Page 1 of Blood of Ancients

Chapter 1

Ravinica

IT WAS GOING TO BEdifficult to stage a revolution underground, without being seen. And I didn’t mean “underground” in the symbolic sense, but literally.

I was trapped living in the subterranean tunnels and caverns of Academy Hill, nuts-to-butts with students, faculty, and people who preferred living rather than freezing their tits off aboveground.

The last three weeks had been an . . .experience, to say the least.Certainly something new since coming to Vikingrune Academy nearly a year ago.

I appreciated the closeness this wintry season granted me with my friends and mates. The forced proximity also required me to get chummy with people I’d rather not get chummy with. Namely, my half-brother Damon and a few remaining holdouts from Astrid Dahlmyrr’s minion crew who wanted me buried even deeper than the tunnels.

The heavy snowfall blasting the land above me was a constant thudding sound, layering feet upon feet of snow across the campus grounds I called home.

I missed the sunlight dappling my skin. The brisk mountain breeze skittering across my face high up in the Isle, atopAcademy Hill where we watched the goings-on around us like a lord surveying its fiefdom.

Times had changed dramatically since I first showed up at the academy, an uninvited scoundrel who all but forced my way in. I felt I’d been here for years, even though I had just finally reached my second term, moving from the “initiate” class to the “cadet” class.

Soon, I would be given field duties, like all second-term students. If I was lucky, I would be placed somewhere on campus grounds, doing boring administrative work like stacking books in Mimir Tomes or patching up sprained ankles in Eir Wing.

That was what most people considered “lucky.” Me? I wanted to explore andget out. My Viking spirit made me a habitual adventurer, eager to leave the gates surrounding the academy to find something interesting in the Isle.

I wouldn’t be able to do any of that if I suffocated from a blanket of ice-cold snow first.

Gods,I thought, listening to the weighty slamming of the snowfall piling up overhead.It’s really coming down. I hope he’s safe.

I wasn’t much of a worry-wart, typically, but things had changed since coming to Vikingrune Academy and meeting the amazing men I called mates.

Back in Selby Village, my home, I had been all sharp edges and narrowed eyes. Here, I had somehow morphed into a softer version of myself, though I was stronger than I’d ever been. Hel, I could even Shape runes and do magic now.

I was softer, more empathetic, and burgeoned by a sense of justice. Some might say I had a savior complex. I would simply say I had learned tocareabout people—especially the ones closest to me.

There was Grim Kollbjorn, the giant bear shifter. A silent, hulking, protective man who called me his “little sneak” and had a heart that probably needed to be seen by a doctor because it was so big. Every part of him was so big, and I had come to love every delectable inch of that mountainous man.

He was also an uncontrollable berserker who could be set off by any minor thing happening to me, and I was the only one who could calm his cursed, enraged state.

Then there was Magnus Feldraug, the mysterious trench-coat-wearing “dead man,” or draug, who had the genetic ability of bloodrending. He could control his and other people’s lifeblood. It was insanely powerful, giving him the means to enhance his own runeshaping. We didn’t even know the full extent of his powers. Which meant everyone wanted a piece of him. He only wanted his “silvermoon,” the shining, silver-haired lighthouse in his dark ocean. Me.

Magnus was also a sociopath, allegedly, though he had always seemed perfectly emotional to me and me only. He had no qualms about killing people—even peers—to protect me. For Hel’s sake, he’d already done it twice, offing Astrid Dahlmyrr and her friend Corta Gamdeen in one fell night, after they ambushed me and put me in the hospital.

Arne Gornhodr was a complicated one. Oftentimes effeminate, always cunning, Arne never fit into a specific mold in Vikingrune culture. The beautiful ice elementalist was a specialized mage, who had alternatively been the first person I met here, my closest friend and confidant, my gut-wrenching betrayer, and a redeemed ally and lover. He called me his “little fox,” but there was no one foxier or more slippery than him.

Arne was infuriating, because I couldn’t hate him, even when he deserved it. Perhaps it was his disarming smile, his glittering sky-blue eyes. I had beenthis closeto killing him once—presented with the opportunity multiple times. Theiceshaper had done a first-rate groveling job, making amends and swearing himself to me, and now he was as close to me as my other mates.

Speaking of infuriating, Sven Torfen becoming my fourth mate still baffled me. He had been my worst bully and tormentor when I first showed up here, leaving me with a scar of his claws down the back of my calf to remember him by. The wolf shifter was the leader of the famed Torfen pack, a family who hated bog-bloods—half-breeds like me.

Then, almost inexplicably, Sven changed his tune. He saw what I could do, saw the loyalty I inadvertently commanded, and noticed how I calmed those closest to me. If any man neededcalm, even more than berserk-rager Grim Kollbjorn, it was Sven.

Undeniably handsome, almost offensively so, Sven grew on me. I was his “little menace,” which I felt was a projection of his own threatening tendencies. He wasn’t afraid to anger me or anyone else with his harsh rhetoric. He didn’t worship the ground I walked on—at least not yet—and it was useful having a man like that on my side. He would tell it to me straight, never pussyfooting around an issue.

He was also an animal in more ways than one, on the battlefield, in the bedroom, and in the way he saw life. If Vikingrune Academy was a “survival of the fittest” type of world, Sven had a leg up on the competition. Grim was incredibly strong, Magnus was perpetually underestimated, and Arne was brilliantly cunning. But Sven Torfen was ferocious, a natural leader, and respected. More than anyone, I felt Sven encapsulated the Viking spirit.

If my revolution was ever going to grow legs, I’d need him at my side.

At one point, all four of these men were on my shit-list. That is, the list of people who descended from families that destroyed my own family name. My ulterior motive when first arriving toVikingrune Academy was to find out who tarnished the Lindeen name, after my mother Lindi, and kill them. Simple as that.

At least it should have been simple.

Then I had to be a dumbass andfall hardfor each of these guys, which threw a wrench in my plans. I transitioned from a hardened would-be assassin into an understanding, loving warrioress.

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