Page 42 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 42

Ravinica

“YOU’VE BEEN A REAL pain in my ass, Miss Linmyrr.”

My eyes opened at the crooning voice, worming into my mind like a bad dream.

Tomekeeper Dahlia sat opposite me on a large rock. Tapping her knee with a pudgy hand.

I struggled, noticing my arms were wrapped in rope, pinned to my body. Standing and baring my teeth in a snarl, I tried to charge her—

Only to bump headfirst into an invisible wall of energy. A magical cage. I tried my left and right, knocking more bruises onto my skin as I bounced like a pinball off the walls.

The wall was vaguely box-shaped, completely surrounding me, with a tree at my back. “You devious bitch,” I growled in a low, dangerous tone.

My thoughts tumbled as wakefulness came back to me. How could the Tomekeeper be here? It didn’t seem possible.

What in Hel was going on?

Dahlia looked tired, her face sunken, her jowls drooping. Wobbing her many chins, she looked left and right. “Guess he’s not going to show up, eh?” Groaning, she stood from the rock and began to walk away. “Alas, the search continues.” Her tone was resigned, frustrated.

Dahlia began to walk away, leaving me with a million questions and no answers.

“Let me out of here you crazy crone!” I howled, slamming my forehead into the wall and immediately regretting it as a wave of dizziness passed through me.

“Afraid not, Miss Linmyrr.” She gathered a bag of things at her feet, almost lazily, and without looking at me over her shoulder, chuckled humorlessly, freezing where she stood. “You always hated that surname, didn’t you?” Her eyes flashed dark over her shoulder. “Well, I say embrace it. Like Astrid did. My poor girl.”

Muttering to herself, she turned to walk away.

I gritted my teeth. Anger was so hot inside me I thought it would explode out of my mouth. Maybe I could breathe fire if I concentrated hard enough.

Instead, desperation and panic took over, and I said anything I could to keep her there. “You never cared about Astrid.”

Dahlia spun around, face ripe with rage. “How dare you!” She thrust a stubby finger toward me, throwing the hems of her robes back as she suddenly advanced on me. My plan had worked. So far. “I cared what my silvermoor daughter represented, foolish girl. Change. ”

I snorted with disgust. “You didn’t even know she was a half-blood elf, Dahlia. No one did! Not until . . . Korvan . . . I’m guessing.”

Her face went tight like I had struck her. Eyes widening slightly, she flared the nostrils of her large nose. “Yes. He unshadowed my mind, as I assume he did with your mother. He showed me the truth I’ve been suffering through for decades, as long as Astrid was alive.”

With a calmness that worried me, Dahlia’s face took on a faraway gaze. Sorrow filled her eyes, crinkling the lines near them. “But I don’t speak of the half-elf part, you little nuisance. I speak of the bastard part. Astrid represented what bastards could do—more than even you, Ravinica. My daughter proved that status need not be dictated by your name.”

“Yes,” I said, “while I only proved that your merit is not dictated by your name, either.”

Dahlia scoffed, shaking her head drearily. “Your emotions run high. I understand. You’ve been knocked around since getting to Vikingrune, and the hits never seem to stop coming, do they? But you would ruin everything the academy has worked toward for the sake of your misguided mother.”

If I grew any angrier, I might’ve been able to snap the ropes off me with sheer strength, despite how tightly they were tied.

My voice dropped to a deadly hue. “Don’t you dare talk about my mother, bitch. Lindi actually raised me, unlike you did for Astrid. Perhaps if Astrid wasn’t reared and forgotten by such a hateful bully, we could have been actual . . . sisters.”

The quiet rage in my tone was matched by the expression on the Tomekeeper’s face.

Before she could say more—or be coaxed into dropping the wall she’d erected around me to slap the shit out of me for speaking ill about her and her dead daughter—Dahlia wheeled around to leave.

“Answer me this, Tomekeeper. How are you here?”

She froze again. It was almost too easy riling her up, locked away behind this invisible force field. It gave me a sense of power I knew I shouldn’t have felt—certainly not while goading the damned woman.

I knew boastful people like Dahlia Anfinn. She, too, had been relegated to the bottom of the ladder as a Hersir at the academy. Stuffed away in the library, given a fancy title to satiate her desire for power: Tomekeeper. It was laughable.

“It’s an interesting thing, Linmyrr. The power of blood.”

My breath hitched, heart thumping loudly in my ears.

Facing me once more, Dahlia gave me a cruel grin. “All the blood I leeched from your tattooed lover? Well, imagine my surprise when I found the anomaly coursing through him. In whatever torrid, kinky affair you shared, he fed on you at some point. It made him stronger—resistant to my tests, which should have debilitated him.”

I’d already known that part. But I wasn’t ready for what came next. Nowhere near.

“Testing the blood over months, I became certain it was yours.” She put her hands on her wide hips, smiling proudly at me. “And now look at you. Powerful. Dragonkin .” She breathed the word like it was a dream.

“. . . You wish to hold that power yourself,” I eked out, stunned.

She flapped a dismissive hand at me. “Nothing so simple, girl. First I wanted to bring my poor girl back. But even your tainted line wasn’t strong enough for resurrection. I should have known.” Her finger wagged, and she tsked. “However, putting your blood inside me ? Yes, it did make me more powerful. It’s how I can control you like a puppet, girl, bending and molding the very blood in your veins to my whims.”

So that’s how she brought me to my knees. My blood truly had been on fire! “You think this makes you dragonkin, Dahlia?”

“Of course not. Perhaps it makes me strong enough , however . . .” She trailed off, gazing far into the jungle behind me. Then, shaking her head and snapping out of it, she clicked her tongue. “Suppose it doesn’t matter. It allowed me to intercept your dreams, whatever the case. This is truly a power we don’t yet understand.”

I reeled, bumping into the section of shield behind me. Rolling my head back uncomfortably on my neck, I groaned. “You . . . spied on my dream? Listened as Korvan spoke with me?”

“His plans are devilish, I admit. Can’t expect anything less from a being whose been slinking around for centuries, eh?” She threw her arms up. “And he’s still not here! Suppose the dark lord has played both of us for fools. Any idea why he dragged you all the way out here?”

“Still working on that,” I grunted, bowing my head shamefully.

“Well, keep that tidy brain of yours spinning, cadet.” She smiled at me and turned around to leave.

This time, I knew I couldn’t stop her. I was deflated, defeated. I would never feel betrayed by Tomekeeper Dahlia, because I had never trusted her in the first place. Yet to be caught in her web so easily . . . I felt like a damned fool.

At the rock where she’d been standing, she spoke again in that whispery, sorrowful tone, her eyebrows arching with the first sign of hopelessness I’d ever noticed from the evil woman. “Goodbye, Ravinica.”

Then she bent low and picked up another sack from behind the rock, swinging it over her shoulder.

A shocked gasp poured past my lips.

It was the same bag Deitryce had been carrying on her shoulder.