Chapter 49 #3
That only you can answer. But child, life does not need to be only sacrifice. A leader does not have to kill to earn respect. There are new winds turning in your realm, and you can set your sails to those instead, leaving the past in the past.
A vision of the ones I’d left behind reflected in the water.
Darcke was fighting for his life protecting the heirs, standing back-to-back with Viljan.
Geord stood beside Rakkel and her mother, covering Ivren’s body, where his chest still moved.
Vero and Torden were backed up against the towering gates, and the latter took a strike to the arm to keep a dagger from reaching her.
“Is this real?”
For now.
I coughed as the image flipped, showing the sea of steel closing in on them. They might be alive right now, but soon they wouldn’t be. Frantic, terrified urgency took hold of me. I was only one person. What could I do?
The knife rattled on the ground.
“But magic doesn’t work in there.”
Theirs doesn’t.
My heart beat a frantic war drum against my ribs. So much had changed in so little time. I wasn’t who I’d been. Neither were any of the people I was watching being shoved closer to death’s halls. Perhaps not every decision had been mine, but my life wasn’t over yet. It didn’t have to be over yet.
I shook as I reached for the knife.
As I ripped open my tunic, I closed my eyes. Darcke’s chest, the breaths heaving against my lips as I traced his rune with my tongue, guided me, and with a stroke that didn’t waver, I carved the rune for water into my skin.
A song filled my ears as my blood dripped into a pool of crimson, pausing there before seeking its way into the wall of water surrounding me.
I’d never heard it before, but I still knew every word.
It was a welcome-home and glad-to-meet-you all in one, the call of the waters dripping through my veins until I could speak its tongue fluently.
“Down,” I ordered.
The shield indulged me, merging with the dark waves surrounding me as if it had never been there at all. That bright light shimmered over me, but it wasn’t as intimidating anymore. Especially as the Aesir continued to argue.
A strange mixture of calm and anticipation fell over me. I flexed my hands before my face, savoring the power flowing through my body.
I’d missed this.
I’d needed this.
The world stilled for a second. Darcke’s face flickered before me, sharp and handsome and infuriating. You can claim more than one rune—more than one throne.
The glittering runes stared at me, but unlike when I’d arrived at the Hird, I didn’t avoid them. I looked right back at them, my lips lifting.
I made another decision.
Without a single tremor, I carved a second rune into my skin. Then a third. A fourth. It wasn’t until I finished the sixth rune, blood pooling where my knees met the floor and my chest deliciously aching, that it went quiet.
Maybe I should have been afraid. Maybe I should have cowered before the gods, who could end me with one single thought. But I wasn’t—I refused to.
I was done hiding.
“I might not have earned a rune yet,” I said as I stood on steady legs, blinded by the light but seeing clearly for the first time in my life. “But I will spend the rest of my days making sure that when Hel comes to claim my soul, each and every one of these marks will be proud to cover my skin.”
Can she do that? Tyr asked.
I felt Thor’s smile, hearing my father’s laughter within it. I think she already did.
Yes, I had. And I didn’t regret it for a single second.
Go, child.
Odin didn’t need to tell me twice. I bowed deep before spinning around and running for my fucking life.
While the five runes of my father’s people were dormant—sleeping—I felt them in my blood. I felt the power I’d hold when I left these halls behind—the strength and the skills that would keep me alive.
I didn’t need to look as I sprinted over the crimson floor. The water surrounding me guided me, moved my limbs so smoothly I became fluid, too, seeping over the blood of my ancestors as I changed my wyrd.
My pulse became one with the current, pounding with the waves, and I lengthened my strides to reach them—reach my friends—in time.
My breath caught in my throat when my next step sent me right into Darcke’s chest. His eyes flashed, but before he had time to grab me, I spun like a whirlpool, adrenaline and pure will making me faster.
I slid to a stop, my chest heaving. The air was thick with fear and blood, and everywhere I looked my friends were losing.
Viljan was backed up against the water, his movements clumsy from pain.
Ivren was still on the ground, Geord and Rakkel before him, but both living heirs moved slowly, sluggishly, as they parried strike after strike.
“Retreat!” Torden screamed as he hoisted a lifeless Vero over his shoulder. “We can’t hold them!”
Stefen forcefully dragged Rakkel and her mother out of the way when five men stalked toward them, their steps slow and their smiles predatory since the heirs, the warriors, and the seconds had nowhere to go.
Geord remained standing over Ivren, a roar leaving him as he took down yet another warrior. But as two more took his place, his eyes emptied, and I felt him fraying on the edge of surrender before he lifted his blade once more.
As a deep fury rose within me, the water on either side of the white pathway towered high. Two lethal waves hovered over us, casting shade on the losing battle that wanted to unwrite my friends’ names from the world.
Darcke let out an abrupt, dark laugh.
“You’re here,” he said without a single note of surprise.