Was that how the general had calmed me earlier?
“Then what?”
“You tell me. What did Michael say to you? What happened before you were rescued?”
“Besides shackling me to a table, threatening to eradicate me from the world, and slicing me up every time I so much as whimpered—nothing too unusual. For him.”
Can’t believe Aspen let him walk away.
The tension in the room thickened. No one seemed to want to speak after that. But they’d rescued me. They saw the wounds and scars. Nothing I said should’ve come as a surprise.
Rune trotted over to me, wrapped her jaw around the thick ice covering my shoe, and shattered it. She did the same to the other, then sat before me and faced the king. Her tail stood still, her head lowered in challenge.
He gazed at Rune, raising an inquiring brow. “Troubles controlling your Soulhound, General?”
“Ten years with a disrupted connection has taken a toll.”
Disrupted connection?
“Or living without obedience and roaming Elora and Earth at her own will. I expect you to remedy that.”
Earth, huh?
Could that big wolf I saw in the woods have been her?
I looked back at the general and found a flat expression as he stared at the menacing king. After a tense second, he nodded. “As you wish.”
“Tell me what else happened. Every detail from your life.”
Peeking back at the door where my mother rested, I wondered if I could scramble there fast enough.
“If you tell me everything I want to know, I'll let you see her.”
I curled my hands into fists at how he saidlet, as if I needed his permission. But I turned back to him, and instead of spewing insults and curses, I told him about our life—telling the general and Oliver in the process. I left out the parts with Aspen but described how Michael used to hit us and take a blade to my back one day every year.
Oliver grabbed my hand, squeezing it as ice crackled and the king’s eyes glowed. Rune’s fur whipped more aggressively. They only grew more tense as I gave more details of my capture.
“To protect her, I made a three-way deal with Michael.” I yanked on the collar of my sweatshirt and showed the king my rune. “I told him I’d tell him my maker if he’d swear not to touch her again.”
The king pursed his lips. “What exactly am I supposed to be seeing right now?”
I pointed at it. “It’s right here. The rune. Don’t you see it?”
“What does this rune look like?” he asked suspiciously, his eyes glowing and the ground slowly frosting over.
Apprehension crept in, and Rune tensed beside me.
“It’s two elongated triangles with lines crossing through them and some dots.”
The king stood, more ice crawling along the floor and ceiling. “Are the dots at the triangle’s base or the point?”
I swallowed but held my spine beneath his intimidating stare. “The base.”
“It’s a Wrath Rune!”
My rune heated at his words, and his gaze shot to it like he finally saw it. A fierce wind shattered the ice across the floor. Before the shards could touch me, Oliver tackled me off the couch, and a torrent of shadows erupted, forming an impenetrable cocoon.
Glass shattered. Metal pinged. The fire hissed. Ice pelted everything outside our shield.
