Page 54 of Marked By His Hunger
Bloody fucking ice.
And the Draugr does not feel cold.
I jerked upward, wings snapping hard.
Distance.
I needed distance.
The farther I moved from her, the worse the pain became.
It felt like invisible hooks buried in my ribs.
Something pulling.
No. Someone pulling.
I collapsed onto the roof of the Institute, claws scraping stone as whatever it was tried to fell me where I stood.
And the worst part? I didn’t know how long I could hold on.
Chapter 6-Serena
We descended the rune-carved stairwell.
Me, Ursula, Sapphire, and Emery.
The stone thrummed faintly beneath our feet—layered wards, defensive magic, centuries of accumulated spellwork humming like distant bees in a hive.
The Asgarheim Runevald Institute wasn’t just a school.
It was a stronghold of higher magical learning.
Graduate-level arcana.
Advanced rune binding.
Blood pact jurisprudence.
Magical ethics.
Inter-realm diplomacy.
This wasn’t broomsticks and beginner spellcasting.
No Hogwarts here.
This was real power.
“Are you nervous?” Sapphire asked.
Right.
Empath.
“Yes,” I admitted. “This is the first time I’ve ever, um, acknowledged any of this.”
“What are your talents?” Emery asked.
