Page 121 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

“Kolfinna!” Joran dropped down beside her and touched her shoulder. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Didn’t yourfatherteach you,” the man said with a chuckle, “not to touch a fae?”

Kolfinna couldn’t rip her gaze from the man.Her father. This man definitely knew who she was.

“Kolfinna!” Joran looked between the fae male and her, his eyes wide. “What did he do?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, brushing his hands away. “He just … stole some of my mana. Surprised me, that’s all.”

She stood before him and tried again. This time she didn’t touch him and kept her hand hovering over his. That was right—she didn’tneedto touch whatever she wanted to write runes on, so long as she was close enough for her mana to reach him.

Bind this fae to Sijur Bernsten’s will.

Even as she was thinking it, she knew it was futile. There was no way the binding would work without this man’s consent. That seemed to be the general consensus with these runes. The other party had to be a willing participant.

Like she anticipated, nothing happened.

“It didn’t work,” Kolfinna said to Sijur.

The man smirked. “Of course it didn’t, little lady.”

“The man needs to agree to it.” Joran licked his lips. “They all do.”

“We can make them agree to it.” Sijur unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the orange-eyed fae. “Bind yourself to me.”

The man spat on Sijur’s feet. “Never.”

Sijur stabbed him right in the shoulder. So quickly that it wasn’t until the hot specks of blood spotted Kolfinna’s face that she registered it. The man didn’t even gasp, didn’t evenflinch. The only indication that he was pained was from the tensing of his body.

Kolfinna stepped back, while Sijur stepped forward, a smile lifting his lips as he dug the blade deeper. The pointed tip emerged from the man’s back and grazed the arch of his wing. “Submit to me,” Sijur said through clenched teeth, “or we will be at this for a long,longtime.”

The man narrowed his eyes to slits. “I will never submit to a human.”

Sijur yanked the sword back and a stream of thick blood dripped from the blade, still connected to the man’s gash before splotching onto the ground in puddles. Sijur twisted the blade in his hand and jabbed it into the man’s thigh. Kolfinna gasped, while the man gritted his teeth together.

Sijur drew closer. “Submit.”

“Never.”

Again, Sijur withdrew his blade and stabbed the man again. This time on the other thigh. “Submit to me.”

“We can do this all day, and my answer will remain the same—never.”

The other fae and elves watched with tight expressions.

Sijur kept the sword imbedded in the man’s thigh and held his hand out to Joran. “Your dagger, Joran.”

Joran fumbled as he removed a dagger with its sheath from his waist. He handed it to Sijur, who yanked the gleaming silver blade from its sheath and tossed the scabbard away like it was garbage. He had his eyes on the man the entire time. Flipping the blade in his hand, he pointed it to the fae.

“We will do this all day and night,” he whispered as he knelled down until he was eye level with the prisoner. He placedthe flat side of the dagger against the man’s cheek. “I will flay you into ribbons—and I will enjoy it, every second of it.”

Kolfinna stumbled back until she hit the wall of the tent when Sijur began carving into the man’s cheek. Her stomach rolled and she desperately wished she were elsewhere. Blood pooled on the ground and her stomach continued to churn and churn. She tried looking away, but everywhere she looked, there was something haunting her—the fae faces of the other prisoners, the elves who looked nothing like her but at the same time, were more alike her than the humans.

The man squirmed on the ground as Sijur shoved him down, the dagger’s edge slashing into his face violently. Kolfinna squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of stuff. Battles against monsters? Not difficult—at least, not morally. Battles against fae, elves, and humans? Difficult, but she could manage. But this? Pure torture against a man who couldn’t do anything to retaliate? It made her want to vomit.

“Lieutenant, don’t you think that’s enough?” Kolfinna choked out.

Sijur, who was huddled over the man’s limp body, glanced over his shoulder at her. A spray of blood coated his face in specks and splotches. When he grinned, a shiver ran down her spine. “What, can’t handle a little bit of bloodshed, Kolfinna? That won’t do. No, that won’t doat all.”

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