Page 6

TRIG SUCKED IN a breath. “Rune—”

“No,”

I swung to him. “Don’t.”

“Revoke your words now.”

He stared at the sky and backed away from me. “You didn’t mean it.”

“I did,”

I told him. “I renounce the faith.”

“Rune…”

But I was moving away. Soon, his pleas for me to take it back faded, and my mind was too clouded to hear his words anyway. Or perhaps it was clear for the first time. None had ever renounced the gods, but I was the first to see things for what they were. If I needed to be the first to take that step, then so be it. May others follow in my path and be free from empty words.

The gods were known for many things. Strength. Wisdom. Benevolence.

Yet, I knew them for only one: ignoring my voice.

On the slope of the mountainside grew a vineyard consecrated to the gods. It was miraculous for a vineyard to grow in a cold place such as this—much less to thrive as it did—so the clans were convinced it must be our wondrous gods who kept the grapes alive, and as such, the wine was only allowed for healing purposes. It was a waste of good wine.

Those who were truly desperate would come here to pray. They thought they could speak to the gods better here, believing it to be their favorite place to visit.

“Rubbish,”

I said as the hillside came into view. Ten acres of vines stretched before my eyes, filled with the plumpest grapes I’d ever seen, bursting with dark purples and the rich scent of wine. “The gods are enjoying their wine in Asgard and have no need for ours.”

The morning was early, with the sun stubbornly set below the mountains and only a hint of dusty pale light in the air, just enough to see the misty cloud that hung low over the vines. I crossed beneath the wooden archway and set foot on the paved path stretching down the various aisles. Above, a sign read, ‘Behold, the gods are near.’

I’d never felt them so far away.

That feeling was gone, the sense that they were behind my shoulder, watching over everything I did. That they were always just a prayer away. That they saw everything. That somehow, someday I’d do something great enough to gain their approval. Even that tender wish was gone, and I felt bare without it.

I wrapped my arms around myself, treading through the chilly morning and letting the vines brush against me, feeling the occasional grape break underfoot. The gods would hate that—me trampling on their precious grapes—but if they cared, they’d need to come down and tell me so.

The first time my prayer went unanswered, I’d doubted my faith. If they do not answer, why do we pray? Faoir had no answer.

It wasn’t the next day, or the next month, but the question clung to me like the thick robes of our seer, growing heavier each day, and somewhere along the way they built a home inside me with the subtle whisper that I could be wrong.

It wasn’t a whisper now. It was louder than a Viking’s battle cry.

“None of this is true.”

The words were faint on my lips as I tasted the blasphemy. It tasted like truth. “I see now. All of this—it was never real.”

The idea hewed at my heart until it broke into something I didn’t recognize, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch the pieces fast enough before they fell out of place. I was too far broken to reassemble the same way as before. However I’d fit back together—I’d be different.

I tilted my head to the sky out of habit, staring through the thin clouds. I yelled out, “What am I to do then? I made you my entire life. What do I believe in if not you?”

The skies didn’t darken or rumble in reply, as much as I wanted them to. “If you are there, answer me!”

It was a desperate plea, and the sound came straight from my soul. “If you are there, do not leave me alone.”

But I was alone. For the first time, I was convinced there was no one who could answer anyway. The sky was an empty vault holding the broken mutters of prayers, and the clouds would watch and laugh as we grasped at coincidences and claimed them to be miracles.

With my head upward, my feet stumbled, and I caught myself against the trellis of the vines. When I looked down, my fingers brushed against a grape. I hesitated.

What was one more test?

My nerve almost backed down, but somehow it held fast.

“I should not be able to do this,”

I said. My heart pounded in my chest. If these vineyards were really the gods’, and the stories of men were true, one bite of the sacred grapes would kill me. Don’t do this. Walk away. If you’re wrong, you’ll die. But I was beyond logic now. I was nothing more than a shell of blinding frustration, and right now my faith lay in tatters at my feet.

I needed to know.

I looked up. My confusion gave way to determination. I’d find out for certain if the gods were real, then move forward down whatever path was before me. “Smite me if you are real, and prove you are powerful.”

To my knowledge, for as long as this vineyard had stood, no mortal had tasted the grapes. That would change today.

My hand wavered ever so slightly before it tossed the grape into my mouth. I bit down hard, then clenched my entire body to see what would happen.

The grape tasted lovely, only dimmed by the fear humming inside and what would come next. Nothing did.

Thor did not come down with his lightning.

Odin did not scorch me from the face of the land.

If the gods saw, they made no note of it.

“Just as I suspected,”

I whispered. It was an odd mixture of defeat and triumph radiating through me, with the knowledge that I was right in the gods being an illusion and the loss of what I once held on such a pedestal.

I plucked another grape from the vine. “At least now I know.”

I tossed it into my mouth. “Now I know the gods are not real.”

I moved through the vineyard at a quick pace, stopping only long enough to pluck a small bushel of grapes and eat them as I walked. I ate one after the other, each growing my strength until I was revitalized enough to come up with a new plan. I could not go back to my old clan. It wasn’t worth the heartache. Instead, I’d find a new one. I’d forge a new path through the hill until I found a clan small enough to need extra help, and I’d craft a home for myself there. I’d farm with them. I’d raid with them. But I would not pray with them.

From now on, I fought for my own dreams, instead of handing them off to some god.

