Page 41 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

But she didn’t need to tell them that.

“Yes, I can find you all.”Probably.

Eluf seemed satisfied with that. “Gunnar and I will take this hall. Herja and Inkeri, take the middle. Ivar and Kolfinna, you take the last one.”

Their group broke apart and each pair headed down their designated corridor. Kolfinna dragged a hand over the bumps and divots in the cavernous wall; she threaded her mana through the stone and tried to feel the bends in the path ahead and the various interconnected hallways and dead ends.

Ivar’s footsteps were heavy against the stony ground. Kolfinna picked up the noise of all the tiny pebbles he crushed beneath his steel-toed boots and the sound of the rubber tread on the bottom of his boots gripping the ground. She could also hear the distant drip of dew falling off the sharp ends of the stalactites in the ceiling. The scuffling and squeaks of mice down the hall.

Her head began to throb with the overload of her senses.

“I noticed you were sticking close to Inkeri,” Kolfinna found herself saying. At least if she talked and she focused on their voices, she could ignore the hyper focused sounds her ears were picking up.

Ivar’s steps slowed and his jarring green-blue eyes skated to her. “Was I?”

“You were.” Kolfinna tucked an errant strand of white hair behind her ear. “For someone who’s so rude to her, you sure seemed worried?—”

“She’s the only yellow rank in the group,” he started.

“Theonly?” Her eyebrows rose and she pointedly tapped at the reflective, yellow badge pinned to the breast pocket of her gray uniform.

His lips pursed together. Something akin to annoyance flitted over his face. “That’s just the dynamic of our group. Eluf and Gunnar stick together since they’re brothers and know how to fight well with each other. Herja likes to go off on her own and burn things up. And then I’m tasked with making sure Inkeri doesn’t get killed due to her lack of skill.”

“She’s not weak.” Kolfinna frowned. She had seen Inkeri fight and had sparred with her countless times these past few days. Even though she was a yellow rank, Kolfinna surmised Inkeri was on the cusp of becoming a purple. It was only a matter of time.

Ivar was quiet for a long time. She couldn’t read the expression on his face and she didn’t know him well enough to know what the twitch at the corner of his mouth meant. Or if he was slowing down because he was thinking too hard or he was annoyed or because he didn’t have an answer.

The slight noise of air escaping at the end of the corridor caught Kolfinna’s attention. She ripped her gaze away from Ivar and focused on the sound. Another ragged breath. Could it be a child? Or a goblin?

The corridor curved and she could make out small cutouts in the cavernous tunnel-like cave—rooms, perhaps.

Kolfinna’s mana tingled at her fingertips. Ivar read the shift in her demeanor and narrowed his eyes at the darkness down the hall.

“How many?” he whispered.

She raised a single finger.

He bobbed his head and they both neared the first doorway. Suddenly, a green-skinned creature hobbled out into the hallway, completely unaware of them. When its eyes landed on Kolfinna, they widened. She didn’t think, she moved. Her mana ripped a pointed stalactite off the ceiling and slammed it right at the creature’s heart, pinning it to the curved part of the hallway. The goblin’s head lolled forward, dead.

Ivar jogged over to the doorway and he peeked inside while Kolfinna followed behind him. “Seems like a bedroom.” He sighed. “Nothing important.”

The room had a bundle of blood-tinged furs on the ground that probably served as a bed and a small cluster of brittle bones in the corner.

“Doesn’t it make you feel uneasy seeing that these creatures are intelligent?” Kolfinna asked as they continued down the hallway once more. “Like, they have their own dining hall,makeshift tables and beds … And yet they hunt humans.Children.”

He cast her a sidelong look. “It’s creepy, don’t get me wrong, but you have to keep in mind that if we don’t kill them, theywillkill our most vulnerable population.”

Of course she knew that, but it still unnerved her that these creatures had their own mini civilization here, and they were hunting them all down.

“At the end of the day, they’re monsters.” He poked his head into another room. It was decorated like the other room but empty.

“The fae are considered monsters,” she said.

His sea-like eyes found hers. “You’re not thinking that you’re the same as them, are you?”

“My people are hunted the same way.” She tried not to shiver, but coldness swept down her spine and she involuntarily shuddered. She didn’t think goblin hunting or monster hunting was the same as hunting fae—but what if these soldiers thought of it as one and the same? She could see the difference, but not everyone could. Most people branded the fae as monsters. The same as these goblins.

He blew out air. “The fae are much more intelligent, for one. And they look like humans too.” He eyed her white hair and then met her pink eyes. “Well, sorta. But you’re close enough to human-looking that I think there’s a big distinction. Plus, the fae can fu—” He cleared his throat with a laugh, as if realizing he was talking to her. “Well, let’s just say you guys can procreate with humans, so you’ve got the same kind of hardware down there.”

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