Chapter 5 | Magnus

Chapter 5

Magnus

KELVAR THE WHISPERER pulled the leech from my arm. I hissed at him from the slight jolt of pain.

“That should do it,” he said, clicking his tongue. The shadowwalker stood over the chair where I sat, examining the black leech wiggling between his fingers. Frowning, he said, “Don’t give me that look, boy. Like a spoiled child. These leeches are much less painful than the leechings you suffered before I came along. I’m sure of that.”

He had a point. The Hersir had essentially rescued me from the blood-testing operation in the heart of Fort Woden, a month ago.

I had done the dirty work of creating a shadow-image of myself in the testing chair. With nowhere to run, it was the Whisperer who came to my aid. It had been a complete shock, since I’d thought he was ordering the blood-leechings.

That turned out to be Tomekeeper Dahlia, the rotund queen of Mimir Tomes, our campus library. She had it out for me, and had a good reason to want me dead. I had killed her bastard daughter Astrid.

I asked Kelvar, “Why are you helping me, Hersir?”

The same question, again. Wouldn’t be the last time I asked it, I was sure. I respected his ability to keep mum, because it was a quality I shared.

That didn’t make his non-answers any less aggravating.

With a sigh, Kelvar turned around, long, straight gray hair sweeping to the small of his back. He was a slender man, with a skeletal face and concave cheeks slightly withered by age. If I had to guess, I’d put him at fifty years old.

The man had been doing things behind the shadows for many, many years. He wasn’t going to answer an eager pup like me, no matter how unthreatening I made myself.

We were in a small cave-room, scattered off from earshot of any other alcoves in the underground tunnels. It was Kelvar’s personal dwelling, not much bigger than a room an initiate might have.

Then again, I supposed the Whisperer didn’t need many supplies or wares to ply his trade. He worked by manipulating the mind and the shadows around him. It made him impossibly unpredictable and dangerous.

I pried. “When you helped me escape Fort Woden, you said you were helping me because you’d made a promise. A promise to whom? What did this promise entail?”

“Save your breath and quit asking your questions, bloodrender. My reasons are my own.” He hunched over a small table of tinctures and vials, clanking them around as he tossed the leech into one of the beakers.

I clenched my jaw, frustrated. “You said we’d discuss it more once we were safe, away from the Fort. That was three weeks ago.”

He tossed me a menacing look over his shoulder. “Have we not been discussing it?”

“No. You’ve been plucking me with leeches like a medieval witch-doctor, drawing more blood and studying me just like the bastard doctors at Woden.”

“The difference being I’m studying you to help you. They were studying you for less altruistic reasons.”

I sniffed, shaking my head and locking my gray eyes with his. “I have a sneaking suspicion nothing you do is altruistic, Whisperer. Don’t play that card with me.”

The man pushed himself away from the table, taking slow, measured steps toward me. Making not a sound with his unnerving gait. “You’re growing too big for your britches, boy. Might you forget who you’re talking to?”

He leaned closer. Looking at his pale face too long made me pull back in my chair, naturally averse to conflict with this dangerous man.

Averting my gaze, I lowered my shoulders. “I’ve not forgotten who you are, Hersir Kelvar. Or what you did for me when you seemingly had no reason to. All I want to know is why .”

“In time, perhaps.” He stepped back, crossing his arms over his narrow chest. With only a single torch in the corner of the room, and the Whisperer dressed in black, he nearly melded into the shadows around him. “The why is not important. What is important is understanding what’s coursing through your veins.”

I scoffed. “Yes, well, you’ve done a damned fine job of sucking all that out of me.”

Kelvar stood back on the edge of his desk, hands splayed behind him casually. “You have something special inside you, Magnus Feldraug. I don’t mean your bloodrending. I intend to find out what it is before anyone treacherous does.”

Treacherous? You’re the most treacherous of them all! “And you intend to keep me in the dark during your search.”

He shook his head firmly. “Not true. When I know more, you’ll be the first to know.” He quirked a half-smile, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking with me or not.

We were two emotionless sociopaths locked in a battle of wits. There was never a chance it was going to be anything other than awkward and infuriating.

Kelvar lost his smile. “The blood Dahlia pumped you full of during your tests did more than weaken you. It turned you into her puppet, easily controlled by the marionette strings of her runeshaping, to use at any time against you.”

“In plain words, please,” I said, curious.

“Dahlia’s concoction would turn you into her pet. Rise up against her, and with a flick of her wrist she could rend your blood much the same way you do, to control you and bring you to your knees.”

I raised my brow, sitting back. This was news to me—the first real bit of information I’d wrestled out of him.

“Tomekeeper Dahlia does not just want to kill you. She wants to torture you.”

“I’m aware.”

“And I”—Kelvar nodded to the dead leech simmering in a half-filled beaker of blue liquid—“am trying to siphon all that bad blood out of you, so she can’t do that. There. Is that plain enough for you?”

“Then aren’t you taking the special blood out of me at the same time?” I asked. “Taking out the good with the bad?”

“One would think.” He clicked his tongue again, turning to mess with his vials. Tapping one, he said, “My tests have shown that is not the case. Which I find fascinating.”

My thin brow remained lifted. “What do you mean?”

