Page 109 of The Ruins of the Heartless Fae

“Barely holding on.” Truda ran a hand over her face. Grime, tears, blood, and sweat caked her face. “But Revna … escaped.”

“Shewhat?” Blár snapped his head up in her direction. “How?”

Kolfinna shifted on her feet. “Before we could defeat her, the dreki destroyed the, um—” She motioned to the gaping holes in the floor and the ceiling. Bits of pebbles and dust still cracked off from them. “Um, well, she escaped when the dreki came here.”

Blár cursed under his breath and opened his mouth like he would chew them out, but then he sighed and said, “Well, it’s not like I can argue since I was asleep when all that went down. Anyway—Magni, how are you holding up?”

“I’m alive,” he said, sliding down the pillar.

“Where’s Mímir? Did he run off too?”

Kolfinna shifted her attention to the corner of the room, where Mímir lay on the floor in a crumpled position. His hands and feet were still encased in the stone bindings. By the looks of it, he was still unconscious.

“There,” she said, pointing. “I don’t know how he survived all of that.”

“We’ll take him back with us,” Blár said. “As for the fae—are any of them alive?”

Magni pushed himself away from the pillar, and blood stained the once off-white stone material of it, and he dragged himself to the coffins. “By the looks of it, some are dead,” he called out as he checked on each one. “The dreki’s fire burnt some of them, but some of the others are still alive. We should take them to the king—”

“No,” Blár said. “Kill them. Right now.”

Magni froze. “But—”

“The king will want them alive so he can experiment and learn from them, but that’s far too dangerous. You saw Revna. She was able to fly and use artifacts we have no knowledge of, and let’s not even get started on her rune magic.” His voice was hard. “The king won’t care if any of them wake up and kill thousands of people. If any of them wake up, I’m sure it’ll spell disaster for us all. Kill them. Immediately.”

Truda nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

“As for you.” He turned to Kolfinna, and the harshness of his gaze softened. “You did pretty decent for your first real battle.” He grinned, and her heart did a small somersault. Even though the heat of the battle was over, her whole body tingled with warmth. It was inappropriate for her to think he looked handsome in that moment, with blood, dirt, and sweat coating his body like a second skin, but she couldn’t deny that he was wickedly handsome. With his tousled black hair and sharp wintery eyes—he was a dream.

She must’ve been going crazy to think that. Especially after the battle.

She averted her gaze. “Thanks,” she muttered.

“Well, at least I think so,” he said with a short laugh. “I can’t say for sure since I was out of it for half of it, but you did well.”

She wasdefinitelycrazy, but at least the battle was finally over. Even as she thought that, another voice told her it might’ve just been the beginning.

26

Kolfinna sat against a crumbling coffin;the crater in the ceiling cast a ring of moonlight onto the littered, torn floor. The smell of rot and decay lifted from the corpses, both the dreki and the fae, so strongly that Kolfinna’s nose and eyes stung. Her eyelids drooped heavily and she rested her head on her knees, rocking gently. Now that the adrenaline rush of battle was over, Kolfinna felt empty and bone-weary. All her mistakes replayed in her mind—she should’ve lungedthisway, notthatway. She should’ve usedthisattack, notthatattack.

She sighed, glancing over at the trio huddled in the center of the moonlight. Magni, Truda, and Blár had bandaged themselves up and were now discussing a plan moving forward. Their bounty was theGenfødsel Kniv,Revna’sMagisk-æder,and Mímir—who was now awake and struggling to undo the stone bindings on his wrists.

She didn’t want to join their conversation because she was neither a part of the military nor the Royal Guards. Which left her wondering, where exactly did she stand? Did she even have a chance to become a Royal Guard?

Truda had said their mission was a success with that bounty and that it would be enough to pacify the king, but every time Kolfinna thought about the Royal Guards, Mímir’s words replayed in her mind. What if the king and Fenris truly did plan to kill her after this mission? What if they deemed fae too dangerous and executed her? What if they didn’t pardon her crimes? After all, most of the party was dead, so her usefulness was questionable.

She turned her attention to Eyfura’s body; Magni had brought her to the room so she wasn’t “alone” and “forgotten,” but having her in the room reminded Kolfinna that she had failed her. It wasn’t fair that Eyfura had to die here. Kolfinna had secretly hoped they could continue to be friends even after this mission. If Kolfinna had made different decisions, the outcome could’ve been better than this.

Her heart sank and she turned away from her. This mission wasn’t a success. Too many had died.

“Now that this place isn’t running anymore, we can have teams enter here and try to research as much as we can,” Truda said. “We should regroup with the outside team.”

Mímir continued to struggle against the stones. “Let me go,” he said between grunts.

“You have the intelligence of a dead fish if you think we’ll listen.” Blár leaned forward and wove his fingers through Mímir’s hair, jerking his head back so he could glare at him better. The moonlight made his blue eyes shine an ominous silver. “You’re lucky I don’t impale you right here and right now, Ragnarök scum.”

Mímir’s mouth trembled. “If you let me go, I can show you how to bring her back! She’s not dead yet, but she will be if you don’t free me.”

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