We’ll work with it.
You don’t sound worried.
I want those hostages.
Pike cleared a path downhill through snow-laden trees. Beyond them burned the campfire. Two soldiers moved about with the defeated slump of the weary. Two more were curled on the ground near the fire’s warmth. A poorly pitched tent was too far from the campfire for comfort. The weakened center post stood at an angle beneath the drooping canvas.
Another obvious trap? Mace growled.
Or an open invitation.
The night Noa left to find Pelonie, we hadn’t been able to talk. After the discussion about Lila, the uncertain feelings remained. We’d had that dinner at the café, where I worked at being honest, and Noa worked at hiding the hurt. But I ached with the need to hold her. Reassure her. And never got the chance. When I came home, the apartment was empty except for Fee, with his overcooked stew and flimsy explanations… and a book, waiting on the table.
I’d been too angry to question why.
The witch’s warning had circled: She will leave you… and you must let her go.
Then Fee’s concern. If she cannot do this, all is lost.
He’d told me what was coming, what would not change. But well after midnight, when I sat in the dark with the book on my lap, trying to understand… I knew why she’d left that book for me.
Use of Magical Objects and Tools in Seidr Tradition.
A book lost in Anson’s archive until Laura sent a request through the antiquated system. Probably the last book Noa touched.
The piece of paper, lodged between two pages, was Noa’s message. Her promise to me.
Because she’d be coming back.
Armed with what we needed to defeat Amal.
Runic magic required only a practitioner, who understood the runes, and a person or object to contain the powerful forces—used for protection, or for destruction. I’d tattooed the designs on Noa’s skin to protect her. The same magic was in the dread lord sigil on her wrist.
And in the marks on the effigy Arra Sona left for Noa.
Runes covered the stones Pelonie used.
One stone. The stone Noa would use to strip Amal’s power, if she got close enough.
My heart nearly burst with the beating, both the knowledge and the fear. My job was to get her close enough. Her job was to not die.
In the old belief, fate had no moral significance. It was driven merely by the whims of the three mythical women in veils, purely pitiless, utterly implacable. Nothing anyone did altered the path set by fate. The wheel turned. Meaning did not exist. No vaunted purpose rose to make the sacrifices worth the pain. Fate was unavoidable the way life was, but how often had Noa said fate believed in us?
I had to believe in her. In the two of us together.
“However you want me,” she had whispered. “I’ll meet you there.”
“However you need me,” I’d answered. “I’ll hold you there.”
What I had to believe was straightforward; while no one understood fate, the predictions were as capricious as those who made them. The result of circumstances with a thousand different outcomes, and fate became the choice a person made.
A choice from the heart that often broke but carried on.
I crouched down in the crusting snow, scenting the air. If Amal had concealed her fighting force, she hid them far from here. Or she’d masked the scents—always a possibility.
I don’t like it, Mace grunted.
Where’s your lust for adventure? Pike challenged. Two choices. The queen’s recruits can be dumber than dirt, or it’s as much a setup as that avalanche.
