Page 161 of The Serpent’s Shadow

Immense guilt sank my stomach as I recalled my time with the Ljosalfar. Sweeping my gaze across the camp, I noticed the “corral”—a barn with an awning where I had slept most nights—was also razed to the ground.

Our convoy stopped on the fringes of the camp, on a gentle knoll looking down on it.

Gothi Sigmund, to my side, crossed his burly arms over his barrel chest. “Well?”

I gulped and pointed ahead, toward the back of the camp. “That way, sir.”

“Lead on, Linmyrr.” He swept his hand forward, and I took the lead.

I moved hesitantly through the waste of the camp. The dead bodies of the elves who hadn’t made it out were gone, and their blood that had soaked the grass had been washed away by rain and animal prints.

Anger rose up inside me, knowing the man I now led through this camp had been the cause of its destruction.

Not anymore,I told myself.Never again. What I’m doing will help heal tarnished relations. I just have to trust the process and trust the people I’m with.

Trust, as I well knew, had always been a hard thing to come by in my life.

Now, I wastrustinga proven tyrant to do the right thing.

It gnawed at me, making me feel foolish and stupid. My heart was sick, painful in my chest, as I crept to the back of the camp where a single building still stood intact.

It was nothing more than an open-faced longhouse. It had been used as all sorts of things when I’d been here—a room for elves to stay, a councilroom for elders, even a storage closet for gear.

Now, it was empty. But the memory remained: Deitryce and her ten survivors standing there, waiting desperately for Corym to make it to them in a mad dash, with the Huscarls hot on his heels.

The shimmering, spherical mirage bubbling around them, ripping the fabric of space and time.

Corym pushing his sister into the bubble, demanding she run . . . while he stayed with me here, in Midgard, to face impossible odds.

We had survived. He had stayed, and been imprisoned—first by the Lepers Who Leapt we called allies, and then by the academy itself.

Both times, he had been a prisoner because he was kept fromme.

Not anymore,I repeated to myself.Never again.

“This is it?” Sigmund asked, nodding his bearded chin.

I swallowed hard and stepped forward hesitantly.

“Silvermoon . . .” Magnus groaned behind us, trailing off.

He was immediately scolded by the Huscarl commander and told to shut up.

Pindrop silence filled the space, hovering over me like a physical thing. My legs became wobbly, boneless, and I felt like I would collapse as I neared the wide opening of the building.

Then I squared my shoulders, stood taller, and tried to move with some confidence. I told myself this was for the best—it had to be done, or nothing would ever get solved.

At the building, I moved my hands in the air. I Shaped runes, first to test the waters in front of me.

With my fingertips alight, I stepped into the entrance of the longhouse, worried nothing would happen and that my plan would be a complete failure.

Dizziness washed over me, ripping a gasp from my throat. Lines of energy traced through the air over my head in ribbons of white, blue, and green. The colors of an aurora borealis, slightly neon, slightly there, slightly not.

Furrowing my brow, I followed the trace of the magic leading me. It spanned the entire circumference of the longhouse, from end to end. The ground at my feet was suddenly warm, even through the soles of my boots. In fact, the entire space was starting to heat up, fighting off the bitter cold outside the longhouse.

I heard murmuring coming from the entourage, thirty feet away, as everyone watched me work.

Sweat built on my upper lip. I stepped out of the longhouse, intuitively understanding the breadth of the spell cast here—of the powerful portal that lay dormant, that only those of elven descent could operate.

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