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“What is that?” Blár asked, stooping low to inspect the frozen creature on the floor. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the party. “Why are you all acting like we haven’t been trained to hunt down monsters?”

“Magic beasts don’t look like that!” Thyra sputtered, pointing at it with a trembling finger. “What the hell is that?!”

Another Royal Guard cursed loudly. “Man, this isn’t right. Things like that aren’t supposed to exist.”

“I’ve never seen anything move like that,” Thyra said, eyeing the creature uneasily. “Is this normal for you soldiers?”

Truda snorted. “You ivory-towered pricks wouldn’t know how to fight a monster if it bit you in the ass”—she motioned toward Kolfinna—“or came close enough to.”

“She’s not a Royal Guard. She doesn’t speak for all of us,” Torsten snapped as he picked out a shard of glass from his forearm. “And it’s not like we saw you running into action.”

“You don’t have to be deep in monster shit to know thatthat”—Magni pointed at the frozen creature—“is not normal.”

“E-Everyone, calm down,” Mímir said, raising his hands, but even he was trembling and wide-eyed.

Kolfinna’s hands burned from holding back the blade, blood dripping from the cuts. Her gaze drifted to the sword; the monster had dropped it when it was struck by the ice. If the blade wasn’t rusted, her hands would’ve been cut off. If Blár hadn’t frozen the creature, would she have been able to stop it?

“Are you all right?” Eyfura kneeled beside her. A rivulet of blood ran down her cheek, which she promptly rubbed away with the back of her white glove. “Those cuts look bad …” She searched inside her pack and took out bandages and a salve. “Here, let’s put this on it.”

“I’m … all right,” Kolfinna said carefully.

“What is that thing?” Eyfura looked over her shoulder at the Royal Guards and soldiers huddled around the monster.

“I …” Kolfinna swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “I don’t know.”

“No one said anything aboutthat!” one of the soldiers said as he prodded the ice encased monster. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

“Come on, we knew exactly what we were signing up for,” Magni scoffed. “Don’t go around acting like a wuss now.”

“You royal ass-kissers are the ones shitting your pants over—” a soldier started.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me—”

“Calm down!” Mímir shouted. “Look, everyone! I understand that this is a lot to take in, but we have to remain calm. That … that thing is, well, out of a children’s story—I understand that, but we can’t dwell on that too much. The fact remains that we’ve been trained to handle these kinds of situations, and we’re strong. Blár was able to kill it rather easily. We all can take it down as well. Everyone here is a yellow rank and above. We can survive these things. It might look strange, but just think of it like any other magic beast.”

Once Kolfinna’s hands were bandaged, she unsteadily rose up to her feet. Her legs still quivered and her heart pounded so loudly she was surprised no one heard thethud thud thudof it beating like a drum.

“Let’s move forward,” Mímir said.

Everyone filed out of the room, but most of the group walked with rigid shoulders and sharp eyes as they scoped their surroundings. Kolfinna shot the monster one last look. That ice likely wouldn’t melt, unless someone with Fenris’s fire abilities came along, or if enough time passed.

No one joked, laughed, or made crude comments anymore. There was only an uneasy silence. Kolfinna tried to relax, but her heart was nearly jumping out of her chest. She focused her mana on her fingertips, so it would be easy to launch an attack if another thing came at her. She could feel nature around her, but it wasn’t as strong, since she was in a building. She would have to rely on the stones for quick attacks.

The next room was similar to the previous ones, but instead of weapons with cryptic rune writing or a statue, this one had stacks and stacks of spears. They were falling apart and most of the spearheads were rusted and dull.

“Were they preparing for war?” Eyfura’s voice seemed to carry to the far ends of the room.

“I don’t know,” Mímir said. “But I’m sure … I’m sure there must be some reason why they’re here.”

Kolfinna shifted on her feet and found herself staring at the windows. There were things she hadn’t noticed before that she was suddenly aware of. There were dried brown spots on some of the pillars, as if blood had splattered. And what she had thought were signs of wear and tear, were possible signs of a fight. Uneasiness grew in the pit of her stomach. There were probably more of those monsters out here, and people had likely died fighting them.

The next room was as strange as the others, but this one had a small statue of a ship in the center of it. Old, broken swords hung on the walls. Everyone entered the room warily, some with their hands on the hilts of their weapons, and others with their hands raised for an attack. Kolfinna kept her back close to the wall as she inched close to the window and then peeked around the edge. Thankfully, there wasn’t a creature waiting for her like last time.

“This place is full of junk,” Truda said. “I doubt we’ll find anything valuable here.”

“We should—” Mímir started.