Rune Awakening

by Genevra Black

  Edie closed her eyes fully. It stung to keep them open.

  Wait ... if Cal was running toward her, and Satara was passed out beside her ... who had grabbed her?

  Edie shifted her elbows underneath her and tried to sit up. Her arms trembled and failed, and she fell on her back again.

  It was then that she felt a cold, slimy hand on her chest, pressing her firmly down.

  “Stay still, mortal.” It was a male voice, deep and flanging; each fried syllable ended in a sort of gurgle, as if forming these words was unnatural for the speaker.

  The sound of it set her hairs on end. Despite the aches in her shoulders and neck, Edie whipped her head around to look at her rescuer.

  She wasn’t sure what to call what was staring back at her. He was almost a sea creature, almost a man. His murky turquoise body was completely exposed and slimy-looking in the twilight, muscular and lean with long arms and a broad chest. The coloring there faded from a dark blue-green to white, like the underbelly of a fish, and black, maze-like markings covered his iridescent scales.

  He had no hair, just a barbed crest that followed his backbone. Spiny little ears and prominent, pale gills fanned out just behind his jaw and along his throat, and his eyes were enormous, almond-shaped, and pure black.

  Edie tried to sit up again, but the creature kept a firm hold on her. When she looked at his hand, she saw thick, fatty webbing between each of his fingers and—her puzzled and horrified gaze darted upward—almost the entire way up his arm.

  The flanging of the creature’s voice intensified, and his slitted nostrils flared. “Stay still, before I change my mind and break you upon these rocks.”

  Edie glanced at the rocks under her. The biggest one was barely the size of her fist. Was this guy for real?

  “Oh, by the Blessed Mare, you again!” cried a woman. Both Edie and the strange creature turned their heads to look in her direction.

  She was at least five foot eleven, with skin the color of the sand beneath them and hair longer than Edie had ever seen on a person, reaching to her knees even when swept up over one shoulder. She wore a sheer white dress and wooden jewelry, and held a tall staff. As she came closer, Edie noticed the skin on her bare arms and legs shimmering like scales. Her ears were long and webbed, peeking out from her curls, reaching toward the half-lit sky.

  But the ears, the fish guy, the fact that she’d almost just drowned ... all were dwarfed by the biggest surprise of all, coming up from behind the woman.

  Marius.

  He was in full armor and burning a hole in her with those golden eyes.

  The scaly woman waved her wooden staff at the creature kneeling next to Edie. “Shoo! Shoo!”

  Edie thought it seemed pretty silly to be waving a stick at such a big creature, but miraculously, it worked. The fish guy hissed and recoiled, retreating from the shore at once. Before Edie could even sit up fully, he was just a streak in the water.

  The woman snarled and planted the end of her staff in the sand, her other hand on her hip. “Good riddance. And my apologies. That disgusting thing has been haunting my shore for ages now.”

  Cal rushed to Edie’s side and helped her sit up more fully. Behind her, she could hear Satara coughing up seawater. The sound of Satara gagging and the way Cal was jostling her caused another surge up her throat, too; she rolled to the side and hacked out what felt like a gallon of hot bile.

  Great, just what she needed: Marius seeing her in another humiliating situation. That guy did not need more ammunition to use against her.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cal said, looking between her and Satara. “You’re both cut to shit.”

  Edie followed his gaze as it dropped to her bruised and scraped torso, then glanced over at Satara. Her tunic and leggings were torn, her hands scratched. Her face was smeared with blood from a cut on her forehead, and the feathers decorating her armor were soaked.

  Edie raised a hand to her own face, not surprised when it came away pink with blood and black from her ruined makeup.

  “You all right?” Cal asked over Edie’s shoulder. “Nothing broken?”

  “Just a few scrapes and bruises,” Satara managed between coughs, shaking her head. “I’ll be fine.” She looked up after a moment of gathering herself. “I see you’ve found Tiralda.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive, little darlings,” the strange woman said, leaning against her staff and watching them both with concerned eyes and drooping ears. “The sea here can be unforgiving, and so can her inhabitants.”

