Chapter 48 | Ravinica

Chapter 48

Ravinica

MY HANDS WERE SHACKLED behind my back. I walked with such a limp that the Huscarls didn't need to put manacles on my ankles. The concoction Elayina had made me was discarded in the swamp.

I supposed I would never learn what a swamp-bath entailed.

A thought came to me. Could Elayina have been involved in this backstabbing?

As the guards led me away from Niflbog, back into Delaveer Forest, I marched with my head hung low.

I wanted to know why Arne had done it. What was he getting out of this? Why did Vikingrune Academy want me imprisoned—what could I offer them?

Only what I've just learned from Elayina's mind magic.

There was no other answer I could find.

They wanted to silence me.

But how could they know about it? What I've just learned?

I had too many questions.

I wanted to know why, yet I wouldn't ask Arne in mixed company. I will have my revenge if they don't kill me, I thought, and then I will get all the answers I need.

As we walked through the forest, I said nothing. My captors were silent, and even talkative Arne was quiet. If anything, he had shown regret over what he'd done—I'd seen it on his face.

Unless that is simply more acting. Betrayal was no easy thing to stomach, as the turncloak, I imagined.

We marched for two hours toward the academy, east. Soon, we would reach Isleton and the thinner Helgas Wood.

The Huscarls kept their heads on a swivel, scanning the trees we passed. We were far from the known territory of the academy. As we reached a glade, a clearing, we stopped for water at a creek.

Arne offered to shovel water into my mouth, and I snapped my teeth at him like an animal to keep him away.

One of the Huscarls did it instead.

I was on my knees, bending low. The Huscarl was beside me, cupping water and lifting it to my lips.

When I pursed my lips to drink, he parted his fingers and the shallow puddle in his palms slid through his gasp. "Oops," he said to me with a cruel smile. Then he began to stand. "She's ready."

I wasn't even mad. It was to be expected.

Warmth spilled over my hair and the back of my neck in a sudden rush. Looking down at my reflection in the babbling creek, I saw it turn murky and brown.

My brow furrowed.

A gurgling sounded close to me.

My head whipped over—

Just as the Huscarl toppled backward, tripping over my body and falling into the creek.

He stared up at the sky with lifeless eyes, in an insane example of instant karma. The fletchings of an arrow stuck out from his throat.

I gasped.

"Fuck—Mark!" another Huscarl cried out.

"We're under attack!" cried another.

I spun around on my knees—

Just in time to see figures glide into the meadow from the trees, like apparitions of shimmering death.

My heart soared, and my first thought: Grim! Magnus! They've come to rescue me!

But it wasn't them. These people moved much too gracefully, purposefully. They wore armor that seemed to glimmer in gold, making them the color of the sun. The light reflected off their pristine garb, and they moved like a well-oiled machine.

The Huscarls stood no chance.

They raised their weapons, their spears, their shields—and the ambushers cut them down with long, curved blades I'd never seen before.

I stared in disbelief as I watched one of those cruel blades cut into the chest of a Vikingrune soldier, spraying blood everywhere. Another man was summarily decapitated not five feet from me, before he could even raise his spear.

One of the soldiers lifted his spear, and the blade sliced clear through the top of the wood and took the man's throat with it.

Guttural cries and bloodcurdling screams filled the peaceful afternoon.

Arne tossed icicles at one of the attackers, and the projectiles shattered into a thousand tiny snowflakes as it landed on the man's golden armor, merely pushing him back a few feet.

To his credit, the damned fool hurried over to me at the creek and stood in front of me with his arms out wide, as if he was some fucking hero.

I would have scoffed, if I wasn't so awestruck. We're both going to die, you idiot. No point trying to prove your honor now.

I had never seen anyone fight like these menaces from Hel. Even on my best day, they used maneuvers I'd never seen. I wouldn't have been able to bring down one, most likely—much less the ten that now crowded the meadow.

Besides their golden armor, they wore helmets with horns that covered their faces, and had long hair spilling out the back. The hair was bright like the sun, nearly blinding.

Their pristine armor and weapons were quickly coated with the blood and gore of my Huscarl captors.

With the six soldiers dead, splayed along the meadow, they advanced on Arne.

The iceshaper didn't cower, and he didn't back down. He held his shoulders high—

Until one of the attackers pushed him aside and approached me. Another man held Arne down, pinning him to the grass.

I only realized how tall the man was once he walked in front of me—nearly Grim's height, yet lithe and slender where Grim was stocky and broad.

The man crouched in front of me. I could see nothing past the golden plate of his helmet. Nothing but the shimmering yellow eyes on the other side.

Slowly, the man removed his helmet.

Arne, from his back, gasped, as if he knew something already that I didn't.

The first thing I noticed was the beauty of this man. He was regal, with sharp lines and an angular jaw. His eyes pierced into my soul. He looked alien, honestly, like nothing I'd seen before. His hair was silver, but more pure and platinum than the messy silver of mine with its black-green streaks.

My eyes widened as I took in the rest of him.

