Page 72 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
To Razarak, in there in that blasted quad with his warriors, battered but not broken, and smiling —smiling— as if I’d simply tripped in a sparring match and he’d won some petty bet.
And those parting words.
"I’ll visit my future grandchildren."
Of all the threats, of all the venom he could have spat, that’s what he chose.
It was calculated. Not some offhand remark, not some moment of fatherly sentiment — no, he knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to stick a blade somewhere my armor didn’t cover. He wanted to remind me that no matter how far I’ve run, the past is not just at my back. It’s in my blood.
And the worst part? I can’t decide if it was pure cruelty… or something else.
Skylar stirs beside me on the couch, not knowing of those parting words that will hunt me sooner. The dorm’s heater isgrumbling against the February cold, but she’s still wrapped in a blanket like she’s fighting off a glacier. I can see the tip of her nose peeking out, pink from the draft sneaking through the old window frames.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she mumbles without opening her eyes.
“What thing?”
“That… staring-off-into-the-distance-like-you’re-plotting-a-coup thing.”
My mouth twists. “Sometimes I am.”
She cracks one eye open, studying me like she’s trying to peel away my layers with just a look. “And now?”
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I push myself upright, elbows on my knees, gaze on the dull gleam of the floor tiles. “Now, I’m thinking about my father.”
That gets both her eyes open. “The one who tried to kill you?”
“The one who promised to visit my future offspring, yes.”
She sits up, her blanket slipping to her lap. “You… didn’t mentionthatpart before.”
“It didn’t seem relevant.”
Her brows shoot up. “How is thatnotrelevant?”
“Because,” I say slowly, “he meant it as a provocation, not a prophecy.”
She doesn’t reply at first, just watches me with that human way of reading silence like it’s more important than words. “And it worked,” she says finally.
I don’t deny it. “It lingers.”
And it does — like a splinter under the skin, too deep to dig out but impossible to ignore. Because the truth is, I know what Razarak was really saying: that even in supposed exile, I’m still his bloodline, his heir, his piece on the board. That he expects me to build something he can use, even if he has to wait decades to collect.
It should make my blood boil. And it does. But there’s also… something else. Something quieter.
I glance at Skylar. She’s still watching me, chin propped on her hand, her hair falling over her shoulder in a lazy tangle. There’s a smear of ink on her thumb from whatever she was working on before she dozed off.
Razarak’s voice echoes again, curling in my mind like smoke.Future grandchildren.
I scowl, more at myself than him.
“Rovax?”
I look at her. “He was trying to remind me that every victory has strings attached. That nothing I build here is free of him.”
She frowns. “Do you believe that?”
My first instinct is to sayno. To spit the word like a blade and cut the thought from the air entirely. But the truth catches in my throat.
