Page 2 of The Serpent’s Shadow

He had a point there. For some reason, it was different when it was an alien race from a different plane lobbing those threats at you and not your own race. Even if I hated people like Astrid Dahlmyrr and her goons, and wanted vengeance against her for ambushing me, her reactions were stillhumanreactions to what she perceived as a slight against her.

Namely, I had been outplaying and overshadowing the Tomekeeper’s daughter all term long. It was partly my fault, pushing her buttons until she decided to take violent measures into her own grubby hands.

Logaithn and the other Ljosalfar elves, however? I didn’t understand their motivations for wanting me gone, because I didn’t understand their people or history.

“You still have much to learn here, I believe,lunis’ai,” Corym said, ripping me away from my thoughts. “Your runeshapingis progressing. You’re showing promise. When you return to Vikingrune Academy, you will make fools of all the naysayers.”

A small smile curled my lips. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his beautiful features. “So you do plan to let me go, eventually, then? Because I’m not buying the whole ‘you can leave whenever you want’ rhetoric.”

Corym nodded. “Once the council agrees to trust you, Ravinica.” He spoke with a thick accent that was unlike anything I’d witnessed—sort of a mix between British English and something else where the consonants weren’t always emphasized in the right place.

I liked the sound of my name rolling off his tongue.

My smile faltered. “How long will that take? Have I not proven myself unthreatening to your people?”

“Humans are always threatening,” he said roughly, his yellow eyes flashing a darker shade of gold. “You would know that as well as anyone.”

He was speaking of Arne Gornhodr, of course. The man who had betrayed me. My Judas.

I blinked away the thawing pull of rage inching up my spine, trying to forget about Arne. He was one person—like Astrid—who I hoped tragedy would befall. If not tragedy, then constant minor inconveniences at the least, like his pillow always being warm on both sides, or his showers always running cold, or the milk in his cereal always curdling when he poured it.

Iwantedto hate Arne. Yet I still struggled to do that, despite everything he’d done. Despite backstabbing me for some unknown reason to Huscarls from Vikingrune Academy, after introducing me to the ancient elf Elayina in the cave near the Niflbog.

God-awful assassin I’ve made so far, eh? Had the chance to end one of the four men who was related to my family’s grief, knife to his throat, and I fumbled the damn ball.

I shook my head violently, dashing the thoughts away while I swallowed hard over a lump forming in my throat.

“Do not forget,” Corym said, reading my face, “you are alive not because of your human blood, but because of the elven blood coursing through your veins.”

Clamping my jaw muscles, I nodded firmly. I understood loud and clear: Corym and the Ljosalfar hated humans. They kept me alive out of curiosity and nothing more. Being a half-elf, after years of torment due to my bog-blood origins, had finally worked in my favor.

Corym and his kin may not have told me why they were here, or how they’d gotten to Midgard in the first place, but I knew danger in one’s eyes when I saw it.

I couldn’t overstep here. Couldn’t show my frustrations, because it only presented me as a whiny, ungrateful human that confirmed all the awful things the elves already thought about me.

Similar to Vikingrune Academy, I needed to prove the people wrong. I needed to show them I was on their side, as hard as that may be to believe. Elayina had shown me a truth I would have scoffed at before coming to Vikingrune. She had shown me massive betrayals in millennia past, purportedly from my own memories.

But those betrayals hadn’t come from the hands of the elves. It had been humans who brought destruction to their former allies, under the guidance of King Dannon, the King Who Saw.

I understood now, the elves—even if they were the light kind and not the dark Dokkalfar kind—had every right to loathe humans.

I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops: I understood. I wanted to tell my people we’d been lied to all our lives. I prayed I could find out the reasons for the lies.

For now, I needed to bide my time. Hopefully the talks would begin soon with Corym and his kinfolk. Once we trusted each other, they could answer my questions, and I could answer theirs.

I just needed to show patience. For now.

Unfortunately, patience had never been my strong suit.

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