Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
There's some hair pulling, a lot of shouting, a little bit of unsanctioned channeling, and then the elementals appear.
I pull my feet up to keep my distance from the melee as water elementals clash amid the wrestling and screaming girls. Despite the tensions, nobody is going for fatal attacks, thankfully. It looks more like a training session on overdrive.
Somehow, it's all over in less than a minute. Beck is slapped no less than four times as disheveled and pissed girls storm out of the room.
Once the dust has settled, Brunhild is the last one standing and she wears a satisfied grin.
Beck clears his throat and brushes some dust from his uniform. "Well," he says. "That's basically how I planned for things to go. More or less. Winner, Brunhild!"
"This was good plan," Brunhild notes, arms folded as she nods with satisfaction.
"Meet Brunhild," Beck says, gesturing with both hands. "Her elemental was that giant crab doing the hair pulling. The crab is called Nora."
Mireen eyes me. "Is he serious?"
"I think he has no idea how ridiculous he is," Ambrose adds. "It's both his greatest strength and greatest weakness."
"I thought we agreed to stick with four," I say carefully. "No offense, Brunhild."
"Offense taken," she says seriously. Her blue eyes regard me coldly, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine.
“If she kills you, can I let some of my rats crash in your former room?” Mireen asks. “Mine is getting kind of crowded.”
I squint. “How many rats have you adopted, exactly?”
“Not important,” Mireen sits back, hands folded as she whistles innocently.
Beck puts an arm around Brunhild’s shoulder. He's big enough that even she looks small beside him, but she's nearly a head taller than me and looks like she could snap me in half. "Don't mind Nessa. She's just a little paranoid. Thinks everybody wants to kill us. But that's only because a lot of people here have tried to kill her. You could argue it even makes sense, from her point of view."
"She makes offense. That's what she makes," Brunhild says.
"Okay, I'm just going to say it," Mireen says. "Brunhild already looks like she wants to smash Nessa into little pieces. I don't know if that's the best quality in a fifth member of our group."
"Or," Beck says, eyebrows high. "Hear me out... the fact that she's not trying to hide wanting to crush Nessa a little bit is exactly why we can trust her. If she was with Malakai, she'd be sneakier than that, right? She'd be playing nice right now and trying to weasel her way onto our team. Then during the Crucible, she'd spring her trap."
"I hate to say this," Ambrose says. "But that actually does make some sense."
"Maybe we make group of four," Brunhild says, her deep voice heavily accented, though I can't place where it's from. I wonder if it's from somewhere distant, maybe even off the main continent. "We take the small one with big ass, drop her out window, and then we find stronger replacement?"
"Big ass?" I blurt. The only thing keeping me from laughing is the fear that Brunhild might actually try to throw me out a window.
“She’s not wrong,” Mireen says with a shrug.
"Uh," Beck says. "I love the enthusiasm and creative problem solving Brunhild, that's one of my favorite things about you. But Nessa stays. We like her."
"Hm," Brunhild says, blue eyes assessing me. "If sexy bear likes her, then Brunhild will like her. It is settled."
Ambrose sputters with laughter. I look his way, biting back my own smile as I see him mouth the words "sexy bear"?
"Alright, sexy bear," Mireen says, barely keeping a straight face. "Why don't you take Brunhild back to where you found her for now. We'll keep her in mind as a potential fifth."
Beck gives a thumbs up and leads Brunhild out of the common room. Before they're out of view, Brunhild takes a generous handful of Beck's left butt-cheek.
Classy.
"Are we sure we can trust Beck's intelligence?" Ambrose asks once he's gone. "I'm starting to worry he's getting dumber by the day."
"The scarier question is how he's convincing all these girls to sleep with him," Mireen says. "He's not that cute."
"So, what do we think about the scary blonde girl?" Ambrose asks. He pulls his rounded glasses from his face and gives them a wipe on his black aspirant uniform. "I actually am leaning toward trusting her. And we saw she can handle herself in a fight. Akaron didn't sense anything off about her, either."
"I still think five is better than four," Mireen says. "Brunhild seems loyal to Beck, at least. I think we can trust her."
"And what happens when Beck moves on and sleeps with a few other girls before the Crucible? Can we trust Brunhild not to go on a violent rampage and rip us all limb from limb?"