Chapter 14 | Corym

Chapter 14

Corym

MY MIND WAS TRAPPED in this place, worse than my body.

I was a prisoner of people I hardly understood. The humans I’d met had shown their true colors—their avarice toward people of my ilk.

As it turned out, Lord Talasin had been correct a thousand years ago. Lady Elayina, too, understood far more than I did about the ways of Man.

Talasin’s chronicles had written about human greed. He’d told the oral history of the Ljosalfar and humans, from the elven perspective. From a perspective no one in this accursed realm understood.

I scoffed at Midgard. Every day, my resentment for humans grew to greater heights.

All except Ravinica Lindeen. My lunis’ai , my silver-streaked love. The woman my people had callously captured, her half-elven heritage being a novelty to our kind. I suppose we’re not much different than them, if I think about it too long.

Sighing, I stood from the small bench hewn into the side of the wall across from my tiny cot. The gate at the door was drawn down, trapping me, only allowing me to leave twice per day. And never without a watchful entourage of Huscarls.

Ravinica wanted to change the world. I admired her tenacity and grit, her desire for growth. I might have thought it na?ve and hopeless, but I had learned not to doubt that gorgeous creature. I would be on her side through it all.

Was I angry at her for breaking the portal-ward to Alfheim? Yes. That anger simmered each day, however, and I did not let it grow into the same resentment I shared for the rest of her kind.

She wasn’t the one trapping me here, or among the hopeless gang calling themselves the Lepers Who Leapt. All Ravinica had done was save me. If not for her, I’d be in a much worse position than I was currently in. My skin would have been flayed from my body.

How could one so fair and idealistic change people so flawed? On both sides. The loathing between the elves and humans went marrow-deep. It was an animosity steeped in history. Hatred borne from tomes and third-hand accounts—stories and tales of tragedy and betrayal.

On our side, the humans were the greedy ones for wanting to steal the Runesphere from our sacred homeland of Alfheim and use it for their own nefarious purposes, centuries ago.

On the human side, I imagined the elves were the greedy ones for keeping its power from them; for erecting the portal-wards keeping humans from the wisdom and knowledge of Alfheim.

It seemed impossible to rectify these age-old grievances. These were not merely rivalries or petty squabbles. An entire war had been fought over the fates of Lord Talasin and King Dannon, the joint discoverers of the Runesphere.

It seemed, then, that the Runesphere was the root of all our problems. It was the catalyst propelling us into a millennium of hate, and the anchor holding our peoples back from reasonable discussions or negotiations.

Talasin and Dannon were long dead.

But not all from that time had perished. There were others, wiser than me, considered the keys to resolving this conflict. There was a reason I had come to Midgard with my vanguard unit.

It was not for holiday, or to hole up in this dark, dank, stinking place under Vikingrune Academy, so far removed from the natural habitat of my world.

This was why my mind was trapped all these weeks, and not just my body. I could numb myself to the physical boredom of being constantly guarded. But I could not turn my mind off, as much as I wanted to.

Well, there is one way , I thought, glancing over at the small nightstand where my tincture sat in a clay bowl.

I walked over to the corner of my bench, went to my knees, and peered under it. I picked at the patch of dimly luminescent fungi sitting in the darkness of my cell.

I took the scraps of the undergrowth and deposited it into my bowl. The water I had resisted drinking had helped turn the fungi into a sludge with a sickly green pallor and horrid stench.

My plan was to use the tincture on myself, to numb my brain and turn everything off for a while. Three weeks of picking at the fungi growing in my room had given me this amount, and every day I told myself would be the day I ingested it.

Yet something had made me resist the temptation. Perhaps my trepidation stemmed from fear—that if my mind was quieted, I would forget my silver-haired goddess and all we’d done together in such a short time.

Alas, it turned out to be something else entirely that stayed my hand, as a sure sign from the spirits.

That sign went streaming past my dwelling, large and lumbering and chaotic as a typhoon. Students moseying the halls outside my gate murmured as the huge form barreled past, streaking by in a blur.

In that blur, with a quaking of heavy footsteps following in its wake, I saw a glint of silver shining radiant against the dark stone walls. Silver draped over the behemoth’s arms, carried as he ran past.

My heart lodged in my throat as I recognized Ravinica in the arms of her largest mate, Grim Kollbjorn. In that moment, I knew the tincture I’d made was not meant for me.

Shooting up, I ran to the gate and wrapped my hands around the iron, leaning my face forward. “Guards! You must let me leave to follow those two rabid students!”

The Huscarls, who always faced outward two steps from the gate, glanced over their shoulders at me. One of them had hate in his eyes and spat on the ground, not answering my plight. The other yawned, showing sheer indifference.

Gritting my teeth, I squeezed the bars so hard my pale knuckles turned even paler. “Please, I have not had my second walk today. I am owed—”

“You aren’t owed shit,” growled the guard on the right.

“I beg of you—”

“Keep begging, pointy-ear. We’re not letting you out.”

The other guard said, “Who knows what kind of madness you’d cause, frolicking through the tunnels?”

They stared ahead, their stances firm.

I glanced over my shoulder at the bowl on the nightstand, sighing. Then you leave me no choice.

Quickly, I went to the bowl. I gathered the muck in both hands, feeling the slime drip through my fingers, grimacing.

Then I went back to the gate and called out, “Guards, I am sorry.”

That got both of their attention, as planned. The Huscarls turned as one, heads slowly glancing over their shoulders again—

Just as my hands lashed out from between the bars, slapping the muck onto their faces, across their mouths and noses.

As they stumbled back with curses, reaching for their weapons, I quickly cast a binding spell, gluing the concoction and pushing it.

