Page 11 of The Serpent’s Shadow

I FELT AN APOLOGY WASin order. It was rare for me to think that way, but Ravinica going missing had started to clear my head somewhat. She had the ability to take control of my emotions—which were barely there to begin with—and with her absence, I felt . . . liberated.

It was awful. The stifling need to care for her, to hold her, to fuck her against the bookshelves in Mimir Tomes, had started to diminish. Which was a horrible place to be, because Iwantedto feel. I simply couldn’t. Something was wrong with my genetic makeup.

I knew it wouldn’t last. There was a tendency for me to go through these ups and downs. Though I felt freed right now from the burden of my past traumas, there were certain negative sensations I also felt.

Firstly, I hated not knowing what was happening to my silvermoon. She was a force here at the academy, even if she couldn’t Shape runes. She had me and Grim Kollbjorn wrapped around her little finger, and I suspected Arne Gornhodr and Sven Torfen were well on their way.

Ravinica’s dormant powers would hopefully wake at some point. Otherwise she would join the Lepers Who Leapt, which wasn’t the worst thing, and she’d find a way to make a difference with those rabble-rousers.

No, I didn’t worry about Ravinica’s capabilities or resilience here at Vikingrune Academy. I worried about her safety and never seeing her again.

She was the first person I worried about in . . . perhaps ever. Such was the pull she had on me.

The apology I needed to make wasn’t for her, directly.

I stood outside Nottdeen Quarter toward the end of the day, arms crossed as I weighed my options and stared at the stout two-story longhouse and its expressionless façade.

The female first-year dormitory had been in an upheaval ever since the deaths of Astrid Dahlmyrr and her friend, named Corta Gamdeen. When speaking about Ravinica’s safety, it was impossible to ignore that the safety of the entire first-year initiate class felt threatened after those deaths.

Astrid hadn’t been staying at Nottdeen. She’d had her own longhouse, being a child of nepotism as the daughter of the Tomekeeper, near the southwest village where Eirik Halldan and his gang lived.

Corta had stayed here, though. She’d been found fifty feet from the front door of the place, stuffed into a bush . . . where I had placed her after snapping her neck.

Was it wrong that I felt no remorse for killing the girl? Absolutely. I should have feltsomething, even if that something wasn’t remorse. Guilt, shame, sadness even.

Alas, I didn’t have those settings. Not when anyone other than Ravinica was involved.

Corta had hurt my girl. It was as simple as that. After tasting Ravinica’s blood to rend her memories, I witnessed the moment of her ambush at the hands of Astrid and her minions. Corta had brought my silvermoon to the ground, giving Astrid the cudgel she would use to knock Ravinica unconscious.

It was cowardly. Both tormentors deserved everything they got. In a moment of cold ruthlessness, I had deduced Cortawould warn Astrid what I planned for her if I’d let her live. So I didn’t.

I marched through the front door of Nottdeen Quarter. My gray eyes immediately met the skittering orbs of Dagny Largul behind the counter near the stairwell.

Dagny looked tired, eyes rimmed with purple bags dragging them down. She tensed when I entered, my trench coat billowing around me to hide my scars and runic tattoos.

Standing from her seat, she said, “Magnus Feldraug, what are you doing here? You know you’re not—”

“Allowed. Yes.” I walked up to the counter.

“Especially now,” she finished.

Classes were over for the day. A bevy of footsteps pounded the ceiling overhead, from the ladies in their rooms upstairs. Others were likely in the nearby mess hall, or out enjoying the end of the sunny autumn day at Vikingrune, since they didn’t feel safe here in this dorm.

Dagny pushed her Coke-bottle glasses up, wrinkling her nose and meeting me head-on. “I’m getting tired of men knowing the rules and breaking them anyway. Sven Torfen did the same damn thing.”

I frowned at her. “Yet you helped him retrieve Grim Kollbjorn from his shackles, all so we could go rescue your friend.”

“Ravinica’s still missing. It was a failure, in case you forgot.”

“I did not forget.”

Her words were spiteful. She was not only angry; I could tell she was fearful. Her tiredness stemmed from her friend going missing, and also from having to stay up late to be a stalwart protector of the dorm for the other women, because of what had happened near here.

It wasn’t often two women went missing and were found dead on this campus. It spoke of a predator—a killer on thegrounds no one wanted to mention, for fear of bringing him or her to their doorstep.

I supposed the women were slightly relieved to hear neither woman had been raped, after an autopsy had been done on them over the past week. Gothi Sigmund made sure to hold a campus-wide assembly to tell students, as a means of “transparency.”

I felt a rare tinge of remorse about how I’d made Dagny’s life harder.Alas, she’s a creature of circumstance. That’s what RAs are meant to do: assist and prevent problems of the residence they lord over.

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