Page 59 of The Serpent’s Shadow

Before I could feel the flush of my cheeks growing, I flipped my eyes to Grim. The man I trusted most of all these people, yet had to be the most careful around because of his cursed rage.

“Corym helped me, Grim. Before chasing us down, the Huscarls found the elf encampment and besieged it. They burned it to the ground.”

“We saw the smoke and followed it to you, little sneak.” Grim’s voice was low, hurt. In his eyes, I saw the history of his own kin playing on repeat—the woods where he’d grown up, burned down around him by ignorant bastards who had come to kill him and his foster fathers.

If anyone knew what familial loss felt like, it was this huge, kind man. He could relate to Corym in this moment.

I sniffed to fight back tears. “I’m so happy to see you, and I can’t ever repay you for saving me. I know you’ve doomed yourselves at the academy by doing it. But I can’t let you kill Corym E’tar. He did the same thing for me. Okay?”

Slowly, as my eyes went from face to face, my mates and my former enemies nodded with understanding.

“There’s been enough blood tonight,” I finished.

Finally, my heart began to settle. I knew it was only a temporary mellowing, because we weren’t safe here. Hel below, there were two dozen dead Huscarls at our feet.

The fact we had slaughtered so many, and only a handful of people on our side had died, astounded me. It showed me how powerful my people were when they fought for a united cause—when they fought with passion for something they cared about.

Me. This is all because of me.

It was a sobering, humbling, awful feeling that gnawed at the pit of my stomach. Realizing all this death had been caused because of me . . . I wasn’t sure how I would ever recover from it.

I just hoped I would have aid from these men I had come to care about so much, and my friends back at the academy, to help me down this brutal path of understanding and, hopefully, recovery.

A glimpse of my time at Mimir Tomes flashed in my head—theothertruth I’d bafflingly learned that I’d never gotten to act out on before Arne led me to my capture.

These four men—Grim, Magnus, Sven, and Arne—were the descendants of the people who destroyed my family. They’d had no direct influence over my past, yet none of them knew what I knew: My name was tarnished because of the actions of their forebears.

I felt less like an assassin than I ever had before. To think I’d ever thought myself capable of killing these men, before I’d even come to know them, was asinine and laughable. It filled me with self-loathing.

The weight that came with that—sudden, sharp—nearly doubled me over. The paradox of these men being my saviors but also my tormentors was something I couldn’t reconcile.

I fought to stay upright, my exhaustion from the past hours becoming a burden I couldn’t hold alone any longer.

Luckily, I didn’t have to hold it alone. Tears trickled down my cheeks as Grim came and swaddled me in a hug, keeping me on my feet. He was like the heaviest, hugest blanket of warmth, and I sighed into his bare chest and inhaled his scent.

Magnus was next to him, putting a cold hand to my shoulder that brought my temperature to a comfortable level. Even Sven stood close by.

Corym E’tar sheathed his blade and remained silent and vigilant, looking out at the woods in every direction, searching for more threats.

“We can’t stay here,” said a voice behind us.

I slowly turned to regard Arne, who had gotten back to his feet and was rubbing his jaw where I’d decked him.

Arne glanced at a dead Huscarl near him. “Reinforcements may be close behind.”

“We killed the reinforcements,” Magnus pointed out, gesturing emotionlessly to the second wave of guards that had come from the east. All of them lay dead, in various states of eternal pain, agony, and awkward body angles.

There was so much blood slashed against the grass and stones in this hilly glade. The river where Corym stood was stained brown and murky.

I was glad we hadn’t killed anyone I recognized. Still, the notion that all this death had been my fault—not just the soldiers and Lepers here, but also the elves that had been ambushed by these bastards—infected my soul.

“Can we return to the academy after what you’ve just told us, sneak?” Grim asked. “It won’t be safe there.”

I gulped, shaking my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“We must,” Sven growled in return. “My brothers and sister are there. Ourlivesare there.”

“And what do we do, wolf? Act like nothing is amiss?” Grim shot back.

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