“The blood you fed from Ravinica Linmyrr has . . . staying power. It refuses to leave your body.”

I stood from the chair, creases of confusion in my face. He was right, that was fascinating.

“And clearly,” he finished, “it’s powerful.”

“I never told you Ravinica was the one I fed from.”

“You never needed to. Like I said, it doesn’t take a mindshaper to know.” He drummed the table, tilting his head. “Elven blood, remember? A rarity in these parts.”

He gave me another half-smile, but I was in no mood for levity. He was underplaying the fact elven blood was not just “a rarity.” She was literally the only person in the entire academy that had it. Well, her and apparently me, now.

“It’s the elven part of her blood that makes it so, erm, potent ?” I asked, taking a step toward him and his science project.

“I’ve dealt with elven blood before. It works just like ours. No, this is different. This is—”

“The ‘anomaly.’”

A nod. “Now you’re getting it, boy.”

He had mentioned an “anomaly” in my blood during his tense conversation with Tomekeeper Dahlia, when I escaped.

I paced a few steps. With nowhere to go in the small room, I decided to sit and rubbed at my neck, thinking. “What are the qualities of this anomalous blood that make it so special, Hersir?”

“I’m not sure the extent of its power. So far, it appears to . . . regenerate you. It was the essence not only keeping you upright and combating Dahlia’s tainted blood, but making you stronger .”

“Gods above.”

“Aye.” He nodded, moving from the table. “Alarming, yet also groundbreaking. Blood that regenerates its vessel? This could be a runic breakthrough—no, a scientific breakthrough, if we can understand it more fully. So, you see, you are correct. My reasons are not altruistic. I need to know more about you.”

“Can you not ask Ravinica for her aid?”

He gave me a look that said, “Are you serious?” and then scoffed. “Would she accept?”

I frowned. “Good point.” I would rather go through the unpleasantness of dealing with Kelvar and his leeches than putting my silvermoon through that. “Does the Tomekeeper know what my blood—Ravinica’s, rather—can do?”

“She is aware of the anomaly, yes.”

“Well . . . fuck.”

“Correct.” Kelvar nodded gravely. “I think you are starting to understand the gravity of the situation. Were your blood to get into the wrong hands . . .”

“It already has!” I shouted, standing because my anger didn’t know what to do with itself. It was a rather foreign emotion for me. “That conniving bitch sucked me dry for two damn months!”

Kelvar steepled his fingers in front of him, letting me finish my outburst. “For better or worse, Magnus, you have me on your side. You let me handle Dahlia Alfinn.”

“You can’t protect me all the time, Whisperer. If her tainted blood is out of my system, like you say it is, then I can defend myself against her.”

He snorted. “Oh, she won’t do anything like challenge you to a duel, foolish boy. She’s more conniving and duplicitous than that.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re correct about me not being able to protect you forever. Because I have some bad news.”

Before I could say anything more, Kelvar reached into his dark tunic and pulled out a letter. He wagged it in the air, setting it on the table near his beakers, then jabbed a finger down. “This is your field duty mission for the start of your cadet year. I was given it earlier this evening.”

“And?”

“And you have been ordered to join a surveillance team aboveground.”

“A scouting mission?” I shrugged. “I can brave poor weather. Hel, Sven Torfen just got back from a two-day mission outside—”

“Let me finish.” He patted the paper again. “This fieldwork is sending you outside the academy grounds, to the portal site Ravinica opened.”

My head lurched, shocked. “The elven encampment ? It’s a suicide mission. Trudging through heavy snowfall is one thing. You’re talking about a place that’s—”

“Days away from the relative safety of the academy. Yes, I know.” He nodded grimly, slowly, as if trying to punctuate the danger of my mission with his gaunt face. “Sadly, there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s been signed off by Gothi Sigmund.”

The wheels turned in my head. A moment later: “You said I’ll be part of a surveillance team . Do I get to choose—”

“No. The Huscarls accompanying you have already been chosen. You won’t get Ravinica or your friends.”

Shit. This was not good. “How long is the mission?”

“One week. Three days there and three days back. If all things go well.”

A lot can go wrong out in the wilderness. It’s easy to bury a body in the snow. Before I could let my mind wander, I sighed, trying to find the silver lining. “At least I won’t be alone.”

As if that made it better.

The expression on Kelvar’s face told me it did not—that I could trust the Huscarls I’d be with about as much as I could trust Gothi Sigmund himself.

“You haven’t heard the best part.” He scratched his forehead in preparation for the bombshell.

I sat back, throwing my arms wide in defeat. “Lay it on me, Whisperer.”

“Tomekeeper Dahlia handpicked you for this mission.”

My shoulders sank. Disappointment swam through me, yet I wasn’t angry or surprised. Of course she did . The person who hates me most here is sending me to the furthest reaches of the Isle, during a torrential snowstorm, with academy soldiers I’ve never met before?

I’ve seen this movie before.

Burying a body in the snow was looking a lot more likely.

Without another thought to my unfortunate situation, I stood from the chair, grabbed my trench coat off the seatback, and shrugged it on.

Kelvar looked at me askance. “Where are you going?”

I met his eyes as I stepped for the door. “I suppose I’ve got to find Ravinica, Hersir. So I can tell her it’s been nice knowing her.”