Page 16 of The Serpent’s Shadow

I wrapped the belt around the middle, like a magical lasso, and noticed Corym shaking his head out the corner of my eye.

With a smirk, I added flair to the operation.I’m not done yet, golden boy.Drawing more Shapes, Ipulledon the buckle of the belt. Slowly, with a grating sound that made me cringe, I stretched the iron buckle itself.

I Shaped a summoning and grabbed fire from thin air, directing the flames to soar through the sky onto the belt. Thelong strip of metal burned and stank and smoked, and after a tense moment of concentration, it melted.

My mind lagged and ached from all the incongruent Shapes I’d been calling on, trying to impress Corym E’tar. I fought against the pounding in my skull and drew a final Shape, summoning water from the melted ice of Niflheim.

I threw the water and splashed it over the brightly burning iron belt buckle. It sizzled and hissed.

When it finished sizzling, the metal buckle had been stretched to trace over the leather belt holding the two stones together, melted onto it, and quenched to cool and solidify the melted metal into place.

A layman’s soldering job. Similar to how a blacksmith made a sword—from forge to anvil to well.

I sagged to my knees, bowing my head. Tingles ran through my body, stripping me of any power I had. I wanted to lay on the grass and stare up at the sky. My thoughts were dim, foggy, almost nonexistent. “T-There . . .” I croaked. “Combined.” I waved a hand at my handiwork.

Corym smiled, scratching his brilliant platinum hair. “Certainly unorthodox. I’ll give it a passing grade for your creativity.”

I smiled devilishly. “You never told me how I had to combine the rocks. So I did it mechanically, rather than elementally.”

Slowly, feeling came back to my hands and face. I wobbled onto my feet.

“You did well, Ravinica. This was a test to see how many Shapes you could simultaneously cast without exerting yourself to unconsciousness.”

I beamed at him, though it felt sickly. Even with my success, my drifting, tired mind was stuck on the embrace I’d given the elf.

That’s not good. Right?

He walked toward the rocks in his graceful, straight-backed gait. “Though I would have used other means.”

“Like what?”

He kicked the rock. The binding held, though the belt wouldn’t take long to unravel. If he lifted the stones—maybe thirty pounds apiece, sixty combined—my iron lasso would surely bend and break.

“Two ideas come to mind,” he said, facing me. “Smelting. Firing the stones with such heat as to melt them into liquids so they can form back together as a whole.”

“That idea crossed my mind. I don’t think I’m powerful enough to exert that much energy on a single rune. Fire, in this case.”

He nodded, pouting his lips. “Lithification, as well.”

“Huh?”

He chuckled and walked over to me. “Rock surgery, in a sense. Destroying the rock into sediments and compacting it together through pressure.”

“Gods. That would take a lot of pressure.”

“Aye. It’s not easy to cement two objects together. Yet it can be done. I didn’t expect that bonus question to be solved,lunis’ai.” Corym smiled at me, and it was genuine.

My heart soared at the smile. It was rare for the uptight elves to show much emotion or feeling. Their demeanor was quite alien and unlike any humans I’d ever met—besides Magnus Feldraug, perhaps. The bloodrender was more alien than even people from another world, at times.

My smile faltered as I stared into Corym’s eyes but thought of Magnus. I missed him.

“Come,” the elf said, drawing me back to the present. He reached out with his hand. It wasn’t gloved, and as far as hands went, it was a beautiful one. “You’ve done well. In a matter of weeks you’ve managed to excel in runeshaping beyond myexpectations. I didn’t suspect you’d be such a quick apprentice, even with power so strong inside you.”

With a slight bow and smile, I said, “Thank you.”

“I am proud of you. We must celebrate.”

I lifted my head, blinking at him in shock. I stared down at his spindly, fair hand. “What do you h-have in mind, Corym?”

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