Chapter 41 #2
Alora watched as he tilted his head upward, eyes squinting against the brightness. He looked… stunned. Like he had forgotten the warmth of day. Forgotten what colors looked like under the sun.
He stood at the edge of the pond, every line of his body still.
The light of morning lit his face, bathing his skin in honeyed hues.
He raised a hand into the sunrise slowly, as if reaching for something unattainable.
His fingers trembled, and she saw it, the precise moment he realized there would be no pain.
Rune’s chest rose with a sharp inhale. He slowly sank down to his knees, staring at the horizon, and the next breath shuddered out of him like he’d been holding it for a thousand years.
Alora’s heart clenched. There was awe on his face.
Real, naked awe.
Like a child seeing snow for the first time. The tense line of Rune’s shoulders softened, the stiffness melting from his body. His eyes, usually red as fire, were warm like amber.
Her breath stilled. She hadn’t known gods could…
“Rune?” Alora whispered, her fingers stroking his cheek. “You’re crying.”
He turned toward her, slow and dazed. He rubbed his face as if he didn’t quite believe her, his fingertips brushing the tears with startled astonishment.
“How long have you been in the dark?” she asked, breath catching in her throat.
Rune didn’t speak right away. He stared at the pond, at the sunlight scattered like liquid gold across its surface.
“For an eternity…” he admitted, voice barely above a breath.
Alora stood beside him, watching his profile glow in the light, as if it shimmered beneath his skin. It made him look otherworldly, like a being not of this world. Almost pure. Like what had made him so frightening, so sharp and intimidating had somehow vanished in the dawn.
“When I ruled the shadows… I would lose my vision in the daylight,” Rune murmured.
“It’s not merely blindness. Colors were engulfed by the light.
People were blurs. Their faces…” his brows knitted faintly, “Were smears of white fire that burned behind my eyes. But no matter how deep I hid in the lowest pit or blackest tomb, whenever the sun rose, it seared me from the inside.”
There was grief in his voice. A sorrow so quiet, it hummed like a memory.
Rune observed the sky again, captivated and awed, like he had not seen it before. “I had forgotten…”
“Forgotten what?” Alora asked as she sat next to him.
He looked at her and a soft smile rose to his face. He brushed his knuckles along her cheek, thumb grazing the line of her jaw. “How beautiful the light could be.”
Her chest expanded with a deep breath, and in that moment, she saw it. Clearly. Achingly. This wasn’t the god who rose from the mountain in wrath. Not the shadow-drenched monster from her dreams. Not the immortal who whispered threats in the dark.
This was someone else entirely.
This was a man who had forgotten the color of the sky.
Who had lived too long in silence and darkness.
Rune had not always belonged to the shadows.
“After many centuries, I learned to adapt,” he continued, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “Jokull cursed the day he unintentionally created Bloodstones, which allowed me some reprieve.”
Her eyes widened curiously. “Who is Jokull?”
Rune scowled faintly. “The God of Death, one of my many brothers.”
Ah.
And not one he liked.
She shivered slightly at the mention of the Death God.
Rune looked down at the ring on his small finger. “The stones dimmed the sun’s power, and I could walk amidst humans if adequately covered for brief moments. I could almost see them clearly if the day wasn’t too bright.”
Alora canted her head as she processed this detail, glancing at the blood red gem.
“Jokull then created other stones to fight against me. He killed many of my demons. Such are the bounds of family.”
He said it with humor, but she sensed the distant ache beneath his words. She thought of the Sunstone dagger still embedded in her wall and grimaced.
It was awful that Rune’s own brother would use his weakness against him and she’d done the same.
Rune tilted her chin. “I gave it to you as a symbol of trust and to provide you with protection, even if it was against myself.”
Which was a monumental thing, for a god to give her the means to kill him.
He chuckled. “It would not kill me, Alora. But it would have fucking hurt.”
She glowered at him for reading her thoughts. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because Jokull’s wife stabbed me with it before, through the back, mind you. Sunneva was the true founder of its creation.”
Alora huffed, fighting back a smile as she thought of the figure in white drifting among the clouds when the Death Gate appeared. Another goddess.
“Hmm. Did you deserve it?” she teased.
“…Perhaps.”
She grinned. “Then I think I like her already. I simply must meet her.”
“The Netherworld would freeze before I allow that.”
At her laugh, he glanced away indignantly, muttering under his breath. Nexus joined them by the bank and swatted at Rune’s long black hair catching in the breeze. He eyed the cat on his lap warily before reaching out to carefully pet its head. Nexus purred, pressing into his palm.
She knew Rune had other brothers, the gods really, but he made no mention of them. This was the most he had ever spoken of himself or his family. Even if she asked, he likely wouldn’t want to speak of his father or mother.
Alora bit her lip, the question slipping out before she could stop it. “Rune… why were you trapped in the dark?”
The change in him was immediate.
He stiffened. His expression withdrew, closing like iron gates. Whatever softness the moment had coaxed from him vanished beneath a cold, unreachable stillness.
Whatever bound him to the dark… still lived in him like a wound.
“Even the brightest star will fall to ruin and burn in shadow and flame,” he murmured.
He did not look at her when he said it.
Rune set Nexus down with an almost careful, distracted touch, as though grounding himself in the movement, before rising to his feet.
