Chapter Forty-Four
Aric
I stand in front of the carved rune she says should be the third one, its lines faint in the moonlight. I brace myself, reach out, and brush Hagalaz with my fingertips.
Nothing.
The silence is so complete, it’s unnerving. No crackle of power, no storm breaking loose—just the sound of my own breath.
Rey exhales, her voice soft. “It must be terrifying…knowing you can wake up from a dream but not knowing what you’re waking up as. It’s fitting, I suppose, that Hagalaz is the third rune.”
She steps closer, eyes locked on the symbol. “It means awakening, awareness, hope, balance, transformation…” Her words trail off, then harden. “It’s the point of no return, Aric. The moment where you either look back and walk away—or move forward.”
The bark is rough beneath my hand as I trace the lines again. My throat feels dry. “If everything you’re saying is true and I find Mjolnir…can I wield it?”
She says nothing.
I glance down at her. “Can you?”
Her teeth catch her lower lip, and she shrugs, hesitation written all over her tight jaw.
Could she wield it? How does a weapon weigh one’s worth? Her blood would call to the hammer…
Blood. In the Hall of Ormir, in the Ice Caves.
We bled.
Finally, she shrugs. “A truce for now. We work together until we find it. You have your reasons. I have mine. And once you’re fully awake and we find Mjolnir…” She nods, almost to herself. “We go back to our respective sides.”
“Back to our own enemy camps,” I say to myself.
She turns away, voice quieter now. “I don’t think we have a choice. Do you?”
I stare at the rune, at the darkness pressing in all around us.
“Something tells me people die either way. I know I’m not supposed to care, but now that I taste this—the thunder, the lightning in my body, the way I can barely control myself without snapping?
It’s not calming, Rey. It’s like standing on the edge of a storm that never ends.
” I drag in a heavy breath. “Maybe you’re right.
Maybe you wake a sleeping Giant and the world rights itself. Maybe I kill Odin…and spare you.”
She lets out a sharp laugh, though her eyes don’t shine with humor. “Straight to murder, huh?”
“To avenge my parents, yes.”
“At least you’re honest about it.”
We both know all bets are off once we find Mjolnir, and we both know nobody walks away innocent in this age-old war. Nobody.
But I nod. Agreement. Truce.
I pull my tactical knife from my pocket, slice open my palm, and press it against the bark, where Hagalaz begins to glow. Blood seeps into the grooves. She doesn’t hesitate—taking my knife, she cuts her hand, too, pressing it beside mine against the bark.
The rune flares, blinding white. The tree hums with energy beneath our palms as if it’s breathing with us.
And then searing pain rakes down my back.