of all kinds, with all their various foods and farm animals, stink up the streets and alleyways. There's not much sense to the organization of Kalishagg, but you learn your way around eventually. It started as a single troll settlement and expanded upon itself from there, one clay building and sagging tent at a time.

We find our guy's shop up on the second level, across a rickety wooden bridge. Old Magna's shop is exactly the same as the previous dozen times I've visited with a bag full of unprocessed, raw ore.

"Only 560?" Blizzek is incensed by Magna's price after he weighs it .

"Sorry," he says. "The value of gold has gone down. You'd have been better off with silver."

Blizzek looks like he's about to tear out his hair, so I quickly grab him by the shoulder and wheel him out of the shop. "We should just take it," I hiss. "We're lucky anyone's buying at all right now." There's a war going on out there, and gold is in far lower demand than iron and copper.

"Fine." He pushes me away. "Make it 600, Magna, and we're gold."

The old man sighs at him. Blizzek's jokes make me want to throw up. "580, final offer."

It's easy enough to split two ways. Magna collects the tax and we're done.

Neither of us has to say what we're thinking once we leave the shop. It's time to spend some coin—but not so much that we get robbed in our sleep, of course.

We don't go to the brothel right away. That's a last-ditch effort if picking up women at the bar doesn't work out. I buy a new set of shoulder cuffs with steel tips, which look both stylish and expensive. That's what a trolless wants, after all: Somebody with big shoulders and money to spend.

It doesn't take us long to get called over to a table with two trollesses and an orcess. They're clearly out on the prowl, too, and soon the two troll women are giving each other elbows and snarls as they figure out which one's going to go upstairs with me.

"There's no need to fight," I say, setting down two fresh beers. I put a hand on each of their shoulders. "I'm amenable to a group event. I have plenty to give." They both look at my crotch, where my cock is already growing pretty warm and fat for them under my new leather pants. The trollesses exchange smirks, and then we're off to the races.

As I tear the first one's clothes off and bury myself inside her, then pull the other one close so I can finger her, I should be thrilled. It's a two-for-the-price-of-one deal. The first trolless moans under me as I ride her, but for some reason, I just can't feel the same enthusiasm. I bring the other troll woman up to my face and suck on her as hard as I can, then we swap. The first trolless comes all over my mouth, and I find I don't like the taste of it. I push her away quickly and reach my orgasm inside the other one, then pull myself out and gush all over her back.

They want to cuddle up afterwards, but I just want to get the stench of them off of me, so I open the door and indignant, they both stomp out. Once they're gone, I draw the water and sit in a cold bath, trying to clean my cock off as best I can.

I stay there for a long time, trying to understand what went wrong. I've always liked getting my dick a bit dirty. And two at once? A very rare treat. But something about it all felt strange—off, like meat when it's just starting to go bad.

I snarl and push my wet hair out of my eyes. I know whose fault this is, and I wish I had just let her die there. But now she's stuck inside me, and I don't know how to claw her out.

Telise

It's a good winter, if winters can be good. After the sale of my Wicke's Leopard cloak, I buy two train tickets for Deleran and I to head north. He grumbles the entire way, and then continues grumbling as I drag him through snow drifts and across frozen lakes. But I'm hot on the trail of a great male bear with perfect gray fur and a few classy stripes of white. I was going to shoot for boot lining, but this bear's just so pretty, I might turn him into a rich lady's centerpiece.

But Deleran tolerates all of it. One particularly cold night, we're curled up in our furs with the sled blocking us from the wind, and I feel a little breath of air enter my cocoon.

"Ugh." I move to push it back down, because all I want is a bit of rest in the middle of this storm, but I find someone's hand there instead.

It's Deleran, and he's crawling into my bed.

I don't react at first, because I have no idea how to react. He lifts the blanket up so he can slide inside, and it's only once we're face-to-face that I think to push him away.

"What are you doing?" I ask. He's letting in all the cold air. But I know the answer to that question before I even ask it, because my childhood best friend is pressed up against me with a raging hard-on.

Ugh. Disgusting.

"It's cold," he says, acting surprised that I've put some distance between us. "I thought you might want to warm up."

"That's not what you're after. Don't play fucking coy with me."

This seems to land, because Deleran withdraws his hands from me.

"I don't get you." He puts a few inches between us but doesn't move away. "You know women would fall over themselves to do this with me."

