RUNE
RUNE PUSHED HER WAY down the overcrowded aisle, looking for an empty seat.
People crammed the train car. Rosy-cheeked children sat on their parents’ laps—sometimes two or three per lap—while adults stood in the aisle, stepping aside only to let Rune pass. Either the ticket inspectors had taken pity on half these people or they’d been bribed to let more on than the train had capacity for.
Either way, Rune didn’t care. She’d made it.
As she found her seat, the tension in her body evaporated. She sat and turned her face to the window, her breath whooshing out of her. On the other side of the glass, people waved money at the porters, desperate to get on the train even as the steps disappeared from the doors, while others cried as they bid goodbye to loved ones inside the cars.
“I didn’t think we’d make it,” said a passenger across the aisle—a woman with a toddler in her lap. “What’s going to happen now?”
Her husband leaned over and kissed her head. “I don’t know,” he said, reaching for her hand and gripping it tight. “But we’re together. That’s what matters most.”
Rune looked away, blinking back tears. The train whistled again.
The desperate crowd beyond the window dimmed as she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. It wasn’t the girl she’d illusioned herself to look like; it was her real self. Magic didn’t work on windows, after all.
As she studied the face in the glass, that unnerving question resurfaced.
Who am I?
Who is the real Rune Winters?
No matter how hard she searched for a trace of Nan in her features, there was nothing of Kestrel Winters in Rune. Which made sense; she and her adoptive grandmother weren’t related by blood. But neither could Rune find any hint of her half sisters. There was nothing of Cressida. Or Elowyn. Or Analise.
But as Rune studied her reflection, she realized she had seen the shade of her hair somewhere else. And the color of her eyes. And the shape of her jaw.
She’d seen it in three other people, in fact. Very recently.
Something wild and bright flickered inside her, like a freshly lit candle.
No.
She tried to snuff it out. She couldn’t wander down that path. She’d already decided: this was her path.
I’m leaving.
The engine chugged, pulling them slowly forward. Rune leaned her temple against the cold glass. Soon, she’d be out of Cressida’s grasp. Soon, she’d escape the Blood Guard for good.
Soon, she thought as the train left the crowded platform behind, I’ll be free.
Nothing could make her turn back now.