He offered his hand. “We should go if we hope to reach Khar Avalen by nightfall.”
She took it and his palm was warm, skin surprisingly delicate. Mortal vulnerability. The pulse in his wrist beat steady against her fingers. A knot of worry tightened beneath her ribs.
He pulled her gently to standing, and Alora steadied herself, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I know I asked you to come with me,” she said carefully, “but it may be best to wait here. The ruins are dangerous.”
He lifted her hand to his lips, his eyes burning with something unyielding. “I will follow wherever you are, Alora. I refuse to be apart from you again.”
Her breath faltered.
The proclamation was soft, threaded with an ache centuries deep. She tried to speak, but the words tangled on her tongue. The look in his eyes… it was too much. Too open. Too raw.
Then her heart clenched when she realized what he said,
Her voice came out faint, barely above a breath. “Again…?”
The word rocked something in her chest, making everything go still between them. Something hummed in the threads of her being. It shook in her veins.
Recognition.
Her memory fractured with a moment of her in the woods. She was dancing with a partner made of shadow. A warm hand at her waist. A soft laugh. A voice that whispered her name like a promise. He spun her around and dipped her back, as she looked up, seeing Rune’s face.
Alora gasped.
Rune went still. Entirely motionless, like a forest holding its breath before a storm. And she knew by whatever connection they had, he had seen the memory too. For a moment he looked at her, shadows of memory flickering behind his darkened eyes.
Then he gave her a dismissive shrug. “You fled the mountain, did you not?”
The foul taste of his words curdled on her tongue, angering her. Because she saw clearly through his careful response. It was misdirection.
A lie.
Thin as spider silk.
Rune turned away toward the cottage.
“That’s not what you meant.” Her voice trembled despite her effort to steady it and her throat tightened. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Rune. Not after everything.”
Not after last night.
He froze with his back to her.
Didn’t look back. Didn’t breathe.
“I will never accept a man who cannot be honest with me,” she said quietly.
His shoulders tensed.
The fear in her chest because of him, but for the secrets he hid behind his teeth.
Yet he didn’t reply. Her throat tightened, hurt that he still held back. Still hid himself behind glamor and charm. How could they ever be more when he hid so many secrets?
“Look at me.”
Rune finally met her gaze, expression unreadable.
“Tell me the truth.” She took a breath. “Have we met before?”
His eyes burned with something aching and desperate. His mouth parted, and for a single fragile heartbeat, she thought he might answer.
But then the ground thudded with galloping hooves.
Caelum burst into view, sword already drawn as if expecting a fight. “Princess Alora!”
He yanked on his reins, eyes wide to see Rune out in the sun.
The brief softness between them was immediately gone, replaced with a cold darkness.
Rune’s quiet laugh sent shivers down her spine. “Did I not say I would kill you if you returned?”
“Someone had to protect her from you, demon.”
Rune strode toward him with a predator’s ease. He jerked the axe from a pile of firewood with a loud crack. “Yet you refuse to accept that person is not you.”
Caelum barely had time to dismount before Rune was moving.
Fast.
Too fast for someone supposedly mortal. Murderous intent rolled off him in cold waves.
Alora’s heart lurched. “Rune, don’t!”
Caelum stumbled backward toward the front of the cottage and he followed.
“Rune!” she cried, panic stabbing her ribs. “STOP!”
A shockwave of power burst from her chest, rippling through the atmosphere like a sheen of white light.
A ring of ancient white glyphs blazed to life beneath Rune’s feet in a perfect circle, etched into the earth. He froze mid-stride.
Not bound by shackles.
Bound by her command.
His knees hit the ground with an abrupt thud as if a monumental weight had fallen onto his spine. His hands braced in the dirt, trembling with rage and disbelief.
“What—” Rune snarled, voice strangled. “Alora… what have you done?”
The air thickened.
Magic twisted around her, the white glowing paths on her arms pulsing.
Caelum staggered at her, eyes wide.
“I-I don’t know,” she whispered, trembling as the glyphs blazed brighter beneath Rune, holding him in place, powerless to rise.
Rune glowered up at her, pupils blown, deepening to something darker. Terrified. Reverent. A little ruined.
“Release me,” he growled, but even that sounded unsteady.
Her heart hammered.
She summoned her voice, barely a breath. “How? I don’t even know what this is.”
Rune swallowed hard. “This is… old magic. An array of glyphs forming a binding spell and not one my shadows created.”
“But I don’t know any spells. I don’t even know how I did it.”
“Your blood did,” another said.
They turned to the path where Lady Zinnia stood, radiant and terrible in armor shaped like blooming petals.
Thorn-etched plates curled over her shoulders, her sword glowing with a soft blush light.
Her pink hair was braided back with a crown of silver thorns, her presence a blend of fae grace and lethal command.
“I am Princess Zinnia of the Spring Court, Thornbearer of the Midlands, daughter of the Mortal God. Lay a finger on my niece, and I will bloom a garden from your corpse.”
Behind her, an army of paladins stood like a living forest braced for war.
Their armor was formed of dark green steel, layered like overlapping leaves and veined with faint gold.
Helms shaped with elk horns glinted beneath the morning light, and their yew spears and bows shimmered as if carved from the forest’s own heart.
And they all aimed their nocked bows at Rune, the arrowheads glinting with Nightstone.