The Troll Queen smiled down at him through the protection of her mirror. “I forgot to tell you that it will be the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your short life.”
The mirror went dark as he was swallowed whole by his own body. Bones cracked, crunching inward over and over again as they realigned themselves to a much smaller form. Hair retracted, slithering back inside his body like there were snakes writhing under his skin. But worst of all were the talons that tore through his skin over and over again, trying to get rid of the muscles and fat that had built up in his bear body over the years. He leaked refuse and innards, coughing it up through his mouth.
Finally, it was over. He laid in a shivering mess on the floor. He drew his knees into his chest and tried to catch his breath. Donnacha couldn’t even enjoy being himself again for the pain shook that through his body.
Every inch of his body was sensitive. If someone touched him, he might fly apart as his nerve endings screamed in agony.
The ice dug into his back. He was cold. So very very cold.
“Get up,” he muttered. “Or it’ll only get worse.”
He knew the Troll Queen’s game. She wanted to see him writhing on the ground in front of her. She wanted to know he was angry, that he hated being alive. That was the point to all of this.
And he refused to give her that satisfaction.
Donnacha rolled onto his side, then pushed himself to his feet. He held out a hand in front of him, staring at the half moons of his nails and the dark hair lightly dusting the backs of his fingers. He was a man again. Really a man.
He ran a hand down his chest, marveling at the way his ribs moved under his hand. His chest hair wasn’t so thick that arrows couldn’t penetrate it.
Could it be? Donnacha reached a shaking hand toward his face and touched the carefully groomed, close-cropped beard. So the Troll Queen hadn’t taken the only thing that was the pride and joy of the dwarves after all.
He desperately wanted to look at himself, to see the body that had been taken from him. But he couldn’t stand to be in the same mirror’s reflection where she had stood.
Dropping his hand, he forced himself to leave the mirror room and return to his own quarters. There was clothing there for him, the ones he’d kept just in case because he refused to give up hope that someday he’d be himself again. Curses were created to be broken, and he was going to break this one with the help of that faerie woman he’d placed in that room alone.
He dragged a sleep shirt over his head and then quickly tied on breeches. He wouldn’t have normally slept in them but…well. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would hesitate to geld a man slipping into bed with her.
The curse tightened around his neck, urging him to hurry or else. The pull at his belly was directing him toward the Troll Kingdom. If he didn’t rush to that faerie woman’s room, he’d find himself running through the halls of the Troll Queen’s palace, hoping he could get away from that monstrous daughter of hers.
He stuffed the loose ends of his shirt into the pants and then ran down the halls. Slipping and sliding, he slammed into a few walls before he finally resorted to skidding down them. He remembered how slippery the ice was without claws.
No claws were on his feet to help him move, he realized with complete and utter joy. The bare feet of a man could easily grow cold touching the smooth floors. It didn’t matter at all. He welcomed the pain because it meant he really was in this form. He really was a man, after all this time.
Donnacha paused in front of the door to the faerie woman’s room, wondering how he was going to do this. He couldn’t share this joy with her. She didn’t know he was the bear. She couldn’t know he was the bear or she would pressure him to tell her what was going on.
She was already too curious about these circumstances, although he attributed that to Scáthach. The wily woman would be the kind to plant someone in his house just to make sure he wasn’t dangerous. And he wasn’t.
He was just a dwarf. Just a dwarf who could finally be the person he had been all those years ago. Even if it was only in the darkness where she couldn’t see his face.
Donnacha waited until the sun set completely and a cloud passed over the moonlight. Then he pressed a hand against the outside wall of her room. The castle would help him. Of everyone involved in the curse, it liked him the most.
He envisioned the walls becoming something more than just ice. He imagined them fracturing, breaking like glass tossed onto the floor. A labyrinth of fissures that would break the light between them, bouncing within it but never passing through.
The ice that had created her room thickened. The crackling sound of magic echoed through the hall and, soon, the ice couldn’t be seen through at all. Even light was caught on the fractures within the walls.
Blowing out a breath, he looked around him. “Thank you.”
A cold wind blew through the hall, gently touched his back, and then continued on. He didn’t know what spirit or creature haunted this castle, but he knew it liked him. That was enough.
Donnacha opened the door and stepped into the darkness of her room.
It was so quiet inside the walls, he thought she wasn’t there. Not even the sound of a person breathing could give him a way to pinpoint where she was. Of course, he was used to having the hearing of a bear.
Then, he heard the sound of
