Chapter 16 | Grim

Chapter 16

Grim

I CURSED MYSELF FOR my parting words to the little sneak. Getting her hopes up with that beautiful smile splayed across her face.

Standing still at the tree line, I watched her become smaller, until she was a tiny speck nearing Nottdeen Quarter. Once I knew she was safe, I turned back into the woods.

A strong sense of protectiveness grew root in my belly. I wanted to shield Ravinica for all the hours of the night. She was pure. Genuine.

Yet I knew it couldn't be. I knew what I was. I feigned myself into thinking that, as long as I could keep the monster inside me hidden, we could be cordial.

Nonsense, my mind answered. It will never work.

I was more than just a bear.

"No peace for the grim," the gang used to tell me in jest. I didn't think it was very funny, using my name for their little wordplays.

Ravinica was blissfully na?ve to the ways of Vikingrune Academy. It was only her first day. I hoped she wouldn't remain that way for long. Being stubborn was the quickest way to get hurt here. The academy trained us to be soldiers, not thinkers.

In that, I excelled. I had a feeling she could, too, if given the chance to show her capabilities. Long as she doesn't let her name drag her down in the mud.

This radiant initiate had more working against her than most. She would be ostracized because of her hair and ears. Ostracized like me. She would be made a pariah and an enemy as an excuse for other people to direct their animosity and vitriol toward. To get out their aggressions.

People like Sven Torfen and his kin reveled in bullying those they perceived as weak. That's where you're wrong, Torfen. This girl is not weak. She is simply inexperienced.

The academy was founded on our differences. Our powerful bloodlines that, when mixed and teamed together, created amazing things. Stalwart soldiers, working off each other to create brilliant results—a commingling of physical strength, defense, and magic-craft that made our soldiers terrifying.

Yet, somewhere along the way, we had become too homogenous. Too focused on our sameness, not on the differences that made us stronger.

Vikingrune was not a united front, as it should be. As it was founded to be. Rather, it was a den of cobbled-together groups made up of people who found comfort in their likeness to each other.

Cliques.

I fucking hated them.

I'd been here two years, and realized that fact in my first. I hoped Ravinica could learn sooner rather than later friends would only bring her pain and misery here.

After attempting to form camaraderie in my initiate year, and seeing it all go to shit, I now preferred my solitude. Most people were foolish to roam the woods at night. I walked them because people were scared of me.

Happenstance had led me to the little sneak, as I'd told her. The woman had a powerful scent, like a lingering cloud of lavender and stone. The bloody Torfens had a sharp odor of fur, fire, and treachery.

I didn't think Sven, Olaf, Edda, and Ulf wanted her dead. If that had been the case, I would have never made it to her in time.

No, they had wanted to break her. To get her to kneel before them, as many weaker folk before her. The lack of backbone many cadets showed these days was worrying. I felt proud knowing the little sneak had resisted the Torfens' fear-driven actions. That she had thwarted their games and fought.

The Torfens underestimated Ravinica Linmyrr.

She must surely be a follower of the Old Way. She had been bloodied when I arrived, yet ready to continue fighting to the death.

A woman like that deserved allies to prop her up, as contradicting as it was for me to think that. I couldn't be the friend she needed, because of what I was, yet perhaps I was wrong . . . Perhaps she can show people how things ought to be, rather than how they are. I sense in her the qualities of a leader.

Would that I could, I'd lead myself. Instead, perhaps I will follow her to see how far she goes. It will be an interesting journey to observe from afar.

It wasn't often my mind was changed. And so quickly. Yet in the minutes it took me to walk through the woods, I'd gone from chastising Ravinica for seeking allies and friends, to hoping she could break the mold and bring worthy people to coalesce around her.

As I marched toward my pile of tattered clothes where I'd shifted out of them, a small smile cracked beneath my short beard. It was a foreign expression for me, smiling.

I crouched and gathered the blown-apart rags from the forest floor, then tied some of the scraps together to make a loincloth.

Wrapping the article around my waist, I grunted when I stared down. It mostly hid my modesty, and would suffice until I reached my dwelling. At least it would have hid my modesty . . . but thinking about Ravinica, smiling about her potential, made blood course through me.

I frowned at the growing of my cock, making the loincloth irrelevant. Grunting, I thought of trivial things until the lust passed, and then I kept walking.

Thinking about the Torfen pack did wonders to stifle my arousal. It took only a few seconds before the sudden lust was changed into sudden anger. I had half a mind to march to the den the Torfens called home on this campus, and continue our battle. Yet I knew it was foolhardy. It was the kind of thing I hoped Ravinica would learn to let go of—revenge, stubbornness, naivety.

Easier spoken about than doing, of course.

It would get me nothing. Even if I killed their entire family bloodline, it would only serve to strengthen the animosity against people like me. It would widen the gap between community and individuality I was trying to close.

At its heart, the Torfens were not my enemy. They were a byproduct of a wayward academy system. Others, however . . . well, there were others who deserved a talking-to.