  Edie looked up at Tiralda, trying to ignore Marius only a few paces behind her. “Why did you chase that fish guy off? We’d both be dead if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Yeah,” Cal said, sounding rather indignant and oddly protective of Fish Guy now that the point had been made. “I didn’t see you or Sparky over there”—he tossed his head in Marius’s direction—“diving in to save anyone.”

  “Neither did you, rotter,” Marius returned under his breath.

  Cal’s grip on Edie’s arm tightened so hard she thought he might snap it in half, but she was still too dazed to smack him away. “Undead and water don’t mix … if we can help it.”

  Tiralda didn’t get the chance to answer Edie’s question. From behind them, there was a yowl of frustration.

  It was Satara, and when Edie turned to look at her, she was sitting with her shoulders tense and her forehead resting in her palms. “May this beach dry up into a desert,” she spat.

  “Whatever is the matter, dear one?” Tiralda asked, yanking her staff from the sand and crouching near the younger woman. Her white dress billowed out around her in the soft breeze like something from a perfume commercial, riding up her thighs. The skin there was speckled a much lighter color, and the pearly scales were especially prominent that far up her leg. As she laid a hand on Satara’s shoulder, Edie noticed that the sorceress, too, had shimmering webbing between her fingers.

  “I was holding Astrid’s spear when I fell. I … dropped it. The shield at my back was washed away, too.”

  Damn, Edie thought. She didn’t know much about the provenance of the weapons, but they had to be pretty old. They’d definitely looked it.

  “I see,” Tiralda said, frowning. “Astrid will not be happy to hear that….”

  Satara gritted her teeth and glared at the sea. “No, she won’t. I may need your help retrieving them.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” The sorceress spread her hands apologetically. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be happy to dive and search for it, but I must leave my home as soon as possible. There is no time for such things.”

  “Leaving?” Edie piped in. Wasn’t she supposed to be a hermit or something? “Why?”

  “Because she’s coming with me.” Marius crossed his arms, chainmail glimmering in the quickly darkening twilight.

  “What?” Satara, Cal, and Edie said it at almost the exact same time.

  Their confusion seemed to give the vivid joy. He smirked. “She’s agreed to help the Aurora move against the Gloaming ... and anyone else who might stand in our way.”

  “The Aurora?” Satara whipped around to face Tiralda properly. “You swore years ago that you would help the Reach, should we ever need you.”

  Tiralda shook her head apologetically but firmly. “Exactly. Years ago. My oath is old and severed. Things have changed. The threads of fate skew troublingly. I’ve seen it, as others have. I see the Gloaming rising like the tides of this sea, clamoring for power and washing away innocent people in the process.” She glanced at Edie. “The Reach is simply not equipped to stop it.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Cal gestured from Tiralda to Marius. “You think the Aurora ain’t gonna do the exact same thing? You think they won’t hurt innocent people?”

  Tiralda rose from where she was crouched near Satara. When she looked at Cal now, her face looked ... different. The ridge of her brow was more prominent, cheekbones sharp. Her pupils dilated, webbed ears flaring. “Hold your
tongue, zombie,” she snapped.

  Cal stood as well, hazy eyes narrowing. “You don’t care about innocent people. You just care about being all self-righteous. You just wanna win.”

  The sorceress glared at Cal but addressed Edie: “At least your father knew how to keep his thrall quiet. And this is who Astrid grooms as the new Reacher?” Her gaze slid over Edie and landed on Satara. “A clueless, powerless child? Was this supposed to impress me?”

  Edie had no idea what Tiralda was talking about—besides insulting her, and she was getting used to that by now—but her questions could wait till later. Edie’s blood heated, flushing her cheeks. “Don’t talk about Cal like that.” She tried to sound as authoritative as she could while also using a nearby boulder to stand up fully.

  She almost immediately regretted trying. Her lungs felt completely burnt out and her entire body ached from the beating it had taken. With a yelp, she faltered, stumbling down onto one knee. Oh, god.

