Page 45 of The Ruins of the Heartless Fae

“I dropped my handkerchief on the top step, so I thought I’d grab it … But I can’t.” Sweat beaded his forehead and he placed his hand over the air. As if there was some sort of glass, his hand splayed against …nothing. He pressed harder, but his hand didn’t budge. It was like there was a wall in place.

Kolfinna strode to where he was and tentatively tried to pass her hand back to the staircase, but her fingers met with an invisible wall. And then, golden runes floated along the invisible wall. She stared at it for a second.Barrier, it read.

“We can’t go back,” she whispered.

Torsten looked at her; he had been one of the people who, when traveling with her, had shot her dirty looks along with Magni. But this time, he appeared serious. As if realizing he needed her. “This is getting a little …” He paused. “Unnerving.”

It looked like the castle ruins wanted them to go forward. The arched double doors seemed to beg their attention. Kolfinna chewed on her lower lip, something stirring within her. The ruins wanted them dead. At least that’s what it seemed like. But during the ship ordeal, the runes had helped them escape. Why? What was the purpose of it all? What was the castle hiding or protecting?

The double doors didn’t have anything special on them; Kolfinna couldn’t trace any mana from them. But when she reached out and placed her hand against them, she could feel the faintest whiff of it. She closed her eyes, willing all her senses forward. Mana from humans and other fae were relatively easy to sense when one reached a high enough proficiency with their own mana, but rune magic was trickier for Kolfinna to figure out. She needed to put all her focus into it, or else she couldn’t sense it—like the barrier that had formed after they left the staircase.

“Kolfinna?” It was Mímir. She could imagine him staring at her with that worried crease between his brows. But she didn’t look at him and kept her attention on the door.

After a few seconds, she found it, eyes snapping open. “Mana,” she said. “There’s rune magic behind the door.”

“Is it … another monster?” Eyjarr, the middle-aged soldier with peppered hair, said. His eyes were wide saucers. “Is it another ordeal? Like on the ship?”

“Not the ship …” Embla, one of the other soldiers, whispered.

Sweat dampened Kolfinna’s hands, nearly soaking through the new bandages on her palms. She didn’t have any answers for them. The party watched her expectantly, even Magni and Truda. They all seemed to hold their breaths for what she was going to say.

She didn’t like them by any means—except for maybe Eyfura and Mímir, the only two people who had been welcoming and kind to her—but she couldn’t have them all die unprepared, especially when she could help.

Blár watched her with an uninterested and unbothered expression. There was a budding blue bruise on his cheek, making his contemptuous blue eyes more intense. She bristled under his scrutiny and turned to avoid his gaze. Even though he saved her life twice, she was uneasy around him. He was being cooperative, but there was no kindness in him. He would toss her aside if she proved to be useless.

“Rune magic,” Kolfinna repeated, finding strength in her voice, “exists beyond this door.” She spoke loud enough for all of them to hear. “There are powers beyond this door that, most likely, we’ve never seen before. The castleisn’t letting us leave.” She gestured toward the staircase they had come from. “It wants us to move forward. And if that’s what it wants, there must be something waiting for us.”

Her throat closed up and she grasped for words, her gaze flitting over the blur of faces. They didn’t trust her, did they? She could feel it in the stirring air as they stared.

Kolfinna fidgeted with her sleeve, her voice dropping. “Runes … Only I can read them here, and from what I’ve gathered, it’s imperative that we … that we follow what they say. They have clues to help get us out of situations, I think.”

If she wanted to become a proper Royal Guard, she needed to protect everyone here. Even if they disliked her. Even if they thought she was nothing more than a fae monster.

Kolfinna pressed her hand against the door once more. Rune magic was still such a mystery to her. She could sense it enough to know that it was there, but not enough to have any idea what was beyond the door. “At the ship, the runes told me to find rubies and place them where they indicated. The rubies were one of the monsters’ eyes. It’s almost as if that ordeal was atest. I think the castle is testing us. Testingme.” Her stomach churned with the weight of their stares. Anxiety twisted and knotted in her throat. She didn’t like all the eyes on her. “You need to listen to me beyond this door. I’ll try my best to figure out if there’s something I can do. But youcannot”—she turned sharply to Magni, who straightened—“hurt me or compromise me.”

“Why do you think it’s testing you in particular?” Truda crossed her arms over her chest. “It could be testing all of us. It’s not just specific to you.”

“I’m the only fae here.” Kolfinna pointedly stared at Truda, the thorn in her side. “I’m the only one who can read, interpret, and follow the runes. What would you all have done without me? Would you have figured that out by yourselves? Also, this used to be a castle for fae. It was designed for my people. So it seems the temple is speaking to me, a fae, directly.Notto humans.”

Truda screwed her mouth shut.

When there didn’t seem to be any more opposition, Kolfinna breathed out deeply and pushed the door open.

12

There wasnothing extraordinary about the room except the green, white, and black checkered floor. It was what was in the center of the room that captured everyone’s attention—a large,livingmonster. Folds and folds of fat rolled off its grotesque, white, and greasy humanoid body; it was bigger than all of them combined. Its head was tiny and perched on top of its round blob of a body. Six spikes protruded from its fleshy body, extending at least five feet. The ghastliest feature was its face: completely bone white, with large owl-like eyes that were too big for its head, and a mouth that took over half its face, pointy teeth sticking out from it at different angles—as if there were too many teeth jammed into its mouth. It was staring at them, and it wassmiling.

Kolfinna and the rest of the party held their breaths, frozen and suspended as the creature stared at them, because although the monster was gruesome, another alarming fact hit everyone at the same time: their powers didn’t work.

“What is—” Torsten started.

A split second was all it took for the creature to lurch forward and swipe Torsten’s head with its claw. Bone crunched, blood splattered, and flesh fell into ribbons at his feet before his body fell to the floor. Something warm splashed on Kolfinna’s face. Blood pooled on the floor around everyone’s feet.

The creature held Torsten’s decapitated head in one claw. It tossed it in the air and chomped down on it loudly. It slurped and chewed until there wasn’t a trace left. Another claw wrapped Torsten’s arm and it dragged his corpse to where it was originally sitting. It plopped down on its seat in the center of the room, a dangling arm hanging out of its mouth. A smear of blood stained the tiled floor. The monster ate, not taking its eyes off them. It all happened in a split second.

Someone screamed. Kolfinna’s knees gave out.

“H-Help us!”Embla grabbed the doorknob, but it was too late.

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