Page 172 of Into the Isle

“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.”

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?

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