Chapter 65 #2
Sunneva sighed and a wall appeared between the frosted figures connected by a line.
“A Covenant is not a permanent seal, but a barrier. Without your souls to hold it, the Rift will rupture completely, and the world will fall into peril.” She closed her hand, and the frost-figures shattered, scattering into shards that melted on the ground.
The bond shook with Alora’s dismay as Rune’s chest sank into his stomach.
Whatever choice they made, the cost was still heavy.
Sunneva frowned. “If you falter, it is not simply your lives that end. It is annihilation. Mortals devoured. Demons unleashed. Titans freed. And make no light of this delicate spell. The Realms are already weak. Any destabilization could cause another Rift.”
Rune’s jaw tightened. His shadows lashed once, then coiled close to his body, restless. “I have no need for your lecture on cosmic ruin.”
But still, the words shook him, knowing what was at stake.
Alora’s voice broke the silence. “And… if one of us should die?”
Sunneva’s blue eyes dimmed.
The silence itself was crueler than words.
The fact was clear: the Soul Covenant required two souls.
“What else?” Rune pressed, because he sensed there was more.
Sunneva paused, measuring them carefully. “The barrier can only be held on both sides of the Rift. Thus, Alora must remain in the Mortal Realm and you …in the Netherworld.”
Rune snarled. “I have waited eons for her. Over a hundred I mourned her. Now you demand more?”
“Were you not prepared to endure eternity without her?” Sunneva’s voice cut sharp like a whip. “This is what the scales require to mend what you broke.”
Rune clenched his jaw tight, his regret damming him. The gods offered a solution but not without consequence.
The price of his sin.
And he sat on a mountain of them.
“There is balance to all things, Rune. That is the oldest law of the universe.” Sunneva continued, softening her tone. “The Blood Moon rises each cycle to realign the Realms. When the moon bleeds, you must renew the barrier, or the Rift will tear once again.”
Finally, Alora said softly, “Then… we will only see each other once every five years?”
The words pierced him like a blade through his chest.
Five years was an eternity when measured in her absence.
Rune took Alora’s trembling hand, gently squeezing it. “We will find a way.”
Because this was not a chance he would take for granted.
To Sunneva he said, “How do we conduct the ritual?”
She lifted her hands, and frost spilled outward as a new white parchment formed above her palms, blue light shaping into a new array, a circle that gleamed like silver fire.
“Blood. Shadow. Light. Woven together at the heart of the Rift.” Her voice carried, soft as falling snow, yet sharp enough to cut. “Your bond is the thread. Your souls are the barrier. You must stand as one and speak the vow.”
“And once we do?” he said.
Sunneva’s golden eyes glinted. “Once done, the Rift will seal and the Netherworld Gate will open.”
He swallowed against the ache rising in his throat. “So, either we bind it and endure…”
“Or gamble your fate against the Devourer.” Sunneva strode away. “Choose quickly. For the Blood Moon is near.”
“Wait,” Alora called. “If we imprison Vorak again, what of the curse?”
The Goddess of Death paused, looked back at her with a knowing smile. “You will break the Sleeping Curse when the time is right.”
Then she vanished into frost.
The mountain’s heart thrummed like a drumbeat as Rune and Alora entered the Gate chamber. His wings loomed at his back as they looked up the high arches, carved in stone older than the First Age, its glyphs faintly pulsing crimson with a heartbeat not its own.
The Harbingers stood waiting, cloaked and masked, their heads bowed as though the chamber itself were a temple. Even their shadows bent low, drawn toward the arch like worshipers.
Alora’s hand tightened in his. Rune glanced at her, at the pale glow of her hair in the gloom, at the steel in her eyes despite the dread that flickered there.
“The Gate had always been a symbol of my damnation,” Rune murmured, his voice low. “I never thought it would one day serve as our salvation. As a conduit to the Netherworld, it will be a foundation to ground the spell.”
Alora nodded, her dread thundering in the bond.
Can we endure it? she asked shakily, eyes meeting his.
Rune had asked himself that this morning, but now that he had been given hope, nothing would stop him.
Yes, for I refuse to accept any fate where I lose you. Rune brought her fingers to his lips, their bond vibrating. Our destiny is etched in the stars. It will never change, even if the stars fall from the sky.
Her eyes watered, but they shone with bravery. “Then we do this together.”
They knelt, shadows and light curling together in a storm around them. Looking up, he called on the will of the mountain and the ceiling opened, revealing the rift in the storming sky, rumbling with distant thunder.
