Chapter 45
Rune
The instant the song ended, Khar Avalen shook. The temperature dropped as a new presence emerged, guttering the torches.
Alora stood absolutely still before the mirror, eyes wide and unblinking, face emptied of thought. A hush fell over the chamber, deeper than a grave.
Rune’s shoulders tightened with unease. “Alora, we need to leave.”
She didn’t answer.
The glyphs underfoot pulsed against her soles like a second heartbeat.
Rune’s skin prickled. His lungs drew tight. The Scry Mirror flickered and he turned toward it without meaning to.
He knelt in a scorched field riddled with bones. A tired smile rose to his lips as he turned to ash and crumbled away in the wind.
The vision hit like a blow. Rune jerked his gaze away, throat tight.
What vision was that? Punishment… or fate?
“Mother…” Alora’s voice drifted soft and far away, like she was speaking through water.
He turned back, this time forced, dragged toward it as if caught in the tide. The mirror rippled again, the scene shifting.
A royal chamber in Argyle, a fae woman sitting up in a large bed, hair like sun-spun gold spilling over her shoulders. A newborn lay in her arms, tiny chest still, lips blue as dusk. Both were coated in sweat and grime, the sheets soaked with blood.
Salvia.
Tears streaked her face as she whispered into the darkness, voice breaking. “Please, save her. You promised me a child.”
A shape flickered in the corner of the room. Not shape, but absence. A shadow, darker than death, older than hunger.
A voice surfaced from the dark. You did not bargain for a living one.
Rune’s entire body went cold. He knew that voice
A needle of red crystal appeared on the pedestal in the vision, matching the real one there now.
“Prick her finger with this needle,” the voice said. “Hewn of my blood, it will bind her to life to mine. Do it, or the child will wither.”
Salvia went to the mirror and raised the baby’s still hand over the crystal, sharp as a fang. Her hands shook as she brought it to the baby’s tiny finger.
“Forgive me,” she wept, kissing her brow.
Still in a trance, Alora lifted her hand over the crystal’s sharp point.
Rune moved before it pierced her finger.
He seized Alora by the shoulders and tore her back from the pedestal.
The baby in the vision screamed out a cry, breathing with life.
Wind howled through the chamber. The spider lilies shook and every petal glowing bright.
The statues groaned and skulls clattered in the walls as if something inside them stirred.
Alora fell back against Rune, limp. She was still half in the vision, lips parted, eyes glowing red with glyph light.
The mirror hummed and the same voice rose from within it, deeper than thunder, older than time.
“The bargain is done,” the faceless shadow intoned.
Salvia looked up, her eyes were full of happy tears as she shushed her wailing baby, but her smile faded at his next words.
“She will grow in beauty and walk in grace. Where her essence falls, blooms will flourish. Where her song echoes, kingdoms will kneel. Mortals will inscribe her name in histories to come. But what I grant is not yours to keep.”
Salvia’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”
The mirror rippled. “She will be raised among mortals long enough to serve a mother’s longing. But she is made to serve my will.”
The shadows moved through the room, a host of unseen shapes shifting in hunger.
“The child is forged of light and dark, a desecration of power your world cannot bear. Once it matures, she could dismantle all you know, spread calamity or abundance. Blood is the oldest key, and hers is shaped to fit every lock in existence. Including my own.”
Salvia shook her head, trembling, holding her baby close.
“When the Blood Moon bleeds on the 20th day of her birth, I will return, the voice intoned and the crystal needle glowed. She will free me from my prison. Through her, I will rise. Through her, I will feed.”
His voice dropped further, crawling through Rune’s bones.
“Beginning with her.”
“No…” Salvia shook her head as shadows reached for her baby. “NO!”
Keeping her child tucked against her chest, she dodged the shadows and lunged at the mantel. She broke the needle in half and fled.
The vision broke, and shadows erupted from the mirror, swarming the chamber. Clawed hands reached swiftly for Alora as that chilling voice echoed through the stone.
“Lashar.”
Ice flooded Rune’s veins at the single word spoken in Hellspeech.
Nexus appeared with a wild snarl, the great panther slashing at the wave of darkness.
But the shadows closed around Alora, dragging her toward the jagged crimson shard still embedded in the altar.
Rune seized her, hauling her back, but the otherworldly force would not release its hold, no matter how much strength he poured into it.
His own shadows rushed to answer, clinging desperately to keep her hand from pricking her finger.
Panic tore through him.
