way to get across?”
“We don’t need to get across at all,” he told her. “Which is precisely why we have to use this bridge.”
She only looked at him, confused.
“This is no ordinary bridge,” he explained. “It doesn’t just lead across the river. It can take you just about anywhere you want to go. Including back to the mortal realm.”
“I see,” she said, fascinated at the very notion of a bridge to anywhere. “Do we have to solve a riddle or something?”
“No,” Cullen said.
A shadow shifted under the bridge and a figure emerged.
A troll.
Jessica was pretty sure she had never seen a troll before. But there was no mistaking it - this was clearly the being Cullen was talking about.
He was large, wider than he was tall, with arms and legs the same color and texture as the grey stone anchors of the bridge, and a long beard that stretched to his middle, in the same striated brown as the splintered planks that formed the bridge’s floor.
A huge and well-used axe with a worn wooden handle hung from his left hand.
“Halt,” he said, in a voice as dry as its plank-like beard.
“Move aside, sirrah,” Cullen said without slowing Nyx’s gait.
“Halt,” the troll repeated, grinding his stony teeth and tightening his grip on the axe.
Cullen let go of Jessica’s waist with one hand, lifting it before him and flicking his wrist.
Another shadow moved under the bridge, but this one took no physical form. It unfurled like smoke, towering taller and taller behind the troll.
The troll, not seeing its smoky assailant, lifted his axe as if he planned to attack them.
But the shadowy column behind him had other plans. It sucked the weapon out of his hands and then let it drop at his feet.
The wicked blade sliced easily through the creature’s exposed foot, spilling blood into the muddy ground. Jessica had a momentary thought of raspberry syrup drizzled over chocolate cake.
“Oh,” the troll moaned in agony, falling to grasp his foot in his hands.
The shadow rose tall over him again, as if to attack, though the troll was not trying to stop them from crossing anymore.
Cullen’s big body was thrumming against hers, as if he were being filled with electricity.
“Cullen,” she murmured. “Make it stop. You’re hurting him.”
He raised his hand, but froze for a moment.
She held her breath until he flicked his wrist again, and the smoky demon retreated from the troll.
They moved on, Nyx passing close enough to allow Cullen to lean down to graze the troll’s head with the tip of his fingers.
The troll’s cries of pain stopped instantly.
Nyx’s hooves clattered over the uneven planks of the bridge, carrying them into a gathering mist.
“Did you just kill him?” Jessica heard herself ask.
“Of course not,” Cullen said stiffly. “I merely took some of his pain.”
“You took it?” she echoed.
“Yes.”
They rode on, engulfed by the mist until neither end of the bridge was visible. Jessica was sure they were going much farther than the length of the bridge, but no matter how far they went, the wooden planks continued below them.
“Is that why they call you the King of Pain?” she asked.
“They call me the King of Pain because I gain power from causing pain,” he told her. “Other people’s pain.”
The idea was terrifying.
The only comfort was how haunted and hollow his voice sounded at admitting it.
“The troll’s pain was enough to power our trip,” he said softly. “We’re through.”
She blinked and realized she could finally see something through the mist.
The bridge was ending, but the woods on the other side looked different - less lush, less alive.
She pulled in a big lungful of stale air.
“We’re home,” Jessica murmured in wonder.
9
Cullen
Cullen helped Jessica off the horse, trying not to notice the worried expression on her face.
All this talk of him being the King of Pain made him nervous. What if she was growing fearful of him?
Jessica had spent twenty-five years in faerie, even if she didn’t know it. She must be sensing that somehow. It had to be the loss of her comfortable, predicable lifestyle that was worrying her.
She knows she can count on me.
Doesn’t she?
He turned to Nyx, who for once was still and silent. The big horse knew his master was leaving the realm.
“I’ll be back soon, boy,” Cullen told him, resting his forehead against Nyx’s.
The horse stamped a foot, already impatient for his master to return.
“I will come back,” Cullen promised him. “Sooner than last time.”
Nyx whickered and cantered away, back to his own side of the bridge.
Cullen