Page 19 of Rune

My heart stuttered. He had seen me, after all.

The old woman, Frigg, brought a shaky hand to her mouth. Then she let a single tear fall down her cheek. In a trembling voice, she cried out, “I have waited so long to see my granddaughter again.”

My stomach sank. I’d seen my grandparents. This was not one of them. “I’m sorry, I’m a little lost,” I confessed. I tucked my dagger away and kept under the doorway. Ready to run at a moment’s notice. I could make it to the mountains and track a way home from there, or I’d follow the stream southward.

For now, neither of them appeared in danger of harming me. But they were looking at me with an odd expression, like I was fragile and they wanted to protect me.

The man cleared his throat. “This is Frigg, wife of Odin. But I think the better question you have is who you are.” His gaze swung to me. “You, little warrior, are the granddaughter of Odin and Frigg, my niece, daughter of my brother Hedir and his wife, Rava.You were stolen out of Asgard as a toddler and we have been searching for you ever since.”

I stumbled back until the doorframe pushed against me, while Frigg came nearer.Wife of Odin,my mind repeated. My grandmother. Odin, my grandfather.

They were very mistaken.

Frigg reached up and caught my cheek. Her thumb rubbed the skin, while her soft blue eyes took in my own.

I could do nothing but remember how to breathe and figure out a way to escape all this. No amount of training with Tova could have prepared me for the absurdity of this, nor teach me how to duel a god.

“She looks like Rava,” Frigg said. And as if that settled it for her, she dropped her hand to pull me into a hug.

Saying I resembled a goddess was the kindest thing anyone had ever said of me, and it pained me to pull back from her gentle touch. “I am not who you say I am.”

“The clan gave her a new name,” the man explained. “They kept her shielded from us, so I could not find her as I passed through the towns. I have not seen this girl before, not at any of the altars nor in any of my travels.”

Guilt warmed my cheeks. He hadn’t seen me at any altar because I’d stubbornly refused to worship any other than Aegir. And he hadn’t seen me in the towns because I was usually in the fields.

“I am Balder,” the man finally told me. “What was the name you’d given me?”

I thought back to the vineyard when I’d been mocking the gods. I shut my eyes. I brought this upon myself.I am Rune, goddess of determination and wit.

“Rune,” I answered through a dry throat.

“Ruin,” he repeated, taking what he could from my northern accent. I almost corrected him, but that sounded about right. Ruin fit me. Balder held his hand over me. “The goddess of determination and wit.”

The goddess of I’m-in-trouble and this-is-not-going-to-end-well.

“She knew,” Balder explained to Frigg. “Somehow Ruin knew who she was, and she had traveled to our vineyard to call upon us to take her home. And look, she bears the mark.” He grabbed my hand and held it up for Frigg to see the scars on my arm.

For the first time, someone didn’t wince at the sight. They brightened. My scars were not wretched to her, nor another sign of my weakness. Frigg was looking at me as if I were the first light of morning after a stormy night and that with me, all her prayers were answered.

It was the way many looked upon Tova. Like she herself was a goddess. “Astrid had that mark,” she said. “She was born with it. We never guessed it’d be the key to finding her again.” She smiled and clasped my hands. “You are home.”

I eased my hand out from Frigg’s and stepped out onto the porch to get some air. I steadied myself against the marble pillars, while staring over the land. “You’re telling me this is Asgard?”

“I’m telling you this is home,” Balder corrected from behind me. I couldn’t see them, but their presence was overwhelming, like I would never be able to forget two gods stood paces away.

A sliver of me believed their claims. The majority of me wanted to. But all of me knew one thing: this was not home.

The mountainside appeared like one from an oil painting, not the frozen ones I was used to. It rolled endlessly in every direction, stretching as far as I could see. I stood at the cusp of stairs, looming inthe threshold of a small temple crafted from marble and gold, with balustrades of twisting, sculpted ivy.

Balder came to my side and stared over it all with me. “Your parents are not here,” he said as if that was my question. Astrid’s parents hadn’t crossed my mind. Surely they’d know I wasn’t their daughter from the first look.

“Where are they?”

“They left in search for you as soon as you went missing. They never returned.” His voice dropped with the memory, and he sucked in his chest. “I’d always hoped they’d found you and were living a quaint life somewhere…” He cleared his throat. “You’re here now. They’ll feel your presence and be summoned back home.”

I tried to imagine what they’d gone through here. Losing three people all at once and not knowing where any of them are. It was a sad thought, but it begged the question: How could they lose three gods?

They must not be as powerful as I’d thought. Especially if they thought me to be one of them. I was hardly worthy of being a part of my clan; I certainly didn’t fit into a coven of gods.

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