Page 110 of Blood of Ancients

Perhaps?I honed in on that keyword. I said nothing, not wanting to dash his hopes, and only nodded my head. “Then back we go to Alfheim.”

Corym lifted the limp crone like she weighed nothing, holding her in bent arms. Fear marred his beautiful face, twisting his features into something foreign to me.

My mates had no objections. By the tautness of their bodies, the way they held their weapons, I knew they simply wanted to get the fuck out of here.

We started away from the cave, eastward, and I froze about ten feet away when I noticed we were missing someone.

Arne was on his knees, near the cave, staring down at the ground. His sweaty blond hair framed his face, curtaining his features.

My heart sank at the sight of the iceshaper, disheveled and defeated with sunken shoulders. “Arne—”

“I know, Vini,” he muttered, shaking his head and getting to his feet.

When he joined us, I took his hand and squeezed, opening my mouth to say something. Then I looked into his eyes. The pain in those brilliant blue orbs was too much to bear. I forgot what I was going to say.

“. . . I’m sorry,” I landed on. “I’m so sorry.”

I gave him a quick hug, squeezing his thin body tightly. He felt like he would crumble in my grip.

We had no time to commiserate and mourn our losses, much as I wanted to be there for Arne. The dark elves were still out there, and he understood that—we all did.

Minutes later, as our feet slapped through the marshland away from the cave, Arne spoke from the back of the group.

“I just . . . I can’t believe she sank so far, so fast.”

I assumed Frida had to be the only thing on his mind, despite the near-death experience and crazy fight we’d just been part of.

I knew what it was like to lose your family. To learn they were too far gone, that they had fallen out of your grasp and couldn’t be recovered. It was a painful, agonizing experience that never truly went away. It only got a bit easier with time, as acceptance set in, but the hurt would always pop up at random moments.

“I know you tried everything you could to bring her to the right side, my love,” I told him in a low voice as we made our way into the outskirts of Delaveer Forest.

“I didn’t try hard enough.”

“Nonsense—”

“It wasn’t enough!”

His voice was ragged, broken, and echoed off the branches of the trees around us.

I fell quiet then, knowing there was no use arguing with him. Arne didn’t want tofeel better. He wanted to sit with the painful, raw emotions, and I understood that. Eventually, he would resign himself to the fact Frida had made her own choices and gotten lost along the way. It wasn’t his fault.

Today was not that day.

Learning Damon was only using me as a stepping stool, to try and leech off me? That was a tough pill to swallow. Learning Eirik didn’t share the same admiration and love for me I had for him? He’d shown his true colors, and it hurt evenmore than Damon outing himself as a rival and enemy. And my stepfather? He never loved me at all. Hel, the man didn’t evenlikeme—his physical abuse was proof of that.

The worst, I realized, was the one person I had always trusted and seen as invincible. My mother, Lindi Foradeen.

I still loved my mother. We had not spoken since I’d come to Vikingrune Academy, and that wasn’t either of our faults.

It took many months for me to understand that, despite the love we shared for each other—mother and daughter, an unbreakable bond—she was also in it forherself. Seeing me to the academy was only so I could accomplishhergoal of restoring our family name. The name affixed to her, titled after her.

Lindeen.

Since I wasn’t going to go through with the assassinations she had tasked me with, and the spell of revenge over me had been broken, what would she say when she saw me?

Surely she would be disappointed and angry but . . . would she still love me the same?

Yeah, I definitely understand how you feel, Arne.

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