Page 54 of Rune

But the sharpest blow came as she blamedmefor what happened with Trig. It wasn’t her heart that had been broken.

I steadied myself, and clenched my teeth. “You do not get to blame me for driving a wedge between you and the boy I loved.”

She clenched a fist over her heart. “I love him!”

Her shout rang through the trees while silencing me.

“I’ve always loved him,” she went on. Her voice cracked with the pressure of a great loss. “I’ve wanted Trig my whole life, but I didn’t know how to approach him. I was willing to be happy for you when he wanted to marry you, and I never would have said anything different. I certainly wouldn’t have abandoned my family merely over a broken heart.”

“A broken heart?” I asked her. It was so much more than that. “It felt like my whole body was empty. I didn’t know how to return to a home that always valued you more than me, and watch as you had the only thing I had wanted. Broken?I was shattered.” I ran my hands through my hair. “You should have told me you loved him that day on the beach when you heard he was proposing to you.”

“I couldn’t, and you know that.”

“Why, because you pitied me? I could have handled the truth.”

“I never pitied you. I took care of you our entire lives. I am not a bad person for trying to spare you pain when I could. And besides”—she looked around, and spread her arms wide–“it looks like you landed on your feet.”

“Hardly.” Our words were heated. Our emotions high. And I feared my time in Asgard took more than the Viking from within me—it’d taken my sister as well. The one thing I never thought I’d lose. “I have done nothing but try to get back to Danmark. This isn’t home. You are.”

She didn’t shout anymore, and the quiet let me hear the threads of defeat in her voice. “We’ll never get that chance. Neither of us will escape this place.”

“We can.” I dared to step forward again. “You can win.”

She thrust a finger north—in the direction of the arena. “You saw them just as I did. They are the strongest from the clans. I might survive the first day, but I won’t survive the week.”

“I have ways to help you,” I told her. The topic of Trig’s betrayal wasn’t resolved between us, but the tension had shifted, and right now, the dilemma of the Champion Games seemed easier to take on. I might rather fight in it myself than go over our shared heartbreak again. “Balder has put a spear amongst the weapons that is sure to let you win.”

Her eyes flared wide. “A god is helping you?”

“A god is helping you,” I pressed. “He’s helping you win.”

It should have brought her relief, but instead she drew away like something about it hurt her.

Tova clung her arms to her body and spoke with low tones. “You really are one of them.”

I frowned. “Tova, don’t be stupid here. Don’t deny the help.”

“I don’t trust them.”

“I do.” I was all the way down the stairs now, looking her in the eye, clutching her hands in mine and begging her to take the help.

She ripped herself away from me.

“Your trust means nothing to me.” It took effort, but she managed to drag the ball and chain back several steps until there was a distance between us again, only a few paces, but it felt like a mile.

“The shields are traps,” I went on with urgency. “They are rigged to break easily. Don’t touch them. Take the spear with an iron point andsmall emerald in the hilt. That one will be stronger than the rest. Tova, listen to me!”

But her back was already turned. Her body was clenched with the effort of dragging her chains away. At the sound of shouting, the guard was returning, and soon the glint of his chariot came through the trees.

No, we were meant to have a whole meal together. But now that we couldn’t get along, I hardly got two minutes.

“If I survive, it’ll be because that is Odin’s will,” Tova said over her shoulder. “I will not trust the gods to save me.”

“Then trust me! You’ll need the spear to survive the Champion Games,” I shouted at her.

The words seemed to knock her off her feet, and she shook her head. “The Champion Games?” she questioned. She looked over her shoulder. “You even sound like the gods.”

I’d forgotten we called it the Beckoning. But whatever name she gave it didn’t make it less lethal.

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