Chapter 10 | Ravinica

Chapter 10

Ravinica

I SLEPT IN ARNE’S ARMS—OR rather, him entwined in mine—and finally conked out, exhausted from the whirlwind, raunchy day.

In the morning, we went our separate ways, sadly. He had to report for his third-term field duty, to see where he would be placed. I had my first class at the ass-crack of dawn.

Living in the underground city beneath Vikingrune Academy had worn me down over the past three weeks. Getting zero sunlight was awful for you. The lack of fresh air seemed to be doing a number on my body. Despite being in great shape from all the physical exertion with my men, I found breathing harder than it should have been down here.

Stuffing my schedule in my pack, along with a textbook, I cleared my bleary eyes and staked off for my first class of the day: Shipbuilding with Hersir Ingvus Jorthyr.

I had a history with the tall, gray-blond Warden of Vikingrune. He had been the one to give me the ultimatum my first day here: If my powers didn’t show up, I’d be exiled, relegated to possibly joining the Lepers Who Leapt.

With the help of Corym E’tar and the elves, somehow, my magic had unveiled itself just in the nick of time.

Ingvus had also arrested both Grim and Magnus—at different times—for the deaths of Astrid Dahlmyrr and Corta Gamdeen. He negotiated with Magnus, the true killer, to leech his blood in exchange for leaving me alone once I returned from the elven encampment.

Magnus made this decision without my say-so, because I hadn’t been here. We were still dealing with the repercussions of it, months later.

All that being said, I wasn’t looking forward to my class with the newest Hersir on the docket. Before getting my schedule, I’d had no idea Ingvus Jorthyr even taught classes, much less one having to do with building longships.

What’s the point of this class, anyway? Are we expected to become carpenters . . . underground, where there’s nowhere to raise a sail or put a boat?

Perhaps I was just grumpy because it was early. The class started before breakfast even sounded reasonable. If I could’ve sees the sky, darkness would still be greeting me.

When I made my way through the winding hallways and got to class, a bunch of other cadets were also red-eyed and surly. No one wanted to be here.

I took my seat, put my spear and backpack down beside my chair, and waited for everyone to take their chairs. On each desk was a small hammer, some nails, and a few pieces of wood.

Furrowing my brow as I stared down at the items, I wondered if we were going to be building a mini replica of a boat on our first day. Great. The arts and crafts portion of my training to defeat extraplanar monsters from other realms. How useful.

My sourness went away as a huge figure took up the open door. I smiled at Grim, who made his way into the wide cavern chamber and ducked to get under the archway.

Standing from my seat, he noticed me and returned my smile with a knowing nod, before lumbering over to give me a hug and take a seat beside me.

“Morning, love.” He kissed my forehead. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I see.”

I snorted, taking his huge paw in my hand, rubbing over his knuckles. “This class seems ridiculous.”

Grim shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Same as any other, you ask me.”

He seemed the least sleep-deprived out of the two-dozen students. Probably because he had been responsible and gotten to sleep early, whereas I had fooled around with Arne while learning some interesting tidbits about him and his fam.

And my fam, truth be told.

Arne’s words ran through me. For the first fifteen minutes of class they were all I could think about. Gothi Sigmund has had it out for me since day one, without me even knowing. He’s always known who I am, because he has some kind of connection with my stepfather, Hallan.

It was worrying news, given the chieftain’s clout, power, and authority over Vikingrune Academy. Now he had the portal I’d opened at his disposal, guarded at all hours of the day, even during a stormy winter. Who knew what he was planning?

I’d also learned how and why Arne had spied on me when I first came here. I was surprised he and Frida had essentially grown up in the rebel gang of the Lepers, and he had been the “chosen one,” to help parlay their safety with the academy, since he could Shape runes.

Does Arne even want to be a Vikingrune soldier? If he came here out of necessity for his group—unlike the others who trained their whole lives to be here—what does that say about his impetus to remain here?

Learning new things about Arne only made him more fascinating to me. It certainly opened up more questions. Chief among them: What does my family have to do with Vikingrune in this age, decades after my mother attended?

Hallan had never attended the academy, so what was his connection with Gothi Sigmund? And why did it make me so fucking nervous?

“Are you with us, Cadet Linmyrr?”

I blinked, looking up from my desk, a blank expression on my face. A few students chuckled at my obvious discomfort.

