Chapter 47 | Ravinica

Chapter 47

Ravinica

WHITE LIGHT SEPARATED me from the strange visions. I was thrust back into my body, with the outlines of Elayina the bog seer and her tree-cave slowly coming into focus.

A hazy wave of dizziness passed over me. I wobbled where I sat, wide-eyed and utterly confused.

The memories, if they could be called that, had come in fragments. Four distinct stories that seemed to arrive in a chronological order I couldn't grasp.

It had been the birth of something, the building of something, the fall of something, and finally the death of something.

I knew nothing of the people inside my head, or their stories. They certainly had nothing to do with me .

They were memories from a life I had never lived.

My body was alight with a strange sensation. The daze I felt—an otherworldliness—did not pass for many long minutes, and I couldn't speak during that time.

The first thing I did was Shape the air in front of me, wagging my fingers, reaching into my soul to try and pull my magic to the forefront.

The air did not light up with the rune marks like it did when other runeshapers cast. The characters gave no clue I had summoned them, and no magic sprouted from my fingertips.

My power was still dormant.

Shame and disappointment filled me, aching to my gut.

Finally, my leathery tongue dislodged from the roof of my mouth. I swallowed over my parched throat and stared at the tired, ancient woman in front of me.

"W-Why did you show me this?" I stammered.

"I showed you nothing, child." Elayina inclined her chin. "I merely jostled memories that were already trapped inside you."

My brow furrowed. "How is that possible? I don't know who those people were."

"You must share a relation with those ancestors for their memories to be inside you, Ravinica. Beyond that, I cannot explain."

I was flabbergasted. Dumbstruck. I couldn't make sense of what the witch was saying, though it felt important. With my heart racing and my eyes bulging, I thought back on the fragments. The visions.

The King Who Saw.

The Deceiver in Gold.

The memories had been stories from their lives. Ancient myths a thousand years old.

I recalled the final one—the betrayal and death.

"But . . . these memories," I eked out. "They are nothing like the histories I learned."

Elayina gave me a small, sad nod. "Funny how that works, eh? Let me ask you, child: Who writes the history books?"

I thought for a moment. "The winners."

Another nod.

The humans .

A gasp ripped from my throat. If the memories that just played through my head were echoes of the true story, and the textbooks from the academy are filled with falsehoods . . .

"Then the elves are not the enemy," I blurted. "They never have been."

I stared hard at Elayina. For the first time, perhaps because I had been so entranced by her wrinkled face and strange lodgings, I recognized the slightly tapered point of her ears. Like mine.

The witch said, "The ‘vision' of the King Who Saw was a self-fulfilling prophecy, child."

I thought it over. What does this have to do with me , though? Why am I the one seeing this—such a harsh truth? Who else knows about this?

"The elves did not betray the humans during the Taldan War," I said, mostly trying to make sense of it for myself. "They only fought back once King Dannon went mad with power-lust."

That must have been what Elayina meant when she called the king's foresight a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

"The vision itself was what instigated the destruction of the alliance between elves and humans," I continued, starting to make more sense of it. "King Dannon acted first, thinking he was protecting his people from a horrible betrayal he saw in his prophecy . . . yet it was Dannon's actions that caused the elves to retaliate in the first place!"

He played himself. The King Who Saw led himself to his own downfall.

"Yes, child," Elayina's voice grated like moss being cleaned from stone. "You get the gist of it."

I remembered messages from my youth, in Selby Village—learning alongside Ma and Swordbaron Korvan. I recalled how they told me that in Viking culture, in centuries past, prophecies rarely worked out the way the prophets thought they would.

That was the problem with "prophecies." They were tinged with truth, yet the completeness of them—the whole—was always much more nuanced and difficult to decipher.

"These memories have not been seen for eons," Elayina said. She almost seemed relieved. "Now, Ravinica, you must make the difficult choice of keeping them close and secret."

I abruptly stood from my sitting position, nearly sloshing Elayina's concoction in the cup I held. I ignored the pain in my hip, ribs, spine. My heart was beating faster and faster.

"No!" I shouted. "I have to tell everyone. This changes everything! Why else would I be the recipient of these memories . . . if not to be their messenger?"

She craned her neck to look up at me. "And who would believe you, hmm? The mutterings of an old crone, spoken from the mouth of a bog-blood?"

My shoulders shook. I bit back my anger, knowing she had meant no offense by it. I couldn't deny what Elayina was saying, and yet . . .

"I have to try," I announced, my voice firm. "Vikingrune Academy, and our people at large, deserve to know they've been lied to by our history books."

Elayina firmed her lips. Slowly, she nodded. "You have a strong will, child. I can only hope it does not betray you, in the same way King Dannon's unbending attitude caused his downfall."

I flared my nostrils and said, "Thank you for this, Elayina." I lifted the mug in my hand. "I'll be sure to take a swamp-bath after using it."

