RUNE
RUNE’S SPELLS KEPT THEM concealed as they escaped the prison and avoided the guards frantically running the palace halls, clearly searching for someone. By the time they entered the stables, the chaos was behind them. Between the stalls, dust spiraled in golden shafts of light, and the occasional horse whinny broke through the silence.
“Who are they looking for?” asked Harrow.
“The prince is dead,” Rune whispered as a roan mare thrust her head over a stall door to nuzzle her shoulder. Ghost Walker didn’t work on animals, whose senses were more advanced. “They’re looking for his killer.”
Harrow fell silent, putting the pieces together. “Where’s Gideon?” Rune asked her.
“Last I heard, the Blood Guard went west. I imagine they took him with them.”
“West? Do you know where they’re headed?”
Harrow studied her, trying to decide if she was trustworthy. “There’s an abandoned fort on the coast. They call it the Rookery. The plan is to rearm there.”
If they were bringing Gideon with them, it meant they didn’t plan to execute him. With the capital overrun by Soren’s army and Cressida sitting on her throne, the Blood Guard needed all the help they could get. Perhaps Gideon was too valuable to dispose of.
Opening the stall door, Rune quickly tacked the mare, concealing her with Ghost Walker before holding the lead out to Harrow. “Take her and get out of the city.”
“Where will you go?” she asked, taking it.
“If Cressida catches me, I’m as good as dead.” Rune entered the next stall and started drawing the marks for Ghost Walker on the horse’s rump. “I need to get off this island.”
But first, Rune needed to make one last stop: Wintersea House.
If her home was about to be torn apart by war, she too needed to rearm. With Soren dead, it was no longer certain that Cressida would win. If she did, she’d kill Rune. If she didn’t and the Good Commander regained power, he would kill Rune.
The only thing to do was run.
And if Rune was going to run, she wanted some of Nan’s spell books with her. She knew enough spells to get by, but she had no way of learning more. She’d be utterly alone out there.
More importantly: the books were her last link to her grandmother. If Rune was going to leave everything behind, forever, she wanted a reminder of the woman who’d loved her so much she sacrificed herself so Rune could live.
“I was wrong about you,” said Harrow, watching Rune tack the second horse.
It almost sounded like an apology.
 |
WHEN SHE ARRIVED AT Wintersea, it was dark and crawling with Blood Guard soldiers. Four stood in uniform outside the gates, guns at their sides, while more patrolled the grounds.
Wintersea House is the residence of Noah Creed now, Gideon had told
her.
Had the Good Commander left soldiers behind to ensure his property
wasn’t ransacked?
Rune nudged her horse past the ones guarding the entrance. Ghost Walker would fade soon. It had been several hours since she’d cast it. She needed to hurry.
Rune was passing the stables when a familiar whinny made her halt her stolen horse.
Lady. Nan’s old show horse.
Rune had been forced to leave her behind.
Dismounting, she crept inside the stone stable. It wasn’t long before Lady’s glossy white head poked over a stall door, staring straight at Rune. As if to say, What took you so long?
Rune’s heart swelled at the sight of her.
She flung her arms around Lady’s neck, giving her a tight hug, then swapped her with the horse she’d stolen. She led Lady from the stable toward the back of the house, stopping next to Nan’s labyrinth, which formed one of three entrances to the gardens. The labyrinth was overgrown, its rose hedges in desperate need of pruning. Leaving Lady at its entrance to wait for her, Rune turned to face the back of Wintersea House. Her gaze skimmed up the wall, stopping at the window directly overhead, two stories up: her casting room.
Thick ivy snaked over the stone walls, diverting around glass panes. Rune grabbed the old vines and started to climb, hoping they would hold her weight. Hoping Ghost Walker would last long enough for her to find the spell books she needed and get out.
By the time she reached the window and unlocked it, three patrols had walked by beneath her. Swinging the pane quietly open, Rune crawled inside, careful not to land with a thud, in case anyone occupied the rooms below.
She’d been afraid to find her casting room empty, its illegal contents burned. But the room was untouched, exactly as she left it: with crates full of spell books she’d packed before her world turned upside down.
The secret wall was shut tight, suggesting Noah hadn’t found it.
Rune moved slowly through the room, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Grabbing the matchbox off her desk, she struck a match and lit a candle.
Quickly, Rune searched the room. She found a small purse full of coins, as well as Lady’s whistle on the desk. She pocketed them both. Next, she turned to the spell books packed into wooden shipping crates.
There were far too many to take. She’d have to choose three or four.
Something manageable.
Wary of her footfalls, Rune pulled out half a dozen books and brought them to the desk. There, she sorted them into two piles: bringing and leaving.
She pulled one particularly heavy book from the stack, and another slid out with it, falling to the floor.
It landed with a thud.
Rune froze. She tilted her head, listening for voices—or footsteps. Some sign the guards in the house were alert to her presence.
But Wintersea was silent.
Swallowing, Rune sat on the floor with the book in her hands, flipping through the pages in the flickering candlelight. It was old, by hundreds of years perhaps, its yellow pages brittle.
She turned to the first spell. A summoning spell. One capable of calling an Ancient from the world beyond this one.
To do what? Rune frowned down at the page.
It seemed silly. If the Ancients existed at all, they’d abandoned this world centuries ago. They could only be summoned in the stories parents told their children at bedtime.
A floorboard creaked outside the room.
Rune’s spine straightened. She turned her head to listen.
Maybe it’s the house.
Wintersea was over a hundred years old. The slightest bit of wind made its bones creak and groan.
The sound came again. Closer this time. Just beyond the false wall. Rune’s heart began to hammer. She closed the book.
The latch clicked.
Rune blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness. The wall swung open as she got to her feet.
Someone stepped into the room with her.
