Marked By His Hunger (Asgarheim Runevald Institute #1)

Prologue 1-Serena

I read the email twelve times before I let myself breathe.

Not skim. Not glance.

Read.

Every word. Every line.

Every impossible, ridiculous, insane claim sitting there in my inbox like it belonged.

Asgarheim Runevald Institute.

I whisper it under my breath, testing the shape of it, like it might dissolve if I say it too loud.

It doesn’t.

Neither does the sender’s address.

Neither does the crest embedded at the top of the message—a silver rune I swear I’ve seen before.

In dreams, maybe.

Or in the margins of books I was never supposed to understand.

Or in the shadows.

My fingers hover over my trackpad, then pull back like it might bite me.

This has to be a scam.

Right?

That’s what normal people would think.

That’s what I should think.

But normal people don’t see things that aren’t there.

Normal people don’t hear whispers in empty rooms.

Don’t catch glimpses of figures standing just behind someone—only for them to vanish when you blink.

They don’t wake up with the taste of smoke in their mouth after dreaming of places that feel more real than waking life.

Normal people aren’t called cursed.

Or worse—gifted.

I press my lips together, my gaze dragging back to the screen.

We are aware of your abilities.

You have been observed.

You have been chosen.

A bitter laugh slips out of me, thin and shaky.

“Yeah,” I mutter to my empty apartment. “That’s not creepy at all.”

But my heart doesn’t slow down.

If anything, it pounds harder—because buried beneath the fear is something else.

Something dangerous.

Hope.

I scroll further.

At the Runevald Institute, you will learn to understand, control, and master your power.

You are not alone, Serena.

You never have been.

That line hits me harder than it should.

Not alone.

I’ve been alone my entire life.

Alone when my parents stopped trying to explain me and started avoiding me.

Alone when kids at school whispered behind my back, called me freak, Witch, psycho.

Alone when I learned the hard way that telling the truth about what I saw only made things worse.

So I stopped telling.

Stopped trusting.

Stopped hoping.

Until now.

My gaze drops to the bottom of the email.

There it is.

A single line.

A single link.

Accept Your Admission

It pulses faintly, like it knows I’m looking at it. Like it’s waiting.

My stomach twists.

This is insane.

There is no magical Institute.

There is no hidden realm.

There is no place where people like me belong.

Except… my eyes flick to the dark corner of my room.

For a second—just a second—I see something there.

A shape.

Tall. Watching.

Waiting.

And instead of fear… something inside me answers.

Like it always does.

Like it’s been waiting too.

My breath catches.

“Curse,” I whisper.

The word feels heavy.

Wrong.

I think about the nights I couldn’t sleep because the world felt too loud—even in silence.

About the things I’ve seen that no one else could.

About the feeling—deep in my bones—that this (whatever this is) isn’t something that happened to me.

It’s something I am.

My fingers drift back to the trackpad.

Hover.

Shake.

This is my one chance.

To understand it.

To control it.

To stop being afraid of myself.

Or at the very least… to find out the truth.

My pulse thunders in my ears.

“Okay,” I breathe. “Okay… fine.”

I straighten, shoulders squaring like I’m about to step off a cliff.

“Gift,” I say this time, softer. Testing it.

It doesn’t feel as wrong.

Not entirely.

Before I can second-guess myself—before fear can dig its claws back in—I click.

For a split second, nothing happens.

Then the screen flickers.

The rune at the top of the email glows—bright, silver, alive—and something sharp and electric rushes through me, like I’ve just crossed an invisible line I didn’t know existed.

My breath leaves me in a gasp.

The room feels… different.

Quieter.

Or maybe louder.

Like I’m hearing something I couldn’t before.

The email shifts.

Changes.

Welcome, Serena.

Your journey begins now.

A chill slides down my spine.

But I don’t look away.

I can’t.

Because for the first time in my life…

I don’t feel crazy.

I feel seen.

And whatever waits on the other side of that message—whatever world I just said yes to—I have a feeling it’s been waiting for me, too.