At the front of the room, in front of a black chalkboard with illustrations on it, Hersir Ingvus Jorthyr crossed his arms. There was more gray in his yellow beard than there had been a month ago, plaited down to his chest.

He was a sullen bastard on the best of days.

“I know it’s early, but we all have to be here,” he explained. “So pick up the damn hammer and get to knocking.”

I blinked at him, confused. Obviously I hadn’t been paying attention, which wasn’t like me. It was the first day of class and I was already too wrapped up in my own thoughts.

Not a good sign.

Glancing over at Grim with a helpless quirk to my eyebrows, the shifter gave me a crooked smile. He lifted a small hand-hammer and pantomimed knocking it against wood.

The sounds of hammers slamming into nails and wood jarred my brain, waking me up from my hazy morning with a sharp wince. So this is why the class is so damned early. To wake our asses up because it’s so annoying.

Ingvus paced to reprimand a few students, thankfully forgetting about me. The entire class bent their heads at their desks, arms lifting. I looked around with my head down, trying to see what everyone was doing, since I was out of the loop.

Grim wandered next to me, voice a whisper against the harsh clattering sounds filling the room and giving me an early headache. “He wants to see what carpentry skills we have, if any.”

I nodded, brow threaded. “Got it. By . . . hammering plywood together?”

Grim chuckled, shrugging. “I suppose there’s an art to it.”

Here was the thing. Everyone in this class had grown up in rural villages, off the grid, away from the hustle and bustle and technology of our magicless human counterparts in the real world.

We were all outdoorsy people. Every student at Vikingrune Academy could swing a sword, thrust a spear, shoot a bow, hunt, build a fucking log cabin, if we had to, say, survive a harsh winter or repair our village dwellings.

I didn’t feel we needed training on putting a hammer on a nail. What was the point of—

“Kollbjorn, get back to your seat,” Ingvus snapped from the front of the room. “Or are you already finished?”

Grim looked up from me. “Apologies, Hersir. I was just showing Ravinica—”

“I don’t care.”

Grim’s lips closed, pursing, and he nodded firmly before returning to his seat.

The spitefulness in Hersir Jorthyr’s tone had been unmistakable. A few students chuckled again at my bear shifter’s whipping.

Anger roiled inside me on behalf of my mate, which I kept down. Cooler heads will prevail in this class. Like they always do.

I’d been hoping the history we shared with Hersir Jorthyr would give us a little leeway with him. That was clearly not the case. He wasn’t giving us preferential treatment.

In fact, I noticed the opposite. His eyes were never far from mine or Grim’s desks, despite there being twenty other men and women in here.

I “got to knocking,” as Ingvus had put it, after studying the drawn illustrations on the chalkboard. He wanted us to hammer the wood chunks together at certain angles, and then sand them down to make them shaped like the right-angled corner of a room, though slightly rounded.

It was actually harder than it looked.

Five minutes into my hammering, when I was starting to get into the zone, I heard Hersir Jorthyr’s voice nearby.

“The fuck is that?”

I glanced over my shoulder and noticed him right next to me, standing over Grim’s desk with his arms crossed.

Grim looked up from his work, furrowing his brow. “I’m not yet finished, sir. It’s—”

Ingvus’ hand lashed out, slapping the sculpture off Grim’s desk. With a crash, Grim’s work fell to the ground and cracked apart, splinters of wood fragmenting.

My mouth fell open, hammer poised near my head for another pounding. What the fuck? What was that for?

“Look at the shoddy construction,” Ingvus said. Both he and Grim stared down at the broken pile of wood and nails. “It shouldn’t have fractured so easily like that.”

Other students were watching, as if taking in Grim’s humiliation as some sort of lesson. Thirty minutes into the first day of the first class of the term. Without anything more than squiggles on the board for direction.

Grim’s eyes were vacant, staring down at his wood pile. Then they narrowed when he looked up. “I hadn’t yet fortified the model, sir.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was shit. Start again, Kollbjorn.”

I watched helplessly as Grim’s muscles flexed. The Hersir wandered off, showing us his back. Quickly, students bowed their heads and went back to hammering.

I was two seconds away from yelling at Ingvus in my typical impulsive nature, when Grim caught my eye and gave me a small headshake.

Shoulders sagging, I flared my nostrils and started hammering twice as hard as I had been. That asshole!

Fifteen minutes later, the Hersir was zigzagging through class, inspecting everyone’s work with a pissed-off expression on his face.

I wanted to ask Inguvs who had shit in his Cheerios, but I knew that wouldn’t go off well, so I stayed quiet.