I stopped at the end of the vineyard, overlooking the rolling hills. The sun was quite high now, though still cloaked by clouds, and the sea of green held a muddy color. Those seas of tall grasses held my future. Perhaps I’d turn myself into a legend. Be a god myself.

Rune, the god of determination and wit. Bring her sacrifices of sugary breads and sharp axes, and she will be happy.

I chuckled to myself. “What a fine future that would be.”

I took one step out of the vineyard when a rustle sounded behind me. I froze.

“Did you say something?”

A man spoke with the smoothest voice I’d ever heard, and I turned slowly. He stood uphill from me, strolling through the narrow path, with a strong build that said he’d known much manual labor. His pure white tunic didn’t fit a worker, and his skin was unblemished by the sun. He had dark, graying hair cut short and wrinkles by the corners of his eyes to give him a permanent smile.

He must be tending the vineyards. I wiped my hands on my sides, hoping he hadn’t seen me feasting on the grapes. “No, I didn’t say anything.”

“I see.”

He paused not far from me and gave me a knowing smile that I shifted beneath. “I thought I heard something.”

I cleared my throat. There was no reason to be uncomfortable, but I found it difficult to speak with his gaze on me. “I did say something,”

I admitted. “But only to myself. I’m sorry to intrude.”

I bowed, then backed away. He didn’t move until I’d turned completely and gone ten steps away.

“I have been summoned here,”

he said. His words were hollow like they might not be meant for me, but they stopped me all the same. There was a power to them, like I was being drawn into his presence. He continued. “And I believe it was you who called me.”

“Called you?”

I spoke carefully.

“Yes. Did you call for me?”

He folded his hands in front of his body and stood with such stillness that he might have been content if I waited a hundred years to answer that simple question.

I did not have a hundred years. I edged backward. “I did not, I’m sorry.”

“Are you certain?”

he asked quickly. “There is something about you I recognize. Who are you?”

He came closer, and I struggled not to flee as gooseflesh spread over my body. “Do you work here?”

I pointed up the hill. “I’m from the Fjord Clan. I mean no harm.”

His attention snapped to my arm, and with lightning speed, he was beside me and digging his fingers into my wrist where the skin was tender. He traced his other hand over the scars. “What is this?”

I yanked away. I only had a dulled axe at my back, but it’d do the trick. “It’s none of your concern.”

Now close, his features were off. He was younger than I’d originally guessed, with skin far too smooth and movements too steady to belong to a man of old age. And the size of him was massive. His shadow towered over me, and I took a step back.

His expression had shifted from blank to puzzled, and he looked at me with intensity. “Who are you?”

There was a small dagger at my hip I’d forgotten about, and I inched my hand that way while trying to keep my voice light and feet steady. I opened my mouth, and the answer came out with a little laugh. “I am the goddess Rune,”

I joked. I took a few steps back, giving a little bow with my exit. “I am the goddess of determination and wit.”

His face went slack once more. He was insane, I realized. His mind was lost.

I took that as my cue to leave, and turned once more.

There was the sound of something smacking the hard dirt, and curiosity made me look back. The man had bent his knee into the ground and bowed his head. He put an arm over his chest and looked up with tears like diamonds in the corners of his sea-blue eyes.

When he spoke now, it was low and echoing, as if he’d prepared his entire life for this one line. “We’ve been searching for you for a long time.”

Those words haunted me, but I didn’t know why.

I shook myself from the trance that came with being near him. “You’re confused.”

That was the only explanation I had for his behavior. His mind was failing him. It wasn’t warm enough for the heat to numb his senses, but perhaps he’d gone too long without food or water. I reached for the grape vines. “Here, take some nourishment.”

He took the grape and crushed it in his hand. “I’ve not lost my mind.”

He stepped closer, those piercing eyes fixated on mine. He didn’t move like a weary man, nor did he speak like one. There was nothing but sureness in his actions now. “Were you not calling out to me? You cry out to the gods, yet you are so surprised when they show up?”

He claims to be a god. I had my proof he was not sound in thinking, though it seemed rude to tell him so twice. Instead, I stepped away.

Before I could slip from his reach, he grabbed my arm again. His fingers curled gentler this time, but the action was enough that I inched for my blade. “Your voice reached us in Asgard,”

he said. “I was meant to find you and bring you home.”

I thrashed away and drew out my dagger. “Don’t touch me. The gods are not real. I renounced them.”

“Renounced them?”

This was the first time he looked mad. “You renounce the ones who guard you? Who give you water to drink and food to eat? You could not renounce us if you tried, especially you.”

When I pushed my blade closer to him, he laughed at it. “This would have been much easier had I found you as a child. I would have taught you to wield your weapon better.”

With a quick movement, he grabbed the blade—the blade—and ripped it from my hand.

Fear coursed through me. I stumbled back. “Leave me alone.”

I meant it to sound like an order, but it came out like a plea.

“No. For the first time in decades, I feel alive again.”

His hand jolted out once more to grab my wrist, and my body froze. His grip wasn’t strong, but my body was collapsing under it. He was stealing all my strength.

My knees wobbled while darkness trickled in the corner of my vision. Colors blurred. My body became sluggish while I screamed, ordering my limbs to move as a heavy sleep threatened to settle over me. All the while, the man watched as I tried to fight it. When my legs were too heavy to keep upright, I sank to my knees.

“Are you going to kill me?”

I managed to ask.

His arms lifted me with surprising strength and wind rushed against my face as all else drifted away. “No, child. I’m taking you to Asgard where you belong. We shall see if you dare to renounce us then.”