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Maude’s lungs were still burning from the breakneck speed with which she had fled from The Gray Goblet Inn.

From Herrick. From her fate.

The crumpled letter from her sister was still clutched in her grasp, the damning words on them mocking her from where they were printed. As soon as Maude rediscovered her numb limbs, she made a snap decision to run.

She scaled down the wall and grabbed her pack, checking to make sure the dalkr Hela was still inside her boot before choosing Revna’s path of escape: the rope tied to a rooftop a few blocks into the city. She had stood before the window, her belongings strapped to her shoulders, when she hesitated.

This will destroy him , she had thought, but he won't understand.

She had hastily scribbled out a few words onto a paper and addressed it to Herrick:

This isn’t about you

I need to do this for myself--

I must. Please forgive--

Forgive me.

Maude ripped the bottom part of the page with the request she knew he would never be able to honor and left it on the bed they had shared.

On top of the damning note, she balanced the necklace he had given her to remind her that her power was not destruction but strength.

Her heart clenched at the sight of it, the pain almost so unbearable that she wanted to stay.

She had turned from the necklace, from the emotion choking her, and hardened her heart again as she stepped toward the window.

She’d returned to the roof and slung her mother’s shawl over the rope before leaping.

The wind cut around her almost flying form, deafening her with its volume.

Maude couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own heart shattering, though.

Tears burned in her eyes, but she kept moving forward.

Her boots hit the rooftop Revna had landed on only minutes before her, shaking Maude to her very core.

Refusing to look over her shoulder, she kept moving. Opting to scale down the side of the building, she landed on the top of a stable that had two horses already saddled for a journey.

Revna .

She must have known that Maude would want to flee after what she read about. Bryn seemed to know her sister all too well.

Placing her packs in the ones already on the horse, Maude swung herself on top of the great beast, its blood bay coat shining like spilled wine, just like hers under the moonlight. Placing her bow in her lap, Maude kicked her heels back and leaned forward, the horse following her commands smoothly.

They burst into the rounded streets, startling the few citizens still awake in the long hours of the night. Maude steered the beast left toward the western gate they had entered through, paying careful attention to the streets and turns she needed to utilize to get out of the city.

“Concentric bullshit,” she muttered to herself as she navigated the arcing streets.

Finally, the tall stone gates loomed in front of her; the carved wooden doors sealed shut for the night.

Refusing to slow, Maude shouted to open the gates to the few guards who were posted.

When they didn’t, Maude held her palm out in front of her, her galder moving through her in large waves that she could barely contain for much longer.

“Please don’t make me do this,” she said, more to herself than anyone else.

When the gates didn’t budge, Maude shut her eyes and propelled a large stream of her fire.

It slammed into the glossy wood and instantly went up in flames.

She flicked her fingers, creating an air shield around her and the horse, before they leaped forward through the flames of the crumbling gates and into the wild lands of the Dead Wastes.

Maude spared a glance over her shoulder to make sure no innocents were injured. Her flames that she had directed toward the gate were spiraling into and around the city walls now, harmlessly bouncing off the gray stone that they had used to rebuild the city after her mother had burnt it down.

Fitting that Maude would be the one almost to destroy the city again.

As she watched her flames continue to dance within the city, she realized she was not in control of them anymore.

Unsettled, Maude tried to push it to the back of her mind unsuccessfully.

She had difficulty controlling her galder due to her heightened emotions most of the time, but never had it behaved this way.

It was acting like it had a mind of its own, like it was entirely apart from Maude.

She kept her eyes forward as the rolling wastes blurred past. Herrick would be looking for her soon.

Her chest caved in at the thought of him, the now constant pain threatening to overwhelm her.

Perhaps this was why her galder was reacting this way.

She had always had the strongest hold of her galder when she was with… him.

Even now, the further she was from him, the less she felt him. It was an indescribable feeling that settled in her chest— an almost empty, gaping wound where he had previously buried himself .

Pushing away the new hollowness that settled into her bones, Maude tried to focus on the journey ahead of her to Logi. She already had a plan in place before she met with Revna, thanks to her friends.

Another sharp ache in her chest formed. Gods, would they ever be her friends again after this? Unable to process her thoughts clearly, Maude instead allowed herself to mourn the life she thought she could have with her friends, with Herrick.

Three days. She had three days to wallow and rage at how the gods had managed to take every good thing from her before her life had begun.

Three days to try and understand why no one told her the most important part of her fate telling from all those years ago.

It was enough time to gather herself enough to finish the only task that kept her from living a full life; it would have to be.

She kept her head down as she rode into the dawn on her stolen horse, allowing herself to be consumed by her rage and misery. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and her throat thickened with the emotion that swelled in her. But still, she fled from where her heart desired to stay.

Maude rode through the rest of the night and well into the day until she cleared the Dead Wastes.

She had only spotted one group of draugr and had easily demolished them, finding herself unable to pass up the opportunity to let out some of her galder that had been swirling beneath her shell like a second skin.

A small fire crackled in front of her behind the large boulder she had found that separated the Dead Waste from the red sands of the desert that she was so familiar with.

Her back to the rock, Maude watched the flames and embers reach up toward the night sky like they wished to be a part of the heavens and the gods who lived there .

The letter from her sister was burning a hole in her pocket.

Maude pulled out the wrinkled paper and scanned over the contents for what felt like the millionth time.

Skipping over the parts about her father, she reached the part of the message that had rocked Maude so viscerally that she had gone into a fight-or-flight panic.