The fungi interacted instantly. Before they could wipe the muck away and return their eyes to me, it was seeping into their pores, down their throats, even into their eyes and nostrils.

With staggering steps toward the bars, clumsy hands trying to free their swords, the Huscarls shared looks of fear. Their eyes rolled and drooped, a ghostly pallor taking home in their faces.

They toppled forward together, unconscious. I reached out, holding up the one I knew held the key to my gate, and hugged him against the bars.

Swiftly, I snatched the key, let him fall, and let myself out of my confines.

Staring down at the inert bodies, knowing I had likely made my stay here much harder on myself with this act, I stepped over the bodies.

It was paramount I learned what was happening to Ravinica. She had looked unconscious in Grim’s arms, and the way he was running . . .

I shook my head.

Punishment could wait. For now, I needed resolution.

I dashed into the hall without another thought.

I followed the alarmed voices of students. Winding through the twisting labyrinth of the underground tunnels and caverns. Students blurred by as I gave chase.

Before long, with my golden hair whipping about and my long strides carrying me like the wind, I spotted the hulking man carrying Ravinica.

He was breathing loudly, body heaving as my preternatural physique brought me closer to him.

Grim did not glance over his shoulder before speaking—as if he could sense my presence with his own abilities. “Took you long enough, elf.”

“What is going on, Grim? What is wrong with her?”

“No time,” he growled, continuing forward.

He dashed right at a four-way split in the tunnel.

Evidently, the big man knew exactly where he was going. Which was good, because I didn’t know where I was. The guards had never let me roam this far out from my dwelling—too risky, they’d said, as if they thought I’d learn academy secrets by poking around where I shouldn’t be.

The only “academy secrets” I see here is a dark dungeon that needs a cleaning, and doesn’t even have a proper filtration system. The ruffians. No wonder they’re called heathens.

I followed Grim in silence, the quiet padding of my feet joining the harsh thudding of his boots. We came to a wooden door that looked like any other, and Grim didn’t slow, charging in, using that huge shoulder of his to burst through the door.

Inside was different: plastered walls, bright lights, and a sense of modernity.

Furrowing my brow, I followed.

“We need a nurse!” Grim yelled. “A surgeon! A gods-damn medicine woman, if you have one!”

Gasps ripped through the twisting halls of the cavern from hooded and robed students. In the light, I noticed blood dripping from Grim’s elbow. It was not his blood.

My pulse spiked, fear running through me.

Two people in white robes burst into the room at Grim’s call. One of them I recognized when her hood went down, terror in her eyes.

“Oh gods, Rav!” cried out Ravinica’s friend, Dagny Largul.

“Give us a table,” Grim growled to the other nurse.

He quickly ran off with a nod and rolled one over a moment later.

Grim set Ravinica down gently on the steel table. We huddled around her. Ravinica didn’t make a sound when her bare arms touched the cold surface, which only made me more scared for her, knowing she was unconscious. The rise and fall of her chest was shallow. The bloody wound was in her side, and my mind started racing.

“What happened to her?” Dagny asked, frantically starting to peel off straps and layers of Ravinica’s garb.

“Her brother stabbed her,” Grim said.

Dagny’s face became a storm. “That bastard. I’ll kill—”

“We all have the same thing in mind, Dagny. Just tell me, can you help her?”

Dagny swallowed hard. She looked pale and unconfident. “I-I’m only an acolyte, Grim! All the doctors are out—”

“Move aside,” I snarled, pushing past her and Grim to get to Ravinica’s side, surprising them both. I leaned in, took one glance at the wound and where it was located, and calculated in my head.

“The Hel can you do, elf?” Grim asked.

A second later, a new voice joined the chaotic chorus.

“The fuck is going on here?!” It was Ravinica’s wild, arrogant mate, Sven Torfen. Wearing a hospital gown, bare ass in the still air. “I’m down for a day and a half, just ready to leave, and you assholes can’t protect her even for that long?”

Grim shoved him aside. “You’re not helping, wolf!”

As the room fell quiet, all eyes on me, I bloodied my hands near Ravinica’s wound, ripping open the fabric. I felt around and said, “I don’t think it’s hit vital organs, thankfully.”

“What are you, some kind of elven shaman?” Grim asked.

I ignored him. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“No fucking shit, elf!” Sven roared. “We can see that!”

I spun to Dagny, who was biting her nails, terrified. “Show me to your wares, Deen Dagny.”

She blinked, opened her mouth to speak, and then nodded. Tugging my arm, she shuffled over to another room. At one end was a glass case, locked, with pill bottles and vials behind it.

I broke the glass easily with my elbow, reached in, and shuffled around. Dagny looked on, gawking, as if worried how much trouble she was going to get in for my little display.

To assuage her fears, I said, “In Alfheim, I am a torar’tis .” I rooted around, grabbing things I’d need. “A . . . teacher. I have a specialty in botany, mycology, and herbalism. An extensive knowledge of alchemy. It is how I saved the Leper who nearly died from poisoning. It’s how I will save Ravinica from the same.”

“S-She’s been poisoned?”

I nodded gravely. With one arm bundling a cornucopia of bottles and supplies, I took the smaller girl by the shoulder and stared into her mismatched eyes. “Do not fear, Dagny Largul. No one, even the spirits and gods, will keep me from saving Ravinica.”

She gulped, nodding swiftly. “I wish I had your confidence.”

“I can’t do it alone. We will build your confidence while we work. Can you aid me?”

Dagny gained her composure, her light-and-dark hair flopping as she nodded fiercely. “Ravinica is my best friend, Corym. Just tell me what you need me to do.”