Chapter 33 #2
For a brief moment last night, they were able to forget. At least Rune had, when he allowed the shadows to touch what he craved.
Alora blinked, her brow furrowing as she glanced at the bowl on the table. “They grow where darkness festers, and calamity looms…”
“What?”
“That was written on the page Segrith had taken from my mother’s journal.” Alora inhaled a shaky breath. “But…the Gate was not the first place those flowers appeared.”
He stilled. “You’ve seen them before?”
“No…” Her eyes widened as her thoughts raced.
He caught snippets of her memories. Fae rumors, songs, warnings on where not to venture, pictures of the spider lilies.
“Segrith said I needed to return the spindle to the pedestal to understand myself and what brought about the curse. What if it’s all connected?”
His jaw clenched and he glanced down at the glowing flower on the table. “If you are asking to leave—”
“I am not asking anymore.” Alora held his gaze head on. “I need to find out the truth. If not for my sake, then for Argyle.”
“You are not leaving me,” he growled.
Light flashed on her skin in challenge. She didn’t fear him. No, she did, but she wasn’t bowing down anymore, to anyone. That fierceness was stunning. He didn’t know whether to kneel or to challenge her back.
The air quivered, thick with smoke, before Deimos coalesced from it. “Sire, the mortal has woken.”
“Yes, I gathered as much,” Rune said, still holding her gaze.
“He claims to have information about the curse taking over Argyle, and Alora’s mother.”
She inhaled a shaky breath. “My mother?”
Her expression lit up with hope and happiness hummed through the bond at the mention of Caelum.
“Escort him to the war chamber,” Rune said tightly, “Gather the others, so we may discuss this dire information.”
“There is no need,” Alora cut in coolly. “I will take him there myself. He won’t trust anyone but me.”
Deimos paused at the new command. He glanced at him and Rune conceded with a frown. Deimos bowed his head and vanished in a cloud of smoke.
Rune rolled his neck as pain throbbed at his shoulder blades and temples. It took a second to calm himself with a subtle breath. He couldn’t afford to let her see how close he was to losing hold on his glamor.
Alora rubbed her face. “Seven above, I ran out to find you before hearing what Caelum came to say. He must be so frightened in this place. I need to make sure he is fully healed before I send him back home.”
“Home,” Rune repeated.
The word settled like bitter wine in his mouth.
She said it so simply. So casually. The mountain was never her home. Argyle was. And Caelum had a place in it.
Again, that weight in his chest returned. Ridiculous. It was beneath him to feel vexed by a mortal. One who wielded ancient magic so effortlessly. He scoffed under his breath, realizing what he had missed before.
“I find it unbecoming how concerned you are with this knight, wife.” Rune tapped a claw on the table. “I cannot help but suspect more lingers between you two.”
The markings on Alora’s hands glowed brighter as she smiled. “If you had not stolen me away, perhaps I would have been his wife instead of yours.”
Her words branded him like searing iron.
“Well,” Rune returned her sharp smile. “Fortune can’t bless us all.”
She studied him with a hard stare.
“There is one thing you haven’t told me yet.” Her mouth thinned. “I want to know why you chose me. Don’t tell me it was for my song, or because you were lonely. You could have had any bride, but you stole me away to this wretched pit. Why?”
Rune paused, so many confessions teetering on the tip of his tongue, yet he found himself weaving lies with truth. His favorite talent.
“Because my deadly little flower…” He leaned down, trailing his nose over her throat. “You smell absolutely divine. You are so mouthwatering, I am on the precipice of tearing into you.”
Alora jerked back, roiling with anger and revulsion. He chuckled and went to the sideboard to pour himself more wine.
“Oh, as for the matter of our unexpected guest.” Rune faced her. “I think it’s best he stay for now.”
Her eyes widened, outraged. “You agreed he could return to Argyle!”
The mountain shook with her anger, making the table rattle. The shadows drew closer not to him, but to her.
“A decision I have recanted.” Rune took a seat at his table again, eyeing the dark tendrils coiling around her waist. “I cannot have him drawing more trespassers here. And should he succumb to an early demise…” He smirked, taking a drink. “Well, then the concern will be settled.”
Alora’s blue gown shimmered with tendrils of light magic, shadows curling behind her like a veil. Her eyes were fierce, her scent laced with indignation.
She was exquisite when furious.
But then all the anger faded from Alora’s face with her next breath, and her next words burned more than any light.
“Maybe they are right about you,” she said softly. “Maybe you are the monster.”
Oh, he was made aware a long time ago.
Rune raised his goblet in a mock toast. “To monsters, then.”
Her chest heaved with angry breaths, then she stormed for the tunnel.
Once Alora was gone, he exhaled a ragged breath, rubbing at his temples as if he could scrub away the traces of her disgust.
Why did it always turn out this way? He simply couldn’t help himself.
“She’s right, you know.”
He shut his eyes. “You truly have a talent for arriving when I least desire company.”
Sunneva’s laugh was soft like snow, gentle but impossible to ignore.
She stood in the dim foyer, where no light reached. The hearth’s embers cast faint gold across her pale skin, catching on the frost that jeweled her hair and lashes.