  More vomit and water came, pinkish this time; and there was a new pain, blossoming in her stomach.

  “Edie?” Cal turned to her, his voice soft, but it wasn’t his hand she felt on her shoulder. It was way too warm.

  She looked up and realized Marius had come up from behind to help steady her. He was looking at her with his usual tight-lipped disapproval.

  “Stay still,” he said, and after a moment, she felt warmth spreading from her shoulders, all through her body. The warmth soothed the ache in her lungs and numbed the pain of her bruises and cuts.

  Then she felt it flow gently into the tangle of pain in her middle. It felt like taking the first sip of a hot drink, hot enough that you can feel it change the temperature of your body as it slides down your throat and relaxes into your belly. The heat was intense on the pain—painful on its own for a few moments—before it eased and disappeared, burning the ache away with it.

  It was only when he’d already pulled away that she realized what he’d done. “You healed me,” she murmured, brow furrowing. She followed him with her gaze, confused.

  Marius’s disapproval never faltered. “You had minor internal bleeding.”

  “I thought you wanted me dead.”

  “I’d settle for a thank-you.”

  She didn’t miss the fact that he hadn’t countered her assumption. After a second, she obliged, albeit quietly. “Thank you.”

  He didn’t even nod, just looked past her and Cal, motioning for Tiralda. “My lady, we should leave as soon as possible. Radiant Eirik was very clear that I should deliver you as soon as I found you.”

  Tiralda shifted, her wooden bangles clanking against her staff as she did. “Yes, very well, Vivid. Let me pack my spinning wheel and a few other things, and I will be ready to go with you.”

  Marius gave them all one last look of warning—a look that said don’t even think of following us—before he turned and followed Tiralda down the beach.

  Chapter Twenty

  So, that was it. The seidr-woman had slipped through their fingers.

  “She was a jackass anyway,” Cal murmured, more to Edie than to Satara, who was trudging ahead as the dejected group made their way back up shore, toward the campsite.

  “Yeah.” Edie glanced over, fingering a bruise on her brow. “Sorry,” she added.

  Cal shrugged, but Edie knew that what the sorceress had said was bothering him. He didn’t need to say anything. Maybe whatever bond they shared let her see it more clearly, but he was upset. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to move through the world known only as Richard Holloway’s property. It was exhausting enough being recognized as his daughter.

  “What was her deal, anyway? Like, what is she?” She looked at the back of Satara’s head, where her baby hairs clung to her neck, still wet.

  “She’s a vættr, a nature spirit. But that’s a broad term. Specifically, Tiralda is a sjóvættr—sea spirit,” Satara said. “In the beginning times, vættr were physical manifestations of their respective elements, but … as you can see, they’ve developed beyond that.” She sighed hard. “I couldn’t tell you much more, myself. They’re very secretive.”

  “And did you get a load of that fish guy?” Edie could still remember the feeling of his weird, cold hand on her chest, holding her down.

  “I’m not sure what that was,” Satara admitted softly. “But we do owe it our lives.”

  Cal rolled his eyes. “We coulda thanked him if Ursula there hadn’t scared him off.”

  “I dunno why he was scared of her,” Edie said. “He was, like, what, seven feet tall?”

  “Vættr are more dangerous than they look. If she had wanted to, she could have washed us away and impaled us on the rocks. Or eaten us. They tend to have a taste for human flesh.” Satara stopped at the triangular steel gate to the campsite and looked over her shoulder at them. “She was only polite because she cares for Astrid.”

  “Why didn’t she help us grab the spear and shield, then?”

  The shieldmaiden grimaced at being reminded of the lost artifacts. “I don’t know. Maybe she just enjoyed seeing us miserable. Just because she didn’t kill us doesn’t mean she didn’t take pleasure in seeing us hurt.”

  Edie shivered and tightened her jacket around her middle as an ocean breeze whipped through. “I thought mermaids would be a lot nicer.”

  Satara pursed her lips, shaking her head. “Not a mermaid. If you ever met a mermaid, you would know.”

