Page 127 of The Serpent’s Shadow

Chapter 37

Ravinica

I NEEDED MORE. I HADto claim all of them. And I knew the quickest way to get my planned rebellion underway was to sync those already closest to me.

Grim and Sven had shown understanding I never expected. They filled my heart with support and hope, tossing aside my grievances as if they were foolish afterthoughts.

No, not tossing them aside. Listening, understanding, and coming to a decision. Theyheardme, and now that they knew I wasn’t a threat to their wellbeing—and they weren’t a threat to mine—we could move forward and do amazing things together.

I’d never known togetherness like this before.

And yet, they were only half of the equation.

I did not know how Arne or Magnus would respond to my admission that I had come to Vikingrune Academy under an assassin’s dark veil.

What will my mother think if she finds out I got to the bottom of our familial mystery and . . . did nothing with it? That I didn’t pursue our generations-long vengeance because I had fallen in love with my targets instead?

I worried my lip thinking about that, until the skin was raw.Well, she’s not here now.

Whatever was happening at Selby Village was the furthest thing on my radar at the moment. Too much was going onhere, in the present, that I couldn’t worry about the past.Lindi, Hallan, Damon . . . they will have to wait their turns.

This ismytime. And the way I spend to choose that time, how to focus my ire, and how to exact change, is entirely up to me.

It was a fulfilling thought, knowing my fate was finally in my hands. I wasn’t carrying anyone else’s burden on my shoulders.

Fulfilling, and also nerve-wracking. Because now I only had myself to blame for any failures along the way. I couldn’t put my past, my hard upbringing, or the shit I’d had to claw my way through on anyone else’s shoulders but my own.

At least I have allies. Men who would die and sacrifice for me.

A girl like me couldn’t ask for more than that.

After the full moon night, and my torrid gallivanting with Grim and Sven, the weather shifted torrentially.

It was as if Freyr, our god of sunshine, fair weather, and good harvest, had donned a cloak and retreated to a cave after the moon set, and gave Hodur, the god of winter and darkness, free reign over the Isle.

The mountain air bit harder. Rain came all weekend after Friday—a premonition of harsher weather to come. The snow would soon follow, according to the second-years who had braved such weather the previous year.

It was crazy that such a magical place as this, an island set in the middle of a vast ocean, could have such a drastic change in temperature and atmosphere. Yet, even here, the seasons demanded change.

Mother Nature remained undefeated.

The gods whipped up a particularly vicious storm on Saturday, which delayed my plans to leave the academy in search of Corym E’tar. I hunkered down in Nottdeen Quarter, hanging out with Randi and Dagny while eating a fresh stock ofchocolate-covered peanuts Dag had graciously picked up from Isleton the day before.

As rain battered Academy Hill that afternoon, coming down in diagonal sheets, drenching everything, I stared out the window longingly.

“What do you hope to find out there, Rav?” Dagny asked. We sat on couches in the lobby, with other ladies nearby who also frowned at the sudden changing of their plans.

Lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the purple horizon white. Thunder followed, booming and rolling over the hills, shivering the awnings and drapes of the academy longhouses.

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