Page 47 of Rune

As far as I could tell, there were two options for how I’d survived the past hour. One, I really was the missing goddess.

That still wasn’t likely.

Two—and the more reasonable answer—there was a god here manipulating the strings.

My mind pulled every other odd instance to mull back over. The scar on my arm that matched Astrid’s birthmark. Eating the forbidden grapes in the vineyard. The seer’s prophecy about me.

All else is veiled from me.

Who did that? What god allowed me into Asgard, set me up as the missing goddess, let me eat the forbidden grapes and drink jravn, and shielded my future from the seer?

I wanted to believe it wasn’t Ve, but he’d lied to me about his sister. He could be lying about more. There was a possibility he brought me here so he had an easy escape from Asgard.

Something about him encouraged my trust, but beyond him, I had no guesses.

More important than that question was the next one: What did this god want with me?

“Ruin.” Ve’s hand slid into mine, and he whispered so the others wouldn’t hear. “Are you certain you’re fine?”

I tried to push my thoughts away so he couldn’t see. I shoved them deep into my mind to come back to when I was alone. I had much to figure out.

“Only worried about tomorrow,” I lied. “I don’t like all the attention on me.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Ve’s gaze swung around the arena. “There will be so much excitement, the gods will hardly be looking at us.”

SiXtEEn

I HADN’T THE time to mull things over, because Ve returned so quickly after dropping me off that night, I doubted he’d left at all.

I’d gotten the chance to change into the simple navy tunic with long cotton sleeves, and was just tying the rope around my waist when his gentle knock came at the door, followed by his voice. He must have left, for he’d changed too, into something more closely resembling a Viking boy than a Norse god. When I opened the door, I found his tunic was frayed, his gold calf plates left behind, and his hair pulled up into a messy tangle until I could almost believe he’d just come up from the farmland and would smell of the earth and of trouble. His smile certainly looked like it. As if he was searching for trouble tonight, and had come to my door.

I opened it further to let him in. I wasn’t looking for trouble, but I was homesick, and right now, he was the closest thing to home I could find.

The door shut with a click, and we were left in the dim, hollow light. As I looked at Ve, I noted one difference between him and a Viking—the difference that had always been there. He wore no axe. Now, I knew why. I was painfully aware of my own axe on my bed upstairs, waiting to be sharpened.

I made it a point to sit on the sofa in the foyer instead of going upstairs where the axe was.

“My friends like you,” Ve said as he turned himself about Hitta Haven like he’d never seen the inside before. I kept all the curtains open to let in the light, but now it was dark, and the night sank to drown the room in shadows. Two oil lamps burned upstairs where I slept, and their buttery light crept down the staircase.

“I like them,” I answered. I stayed on the sofa, one knee bent to curl my foot underneath me as I started undoing my braid from the day. It was wound tightly, with snags that wouldn’t easily come undone. My calloused fingers worked through them nevertheless. All the while watching Ve.

Ve seemed to carry his own snags. Troubles rested on his shoulders like knots in his tunic, stiffening his back as he moved until I wondered how long they’d been there. I knew about his roughfaðir. Now I knew about his sister. How many other things were there—struggles resting beneath the surface—coiling him until he could snap?

When we met, he’d said he wasn’t interested in getting married. I’d taken that as he didn’t want to marry me. Now I wondered if he didn’t want to get close to anyone. He had friends, but as far as I knew, never anything more. Perhaps that was how he wanted to keep things. Distantenough that his heart couldn’t hurt from a loss. Simple enough that he could remove himself in a heartbeat if needed.

And call it the Viking desire in me to compete, but I saw him as a challenge. What would it take to get him to fall in love?

More importantly, did I want to fall in love again?

“Are you okay?” Ve asked. Before I could wonder if he could see my thoughts, he sat down beside me. “I know you are dreading tomorrow, but I don’t know how to fix that.”

My hands fell from my hair, leaving it halfway undone. “You don’t have to fix anything.”

Shadows made it hard to see him as he spoke, especially with his back to the stairwell, but the moonlight was generous enough to sink against the curves of his cheekbones and seep into the darkness of his eyes. They were fixed on me. “I feel like I do. We took you from the only home you knew, and are now asking you to watch other mortals fight to the death like they are nothing, when a month ago, you were just like them. That’s not an easy thing to ask. I’m sorry, Ruin.”

My heart swelled. It was easy to feel alone in a place like this, but part of me was seen.

He might not know my real name, but he knew some of my pain.

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