Page 94 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

Blár stopped a foot away from the hole and knelled down. He swept the floor with his hand and stilled when his fingers brushed against the smooth edges of the hole she had created. “See, I told you that you wouldn’t have let me fall.”

“You put a lot of faith in me?—”

She couldn’t even finish what she was saying before Blár dangled his legs down the hole and gripped the sides of it as if ready to plunge—and he sure did look ready.

“W-Wait—” Kolfinna placed a hand on his shoulder. She had looked into the hole below and hadn’t seen any table they could fall on, or any other piece of furniture that might’ve hurt, but she still felt uneasy about the idea of him falling down and spraining an ankle since he couldn’t see the depth of the plummet or his surroundings. “You’ll fall.”

“That’s the point?”

She could make out the rise of his eyebrows.

Kolfinna bit back a sarcastic reply. “It’ll be easier if I go first. I’ll be able to see what’s down there.”

“And then what? You’ll catch me when I come down?” He rolled his eyes, though she couldn’t bequitesure because he had tilted his head down as if to see into the black pit below. “No, I’ll go first. I would make an ice spear and gauge the distance, but we don’t want to leave behind any hints, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, then—” He jumped without warning.

Kolfinna peered down the hole, her eyes adjusting to the deeper darkness in the office below, but Blár was steady on his feet. He looked around himself slowly, his hands jutting out in case he bumped into anything. Kolfinna released a relieved breath; she shouldn’t have been worried about him. He was a black rank after all and had been on many missions—far more than she ever had—and likely knew more about stealth than she did.

Blár raised his head up to her. “You can come down now. It’s safe.”

By the slight inflection of his voice, the last part was said as a joke.

“Want me to catch you?” Another joke, but with a hint of seriousness.

Kolfinna licked her lips. It was tempting. “No, thanks, I’ll just”—she sat on the edge of the hole until her legs were suspended in the air—“come down myself.”

She jumped down without a second thought and landed lithely on her feet. Her muscles didn’t scream and she didn’t stumble, so she could only imagine it was all the training that was finally seeming to pay off.

“Is there a hearth around here? Or a candle?” Blár asked.

It took a few minutes of fumbling to find a stash of candles, a fire steel, and a piece of flint. Kolfinna lit two candles and handed Blár one of them. She spotted a hearth, but lighting that would have left traces of their visit. And considering how Joran was the only other person who could open up an entrance to this place, it would be clear thatshehad visited.

Holding up their flickering lights, they set to work scouring the office. Blár went straight to the desk and began opening drawers and sifting through papers, while Kolfinna rushedto the expanse of bookshelves lining the walls. Her gaze flitted over the worn spines of the books. Most were military histories, strategies, and history books. There was the occasional geography book, but nothing she was looking for. She pulled out books that had nothing written on the spines and flipped through their pages to search for any rune writing, and when she found none, shoved them back in place and repeated the process.

The minutes ticked by. The only noise between them was the rustling of paper.

Kolfinna pulled out a leather-bound book and flicked through it quickly. No runes?—

A stray sheet fluttered out of the book and fell to the floor.

She crouched down to pick it up but paused mid-way down as a familiar name stood out on the paper.

Olia.

Kolfinna picked up the paper.

Olia, thief. Rune magic failed three times. On the fourth attempt, when threatened with her life, she said she would accept the runes, but seeing as how the runes didn’t work when Joran applied them, I suspect she lied. It didn’t work until the fifth time—when she truly decided to accept them. My hypothesis is that the target must be willing to accept the runes for them to work, as was seen in Olia’s case.

I was able to test her to her breaking point. She was able to kill on command and even take herlife on command. Experiment is deemed successful, despite the many times she refused. Will hope the next will be faster to accept commands.

Kolfinna’s legsfelt weak and an ashy taste coated her mouth. Her hands trembled as she opened the book once more. Dozens of names were written inside of it. All with a tiny summary of torture, and all of them women.

Thorin, prostitute.

Porunn, beggar.

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