Chapter 12 #2
“We fought in the yard after he dragged me away from the Yule log. Everyone was watching. He backed down and wanted to show me what he considered to be his offering,” she explains.
We both drink the goat’s milk, cleaning our pallet for what is to come, and I move my legs to sit astride the bench.
“I didn’t know where we were headed until it was too late.
I put us in a shitty position.” The strain of her voice spurs my hand to find her thigh under the table.
“It’s alright. We gave nothing away.” Assuring the actions between her and Harald bear no weight, I rub her leg in slow circles, giving me a moment to look at her unapologetically.
Her beautiful face is painted with delicate lines and dots. All her luscious, red hair is braided around her head and down her back. Snuffing out the thoughts of undoing those braids and watching her unravel underneath me, I take the squishy sheep’s heart and lift it to her mouth.
She doesn’t hesitate to let her lips fall open to take a bite. Deep red blood drips out, coating her chin. I steady the flow with my finger so it doesn’t drip down her cream dress.
“Do you really want to know what the gods have in store for you?” I ask in trepidation.
She holds out her hand, and I drop the bloody sheep’s heart in her palm. She fights the urge to wipe her chin by pressing her red lips together.
“I do. I need to know if I am on a fool’s errand.” She brings the heart to my own lips for me to take a bite. The muscle is tough and porous, making blood coat my mouth with only one bite. Swallowing it, I move the cups and heart pieces away to lay out my runes.
“The runes talk in riddles,” I say, though I know she is smart enough to know this. She lets a laugh out under her breath and flicks her mesmerizing gaze my way.
“Drop the runes in the bowl, Shaw. I didn’t take you for a man who fears the future.”
I refrain from telling her it’s not the future I fear, rather it’s what I’ve done in the past coming to a head that frightens me. And our two paths are about to collide in a way where only one of us can see the end, which gives me pause.
“I’ll do it then.” She takes the little pile of bones and inspects them. “These are beautiful; where did you get them? All the ones we prepared are carved in wood.”
“These are my own.”
“And the bones?” Her fingers trace the lines that I carved years ago after filing them smooth.
“A secret I haven’t decided to tell.”
She releases a breath and turns to the table, putting the bone runes in the cup that is coated with leftover goat’s milk.
Covering the top with her hand and shaking the cup, her eyes close, lost in whatever prayer she has been taught.
A compelling need to touch her radiates through my own bones and muscles until I reach for her back, and she gracefully leans into me.
Letting her hand go, I watch as she scatters the runes over the table, and they roll through drops of sheep’s blood. The thick, white milk mixes with the blackish red blood in a pattern I see immediately. Rasha stands to look down at the future I warned her she didn’t want to see.
“Shaw,” her voice is eerily quiet. Standing next to her, my body shields her from the conversations around us, people detailing what they see in their own runes and laughing about who will die next in the winter’s chill.
“I see it.”
“It’s the same shape of the bow rune that Aslaug showed me. But this…” Her voice breaks as she runs her finger over the splatters of red, covering the rune for death and deer.
“It’s my future. We ate the same heart,” I say, trying to make the outcome better.
“So if I choose you, we are going to die because of the reindeer herd? Shaw that doesn’t make any sense, unless…” Her head whips around the room, looking for what I am afraid to ask. “Where’s Harald?”
“He’s looking for you,” I whisper against her skin. “You should do this with him.” I hate saying it, but I need to know if her outcome will change.
“What?” Her face is ghastly white.
“Or with Joanna. You don’t want your future intertwined with mine.”
“But Aslaug showed me the tomb. I didn’t meet you by accident,” Rasha says with newly developed panic. “The pull to you is so strong I can’t stand it.” Her confession comes like an arrow through the heart.
I want to kiss her and tell her I can fix this, but I don’t think I can without giving up my only chance at going back. Harald is making his way around the room. He’ll be here soon to read his own future with the Maiden of Yule that he has been promised.
“Rasha, the bow is only going to bring you pain.” Her eyes flare in sudden understanding. She pulls away, which guts me, but she needs to let it go.
“So it is down there, and you lied. We told each other we’d be honest.”
I sit, pulling her back onto the bench with me. “We cannot have this fight here.”
She’s like an animal in heat, caught between wanting to give in to me and fighting the overwhelming feeling to run into the forest where she’ll never be found. Her strong shoulders are stiff with anger against mine, even though her hips fit nicely in my hand.
“Roll them for me.” Rasha carefully picks the runes out of the mess and drops them into the cup she drank from.
“That’s not a good idea,” I reply, looking over her head to where Harald is one long table away from us.
“Roll mine or the ritual isn’t complete.” She is stubborn if nothing else.
“Where are all those pointy knives you carry, so I know where to block from?” I ask, and she grips my thigh for a change. Her nails pressing through my pants let my blood loose, and my cock grows hard. We sit closer, her back almost against my chest, and my arms could easily be around her body.
Covering the cup with my hand, I lean my leg against hers in a meager form of support and methodically shake the cup. The bones touch my skin, bringing long forgotten power to my physical form, and I can feel thousands of years of life moving inside the cup.
Taking in a heavy breath, I release my hand and hear the hollow bones rattle against the wooden table. We stay quiet, reading the runes that have made an unusual pattern in the already used trenches of blood and milk.
“I think that is for the Immortal Realm. And these are flipped over, which is bad,” she says immediately, flipping the last so we can see. “This one is for…”
“That is a deer,” Harald says, his shadow overtaking us. Rasha gets up as quickly as he appears, and the space around me runs cold. “Shaw, what is your future?” he asks, and I stand to meet him, height for height.
“He’s going to die,” Rasha cuts in, and I half choke. Picking up the runes, I nod in agreement, unsure of what he did or didn’t see. Rasha finds a bowl of fresh water, and I drop all the runes in to clean them before stuffing them in my pouch.
“I am sorry to hear that old friend. We all must leave this world eventually,” Harald says. With him renouncing our ways, it is nice to hear some concern. He wraps his burly arm around her, pulling her to him like he owns her.
“Shall we do yours?” Rasha asks him.
“I don’t want to know my future. I’d rather have a dance,” Harald announces, and I sit like the wind has been knocked from my lungs.
The Seidr still flows through me, buzzing through the room with the ringing of bells from other families learning their futures.
Puffs of smoke from men who care not for enlightenment curl around the tables and wood columns.
What I need is fresh, cold air and to walk away from her, but the last rune is seared in my mind. One she didn’t see.