Page 28 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

“Where—” Kolfinna croaked. “Where should I put it?”

“Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”

Kolfinna gently grabbed Olia’s thin wrist. The woman had stopped fighting and was now staring at her with bleak, teary, and defeated eyes. It haunted Kolfinna—the black depths of despair in her gaze.

Mana flared beneath Kolfinna’s fingers and she closed her eyes.Olia will obey Sijur’s will and never disobey him. Just thinking the words made her stomach flip. She wanted so badly to run away from all of this. If only she hadn’t involved herself with Sijur. If only?—

Her magic pulsed at her fingers. She normally loved the feeling of her mana bubbling beneath her skin, ready to be used, but now it felt traitorous. It felt wrong.

She opened her eyes, but no runes were etched onto the woman’s dirty, peeling, raw skin. She tried again, forcing her mana into the woman, but again, no golden runes bloomed beneath her grasp.

“It’s not working,” she said, unable to hide the relief in her voice.

Sijur’s smile fell. “That’s very unfortunate. Joran, try to help Kolfinna.”

Joran tentatively reached for Kolfinna’s free hand. “I’ll try to channel my mana to you.”

Kolfinna only nodded. He slipped his hand into hers, his fingers lacing through with hers. His hand was soft and uncalloused, so unlike Blár’s rough and scarred hand, which showed years of training. Kolfinna closed her eyes and focused on the rune again.

Joran’s mana prodded at her hand, as if requesting for Kolfinna to take it. It was such a foreign feeling, so unlike when Kolfinna had dipped her fingers into Blár’s expansive cold mana. Back then, she had been the one to search for it and take what she wanted. But here, Joran was offering it to her and moving it toward her. He was a fae, so it was only natural that he could move his mana in such a way, but it still unsettled her. Like something was crawling under her skin.

She allowed his mana to enter her stream, even as a small voice in the back of her mind told her that opening such a channel would allow him to do the same—to steal her mana.

She silenced that voice.

Joran’s mana was nowhere near as large as Blár’s, but unlike Blár’s, whose mana had been like winter itself, frigid and violent, Joran’s was full of warmth, like standing under sunlight. Like feeling the trees whispering above her head. Like bathing in warmth.

She didn’t like it at all.

Kolfinna pulled at his mana and focused on Olia’s arm. On formulating the runes.

Olia will obey Sijur’s will and never disobey him.

The rune didn’t appear.

She tried again, tugging at Joran’s mana once more. She added her own mana to it, and tried again.

Nothing.

And again.

Still nothing.

“It’s not working,” Kolfinna whispered.

Sijur’s lips pressed together in displeasure as he looked between her and Joran. “Truly?”

“Yes,” Joran said with a wince. “We used both of our mana, but it didn’t work.”

Sijur rubbed his clean-shaven jaw thoughtfully. “Hm. I wonder if it’s a matter of the strength of your rune capabilities or the fact that she’s human? No, that can’t be. The last fae queen had many human rune-marked slaves. It must be that you both are not strong enough.” He shook his head, sighing. “Well, we’ll have to do more research, Joran. In the meantime, you both need to become even stronger.”

The pit in Kolfinna’s stomach ripped open wider and wider like a gaping wound stretching painfully. She knew Sijur would never let this go and eventually, she and Joran would succeed in binding someone to him. If he was correct and that all they needed was to become stronger, then it would definitely happen. And when it did—Kolfinna would be complicit in someone’s oppression. She would be the one shackling someone to Sijur’s will—or her rune magic would kill them if they disobeyed.

She couldn’t look at any of them—not the sunken woman on the floor, not Sijur and his determined resignation, not passive Joran. She felt sick to her core. Everything she knew about herself felt like a lie.

She had thought she was stronger than this.

She had thought she was smarter than to have her hands tied behind her back.

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