Page 32 of Rune

He did so with a grin. “You don’t know it, but you’ve been dictating my entire life. My parents have used you, or the idea of you, to hold me here for two decades, and I’ve never been allowed to travel the world as I wish. I could leave whenever I want, but they’d never stop chasing me.”

He closed the gap I’d created and pointed between us. “But if we go missing together, none will think we are missing. They will believe we ran off to have some privacy as we start a life together, and by the timethey realize we aren’t coming back, I’ll be across the seas already, where the gods’ eyes cannot see.”

“But I won’t,” I brought up the flaw in the plan. “I’ll be somewhere in Danmark where they found me.”

He shrugged. “That’ll be your problem, and if I took you back now, that’d be your problem anyway. This gives you a head start to come up with a valid excuse on why a goddess is living somewhere as cold and desolate as Danmark.”

I wrung out my tunic as I debated it. Droplets of water collected at my feet before finding a trail back to their stream. I felt much like them, trying to find a path of escape. Something about this plan appeared too easy. “So, you’ll stay missing forever?”

Ve watched me with a coolness that a man who’d been held at knifepoint moments before should not possess. “Not forever, but for as long as I want until my taste for mortal adventure is satisfied, then I’ll return to Asgard with a fine tale of conquests followed by why you and I didn’t work out to explain your absence. Perhaps you were too aggressive for me,” he added with a knowing look to my daggers. “Their interest in you will fade, and I’ll get the freedom I desire.”

It was a fine plan, but it was flawed. “You could kill me instead, and get your freedom.”

“I could.” He didn’t hesitate in his response. “But fiancée or no fiancée, my parents will find a way to hold me here. It’s a unique sort of prison.” He stepped closer, dipping his head to see me better. “How about you? You could stay here and enjoy everything that comes with the favor of Odin.”

A week ago, I would have gladly faced an entire clan for the chance at Odin’s favor. Now, it was Odin I feared the most. What horrorswould he do to me when he realized I was not his prized granddaughter? “Like you said, it’s a unique sort of prison.”

There was a question in his eyes, but he didn’t ask it.

“We have a deal?” I stuck out my hand.

His met mine. “We have a deal, my love.”

I brushed past him to the chariot. “First rule, you’ll never say that again.”

“You don’t like nicknames?”

“I don’t like that one.” I found one of my daggers amongst the rocks, and sheathed it. Ve held the other, and he flicked it to me.

“How about my delight?”

That one made me visibly shudder. “Now I sound like a dessert.”

“Darling?”

“Fine, I don’t like any nicknames,” I said. “Remove every one of those from your vocabulary, please.”

“Very well. But what I should be calling you is my savior.” He stepped aboard the chariot next to me, and coaxed the horses onward, back to my marble home. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for a chance to escape. First step, I’m throwing a proper engagement party tomorrow night to announce to everyone how much I love you.”

I added that to the list of stories I’d tell someday.Have a god tell me he loves me.With luck, no one would know it was false.

TwElvE

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, I’d been well-behaved since arriving in Asgard. Temperate, even. Nothing was broken, burned, or maimed. And now I had a promising way out.

But as the day went by, I grew restless.

Perhaps it was how the sun soaked through the windows and heated my skin until it felt like I was on fire. Or maybe it was the growing feeling in the pit on my stomach that I didn’t have months. I had only until Aegir appeared and told Asgard I was not who they thought. That could be any day. It could be today.

I strapped my axe to my back,yes, it was mine now,and headed out the door.

The warmth of the sun dimmed as a breeze cooled my cheeks, and I closed my eyes to soak it in. The softest grass my toes had ever felt kept each step light, and I didn’t regret leaving my shoes behind. I’dtravel stealthier this way. That was best. Today, I didn’t want anyone to see me.

My gaze trailed north, to Odin’s mountain. His home devoured it, until all the crevices of the rockface were a part of his masterpiece. Silver sconces hung above towering windows, gilded iron doors opened to various points, balconies stretched over the abyss, and carvings of wolves and ravens stood guard. There could be a thousand gods living there, and there’d still be spacious room.

I gave it a withering glance before turning the other way. My feet slapped against hot stone as I trudged off the beaten path, finding relief from the heat in the shade of pines. I’d followed the stream before when I was with Ve, back when he’d led me to the shrine that looked more like a tomb. I had no desire to see that today. I took another route, winding down through the thickest part of the trees where rampant roots snagged my feet and wild berries grew in clumps on overgrown bushes.

Sometimes I’d look one way and it would remind me of the mountain by the fjord, and I’d pretend I was hunting back home, and not exploring Asgard. But then a sculpted temple would peek through a break in the branches, and I’d remember where I was.

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