Page 29 of Until the End of Ever
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Lucian. You and I both know you’re never wrong. Tell me.”
I wanted to be, this one time.
“You got three runes,” I said. “That number’s repeated across the creation of the world, over and over. There are three Fates, three Erinyes—and three times three titans. And just now—we were talking about three brothers, were we not?Kenaz, hagalaz, thurisaz,by themselves, shouldn’t have brought someone back to life. But those three brothers? They could.”
I was wrong. Ihadto be wrong.
Kenaz,rune of knowledge, creativity, transformation. Specifically, knowledge earned through sacrifice. Rebirth of the mind.
Hagalaz,rune of change, disruptive forces. Storms and earthquakes could be summoned through it if the caster was powerful enough.
Though there was a rune for Odin, the king of the Norse gods, his,Othalameant home, and inheritance. I wouldn’t associate the king of the Greek gods with it, whenThurisazexisted. The rune of power.
“You’re saying that what I have written on my skin,” Kleos whispered, “is Hades, Poseidon, Zeus.”
We were beyond avoiding names, it seemed.
And besides, they were spoken often enough in Highvale; the gods would get headaches if they paid attention every single time one of us invoked them. It was still foolish to call them in a temple, or in the Hall of Truce, but the manor was safe enough.
“I’m wrong,” I repeated, wanting her to confirm it.
The fact that Apollo himself had been so reluctant to say any name was the first clue. If an Olympian god was wary of our adversary, it must have been someone as strong as him or more so. And that list was short. Some of his siblings, perhaps—and the elder generation of gods.
But three runes.
“Except, you’re not, are you?”
I started to pace, my mind racing. “Your translation makes sense.”
“Does it?” she wrinkles her nose. “I mean, the sentence is logical, but why would it have brought me back to life?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck?—
“All right. All right. Maybe I’m not wrong. Maybe I am. The point is, we have somewhere to start right? If the runes stand for what I think they do, there are three possibilities for who could have written it. Because no one else would dare. Agreed?”
Kleos nodded. “And say one of those three did indeed invoke the names of the other two…they wouldn’t be particularly impressed with that, would they?”
The wild theory started to make far more sense than I wanted it to.
One of the three god-kings had built Kleos. And the puppet master behind the runes, behind the ritual and the curse, was one of the other two.
A noise made us both jump, completely unexpected and incongruous with the current mood. It was innocent enough: one of our phones rang.
I was almost glad of the interruption.
Kleos pulled out her outdated mobile phone, bringing it to her ear. “Yeah. Yes, I’m with him.” She marked a pause, her eyes widening. “What the fuck do you mean, a dragon hunt?”
12
KLEOS
“Adragon hunt?” Lucian repeated for what must have been the third time as we ran past the bridge, towards the main avenue.
We hadn’t called ahead for Ronan’s ride, and apparently words likedragon huntwarranted racing out of the house rather than waiting for a carriage, even in the underside.
“I mean, I thought there were only a handful of dragons in this whole world,” Lucian half yelled, jumping onto the back ramp of the tram just as it left the closest corner to his manor.
He reached out for me, though I was several steps away. There was no way I’d make it, I thought, just as a gust of energy pushed me forward.