The air cooled as she drifted closer, frost spreading wherever she stepped.
Her gown glittered faintly, spun from something between silk and mist, faintly swishing against the stone.
Firelight caught the white gem of Sunneva’s ring as she trailed a hand along the wrinkled cloak draped over the back of his chair, studying his scattered books, the empty decanter. Signs of sleepless nights.
“Oh, are you sulking?” Sunneva hummed, tilting her head with quiet amusement, “This is your doing, you know. The more you hold her at arm’s length, the more she will not trust you. More so now that prince charming has arrived.”
The hearth flickered once, as if even the fire bowed to her cold.
Rune gritted his teeth. “He’s of no consequence.”
“Oh, I never thought I would see the day you lied to yourself. When I said she was right, I meant Caelum.”
Rune stared at her, his jaw clenching.
“Can you see it?” Sunneva murmured. “What her life would have been life if you had not interfered?”
He could.
A glimpse of Alora in a meadow with Caelum, a crown of flowers in her hair, holding a blonde-haired boy in her lap. She laughed happily, nuzzling his cheek.
Rune’s stomach churned. “We are bonded. Her soul is tethered to mine. How can she belong to another?
Sunneva glanced at the god’s mark on his wrist. “You know why.”
He gritted his teeth.
“You were obsessed with Alora the moment you saw her, Rune, and you convinced yourself she was meant for you. But we both know, when you came into being, this was not your fate.”
Rune looked away. “What do you know about fate? A disillusioned belief that fools toss around to convince themselves they were born with a great destiny. I thought I knew what mine was, but it was taken from me as was everything else.” He clenched his jaw, shadows writhing at his feet.
“But when I fell into the darkness, I chose where my fate would lie. I rule the Netherworld now.” His fury stirred like a storm, wings snapping at his back.
“Each god is incomplete without his bride and I, at last, have mine.”
“Yes, that is true…” Sunneva canted her head, studying the monstrous features he couldn’t hide. They always appeared when he couldn’t control his emotions regarding Alora. “But we both know the throne of shadows was never yours.”
She looked at him as if she was aware of the pile of rubble that remained of Vorak’s throne.
He had destroyed it after Alora spoke his name, splintered it stone by stone.
The room grew hot beneath Rune’s ire and the candles dimmed as he stalked toward the Goddess of Death, darkness crawling up the wall.
“I will not suffer you to question my place, Sunneva,” Rune said, the room darkening with every step. “The shadow throne is mine. Alora is mine. The Heavens nor any other destiny will steal anything more from me. Including prince charming.”
“You cannot change the fate of souls.”
Rune clenched his jaw. “Then I will simply get rid of his.”
His declaration made the air still, as if the universe had paused to listen.
She stared at him warily. “You would be in contempt of Divine Law…”
The words echoed like scripture.
There were many laws of the Heavens but none as sacred as the Divine Three:
Do not desecrate souls.
Do not resurrect the dead.
Do not disrupt the flow of time.
And yet, two of those laws had already been broken.
Rune smirked. “Need I remind you who broke Divine Law first? Besides the obvious, was it not you who resurrected your mate from the dead?”
Sunneva’s answering smile was a blade.
The temperature dropped so sharply the air itself cracked. Frost raced across the floor, splintering from her bare feet toward Rune’s boots like grasping thorns.
“I did,” she said quietly. “And I remember clearly what drove me to it.”
Rune had not driven the talon into Jokull’s back himself, but he may as well have.
“And yet you were spared any consequence. The Heavens do have their favorites.”
The frost thickened. Ice climbed the pillars. The torches guttered.
“Spared?” Sunneva hissed, her eyes turning glacial.
“The cost was our immortality. Jokull and I remain divine, but our existence is now bound to death itself as yours is to the dark. I am permitted in the Mortal Realm long enough to guide souls through the Gates. I have mere minutes before I begin unraveling. Minutes, Rune. That is all I am granted with my children before I begin to deteriorate. That was the cost.”
The frost at her feet fractured and crumbled away like shattered glass.
They stared at each other for a long, heavy beat.
Her demigod children were adults, he almost said. They didn’t need her anymore.
It did not lessen her loss. It merely revealed his own.
“A life for a life.” Sunneva held his gaze coolly. “I wonder, how much value you place on yours.”
Oh. A threat.
And Rune knew who it came from.
The shadows swallowed all light, leaving the scarlet glow of his gaze. “Tell my father should he interfere in my destiny any further, the wrath of the Primordials will pale in comparison to what I will unleash upon you all.”
Sunneva’s eyes widened and she vanished in burst of frost.
Rune clenched his fist, his chest heaving with shallow breaths. The candlelight returned and he glanced up at the mirror, his red eyes flaming in the dark. His monstrous form was draped in shadow, illuminated by the molten marks pulsing on his body.
He didn’t like caging her, but Rune couldn’t take the risk of death stealing her away before she ever truly became his.
He would not lose her.
Not to fate.
Not to curses.
Not to gods.
If Argyle was cursed…
Then he would rip the curse out by its throat.