Page 157 of Blood of Ancients

I agreed with a nod. “Yes. Things must be different when we return. We have to make a splash if we want change.” I looked around at my four men, feeling the weight of the one missing, and frowned at them. “Which means we’re opening ourselves up to danger and hurt. We don’t know what’s been going on the week we’ve been gone, or how we’ll be received. Hel below, we don’t even know if we’ve been gone a week.”

The boys snickered.

I lost my smile and put on another serious face. “Are we all in agreement?”

Nods came from the half-circle of men. They eyed each other, resolute in our joint decision, and then finished by studying me, together.

“Then let’s go find Magnus and Kelvar and get the fuck out of here, back to where we belong.”

“You arewhat?” Magnus asked, his eyes big as saucers.

He seemed . . . changed. More expressive since we’d separated from him after our lewd excursion in Mi’lifair Home.

It appeared speaking with Hersir Kelvar had opened him up somehow, clearing his gray eyes and making him see things differently.

“Dragonkin, she called it,” I said, crossing my arms with an expectant bob to my brows. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Neat? More like astonishing and surreal, silvermoon.” He shot me a sharp smile and shook his head. “Though I can’t say I’m surprised. I always knew you were special.”

I snorted. “Yeah, okay, but special as in she-has-dragon-wings special?”

“Touché.”

We were back in the spring-hold—the main room, because we couldn’t dally. Kelvar was well enough to travel, he said, though he still favored his right side and walked with a bit of a limp. The Whisperer promised he wouldn’t slow us down, and agreed we needed to get back to Vikingrune.

I filled them in on the death of Elayina, and everything she had told me. Even though I knew Kelvar would be reporting everything I said to Gothi Sigmund, it didn’t matter anymore. Communication and understanding was going to be key in the coming months.

Before I could unite the elves and humans, I needed to getmy peopleon the same page, first. I couldn’t have Lepers Who Leapt trying to kill Huscarls trying to kill elves trying to kill students, or any combination of that.

We needed to be a unified front on all things, which meant, begrudgingly, Gothi Sigmund needed to know what was going on outside the academy’s walls.

Still, as we prepared to leave, I asked, “What will you tell the Gothi, Hersir?”

Kelvar looked up from the bed where he was leaned over strapping on his boots. He blinked at me, his gray eyes seeming calmer and more at peace than they ever had before.

Seemsbothof these men got the answers they were looking for.

I’m glad for it.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said after a long pause. Then he shrugged. “I’ll have you and your group by my side, so I suppose we can tell him together.”

I made a face, impressed. “You mean you’re not going to try to scheme and hide things from us? You’re going toinvolveus—the cadets?”

Kelvar smirked and stood, stretching with a wince. “Yes, that is what I mean, Ravinica Lindeen.”

There it is again. Lindeen. That’s more like it.

He had a snarky smile on his face, full of knowing.

It wasn’t that I needed to control anything and everyone around me. I knew Hersir Kelvar was as uncontrollable as they came—a true solitary presence who only had the academy’s best interest at heart.

But it was exactly that aspect—his loyalty to Vikingrune—that made me want to be on the same page as him. Because we would need him, too, if we were going to reshape the academy.

Iwantedto trust the Whisperer. After his talk with Magnus—aftersavingMagnus—I got the sense that I could.

Sven let out a heavy sigh, scanning the large room and the giant windows that looked out to the first level of Alokana City. “Can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’ll miss this place.”

I was just as surprised as him to hear those words. Sven, maybe more than anyone, had resisted the truth about the Ljosalfar when I told it to him.

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