Chapter 1 | Ravinica

Chapter 1

Ravinica

CORYM E'TAR, THE TALL light elf with flowing silver hair and long tapered ears, moved in a zigzag pattern as he charged me with his strange curved sword.

I watched his feet, as I'd been taught by Swordbaron Korvan, and found him utterly mesmerizing. As a whole, the Ljosalfar elves were entrancing.

Corym moved with gracefulness I'd never seen in humans. Even charging in a jarring, serpentine path, he effortlessly pushed off the tips of his lithe feet and made the whole motion seem organic and fluid, like a river bending around rocks, uninterrupted.

When his sword struck mine, the dazzling moment was lost—his strength much less graceful and pristine than his movements. Pain blared in the bones of my forearm as I held my blade diagonally, sliding it along Corym's curved weapon to try and detach.

When I pushed off, he kept on the attack, sword blurring as he moved it at odd angles I wasn't used to. I was on defense the entire time, backpedaling toward trees behind me.

Corym was relentless. His eyes didn't betray where he would go next—warm orbs the color of summer wheatfields locked on my face, never wavering. His sword arced left and right, circling and riposting with unmatched speed.

Gritting my teeth, I tried to change my momentum frontward, digging my back foot into the mud before pushing into him.

Corym held his ground, spun, and watched as I stumbled forward, making me look like a damn whelp holding a sword for the first time.

It was aggravating, because I was one of the best melee fighters of my class at Vikingrune Academy. From my hometown of Selby Village, I'd been the preeminent champion in combat.

Yet this damned elf made me seem a bumbling fool. He was too fast, too strong, and his onslaught was oppressive. The alien man didn't seem to tire, which only made things harder.

I recalled the academy, the people I had come to care about there—my friends Dagny and Randi, the men Grim Kollbjorn and Magnus Feldraug. My men. A mammoth of a protective bear shifter; a mysterious bloodrender with every inch of his body carved in tattoos and scars.

I yearned to see them again. In the two weeks I'd been a "guest" at the elf encampment, the men and women here had stolen all my focus. I felt honored, in a way, to be the first living human in generations to see elves firsthand.

It kept me here. Kept me curious. The fact they didn't throw shackles on my wrists or pin me to the corral helped—their treatment of their prisoners, half-elf or not, seemed much more humane than how humans treated their captives.

Now if only they'd tell me—

Corym charged again, whipping his sword in a blur. With a twist of his wrist and a yelp from me, he nicked the inside of my palm and sent my sword spinning away to the ground.

The elf frowned, his elegant face contorting with small lines near his full lips. He sheathed his weapon over his back, folded his hands in front of his belly. "You are distracted, lunis'ai. Your eyes are elsewhere, when they should be on me."

I still didn't know what the elven word " lunis'ai " meant, but Corym seemed insistent on calling me it. Hells, I didn't know much of anything around here, and I was vexed at being kept in the dark.

Despite the tranquil atmosphere of the elves at the camp, and the respect with which Corym E'tar treated me, I still felt like the clock was ticking. It was like I needed to be back home, at Vikingrune Academy, to make sure everyone I cared about was all right.

I flared my nostrils and walked over to pick up my sword. "Can you blame me?" I asked. "I've been here two weeks and you haven't told me shit, Corym."

The elf did not twist his face with disdain or make any acknowledgement of my gripe. "Swordplay does not change," he said, ignoring my complaint. "It is the same in Alfheim as it is in Midgard. Footwork, eyesight, focus. The tenets remain the same."

"The wielders and combatants change though," I spat, twisting my back to stretch my weary muscles and bones, before sheathing my sword at my hip. "You are unlike anyone I've ever fought. I don't know your tactics, you move in unexpected ways, like a spider. I can't read you at all. It's not like fighting a human because . . . you're not."

The elf simply nodded. He moved his hands from in front of him to behind him, clasping them together. Studying me, he pivoted back to his first claim: my distraction. "You wish to return to your school."

"I do."

"Are you not getting schooling here, in more than just swordplay? In the runeshaping arts you so desperately sought before arriving here?"

Crossing my arms under my chest, I shook my head and looked at the grass in front of him, defiant and embarrassed. "It's not the same. I appreciate your aid, Corym. You are skilled. Very skilled. And a good tutor. But I have a life back at Vikingrune Academy, which I'd like to begin again. I have people there who will be worried about me."