I’ve been reading mothers journals and discovered something I believe was withheld from you, sister.

On the night of your fate telling, Father had become distracted when your third rune was pulled, but Mother heard the full telling.

The Grand Soothsayer informed Mother that the King would not care for the rune and that it was her fate to protect you.

I read later that Father had told you of your fate despite the laws of our land forbidding it. And still, Mother did not tell you of this last rune.

I believe it is why your fatemark is so unorthodox. The Grand Soothsayer pulled “gebo” as your final rune and prophesied that you would enter a partnership that would bring a great sacrifice.

I suspect you’ve been traveling with the Kolbecks of the Kingdom of Rivers, and I suspect they have been responsible for many of our people being smuggled to safety.

I think that if you are working together, this may be the partnership the Grand Soothsayer predicted for you.

I know you have been running from your fate for a long time, but if this relationship is the one that brings sacrifice, I thought it only fair that you should know.

You will make your own decisions, as you always have, in the face of your fate. If sacrifice is part of your fate, then perhaps it is wise to continue this mission on your own. Regardless of how you choose to move forward, my assistance is owed to you in this.

By now, Revna will have informed you of the gates that will be left open three days from when you receive this letter. Use the time wisely, Maude.

Brynn a

Maude traced her finger over the rune Bryn had drawn, the small X with the slightly longer line on the left crossing over the center just to veer off course and the shorter line that never was linear. Gebo .

From her lessons with their mother, Maude was always told that the crossing point of the rune mark symbolized the connection between two souls destined for each other.

Her mother had explained that the two lines that met were the lifespans of each person, the shorter one representing the life span that would be shortened from self-sacrifice.

When she saw the rune in her sister's letter, Maude instantly knew that her words were true.

She had always told Herrick that those she cared about ended up hurt or dead, that he would end the same way.

And he hadn't listened to her. They had been drawn together since her birth, destined to form a bond that would tie them together until one of them died.

She had burned in her fury when she read that her full fate telling had been kept from her.

Her father had shared her fate with her despite the laws that the Grand Soothsayer had laid out.

Her mother should have told her instead of laying out thinly veiled threats about it.

Maude’s rage drove her to abandon her friend's plan to infiltrate the palace, but her love for Herrick also made her leave.

At that very moment when her eyes had taken in the rune, the decision had already been made for her. Maude had to leave Herrick behind to keep him safe, to keep him alive.

She knew he would never understand because he followed his fate so devotedly, but Maude refused to be responsible for his demise. She would not be able to breathe in a world where he was not living.

Love, like the ones in the stories, does not have a place in your reality.

Putting her hand to her chest, Maude felt her racing heart.

She tried not to notice the absence of the necklace Herrick had given her.

Tried to calm herself by focusing on her breathing.

Shadows crept in around her vision as the sun set until even the fire before her was dim.

Her breaths started to come in short, painful bursts, unable to fill her lungs with the oxygen she needed to take a full breath.

For the next few hours, Maude lay on her side, succumbing to the panic that had set deep into her bones the moment she escaped through the window. Only once the moon was high in the sky did Maude peel herself off the ground from the puddle of emotion she had drowned in and kept moving.

By the end of the second day, Maude was able to gather herself enough to run through her plan.

Every snag and dip that caused a problem forced her to rethink the strategy until she knew it was perfect. Maude sat between high dunes in the desert, withdrawing the dalkr Hela , careful not to slice through her skin.

The blade was sharp, and its smooth, matte white surface absorbed the moonlight while the black metal hilt cast shadows from its aura. Just like that day in the Caverns, the metal was ice cold despite having been stored in Maude’s boot and wrapped in a thick cloth.

She gently replaced the dagger she always wore at her thigh with the dalkr Hela , sheathing it slowly in case the honed edge cut through the leather protecting it. Maude looked down at her dagger, the dark gray blade reflecting no light but rather absorbing it entirely.

Ancient runes that Maude had never been able to translate were etched into the base of the blade, and the red strip of silk that she had wound around the handle was tattered and frayed.

The dagger had been gifted to her by her mother the morning she fled from the palace with instructions to meet her in her chambers after supper. Instead, Mama had died .

During Maude’s fight with her father, a strip of his red silk coat had torn from his jacket after he sliced her face open.

She had grabbed it right before she had fallen to her knees to slow her fall.

When she finally stopped running, she found the strip in her pocket and decided to tie it around the dagger as a reminder.

Choosing to tie her blade into her belt instead of her boot, Maude stood and saddled the stolen horse. She ran a hand over its neck and made a few soothing sounds. The mare bumped its nose against her shoulder.

“We’re almost there,” she whispered. “It’s almost finished.”

Logi’s outline started to become clearer by noon, the tall golden spires of the palace welcoming her.

The black stone stood stark against the orange light from the desert that surrounded Logi, the city's red buildings blazing in the afternoon heat.

Maude looked up at what her first home had been and felt only hatred; the toxic emotion that had been swirling in her since she discovered her last fate rune intensified.

They all hid this from her. He made her into a killer. Into him.

Years of staring up at the palace’s black walls looming over her while she planned her father’s demise began to pay off.

Years of rage and hate fueled this last chance to destroy the man who made her life a living hell, even after she ran away.

The scar she bore from his hand was a daily reminder of how she was exactly the monster he said she was—a daily reminder of the destruction that followed in her wake.

Tonight, she would end the tyranny that ruled over Logi. Tonight, Maude would get her revenge.