He came to mine, stared over the beak of his nose at me, and frowned. “Serviceable, Linmyrr.”

You know I prefer Lindeen, asshat. But no, Hersir Jorthyr had to make special notice of my bog-blood upbringing, using the suffix of “myrr.” Just as he had the first day I arrived here.

I recalled my very first conversation with this man, sweating as I stood over his desk and he scribbled on a page that would decide my fate. I’d tried to tell him my name was Ravinica Lin deen , after my mother Lindi. His response was to shrug it aside as unimportant, and misidentify me.

“Your wicked father, who you don’t know, passed down his name to you. Shame that is how you’re represented, but you can’t escape those ears and hair. So, Linmyrr it is.”

He’d checked off a box like he was filling out a gods-damned crossword puzzle, not the sheet that would decide what I would be called forever at Vikingrune Academy.

My blood boiled at the thought, anger rising higher, getting harder to tamp down.

He was gone before I could react, which helped to lessen my sudden rage.

Until he opened his mouth next. “I expected you to be better than this, Kollbjorn. See me after class.”

With a scoff of derision, the Hersir wandered away from Grim’s desk, leaving my mate fuming.

Gods, seems we both have it bad with this man. Though, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell why he had it out for Grim. Grim’s work looks perfectly reasonable and on par with the other shitheads in this class.

Shaking my head, I tried not to dive too deep into my frustration.

It was going to be a long, long term if this kept up.

Class let out. I walked slowly through the archway in front of Grim, making sure we were the last two to leave.

Hersir Jorthyr, seated at his desk, called Grim over with a throat clearing.

I decided to eavesdrop. Wandering past the door without looking back at Grim or Ingvus, I slightly shut it—keeping it ajar—and spun around at the wall just outside.

I put my ear close, biting my lip nervously.

Their voices were low. At least to start.

Grim said, “I take it that was about more than my carpentry skills, Hersir Jorthyr.”

“Watch your tone with me, boy. And don’t assume. The craftsmanship was lazy.”

“Been a few years since I built anything with my bare hands. You’ll have to forgive my clumsy—”

“I don’t forgive, shifter.”

Silence. I held in a gasp. Tension slipped out the cracked door, so thick in there it could be cut with a blade.

Grim stayed calm, stoic as usual. “What is your issue with me then, sir?”

“My issue with you?” Ingvus’ voice was a snarl. A rustling sound told me he’d gone to his feet behind his desk, and a thud made me jump as he slammed a hand down. “You’re a killer, Kollbjorn. I don’t trust you.”

“Hersir . . .”

“You killed a student your first year and weaseled your way out of punishment.” Ingvus’ voice carried now, echoing off the walls so passing students could hear.

I leaned back, eyebrows rising as he continued.

“You did the same your second term—”

“I was exonerated for those crimes against Astrid and Corta. You know that. Sir.”

Grim’s stoic nature was fraying at the edges of his voice. I could sense his anger growing, bonded to him like I was.

Hersir Jorthyr was tall, yet not as tall as Grim Kollbjorn. He was broad, yet not as broad as my mountain of a man. He was imposing, but Grim . . . Ingvus didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

“Exoneration doesn’t escape you from guilt, Kollbjorn! Am I the only one who remembers you escaped imprisonment, yet again? Before you were exonerated?”

Grim stayed silent, taking the barrage.

I worried my lip with my teeth, picking at my nails, fearful for Grim’s future anywhere near this man who clearly hated him and was out for some perceived injustice. Vengeance.

I understood it now. The job of the Warden was to jail “problem students” and keep the peace at the academy. Grim had, unfortunately, been in the middle of quite a few situations involving possible crimes, and certainly deaths. In Ingvus’ eyes, he had “gotten away with it” up until now, slipping past the jailer’s watchful eye.

He confirmed it with his next scalding words.

“Are you a bear or a cat, boy? Because you seem to have nine fucking lives.” Ingvus’ voice cut through like a knife, seething, lowering from a shout as I imagined him drawing closer to Grim’s chest. “And I’ll steal every fucking one of them if I have to, so long as you meet justice.”

I inhaled sharply, stepping back from the perch where I listened against the wall. Fuck. More enemies. And a powerful one, this time. The “steward”—the damned Warden of Vikingrune.

Hersir Jorthyr growled. “You don’t belong outside of a cage, boy. I’ll make sure you understand that by the time I’m through with you.”