Page 147 of Into the Isle

It was a short missive, hand-written.

Ravinica,

Arne is in trouble. Meet at the southern longhouse near Vala Chamber to discuss. Ten PM sharp.

-Frida

My pulse spiked, heart slamming in my chest. I hoped Dagny couldn’t see the look of sheer shock on my face, or the sweat starting to sheen my skin.

“Anything wrong?” she asked.

My neck tightened. Everything is wrong, bestie. It had been for days now, so I supposed my lack of emotion, response, or feeling didn’t alert her to how I actually felt.

From her outlook, it was just more of the same: a mopey, sad, unconfident Ravinica who looked nothing like the woman she and Randi had come to befriend and appreciate.

“No,” I said simply, and then raised the letter. “Thank you.”

With that, I headed for the stairs. It was already almost ten o’clock, which meant I could have easily missed the meet-up with Arne’s sister Frida.

This time, when I reached my dorm room, I didn’t wallow and I didn’t plop down on my bed like a depressed teenager who’d had their little naïve heart broken.

Instead, I strapped on my spear, opened the small window over my bed, and crawled out to the roof. I exited Nottdeen that way, so Dagny wouldn’t ask questions and wouldn’t see me leaving.

If Arne was in trouble, I had a duty to help him. Even if I was feeling conflicted and utterly lost about how to engage with Arne, Grim, Magnus, and even Sven, I knew I couldn’t turn my backs on those first three.

Not now, after all we’d been through. After all they’d helped me with.

I’m coming, Arne. Even if I have to eventually kill you.

The night was dark, cloudy, with a chill breeze sweeping through the academy. I heard voices and things going on all over the place—parties being held for people who passed their midterms, revelers in Tyr Meadow a couple miles away, carrying on the wind.

It was much quieter on the far eastern side of campus, where Vala Chamber’s domed structure stood not too far from Nottdeen Quarter. The peripheries of the academy, especially toward the east instead of the west, weren’t visited often unless classes were in session.

The small village of longhouses there—storerooms, housing, and other lodgings—shielded me from some of the wind whipping my hair about.

I felt an eerie sensation fall over me as I entered the smattering of dwellings, deciding to draw my spear because of the anxiety creeping along my skin.

“Frida?” I called out in a low voice.

The longhouses were close together, their walls high, creating little alleyways between the five or six structures. I stepped between the buildings, eyeing each corridor I crossed.

I noticed a shadow in the distance under the awning of a longhouse. From my distance twenty feet away, in the moonless night, I couldn’t make out who it was.

“Frida?” I repeated. “Is that you? How did you get onto campus past—”

My words cut off as Astrid Dahlmyrr stepped out from the shadow, a cruel grin on her face. She carried a spear with her, the haft stamped on the ground.

I lowered my chin, flaring my nostrils. “Astrid. What the fuck is this?”

She stepped closer to me, closing the gap from twenty feet to fifteen in a hurry. I had an urge to either charge her and complete the closed gap, or backpedal and get out of there.

But I wanted to know her motives, first.

That was my mistake.

I already fucking knew her motives. I didn’t need anymore ammunition—I had defeated her at every turn, humiliating her in front of her friends.

“You should have never come to Vikingrune Academy, bog-blood.” Her voice was dark and sinister. Not much different than when she usually spoke with me, though tinged with even more malice this time.

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