The ears. Pointed—and not in the rounded, half-ass way that mine were. No, these ears were long, full, sweeping toward the side of the man's head, severely narrowing at the tips.

"Ljosalfar," I breathed.

He looked at me curiously, with a foreign expression. Taking in my features, he reached beside him and produced a gorgeous dagger with marks along the blade.

"No!" Arne screamed from the side.

The man holding him down punched him in the ribs, making him cough, and I got a twisted sense of satisfaction seeing it.

The elven man in front of me gestured over with a tilt of his sharp chin. "That is the man who betrayed you?"

His voice was just as regal and deep as I would have expected. It came with a thick accent I couldn't place—probably because this man was not from this world, if my eyes weren't deceiving me.

But it's impossible. Elves cannot come to Midgard anymore.

Another "history lesson" from my classes I could discard as sheer bullshit. I was staring at an elf right in front of me, and this was no dream.

"Yes," I said in a low voice. "That is the one."

He let out a low hum. Then he twisted the dagger around to hand me the hilt. It was gold, wrapped in leather, with a ruby pommel that shone in the sunlight.

I lifted my shoulders. "Shackles," I said, shrugging.

The man motioned for me to turn around, nodding. He showed no hint of emotion on his face.

I spun on my knees, showing him my back and my shackled wrists. Soft hands fell on my shoulders, and I tensed. I heard a sizzling sound, and then the shackles fell heavily from my wrists, clattering to the ground.

I worked my wrists and spun back around, eyes widening.

The elf held the blade toward me again, yet now its edge was shining like a blacksmith's forge.

The molten magic of the weapon faded away, and he handed me the handle again.

He helped me to my feet . . . so I could stumble over to Arne, whom the other elf lifted onto his knees.

"E'tar," said the man holding Arne steady. "What do we do with these two? They have seen our faces."

"This one is coming with us," said the man who had handed me the knife.

"She is?"

"I am?" I squeaked, looking over my shoulder.

The beautiful alien ignored me and nodded past me. "You see her hair? Her ears? She comes with us."

"And this one?" the other elf asked, shaking Arne's shoulders.

"It is up to her." His golden eyes landed on mine, darkening a shade. "Though I suggest she kills him."

I gulped and faced Arne. He stared up at me, the pretty boy—the first man I had met coming to Vikingrune Academy. He looked weak now, though not because he was scared. His throat bobbed and I stood over him.

"Do it, little fox," he urged me, gritting his teeth. "Get it over with. I deserve it."

"You do."

"I wish I could tell you more. But you know I can't."

I knelt in front of him so we were eye-level. I wanted him to see my face as I cut his throat.

I lifted the elf's dagger to his supple neck—

And something painful washed over me.

Memories of our short-lived time together. The Gray Wraith , when he was the first person to stand up for me against Ulf Torfen. Arne showing me around the academy, helping me get my bearings when my own brother wouldn't do it. Introducing me to the Lepers Who Leapt when all I had to do was ask—when I desperately needed to see people who were like me . The kiss I absentmindedly gave him afterward, telling him how he had changed my life with that introduction . . . not realizing how that simple kiss would affect me whenever I looked at the pretty man after that. The kiss on my hospital bed, when I had needed to feel something again. Something real.

He was there for me. All those times, he was there for me.

We had shared a lot in our first few months together.

I knew what I had to do. I had been built for it—growing to this stage before even coming to Vikingrune Academy. My oath to my mother. My training.

It all led to this point in time.

And now, I had the dagger in my hand. Touched against his soft throat, with a bead of blood already trickling down his neck.

"All of it was real, little fox," Arne whispered through his teeth. "Even I couldn't fake it."

I flared my nostrils. Tears bit the corners of my eyes as doubt clouded my vision.

I knew what I needed to do . . . and yet . . . I didn't want to do it anymore.

I had come to Vikingrune as an assassin, with lofty ambitions and goals. But in attending the school, meeting these men, and even in learning the facts about my family line, I had realized along the way that I didn't want to be an assassin.

That wasn't who I was. It never had been.

I was stern, stubborn, and I felt things way too hard.

But I wasn't a heartless, cold-blooded killer.

"This man betrayed you," the elf who had handed me the dagger said behind me. "What will you do to avenge that despicable act?"

I snarled over my shoulder, "I owe no loyalty to you!"

He nodded easily, hands clasped behind his back. "I know. Yet do you not owe loyalty to yourself? How far are you willing to go to protect your secrets, your power? Your heart?"

My fingers trembled on the handle of the dagger.

I closed my eyes, shaking my head incredulously.

"No," I said. "It's not me. I won't do it."

Arne didn't deserve a quick death, anway. Not without telling me what I wanted to know . . .

Again, I didn't want the answers in earshot of the elves. I didn't trust them. How could I? They had just slain six Vikingrune soldiers—humans—who at one time had probably attended the academy themselves . . . to fight against the very people that now threatened humankind.

So far, the elves were not making a great case for why they weren't the bad guys.

When I opened my eyes, Arne was staring at me in shock. "R-Ravinica, I'm—"

I spun the dagger in my hand and smashed the hilt against the side of his head to shut him up.