  Ominous. Edie looked over at Cal, and his expression was solemn. Damn, if even he couldn’t make some crude joke about screwing fish women, mermaids must be serious business.

  Satara stepped over the gate, followed by the others.

  Cal tossed his car keys to Edie. “Go ahead and let yourselves in. I need to piss.”

  Edie shook her head as he diverged from the path. “Charming.”

  As she and Satara reached the car, Satara turned to her. “Do undead…?”

  “Pee? This one does, only ’cause he goes through Jack Daniels like mineral water, apparently.” The floor of his back seat, littered with all sorts of bottles, was proof positive of that. She unlocked the door, and without Edie’s interference, the seat adjusted so Satara could slide in the back.

  “Thank you,” Satara said to Ghost. Then, to Edie: “If he … pees, does he also—”

  “Listen, I didn’t ask, and I don’t wanna know.” Edie paused. “He did mention he doesn’t eat, though.”

  Speaking of eating, she hadn’t in something like thirty-six hours. She definitely regretted not eating those fries at the diner the previous night. Hadn’t Cal mentioned something about grabbing her snacks at a service station? She thought she remembered something like that before passing out.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Satara suggested, relaxing back against the leather seat.

  Edie unwrapped a granola bar she found in the dash and turned in her seat to face Satara. “What are you gonna do about the shield and spear?”

  Satara hunched forward and looked away, blinking. She looked flustered and frustrated, and like she was trying hard not to cry; though Edie hadn’t known her for more than a few hours, she could already tell that whatever had just happened had been stressful. It had been devastating.

  Besides worrying for Satara, it made Edie more curious about the weapons.

  “I’ll have to tell her the truth. She won’t … be pleased. She may punish me.”

  “Punish you how? Take away your birthday?” Edie raised a brow.

  Satara took a deep breath, her voice wavering. “She may revoke my investitural rights. That shield and spear were a gift to Astrid’s old battlemother from Skuld herself. They’re irreplaceable.”

  Edie pretended to know who Skuld was, opting instead to ask the more pressing question: “Investitural rights? What do you mean?”

  There was a silence. Satara avoided Edie’s questioning gaze.

  The wheels in Edie’s head spun. Quietly, she said, “Astrid never told me how someone becomes a valkyrie
.”

  Satara raised her head, looking at Edie like she was picking her apart with her gaze, trying to find her ulterior motive for asking. The shieldmaiden’s expression shifted; now she looked scared and vulnerable.

  Suddenly, a rough yelp rang out from the forest—unmistakably Cal. Edie’s head whipped around, she exchanged a look with Satara, and they both rushed out of the convertible and in the direction of the sound.

  Fifteen yards away stood the boulder they’d hidden behind while waiting for the park rangers to leave, and as they approached it, the sound of heavy boots came closer. Edie, running in front, collided with Cal as he rounded the corner at top speed. He grunted as she bounced off his body like he was made of rubber, and she was barely able to keep herself from falling on her ass.

  “What happened?” Satara asked. “Why did you call out?”

  Cal was either unable or unwilling to respond with a coherent answer. After clumsily zipping up his fly, he could only say, “Jesus Christing shit-bastard scared the fuck out of…” and gesture past the boulder with both hands, shaking slightly.

  Edie steadied herself and glanced behind the boulder, at the little canopy that led into the forest proper. “What? I don’t see anything.”

  He growled, waved her closer, and took off at a trot back under the canopy. Edie and Satara exchanged another glance before following.

  Soon, the three found themselves in a thick wooded area, dark now that night was falling; only a little gray light filtered through the trees, enough for them to see the path and one another. Edie hugged herself hard, starting to shiver uncontrollably now. She was still wet and freezing, her pants were stiff with salt, and she just wanted to go home.

  “What was it, Cal?” she asked, tiptoeing after him as he elbowed through the foliage.

  “I swear to god, he’s just lucky my shotgun wasn’t loaded,” he grumbled in reply, pulling her along by the back of her jacket for a moment before slowing, lingering, and squinting through the trees. “It was around here somewhere, unless it got up and ran off.”