Bab 77: Secrets, Truths, and Bullshitting, Part 1

This nightmare was one I didn't have in a while. Not since the day I first stepped into the Academy. 

I was lying on a slab of stone inside a space that had, until that night, been considered a place of holy worship for Freya, goddess of love and battle. My hands were tied. So were my feet. They bound me so tightly that I barely had any wiggle room. 

"Hel, Ravena, Knull," they chanted around me. "Hel, Ravena, Knull." 

My head, the only part of me I could move freely, glanced sideways—and there he was staring back at me. Lorias Löwenthal, with that fanatic glint in his eyes that was reflected in the faces of his fellow cultists. 

"Hel, Ravena, Knull," the chant continued like a broken record that grated my ears. "Hel, Ravena, Knull."