The witch cackled as I turned around and made my way gingerly down the gnarled roots of her tree-throne.

I thought of the Tree of Life in our legends, Yggdrasil, and wondered if Elayina the bog seer was somehow associated with it.

There was too much to unpack there, and I didn't have time. I wasn't sure why I felt hurried so suddenly.

When I reached the end of the roots, close to the narrowing of the corridor that would bring me out of the cave, Elayina's raspy voice called out, more powerful than before.

"Ravinica."

I gulped, tossing a look over my shoulder.

"You have seen what you were meant to see, same as the King Who Saw. Now I simply pray you will have the wisdom of knowing when to reveal it."

I gawked at her. "If I am not meant to spread this knowledge with people who can make a difference . . . then what's my purpose? Why would it be revealed to me?"

She frowned. "I suspect King Dannon thought the exact same thing when he first had his vision, child. And look what happened to him."

I tensed, then spun around and left the witch's presence, as the sound of her tuneless humming filled the space.

It was only when I reached the end of the cave, with sunlight blooming beyond, that I realized I hadn't told the witch my name.

She had somehow known it before I even arrived.

"Arne!" I shouted as I burst out of the cave. "We have to go." Though I limped, I fought through the pain.

The iceshaper pushed off a nearby tree, sweeping hanging willow branches out of his face. "What's that you're holding?"

I looked down at the concoction. "A healing remedy. I think." I made a sour face, then shook my head. "It's not important. I've learned something insane, and if it's true, it changes everything."

"Whoa. Slow down." He pushed his palms at me while I stormed past him toward the Niflbog. "The bog seer spoke with you, then?" His voice sounded excited.

I nodded. "Did she ever."

Arne paused, his boots trailing off.

"Good," he said.

He sounded . . . different.

I slowed my stride, furrowing my brow—

And then I couldn't move.

With a gasp, I nearly tipped forward from my momentum. I glanced down, confused, as icy stalagmites crystallized around my legs and ankles, sprouting from the mud and keeping me literally frozen to the ground.

My head whipped up. "A-Arne? What are you doing?!"

There was pity in his beautiful face as he looked away.

I twisted and writhed, trying to break free of the ice.

Shadows appeared from nearby trees—two, four, then six silhouetted figures who stepped out from under the swampy canopies.

Huscarls.

My mouth fell open. I struggled some more. I didn't even have my spear with me—a fact Arne had likely planned.

I couldn't shatter the cold, even as my heart shattered in a matter of seconds.

"NO!" I cried out. "Arne! What is this?!"

My eyes burned. My lungs deflated, throat constricting as I struggled to break free of my treacherous confines.

"I'm so sorry, little fox," he murmured, stepping away as the Huscarls advanced on me with their weapons drawn. When he looked up at my face, his eyes were dewy. "I had no choice."

The anger that clawed up my spine was like nothing I'd ever felt.

Betrayal. Just like the King Who Saw had foretold and eventually brought upon himself. And just like the king . . . I couldn't make sense of why this was happening.

"Why?!" I shouted on deaf ears.

I writhed so hard the ice started to crack against my legs. The Huscarls went in a fighting stance as they surrounded me.

"No!" Arne shouted, pushing himself forward into the crowd of soldiers. "Don't hurt her! You said —"

"You have no leverage here, iceshaper," one of the Huscarls announced. "We don't fucking work for you."

Tears trickled down my cheeks. They were tears of rage, not sadness. Rage that I had been duped so easily. That I had fallen for this man . . . listened to his charming words and silver tongue.

Everyone had warned me. Eirik warned me. Grim had said he didn't trust him, and Dagny told me to be wary of men at Vikingrune.

So why didn't I listen?

Another thought came to me—something the iceshaper had said a few months back.

"I'm playing both sides."

He had laughed at me when I looked at him in shock. It was a simple jest, he'd said.

No. It was the truth. He told me point-blank, and I didn't listen! I could see it now. An opportunist like him . . . well, he would take the opportunities presented to him.

Even if it meant stealing my heart and stomping on it in the process. The fucking thief .

"If she doesn't resist, we have no need to hurt her," the Huscarl said.

I was too defeated to fight. Too wounded from Astrid's ambush. There were six armed, armored soldiers around me. I didn't have the willpower to defend myself, and it showed in how my shoulders drooped.

Arne stepped up and tilted my chin.

My anger returned as his glistening eyes met mine.

"It was real, Ravinica. You must know that. What we started, what we had . . . it was real . There was no faking that."

I flinched out of his touch, making him grimace and recoil. My face twisted with contempt, with sheer wrath.

"You'd better hope they silence me, Arne Gornhodr," I spat through clenched teeth, "because I'm going to fucking kill you if they don't, like I should have when I first met you."