Page 18 of Rune

I jerked my arm back, grabbed my dagger, and stabbed.

My knife was aimed for his chest, below his shoulder plates, where it should sink into his skin. My aim was true. But his hand was quicker.

Without so much as blinking, he flicked his hand upward and caught my wrist with a crippling grip. I winced.

His expression didn’t waver as he tightened his grip further until I thought his fingers might find my bone. I leaned my weight into the knife to bring it closer to his chest. By the time the blade touched his shirt, he was squeezing so hard my hand could fall off. And he did it all without a speck of emotion. His face was irritatingly patient, like he’d been expecting this.

“I am a god, not a savage mortal. Your knife won’t take me down.”

We would see. I sighed with defeat and dropped the knife.

As it fell, I grabbed it with my other hand and drove it into his thigh.

This time, the blade connected with tissue and the dagger sank in. The man’s face pinched in pain, and I scrambled backward while leaving the knife there. Now I’d flee. My boots made loud thuds that echoed in the high-ceilinged room, and I crossed the distance in half the time I usually did. Gold was easier to run on than sand. I grabbed the handle to the main door. I spared the man a last glance. His face had relaxed again and he calmly drew the blade out as a single drop of dark red blood ran down his leg.

I shivered. Then I flung the door open to run.

I stopped.

This was nowhere near the seven clans of my people. The fjord was gone, the vineyard, and the little huts we’d huddle in when the winter came. The clouds were gone too.

No. Not gone. They were there, just…in the wrong spot. Clouds should be up. We should not walk upon them like a wool throw.

My head spun. I should flee. But…

I stood at the threshold of a clandestine marble porch with chiseled pillars holding a flat roof that blocked the sunlight. A mountain ridge stretched outside, but not the cold mountains of my land—these were lush, bursting with green and speckled with marble temples, each one more glorious than the next. Ravens flew, chasing each other across the treetops and swooping down to glide their feathers over shimmering pools.

I wouldn’t know which way to lead me home. I wouldn’t even know where to start.

“It’s quite different from the harsh land which you have been stranded upon.”

I jumped at the man’s voice. He stood behind my shoulder showing no signs of pain. I glanced at his thigh. The cut at the bottom of his tunic wasn’t bleeding.

He claimed to be a god. So far, that claim held well.

He held my dagger out. “I trust you won’t stab me again.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said. But when I reached, he let me take it.

I still wanted to run, but now I feared I wouldn’t get far before he caught me, and what he might do to keep me from running again.

“I’m going to invite someone in,” he said, walking toward the side of the room to the expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows. “Try not to stab her either.” Then he said in a lower tone, “Though she could use a good jab.”

Before I could decipher his words, he flung back the door.

“Be gentle with her,” he said. I didn’t know if his words were for me or the woman he let in.

If it wasn’t for her brilliant white hair or the wrinkles across her friendly face, I’d never guess her age. She wore tight pants with knivesstrapped to her thighs, a mid-length ruby-colored tunic, axe at her side, and leather boots strapped up her calves. My own meager blade was weak in comparison to her weapons. Fear flooded me, and I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet.

Despite her tough appearance, her movements were timid. She eased herself into the room at a sluggish pace, hands folded in front of her, and eye twitching with uncertainty.

She paused only a few steps in. “Is that her?”

“What do you mean ‘is that her?’ There is no one else in the room, Frigg. Of course that’s the child.”

“But how can you be certain?”

“I watched her eat ten grapes from the Vineyard of the Gods without repercussions,” the man replied. “I am certain.”

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