Then his gaze caught on the sunstone dagger strapped to her hip. Acting on instinct alone, Rune tore it free and drove the glowing blade into the writhing mass of shadow.
The darkness recoiled with a shriek, its grip breaking as Alora sagged into his arms.
That abysmal presence warbled as the chamber trembled. The dagger was wrenched from his grasp, the orange blade flaring as bright as the sun before it shattered, reduced to glowing dust that scattered into the dark.
“Take her away from here!” Rune shouted, tossing Alora up onto the Vareth’s back.
With a roar, Nexus’s black wings snapped out, and he leaped into the air, flying toward the dome ceiling.
The darkness lunged for her ankle. Rune’s own shadows countered, snapping like fangs.
Then the voice from the mirror spoke again, shadows wrapping around his throat like claws. “Pretender.”
Rune froze at the cold, phantom presence behind him.
“Fate will not be denied. The hour of the end is nigh. For her—and for you.”
Rune bared his teeth as power surged through him, tearing the hold away. He shot up the shaft behind Nexus, shadows lashing out to shatter the grated dome above.
Stone split, metal rained down. Light stabbed down through the dome as the world broke open. Shadows poured upward, wrapping around him and Nexus both, lifting them toward the surface.
The fresh air was a split moment of relief.
Then he felt the light fall on his skin.
Even through cloud-thick skies, and his Bloodstone ring, it still sent a sear through his bones. The sun was low on the horizon, its amber glow shining directly on him.
Rune hissed, shadows flaring as he whisked away and reappeared in the trees behind the ruins, the sound of the sea crashing far below. Rune staggered back, skin smoking faintly where sunlight had touched him. He moved to sit in the shade of a large slab of stone.
How long had they been in those chambers?
Nexus growled softly beside him. Rune scooped up Alora in his arms and the Vareth’s panther form shifted as it shrank down into a cat again, tail twitching.
Rune tightened his hold on Alora.
Her head rested against his chest, breath shallow, lashes trembling. The mirror trance was broken but her mind hadn’t caught up.
He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, his fingers trembling. “Alora, come back to me.”
She hummed, soft and low, dazed in his arms. Rune exhaled, relief bitter as wine. She was all right.
But he may as well have sacrificed her himself.
He took Alora’s hand, turning it over to see the old scar on her fingertip. They should never have come here.
“Rune?” She mumbled groggily, blinking awake. “What happened?”
He clenched his teeth as a thin ray of sunlight slipped past the leaves. She reached up, shielding him with her hand, fingers brushing his jaw. A tremor went through him at that simple touch and he closed his eyes.
“We woke him.”
“Who?”
The name caught behind his teeth. Rune didn’t want to say it. Doing so made it real. But he had suspected it the moment he first saw the Blood Blooms.
Through her I will feed…
He turned from her, masking the war in his eyes. “We should go. We’ve seen enough.”
Saeroth appeared from the shadows, nickering.
“Rune, wait.” Alora pulled back before he could lift her onto the saddle. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the mountain where it’s safe for you.”
“What? Why?” Alora grabbed his hand, making him stay still. “Why are you so frightened?”
Rune inhaled a shaky breath, raking a hand down his face. “Love, I can’t explain yet. Not here.” He took her shoulders, holding her gaze. “Can you trust me?”
She frowned. “I’ll try.”
Rune exhaled and managed a small smile. “Console yourself with the fact that you’re a rare treasure. One I will bargain even with the Heavens to keep.”
Alora flushed and rolled her eyes, muttering “You’re so dramatic.”
When would she understand he meant every word?
She sighed heavily and took his hand. “You said that song could summon something.”
“Not something…” he murmured. “But someone.”
She shivered, her wide eyes searching his. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the name. Not when his entire being went cold at the thought of that entity.
“What happened in there?”
Rune’s mind spun, a storm of disbelief and memory. With the voice he heard in those dark chambers. No. It couldn’t be. And yet…
“Rune…” Alora linked her fingers though his hand. “Please. No more lies.”
Something caved in his chest at the plea in her voice.
Truth.
He had never worn it well. His whole existence had been stitched from deception and survival.
It was how he knew to keep breathing. Yet the way she looked at him now, bright with sadness and hope, made a colder fear coil in his gut.
If he told the truth now, how much more would he lose?
Her trust. Or the last thing he still had to lose.
A second chance.
Rune swallowed, tasting ash behind his teeth. He couldn’t give her everything. Not yet.
But he could give her this.