I give him a hard shove this time, and he rolls out of my bed with surprise. Then I close up the furs around me tight again and turn away so we don't have to look at each other.

"I don't like you that way," I say, now feeling cross and strangely hurt. I'd always felt safe around him, like I wouldn't ever have to worry about this. But now it's out there, and I do.

He doesn't speak for a while. Then, after a while he says, "I'm sorry, Tea." It's the old nickname he called me when we were younger. "I'm cold and horny and..." Deleran clears his throat. "And you're gorgeous, and I really like you. "

He what? I'm what?

I curl up tighter around myself. This is information I didn't want—information I didn't need. Nothing will ever be right and the same between us now that I know it.

"I don't feel at all the same way about you," I say.

"Oof." He groans like I've stabbed him. "You couldn't have at least tried to soften the blow?"

"No." I'm scowling at nobody. "I needed to make sure it's out there in no uncertain terms."

We both fall silent after that. It'll be a while before I can fall asleep again, because now I'm worried about Deleran slipping into my bed. I know he wouldn't, not after turning him down with such brutality, but the thought is there.

"Is this about the goddamned troll?" he asks suddenly. He sits up in his furs, the heavy wind buffeting his hair. "You won't sleep with me because you kissed a troll?"

"It has nothing to do with that." Okay, maybe it does have a tiny bit to do with that, but also not at all. "I'm not interested. That's all you need to know."

He sighs, defeated, and returns to his bed. Now there's really no more talking.

The next day, he tries to pretend like everything is normal again—joking around, bitching when I ask him to build the fire, even making fun of my aim when I miss a rabbit—but nothing feels the same. Not anymore.

By the time we head back to civilization, we're hardly speaking to each other. The train ride is long.

"I shouldn't have ever done it," Deleran says, leaned back against his seat. He lets out a deep, weary sigh. "I fucked it all up."

"You sort of did." But at least him acknowledging it, and then beating himself up about it, brings me a little smile.

"Can you please forgive me, Tea?" The train is slowing down, pulling into the station. "Can you forget it ever happened?"

"I can't forget, but I can forgive."

"That's the most I can ask for, I guess."

I hold out a hand, and he takes it. We shake.

Maybe that troll really did ruin me.

Raz'jin

I don't fuck anymore trollesses, and Blizzek is concerned about me. I turn them down when they approach us in bars—he doesn't, of course.

"What's gotten into you?" he asks, sounding like an annoyed parent with a pouting child.

But I don't have an answer he would like. How can I tell him that I don't even desire my own kind anymore? That's a fucked-up thing to say out loud. I was ruined by one tiny, pinkish tit, one small kiss on the mouth, and a delicate hand on my tusk.

After months pass like this, I'm the one who makes the stupid suggestion that we head to the Frattern Islands. There have always been rumors you can find beautiful emeralds there, coming up from under the waves. While the grunts go out there and die in the war, the nobility are sitting pretty, and they want equally pretty jewels to give all their many wives. And I will be the one to provide them.

"Emeralds?" Blizzek squints at me. "We're going into contested territory for... emeralds?"

He won't connect the dots, I'm sure. But all I want is to see those fierce green eyes again, even if they're just peering up at me from the sand. Not to mention that contested territory— where neither trollkin nor humans have complete control of the landscape—gives me the slightest, slimmest of chances of seeing her again.

"I can go by myself," I say, huffing.

"Fine." Blizzek just shrugs, then rolls his shoulders. "I've got enough money in the bank. I don't need to be fishing for emeralds where there certainly aren't any."

Great. The perfect opportunity to wander off on my own and see what becomes of me. Prospecting is all I have now that pleasures of the body are off the table. The only two things a troll desires are women and money. If I can't have one, at least I'll have the other.

"I'll see you in a few months, then."

It's a long trip by ship from Kalishagg to the islands off the coast, and it's not really the best time of year, anyway. They're not tropical islands, not by any stretch of the imagination. They're the kind with deep-inset rocky shores and high cliffs buffeted by great, frigid waves.

Blizzek gives me a confused goodbye as I pack up my bag and head for the caravan. It'll take me to the port, where I'll hop on a ship to carry me across the water. It's a few weeks each way, and who knows how long I'll spend searching for treasure?

"Don't do anything stupid," he says as I depart.

"What constitutes ‘stupid'?" I ask.

"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.