With a growl, and my burgeoning of lust for my little sneak abated, I staked off out of the woods.

My fist pounded on the door of the longhouse, hard enough I might punch through it if it didn't open soon.

I had come halfway across campus, west, to a congregation of small dwellings offered to second- and third-year students who no longer used the Nottdan and Nottdeen dormitories.

Standing there in my flimsy, ridiculous breechcloth, I reared my fist back to knock again.

The door opened before I could.

Eyes in the doorway widened at the sight of me.

I rushed in, arm lashing out, and clutched my hand around Eirik Halldan's neck. My size and momentum carried us into the longhouse, his face registering shock and pain as I squeezed his throat.

The man was large, yet that was a relative term when it came to me, and I easily pushed him up against the nearest wall.

Three people leapt up from their seats around a table when they saw me barge into the longhouse and assault Eirik.

Choking, growling, Eirik's hands wrapped around my wrist to try and pry my hand from his neck.

"Grim, what the fuck!" yelled the girl, Ayla, from the side. She scrambled around the table to find a weapon. The two men, Tyrus and Gryphon, charged toward me.

Eirik put a palm toward them to stop, even as he struggled to rip my hand off his neck with his free arm. His face grew red, veins distending. In his struggle, he searched my eyes, and when he found what he was looking for, his face relaxed.

Surprising, that, considering I could've snapped his neck like a tree branch in that moment.

"I t-take it you have something to tell me," Eirik eked out past gritted teeth. He showed no fear, despite getting little air.

"Plan on keeping watch over your sister, Halldan?" I snarled, and then pushed him against the wall and released him from my hold. "Or just hole up here like a deadbeat?"

He breathed heavily, hand going to the red handprint across his neck. After composing himself, he said, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"She was attacked."

"By whom?"

"Torfens."

He paused a beat. Then, "All hells." He shook his head, fingers scratching his forehead. Across from us at the table, his three minions visibly relaxed now that I wasn't holding him hostage.

There was Ayla, the one he fucked. Tyrus, the one he confided in. And Gryphon, the one he fucked. All of them useless, in my mind. Yet there were worse cliques to be part of at the academy, surely.

"Where was she—"

"Irrelevant," I barked. When he tilted his head expectantly, one brow lifting, I added, "The woods."

"Odin fuck me," he whined, "I told her not—"

"She's like you, fool. Bullheaded. Take responsibility. Don't place blame."

We stared at each other, foreheads creasing with wrinkles. There was a time I considered Eirik Halldan a friend. Now, I was looking at a stranger. Yet for a moment, memories flooded back.

He smirked. "Still talking in monosyllabic sentences, I see, Grim."

" Responsibility is six syllables, idiot."

Eirik rolled his eyes. He threw up his arms in frustration. "What do you want me to do? Vini is her own person. I can control her no more than I can control the wind."

"You can control the wind—"

"Bad example. If you've met her, you know she's stubborn and strong-willed."

"She's more than that. She's the answer."

"To what?"

I vaguely gestured at his three friends, at the table, at the longhouse. "All of this."

Eirik put his hands on his hips. "You know this from one interaction with her?"

"I sense it."

He took a step toward me, thrusting a finger against my bare chest. "Then maybe you should be the one to protect—"

"You know I can't. Not forever."

He paused, eyes narrowing. "That's right. I do know. So don't come charging in here because of your own faults and—"

I grabbed his finger two inches from my chest, twisting his wrist.

"Fuck!" Eirik cried out, shocked at my sudden outburst.

I didn't need him reminding me what I was. It changed nothing about his sister.

Ayla cursed and jumped into action, grabbing a sword perched against the wall near the table. She ran at us while I kept Eirik hand-tied.

She leveled the sword at my neck. "Let him go, you fucking barbarian!"

I turned my head slowly—looked at her face, marred with thinly veiled fear. Then I lunged with my free arm, wrapping my hand around the blade of her sword. The edges cut into my palms in two places as I squeezed the blade, twisted my wrist, and yanked the sword out of Ayla's grip.

I tossed the weapon aside with a clang, droplets of blood flying with it.

"Fucking hell! You're crazy!" the now-swordless woman cried out.

I pushed Eirik away from me and did as he'd done, thrusting a finger toward him. "Her eyes lit up when I mentioned your name."

Eirik's hard expression softened. "What?"

"Don't let her faith in you be misplaced, Halldan. Like it was me."

He winced. Slowly, he gazed toward the ground. Ashamed, perhaps.

Awkwardness settled in the room like a thick fog.

I relished it, basked in it. Then I glanced over at the table, where I saw papers and maps strewn about. "What are you lot planning?"

Eirik looked up from the ground. His defensive posture returned, eyes narrowing. "You don't need to know, Grim. You're not part of us anymore."

I grunted, examining him. "Thank the gods for that," I grunted.

I spun and stormed out of the longhouse.