Page 22

BY THE TIME I reached Hitta Haven, I was soaked in sweat, drowned in fury, and primed with a new plan.

“I’ve been doing this all wrong,”

I whispered as I stripped the steel blades from my damp forearms and let them clatter to the ground outside the temple. Let those serve as an ominous warning to all who come near. Don’t. The door swung silently as I stormed inside the temple to the only place that felt safe in this entire world, and still it wasn’t safe enough.

I’d wanted to uncover if I was the missing goddess as if that mattered. It didn’t. My past, my parents, my bloodline, none of that held me captive. I was bound to nothing other than my own fate, and that was in my hands. Even if I was born here, I owed Asgard nothing; even if I belonged on Earth, I owed my clan nothing.

The pyre of unanswered questions would relentlessly burn in the back of my mind, but if Tova and I were out of Asgard safely, then nothing else mattered. That had my complete focus.

All she had to do was survive in three days’ time, when the remaining mortals were let loose in the city and the last one standing claimed victory. She would be the victor.

“Rune.”

I stumbled at Trig’s voice, and spun. He stood here, unaccompanied, unchained, and squinting through the bright light seeping through the tall windows, casting the entire room in a glow that filled the spaces our stare took up. Trig stepped over the daggers I’d dropped.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“What are you doing? Where is Odin?”

I held back, watching as he slipped into the room and took in every inch of it. His defenses were down, and the sharp tone he’d taken with Odin melted into caution before me, but my defenses were up. Very, very up.

“Your grandfather,”

he accented the word as he rolled up his sleeves, “gave me permission to come. He thought it would help clear your head. He offered detailed threats, should I try to escape.”

It would take much more than talking with Trig to clear my head.

But there were things I wanted to say to Trig. A lot of things. Some of them nice, but most of them were not, and those overpowered the kind ones. Even so, I held my tongue. I’d had my time of anger when I fought with Tova and it’d done no good there. It would do less here. He couldn’t change time. He couldn’t promise me he loved me when it was nothing compared to what I saw between him and Tova. And the urge to fight him had gone away until there was only an ache left.

Reconciliation wouldn’t be found here. I wouldn’t try.

“Tova will win,”

I told him. That was what he wanted to hear. I knew because that was what I wanted to hear. “I will make sure of it.”

“I know,”

he answered, and I couldn’t tell if he meant he knew Tova was strong enough to win, or if he knew I would do anything for my sister. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing here though.”

I gave a dry laugh as I settled onto the sofa, curling my legs beneath me. “I wish someone would answer for me. The truth is I don’t know why I’m here. They think I’m someone I’m not, or perhaps I am. Whatever the case, they’ve given me refuge here.”

Trig came to sit beside me, and his eyes landed on mine. It was odd being close to him again, and even odder to not have my heart beat faster at his presence. “And you believe you are safe? Rune, when they find out you are a mortal—”

I cut him off. “I’ve never believed I’m safe. No matter where I am.”

He stilled. The torchlight ignited the sparks of blue in his eyes. He squeezed my hand gently before letting it drop. “I won’t say you were safe with me, because I broke your heart into pieces.”

I laid my hands flat on my lap, palms up, remembering how they’d tightened into fists when Trig came near that night after asking Tova to marry him. How they’d squeezed the branches, willing him to fight me. How I’d cursed his name.

“We were never meant to be.”

I lifted my gaze to check his and found it thoughtful.

“I don’t believe our destinies are fated. I think they are like a river, forging its path as years go by, changing its course when it desires.”

He was forgetting something about rivers—that they were creatures of habit, not likely to change their trails. That was what I feared most, that my destiny was not one I could change. That I was doomed to always be the weak runt of the clan, either on Earth or here in Asgard, and nothing I did would fix that. No matter how hard I fought, things would always end up like Trig and I had—doomed.

“Whatever our fate was meant to be,”

Trig started. He reached beneath his neckline to pull out the necklace of the bear tooth I’d given him. “I’m glad for my time with you.”

His hand found mine again, and this time, I squeezed back.

He stood. “I was going to ask you to marry me, you know? Next week in the clearing, as the autumn trees were losing their leaves, I was going to ask you to be my wife.”

He gave a long look at me. “But I guess things worked out.”

It was an odd feeling to know that at some point in time I might have gotten what my heart had desired but to realize that I desired it no longer. As Trig walked away, I asked one final question. “You love her?”

He looked back. “I can’t explain how it happened so quickly. But I do.”

He took the bear tooth necklace off and tossed it to me.