He drew out the page with the new array Sunneva left them with. Instead of a circle it was a seven-pointed star with symbols beyond his understanding. Below it, in the language of the Heavens, was the oath.
Alora glanced only once at the array then drew on her power and the ground blazed beneath their knees as it instantly formed, every perfect line glowing white.
Rune smiled faintly. “Are you willing to bind yourself to me?” he asked her once more.
She smiled back. “For eternity.”
Her reply settled down in the depths of his being.
Then Alora closed her eyes as she spoke the first line in covenant’s vow in the language of the Heavens:
Ani koshairet et nafshi b’nafshecha.
Rune did the same:
Ani koshair et nafshi b’nafshach.
And together, their words braided in the sacred oath, a harmony that resonated through the mountain:
B’chaim u’v’mavet.
B’or u’v’choshech.
Ha-shésa yihiyeh kashur,
Kol od ha-brit omedet.
I bind my soul to yours.
In life and in death.
In light and in darkness.
Let the Rift be bound,
So long as the covenant endures.
Their palms seared against the stone as light erupted from Alora’s hand and shadows from Rune’s. The two forces twined together, lashing into the archway until the air itself screamed. A tether burst from their chests, spun of light and darkness, piercing upward into the Rift.
Agony ripped through Rune. The bond flared white-hot, the spell draining like blood from an open wound.
Shadows writhed, as though they too feared what was being torn away.
Rune gritted his teeth, his knees buckling as the tether stitched itself into the Rift above, weaving it shut with their souls.
Alora gasped, her cry echoing his. She sagged, her body shaking, but her hand did not leave the arch. Her light blazed through the cavern, searing, blinding, until it merged with his shadows in a violent clash of black and silver flame.
The air tasted of iron and frost, of smoke and ash. Rune thought for a moment they might unravel.
Then, silence.
The Rift above pulsed once, twice… and steadied. Its glow thinned and slowly faded. They watched as the tear faded from the sky, but he felt it there in his chest, held tight by their tether.
Contained.
Alora buckled against him, and he leaned into her, both holding each other up as they breathed. His shadows curled feebly, sluggish and thin, barely responding to his call.
His strength was gone, but they had succeeded.
Alora could barely lift her head when she whispered, hoarse, pale and trembling with a weak smile. “It’s done.”
His hand shook as he touched her cheek. “Yes,” he rasped.
The wind roared so loud, shaking the mountain, as if it carried Vorak’s rage.
The Harbingers rose slowly, their faces unreadable, though even they were shaken.
Rune helped Alora stand, holding her against him when she swayed.
“Sire,” Calla called faintly, her eyes fixed beyond them. “The Gate...”
The arch shuddered as though waking from a thousand-year sleep.
Between the carved glyphs, the stone split with a low groan, and light bled through with red fire, pulsing like a living heart.
The center of the arch no longer reflected empty stone but glowed with a swirling void, shadows and firelight spiraling together, a threshold yawning open.
The Realms were at last in balance.
Alora’s throat worked, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “How much time do we have?”
Before the Covenant forces them to separate.
“I suppose until Blood Moon wanes at dawn.” Rune’s chest heaved as he turned to Alora, his breath unsteady. “We must send word to your people. There will be no war, and my court will return to the Netherworld.”
He had tried to sound relieved, but his voice betrayed him.
Alora rushed into his arms.
Closing his eyes, Rune pressed his forehead to hers, whispering the same vow he had spoken before this story began. “No matter our fate, we will find one another again.”
A low mocking laugh unfurled from the dark, echoing across the cavern walls.
Steel flashed.
Alora was torn from him as manacles snapped around Rune’s wrists, biting deep. The force hit like the atmosphere exploded. His glamor tore. Wings burst from his back with a violent snap. Horns curved from his brow as he dropped to his knees, shackled and dragged forward.
His divine chains.
Ira and Balgor held on each end.
A furious scream pierced the ringing in his ears. Morvenna forced Alora to her knees and flung a cord of Hellstones around her throat. The instant it settled against her skin, the bond between them was severed.
A hollow ripped through Rune’s chest.
The Harbingers surged to defend their queen, but silver webs snapped through the air. Deimos dodged. Hadeon threw himself in front of Calla. The webs slashed through his back and he went down.
Sal’vathar stepped into the torchlight, his smile as sharp as broken glass.
“How poetic,” he murmured, watching Rune strain against the chains. “The king bound before his own Gate.”
Rune’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “You dare?”