"You can leave whenever you'd like." He said it with gruffness behind his smooth voice. It sounded like he was getting testy hearing about my life away from the elves, for some odd reason.

Almost like he wants me to stay. I ignored that thought, and his tone, and packed it away for a different time. "Plus," I said, "your, um, comrades don't especially like me. I've heard the way Logaithn speaks about me—wishing you'd killed me back at the river with the other Huscarls."

Corym turned away, finally breaking his unnerving eye contact on my body. "Logaithn says a lot of things. As I understand it, from what you've told me, your time at Vikingrune Academy was not much different. Threats at every turn. Attempts on your life. Persecution."

He had a point there. For some reason, it was different when it was an alien race from a different plane lobbing those threats at you and not your own race. Even if I hated people like Astrid Dahlmyrr and her goons, and wanted vengeance against her for ambushing me, her reactions were still human reactions to what she perceived as a slight against her.

Namely, I had been outplaying and overshadowing the Tomekeeper's daughter all term long. It was partly my fault, pushing her buttons until she decided to take violent measures into her own grubby hands.

Logaithn and the other Ljosalfar elves, however? I didn't understand their motivations for wanting me gone, because I didn't understand their people or history.

"You still have much to learn here, I believe, lunis'ai ," Corym said, ripping me away from my thoughts. "Your runeshaping is progressing. You're showing promise. When you return to Vikingrune Academy, you will make fools of all the naysayers."

A small smile curled my lips. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his beautiful features. "So you do plan to let me go, eventually, then? Because I'm not buying the whole ‘you can leave whenever you want' rhetoric."

Corym nodded. "Once the council agrees to trust you, Ravinica." He spoke with a thick accent that was unlike anything I'd witnessed—sort of a mix between British English and something else where the consonants weren't always emphasized in the right place.

I liked the sound of my name rolling off his tongue.

My smile faltered. "How long will that take? Have I not proven myself unthreatening to your people?"

"Humans are always threatening," he said roughly, his yellow eyes flashing a darker shade of gold. "You would know that as well as anyone."

He was speaking of Arne Gornhodr, of course. The man who had betrayed me. My Judas.

I blinked away the thawing pull of rage inching up my spine, trying to forget about Arne. He was one person—like Astrid—who I hoped tragedy would befall. If not tragedy, then constant minor inconveniences at the least, like his pillow always being warm on both sides, or his showers always running cold, or the milk in his cereal always curdling when he poured it.

I wanted to hate Arne. Yet I still struggled to do that, despite everything he'd done. Despite backstabbing me for some unknown reason to Huscarls from Vikingrune Academy, after introducing me to the ancient elf Elayina in the cave near the Niflbog.

God-awful assassin I've made so far, eh? Had the chance to end one of the four men who was related to my family's grief, knife to his throat, and I fumbled the damn ball.

I shook my head violently, dashing the thoughts away while I swallowed hard over a lump forming in my throat.

"Do not forget," Corym said, reading my face, "you are alive not because of your human blood, but because of the elven blood coursing through your veins."

Clamping my jaw muscles, I nodded firmly. I understood loud and clear: Corym and the Ljosalfar hated humans. They kept me alive out of curiosity and nothing more. Being a half-elf, after years of torment due to my bog-blood origins, had finally worked in my favor.

Corym and his kin may not have told me why they were here, or how they'd gotten to Midgard in the first place, but I knew danger in one's eyes when I saw it.

I couldn't overstep here. Couldn't show my frustrations, because it only presented me as a whiny, ungrateful human that confirmed all the awful things the elves already thought about me.

Similar to Vikingrune Academy, I needed to prove the people wrong. I needed to show them I was on their side, as hard as that may be to believe. Elayina had shown me a truth I would have scoffed at before coming to Vikingrune. She had shown me massive betrayals in millennia past, purportedly from my own memories.

But those betrayals hadn't come from the hands of the elves. It had been humans who brought destruction to their former allies, under the guidance of King Dannon, the King Who Saw.

I understood now, the elves—even if they were the light kind and not the dark Dokkalfar kind—had every right to loathe humans.

I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops: I understood. I wanted to tell my people we'd been lied to all our lives. I prayed I could find out the reasons for the lies.

For now, I needed to bide my time. Hopefully the talks would begin soon with Corym and his kinfolk. Once we trusted each other, they could answer my questions, and I could answer theirs.

I just needed to show patience. For now.

Unfortunately, patience had never been my strong suit.