I caught it. “Then yes, things worked out for the best.”

Over Trig’s shoulder, Ve came up the stairs of Hitta Haven only to stop in the doorway when his eye found Trig. His gaze cut to me.

Trig cleared his throat. “I was just leaving.”

Thankfully, Ve didn’t say anything as Trig stepped by him, giving him a wide berth. Their eyes met briefly before both falling away, leaving behind stale air that only stiffened as Trig headed down the path and into the trees toward Odin’s home. As he did, one of Odin’s guards, clad in armor resembling a wolf, stepped from the shadows to accompany him.

I had a feeling Ve would move faster if Trig tried anything.

Ve checked over his shoulder to be sure Trig was gone. “What did he want?”

From his tone, he didn’t think Trig wanted anything good.

“Answers,”

I replied, looking over the necklace in my hand. I dropped it on the sofa. “And to share concern over Tova.”

Ve shook his head. “He should be groveling for forgiveness after what he did to you.”

“He was only obeying his faoir,”

I replied, though unsure why. The excuse had been weak when it came from Trig two weeks ago.

From Ve’s expression, it was weak now. “Faoir doesn’t like me seeing you, yet I don’t obey him.”

I snapped my head up, stilling Ve before he stepped closer. “Your faoir asked you not to see me?”

His head tilted to the side and the corner of a brow raised. “Did you think he liked you? You fought him.”

“That was his idea!”

Then my voice dropped. “But yes, I was aware he didn’t like me. It will likely bring him great joy when he inevitably finds out we are not together.”

Ve shucked off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “It’ll be eons before that happens, but likely so.”

As the tension caused by Trig dissipated, we fell into a more familiar stance. It paved the way for what I wanted to know. The question bounced in my mind a few times before landing softly on my tongue. “How were the other opponents?”

The silence was loud. The shadows of coming night lurked into the room, hiding his eyes from me, even as he moved forward, almost to my side.

“Determined. And it was clear other gods are pulling strings here, though Odin claims to not see it. Illegal weapons are in play. Tonics protected some from being struck. Some healed their wounds in the blink of an eye. Impenetrable armor. Unnatural strength. Tova and Glyn’s match appeared to be the only fair one.”

Though we both knew it wasn’t.

“I thought no one was to interfere with the Champion Games? You were very adamant about that.”

“I remain so. If Odin catches you, it’ll be your head.”

He bit his lip, contemplating the next part. “So don’t get caught.”

A rush of relief filled me. I was going to interfere with or without Ve’s help, but having him on my side would make it much easier. “So Tova fights more than just other mortals. She fights the workings of gods.”

“And she will beat them.”

I shut my eyes as I drew in a long breath and every bit of knowledge I could find. “How do we beat the mortals if the gods are helping them cheat?”

Ve thought. “As it happens, I’m also a god of healing, so I can grant Tova a tonic to protect her from mild afflictions. It won’t be perfect, and it’ll have to be dampened enough that it isn’t traced back to me.”

“People will likely guess it was my fiancé who helped Tova.”

“As long as it can’t be proven, that won’t matter. Now,”

he went on, “I can fashion armor thin enough to be worn beneath her tunic, and strong enough to withstand an arrow. But I can do nothing to improve her weapon’s aim.”

I grinned. “She won’t need help there.”

“Then she’ll be fine.”

He sounded so certain, I almost believed it.

Outside, a bright blue light claimed the sky, starting as a silver spark and expanding past the line of the trees until it was higher than Odin’s mountain, then high enough that it was like a star. The light hung there, expanding, before it burst into sparkles to fall like rain.

As it fell, a new light took its place, shooting up from the ground.

“What is that?”

Ve moved to open the door to Hitta Haven and beckon me to sit on the smooth, marble stairs beside him. “This is how we honor those who fell today. One light for each of them.”

Cool air hit me as I stepped outside and lifted my chin. The second light was exploding, and the shimmer fell so far, it landed on the leaves around us, on the pillars of the temple, and at our feet. As soon as the dust settled, a third went up.

“It isn’t much,”

Ve said as it climbed the sky. “But we are honored by the lives given today.”

I kept my mouth shut as a fourth went off. As it did, I spoke Glyn’s name in my mind. This light would be for her. For her strength, for her persistence, and for her fight. For the sacrifice of her life instead of Tova’s.

The fifth and final light of tonight went up. Five lives lost today. Five more tomorrow. Nine on the final day.

“There’s one last thing,”

Ve said as the final light settled. He stayed outside, elbows on his knees and head cocked to see me. “Tomorrow while the second round of champions fight, you’ll be below the arena, in the cells, training with Tova.”

