The Enchanted Inn and the Cursed Owl

Chapter 3

Ragna

I stared at the glowing silver thread suspended in the space between us, my mind rejecting what my eyes were seeing.

"Fused," I whispered to myself.

I looked from the glowing line up to the silver-grey owl trapped in his own set of magical bindings.

"That’s impossible. Core fusion is a myth. It’s theoretical."

Brynjar didn’t look at me. His large, golden-hazel eyes were fixated on the silver thread connecting his feathered chest to my ribs. He gave a violent, desperate thrash against the amber chains, his beak clicking rapidly. He was panicking. The great, unflappable Professor Helle, who never broke a sweat during high-tier combat drills, was hyperventilating, his feathers puffing out in erratic, terrified spasms.

"It is not a myth when a student completely lacks the discipline to govern her own chaotic reserves," Vane said coldly.

He turned his back to us, striding toward a glass cabinet filled with restricted, archaic instruments. "Your magic was collapsing, Fjellström. In a desperate bid for survival, it acted as a parasite. It ripped itself from your failing control and burrowed into the most stable, disciplined source of magic in the courtyard."

Vane unlocked the cabinet and withdrew a heavy, blackened iron caliper. Its edges were etched with dull, rust-colored nullification runes.

"What are you doing with that?" I demanded, my voice cracking. I threw my weight against the bindings.

"A parasitic fusion of this magnitude requires physical confirmation," Vane replied, his face entirely devoid of empathy. He strode back toward us, raising the heavy iron tool. "I must measure the tensile strain on Professor Helle’s core. I need to know how deeply your rot has infected him."

"Don't touch him!" I screamed. "He's already in shock! You're going to kill him!"

Brynjar stopped thrashing. He snapped his head toward me, the sheer offense in his golden eyes momentarily overriding his panic. "I am not weak," he said, his look suggested.

He turned his attention back to Vane, squared his feathery shoulders, and angled his beak like a drawn blade. He was a two-foot bird wrapped in glowing chains, and he was still practically daring the headmaster to try it.

Vane didn't hesitate. He stepped between us and clamped the blackened iron calipers directly onto the glowing silver tether.

A spike of pure, white-hot agony drove itself directly behind my eyes.

I collapsed. In my state of unconsciousness I was immediately drowned out by a sound that will haunt me until the day I die.

Brynjar let out a strangled, guttural shriek, a horrific, unnatural sound that was half-man, half-beast. He hit the floor a split second after me, his wings scraping uselessly against the wood.

The pain wasn't just physical. As the iron clamped harder onto the magic between us, the barrier in my mind shattered. A flood of raw, unfiltered emotion crashed into my skull, and none of it belonged to me.

Suffocation. Humiliation. The terrifying, claustrophobic sensation of hollow bones and alien muscles. The absolute, crushing grief of losing his humanity.

I was feeling everything Brynjar was feeling.

"Stop!" I sobbed, struggling onto my hands and knees, dragging myself forward despite the chains holding my arms back.

"Stop it, you're hurting him! Vane, please!"

Through the blinding pain, I looked at Brynjar. He was staring at me. His golden eyes were wide, blown out with agony, but beneath the pain, I felt his sudden, shocking realization. He could feel me, too. He could feel my crippling guilt. My terror. My desperate, consuming need to protect him from the headmaster's cruelty.

"Move closer,” his voice echoed in my head. Not words, exactly, but an instinctual, telepathic command driven by sheer survival.

I dragged myself another inch across the floor. Brynjar, fighting through the pain, awkwardly pushed himself up on his talons and hopped toward me.

As the physical distance between us closed, the tension on the tether stopped.

For the first time since I enrolled at this academy, Brynjar didn't look at me with disgust. He looked at me with an awful, naked vulnerability.

Vane pulled the caliper away with a sharp twist of his wrist, breaking the physical contact with the tether. He looked down at us, his expression twisted into a mask of pure disgust.

"Just as I suspected," Vane muttered, throwing the iron tool onto his desk. It clattered loudly in the quiet room. "The fusion is absolute. Biologically, physically, and magically. You didn't just fuse with him, Fjellström. You anchored your life force to his heartbeat."

I struggled to catch my breath, my forehead resting against the cool floorboards just inches from Brynjar’s talons. "So undo it. You’re the headmaster. You have the High Council’s grimoires. Unweave us."

"I am a master of elemental combat, not a miracle worker," Vane snapped. He leaned over his desk. "This cannot be undone. Not here. If I try to sever that tether by force, it will violently rupture both of your cores. You will die, and you will take the academy’s ley lines down with you."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" I asked, my voice rising in panic.

"We do nothing," Vane corrected. "Because as of this moment, neither of you is my problem."

He waved his hand. The heavy oak doors to his office slammed open, letting the freezing winds of the corridor howl into the room.

"Article Seven of the Academy Charter," Vane declared, his voice booming with finality. "Any student or faculty member harboring a parasitic or chaotic anomaly that threatens the stability of the academy is to be immediately exiled."

Brynjar let out a sharp, furious squawk, trying to stand taller. He was an anomaly? After dedicating his entire life to this institution? I could feel his profound sense of betrayal vibrating through the tether, hot and suffocating.

"You can't just throw him out!" I yelled, struggling to my feet. "Look at him! He doesn't even know how to fly! If an academy predator catches him, if he starves…”

"If he dies, your heart stops," Vane interrupted, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "Which is exactly why you are going to ensure he survives."

Vane raised his staff and slammed it against the floorboards. The amber chains binding my wrists and Brynjar’s wings shattered into a million glowing fragments, dissolving into the air.

I immediately rubbed my wrists, but before I could speak, Vane raised a heavy, accusatory finger at me.

"The only entity on this continent old enough and mad enough to untangle a dark fusion is Magnhild of the Glade, the Witch of the Shifting Inn.”

This is impossible. "Magnhild” is a folklore tale to scare first-years. She lives in the Trollheimen woods. Nobody survives Trollheimen."

"Then I suggest you pack warm," Vane said callously. "Because the Board of Governors will be here by dawn to assess the damage to the courtyard. When they see a parasitic anomaly, they will not exile you. They will execute you both to protect the grid."

Vane reached into his desk and tossed a small, battered leather pouch onto the floor at my feet. It hit the wood with a heavy jingle.

"That is fifty silver marks and a compass," Vane said, turning his back to us completely, staring out the massive stained-glass window at the raging blizzard outside.

"You have exactly three hours before I sound the intruder alarm and release the hunting hounds. If you are not past the outer gates and into the frozen wilds by then, I will let them tear you both apart.”