Page 59 of Rune

Shock rippled through me. My chest constricted like it’d lost something, though I’d never known her in the first place. Still, if she were mymóðirand I’d never get to meet her. . . I felt robbed of that.

Odin’s eye misted, and I suspected the depth of his sadness could crack a mountain.

While I wasn’t certain the Vikings gave me any kindness, they certainly taught me how to fight for what I want, so the cruel way I used his pain was all from them. I swallowed my own questions about what she was like, and focused on what I came here to do. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a daughter,” I told him. I pulled my hand away and stood atfull height, betting on the magnitude of his pain and the hope that he wouldn’t want to see me go through the same thing. “But if I don’t save Tova, then I’ll lose my sister and my best friend.”

His frown straightened to a hard line. “You cannot interfere.”

“But you can.” I squared my shoulders and looked him right in those stormy, blue eyes. “You can save her.”

It wasn’t like when he spoke with Trig. He wasn’t stoic. He wasn’t hard. Instead, he appeared as torn up as I was, running his hand through his hair and skirting his eye across the balcony as if the answer lay amongst the polished stones.

“No one can interfere with the sacred Champion Games.” Odin’s hand retook mine, dwarfing it. “Please Ruin, ask anything else of me. I can give you whatever you want in these lands, but I cannot save Tova.”

I wasn’t willing to accept that answer. “She is all I want.”

“And you being happy is all I want. Ask me for anything else. Ask for a tonic to erase all memory of her so it does not sting. Ask for an emerald palace on a mountaintop. Ask for a holiday in your name. I would grant you anything, but I cannot give you this.”

I was silent on the outside, but it was all a front that hid the storm within. I had no use for any of those things. A palace or a holiday served no purpose to me. Removing my memory of Tova would hurt as bad as her dying, for the concept was the same. I had to save her. I owed her that.

For my entire life, she had been there for me. As the clan tossed me aside for my breathing weakness, she had held me close. I’d only been allowed to train because she demanded it. Without her, I’d have become a farmhand tucked in the back fields with no one caring whether I made it home or if the wolves got me. Tova cared. And now she needed me.

“What happens if I interfere?”

Odin tilted his head and shook it, warning me. “Some rules are ancient enough, even I can’t undo them. If you interfere, you are sentenced to the same fate as the mortals. Death.”

The words shook me. I swallowed. “Then I know what I want to ask for.”

“Anything.”

“I’d like a weapon strong enough to take on the gods.”

I wouldn’t interfere. But I would give this weapon to Tova, and she could wield it.

I expected him to say no, but while Odin’s gaze was knowing, he nodded. I thought then of the story Frigg told me of how he put down one of his prized wolves after I attacked it, and now I truly felt that love. It was overpowering, and unlike anything I’d felt before. He placed a gentle kiss on my hairline. “I will craft you the finest weapon you’ve ever held.”

He pulled away and left me on the balcony wondering if his love was enough to protect me if I chose to throw myself into the arena to save Tova after all.

Wondering if I could betray Odin when I loved him like afaðir.

With luck, and a new weapon, I’d figure it all out.

Several minutes after Odin left, I pushed through the balcony doors to leave and begin the process of unwinding myself from the palace and the mountain to find my way home in the dark. As I crossed the first room, footsteps sounded from the corridor. I wasn’t certain what made me stop, but I did. Someone knocked on a door.

It opened, and Odin spoke. “Yes?”

A woman’s voice came. “We have information about when we lost Ruin, and we uncovered why the mortals wanted her.”

My knees almost buckled, but I forced myself to stand still.Why the mortals wanted her.Odin was searching for who had taken me out of Asgard as a child.

He’d found answers.

The door creaked as it must have been opened further. “Come in.”

A breath later it slammed shut, leaving me with a fast-beating heart and a million questions burning inside. I slunk to the door, bracing my heels against it so I could both listen and watch if anyone approached, but as hard as I tried to make out the words, nothing coherent came through.

Then, above the nonsense, two lines rose loud enough to make sense. I only heard it because of how loudly Odin said this, as if he was just as surprised as me. He wasn’t. No one would be.

“Ruin was the child I meant to mark as my own?”

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