His words sucked the air from me. I’d trained with her hundreds of times, but having one final time, it meant the world to me. “Odin will let me in the cells?”

“He wouldn’t, but he needn’t know. I convinced the guard at the back doors to let you slip in.”

“How?”

Ve swallowed, and his lips twisted sourly before replying. “Merely by reminding him what it would feel like for you to watch your sister die. His pity has granted you one final moment together.”

He said it so plainly, but I guessed that was merely a coat of paint over a mansion of hurt underneath. Quite possibly, Ve reminded the guard of his own pain—of how his sister had died, and it was pity for Ve that got me through those doors, not pity for me. For Ve and his sister never got one final moment together. But I would. And Ve would help me get many more.

The night was still around us, and I kept my eyes on it as I spoke in a low voice. “I know about your sister.”

His head snapped up. “Liv told me.”

I dared to glance at him, and saw how his mouth pressed tight.

Then it relaxed. “I suppose it was a difficult secret to keep hidden. Yes, my sister died on Earth, and I know it makes no sense that I’d be so desperate to go somewhere that killed her, but it was a place Elain loved. It feels like honoring her to find out why she loved it. Like if I don’t go, then her death was pointless.”

That’s how Liv had described it to me too. His desire to go to Earth was so wrapped up in his memory of his sister that now he had to get there if only to keep the memory alive. I wished to know what to say in regard to his hurt, but if the years had taught me anything, it was that pain wasn’t easily washed away by words, no matter how pretty. Though people often tried.

Instead, I made him a promise as I placed a hand over his. “Someday, I’ll show you all the beautiful parts of Earth for her.”

That earned me a smile. Making him smile right now felt like a victory.

“She would have liked you,”

he told me. “Actually, she would have insisted you were too good for me, but she would have seen through this little ruse of ours in a heartbeat.”

“Has Leif questioned it?”

Ve laughed, wiping his eyes dry. “My brother isn’t keen enough. He’s congratulated me full-heartedly. But Elain would have gone along with it and been scheming behind our backs to make the romance real.”

He shifted so his knees touched mine and a scrap of my skirt fell over his heel. He thumbed the fabric absentmindedly as he spoke. “She was the heart of the family. The one who dulled Erik’s fire, the one who drew emotion from Leif, the one who encouraged me to paint. Each of us were closest with her, so when she passed, we lost our connection to each other.”

I listened, feeling like I was finally seeing him.

“I threw myself into painting after she died. I didn’t touch a weapon for months. My parents blamed Leif and me, and our relationship never recovered. And Leif threw himself into the relationships around him, until we’d all found a way to dull the pain but never speak of it.”

His eye were glossy again, and his hand finally let go of my dress to pick up my hand. A warmth spread through me. “Then you come into our lives like a blazing fire, and you remind me so much of her, it’s like she’s still here.”

The warmth dissipated. That is what I was to him—a bridge to his sister.

Still, I squeezed his hand. “I’m glad I can bring you some happiness.”

His eyes searched mine, and I tried not to look too deeply into his. But the feeling was hard to ignore. Even earlier, I’d come stomping into the temple thinking how I didn’t feel safe anywhere. But with Ve, I did. I felt fearless and protected at the same time. He gave me that, and I sought out his company not because he reminded me of anyone, but because I wanted him.

He made me feel more than safe, I realized. He made me feel alive.

I predicted this might happen when Ve first suggested we fake a relationship. He’d always made it easy. Loving him—faked or real—came naturally.

I knew I’d fall.

But I was falling too hard.

When we got to Danmark someday, we’d part ways so he could find the missing part of his heart. But I feared I’d be losing part of mine.

Unaware of the storm within me, he wrapped a strong arm around my waist and tugged me into him. “Thank you, Ruin,”

he breathed over my shoulder, “for being here with me.”

This time, the false name twisted inside me like a vine, ensnaring my mind. It was far too late to tell him my real name now.

I was grateful he couldn’t see my face.

He let go, and stood. “I should get home. Tomorrow, take the dirt path behind the arena to the slender iron door. The guard will let you in as the trumpets sound for the first match.”

I nodded, and he frowned.

“Are you alright? You seem upset.”

I willed my features to settle. “Merely thinking about tomorrow. Thank you for this time with Tova.”

“Of course.”

He left, and I realized I never took out my anger upon him for holding me back from helping Tova today. More than that, I realized I had no anger for him. Because he was protecting me, and instead of hating him, I loved him for it.