Page 6 of Rune

My sisters all received promising prophesies about their futures, but the seer shrank back when I came and refused to speak with me. Finally, after I showed up at his home for the hundredth time bearing gifts to coerce the future from him, he gave me something more.

He spoke through his teeth like every word was painful to drag up through his chest. “I see heartbreak, betrayal, and a fight with the gods. They will turn on you, and you will lose the place you call home.” His hand wavered over the dice before he yanked it away to cradle into his chest. He hissed, “All else is veiled from me.”

I stood, my legs shaking. Then I ran.

It’d been years, but I never told anyone the prophecy. And I never called upon the seer again.

“Let me know what he says,” I told Trig in a flat tone.

He didn’t catch it and continued on, “I’m going to ask him about my future as a clan leader as well.”

There was something buried in his voice there, and I shifted to see his face. Worry lines cut deep across his forehead.

“You will be a great leader,” I assured him.

He looked at me hopefully. “Do you mean that? I can take the truth.”

I held both his hands in mine. “I know it. It was your smart rationing that kept us going through many winters, and your relentless work replanting the fields after that storm last year. And when people are sick, sometimes they don’t even go to the altars of the gods to pray; they come to you, because they know your word moves the hands of the gods. You are a strong man and a wise one. That makes a great leader.”

His lips barely turned up in a smile. “Faðirthinks I should have done more after the storm. I helped with the fields, but he wanted me building the homes.”

“He’s wrong. We needed you in the fields, and there were enough men rebuilding the homes. But you kept working when many others stopped. Don’t forget that.”

He smiled then, and relaxed into me. I rested against him, combing my hands through his hair and watching the fire dance. “I just want to be a good chieftain,” he whispered.

“You will be,” I whispered back. “I believe in you.”

That was what drew me to Trig—even with his strength and his connection to power, he wielded his kind heart as boldly as he wielded his axe, and that made him loved by many. He was so worried about making a fine chieftain while none of the other men in the clan even came close.

We stayed that way for a while, at peace even as we heard the tribute fighting below, until a different sound cut through the night. “The second trumpet.” He exhaled. “We really should—”

“I know.” I stood. “We should get back before the feast begins.” I saved him from having to say what he meant.Before anyone suspects you’re with me.

But even as I said it, Trig laced his hand in mine and tugged me back to the ground. He wrapped his hand behind my head, and that was all it took to forget everything else. His lips were on mine, and I melted into his touch.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks. It’s you and me, taking on the world together,” he said between kisses. And it might have made me a fool but I fully believed him. I could see our future as clearly as I could see my reflection in the stream that ran outside our house, and it was a glorious one filled with leading the clan, fighting side by side on raids, and keeping the Fjord strong amongst the clans of the north.

I kissed him once more, feeling the scratch of his beard brush against my chin and the pull of his hand against my back. “If we fight for this,” I said, “the gods will reward us for our determination, and nothing can separate what the gods put together.”

I sent a silent prayer up to Aegir.This is what I ask for. Keep your end of the deal, and I will move your altar to the front.

For one tender moment, all was good.

ThrEE

TOVA’S AXE PRESSED against my neck. Her shadow covered my own as she stood above me, both of us a few steps into the fjord because we liked the challenge the water provided.

“Ready?” she asked. I saw her reflection in the waves.

I set my grip on my axe. My knees buried in the shifting sands. “Ready.”

“You will die,” Tova mocked.

“You couldn’t kill me, even if we fought until the first frost came,” I said. And the training began.

We used to spar more civilly, starting with blunt poles and a healthy distance between us, but the years had grown our boldness until we started with one blade positioned against the other, mid-attack, so we weren’t wasting time with anything lessthan our full effort.

The axes were blunt, because if either of us cut off a limb,Móðirwould be so furious she might just sever the matching one from the other, but they still left a generous bruise. I knocked Tova’s axe away with the edge of my shield, jumped to my feet, and advanced.

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