Page 3 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
I am standing in the middle of a narrow gray strip of road, flanked by lines painted in bone-white. Strange metal lamps stand on tall poles like spears raised by giants, bathing the world in harsh, surgical brightness. Beyond the road, on either side, black shapes crouch in rows — carriages, but not. Rectangles on round feet, windows black as eyes, skins gleaming like beetles. They are everywhere, hunkered together like a herd that forgot how to breathe.
“Where,” I say, and the word comes out a ragged puff, steam tearing off my lips into this knife-cold. “By the Thirteen?—”
A horn screams.
My head snaps left. A shape bears down — a rectangular carriage, lights blazing like a pair of captive suns. It roars past so close the wind of it slaps my hair against my face, the stink of hot oil and some furious chemical burning in its wake. Myheart punches my ribs. Another follows, a silver beast with a snarling grille, engine growling like an insult shouted through its teeth. Then another, and another, all of them louder than sense, rushing by in a stream that refuses to acknowledge I exist.
“Illusions,” I say, but my voice is thin, and the wind of their passage flutters my silks and tosses a paper thing across the ground that skitters and sticks to my boot like a dead moth.
The lamps hum. The road hums. The entire world hums with this mechanical frenzy. I sway, drunk and suddenly sober, hands up, palms empty, as another metal beast screams past, heat hissing off its sides, tires hissing water from the road in a snake’s spray. The flavor of it is everywhere — oil, burned rubber, a ghost of iron filings. It gets into my mouth and makes my teeth ache.
The tavern is gone. Vhoig’s slobbering laughter, gone. The priest, his soft, satisfied eyes, gone. I am a single dark speck in a river of fast metal and bad decisions, standing on a strip of road drawn through a world I don’t know the name of.
The next carriage roars by, and its windows hold a reflection for a heartbeat — a hollow-eyed stranger in torn glamour, silks tattered by wind, runes humming like trapped hornets under my skin. Me. I look feral in this light.
A finer, more prudent version of myself would move to the side. This one — the one grinning at fate a minute ago over a piss-bowl — stands there with his heart in his mouth and his hands curled like they’re ready to catch the thunder.
Another growl builds, closer, heavier. The air shudders. Lights flare white-hot.
Strange rectangular carriages — loud, fast, reeking of oil — roar past me.
The growl ahead blooms into a bellow. White lights sear my vision, bleaching the world into shapes and shadows. The air infront of me is suddenly hot, shoved into my face by the oncoming bulk of the thing hurtling toward me.
It’s alive. Not in any way that makes sense — no eyes, no breath — but I feel the intent in it, the raw violence of its charge. My instincts snap into place, too slow and too stubborn. I don’t step back. I plant my feet and glare into the glare.
Through the glass at its front, I see her — small, human, hands clamped to a wheel of some kind. Her wide brown eyes are pools of shock, framed by hair the color of autumn bark caught in wind. Her mouth moves, shouting words that dissolve in the scream of the horn.
The impact is not what I expect. It’s not a sword cut, not a blast of magic — it’s blunt force, enormous and stupid, like being clubbed by a god drunk on speed. Pain detonates along my ribs, stealing the air from my lungs. My body spins, silks snapping in the wind, armor plates shrieking across the rough, gritty black of the ground. My shoulder clips hard against something unyielding, and my teeth snap together hard enough to bite my own tongue.
I taste blood — thick, metallic, with that faint salt of old coin. The smell of oil and hot metal wraps around me like a strangler’s arms. I come to a stop on my side, breath ragged, vision smeared in streaks of light.
The beast — the carriage — screams again, but this time its voice drops in pitch, becomes a shrill whine, and then silence. The scent of scorched rubber floods the air. My ears ring.
The door on its flank flies open and the human woman spills out. She stumbles, catches herself, then runs toward me with all the reckless energy of someone whose fear has outrun their sense. Her voice cuts through the ringing, fast and high, words chopped by panic. I don’t understand a single one.
I push myself upright, the motion dragging a snarl from deep in my throat. My fingers find the rough edge of my armor, slicknow with something warmer than rain. The pain in my ribs is a drumbeat, but I ignore it and fix my gaze on her.
She’s close enough now that I can see freckles across her nose, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes — still wide, still locked on me — hold the same stunned focus as prey that’s just realized the predator is still breathing.
“What did you do?” I growl. My voice comes out thick, low, like a stone sliding over another.
Her words tumble faster, a string of sounds without meaning. She gestures — to me, to the carriage, back to me — hands fluttering like trapped birds.
I take one step toward her. Her breath hitches.
That’s when my side gives way.
It’s not just pain; it’s a hot, wet tear under my ribs, the sort of wound that doesn’t politely wait for you to find shelter. My vision swims, the street tilting under my boots. The lamps above bend in their poles like they’re leaning down to watch me fall.
The woman takes a step forward — cautious, unsure — and says something else. It’s softer this time, but I still can’t drag meaning from it. The sound is pulled away by the wind in my ears, replaced by the hollow rush that means the blood is going where it shouldn’t.
My knees hit the pavement. My palm slaps down a moment later, slick with my own blood. My glamour flickers at the edges, heat and cold rippling through me in turns.
The last thing I see before the dark folds over me is her face — pale, stricken, caught between running and helping — and the thought burns clear through the haze: the priest will pay for this.
Once I figure out where in the abyss I’ve landed.
CHAPTER 2
