“Oh.” It had appeared rundown, but cursed? “How?”
Anna and Rynni appeared as lost as me. The others looked uncomfortable, but Clemencia didn’t shy away from whatever unsavory thing needed to be said.
“Well, the first horrible event happened at the time of the Unification,” Clemencia said. “Many generations back, Sassa Falk nearly demolished the castle. Some, or maybe most, of the destruction is from her.”
“I see,” I said, chewing at my lower lip. Sassa was a distant ancestor, but an ancestor all the same. It troubled me that she’d do such a thing. “But you saidthe firstevent? There are more?”
“Two other historical events occurred here, each worse than the last.” Clemencia held up two fingers, all academic authority. “The second was a dragon flying overhead and torching the castle and the town surrounding it.”
I blinked. “But why?”
“I’d like to know too,” Rynni cocked her head. “Mostdragons don’t come here unless they must. Too bleeding cold, this kingdom.”
“It’s said that the dragon’s wife slept with the lord of this castle. He exacted deadly revenge.”
“And the royals at the time did nothing?” Such an attack on the fae of Winter’s Realm should not have gone unnoticed.
“They were preparing to fight the dragon lords when the entire family living at Valrun took ill. They died shortly after, so there was no one to fight for.”
“So, that’s the third event?” My stomach had twisted into knots.
“Oh, no. Something else happened. Save for the blight, I don’t count illnesses as extraordinary events.”
“By the stars,” I breathed.
Anna leaned forward. “What else happened?”
“Valrun is at the edge of a forest, between the trees and the great lake of the midlands,” Clemencia gestured to the trees out the window. I could see no lake but would take her word for it. “We’re also not so far from the King’s Road.”
“A day or two away,” Vale supplied.
“Yes,” Clem continued. “And a good distance from the mountains, though not far enough, it would seem.”
I swallowed.
“Frost giants came down from the mountains and they didn’t stop at Myrr. The city is too fortified, the Balik host too great. But Valrun, even in its glory days, was small and susceptible. The giants appeared, killed, and ate every living soul in the town—the new nobles included. Thrice this area has seen great hardships, and many believe that it is a badomen. That at some point, this place was cursed. Since the frost giants came down from the Ice Tooth, no one has dared settle in this area again.”
While I usually found a sense of comfort in Clemencia’s academic detachment, this time, it only made the news more chilling. And brought up a hundred questions, the most serious of which being: Why werewehere?
“You’re a historian?” Duran asked Clemencia, breaking the silence.
She blinked, her concentration being pulled from the histories as she turned to the dwarf. “Of a sort.”
“She knowseverything,” I boasted for her, happy to change the subject. “You two would have much to talk about.”
Duran’s face lit up. He and Arie were often together, speaking of subjects the rest of us knew little about, but I imagined that, for a scholar, to have more people to talk and debate with, was a magic in itself.
“I’d like that,” Clemencia admitted. “The House of Wisdom has always fascinated me, but my father would never have allowed me to even attempt to attend. You study there, correct?”
“I’m a lärling,” Duran answered. “Arie is trying to earn his place there too.”
I turned away from the trio that were now gravitating to one another and looked up at Vale. “What did they ask you about?”
He swallowed, and his voice dropped so that only I could hear his reply. “I’ll tell you later. When we’re alone. For now, let me show you our new home.”
I nodded, somewhat surprised he was not open about the experience, though there had to be a reason.
“What do you think this is for?” I gestured to the structure built off the main castle. “It looks newish.”
