He winced, perhaps bracing for smoke and agony.
But none came.
Only warmth and light.
Alora watched as he tilted his head upward, eyes squinting against the brightness. He looked… stunned. Like he had forgotten the warmth of day. Forgotten what colors looked like under the sun.
He stood at the edge of the pond, every line of his body still. The light of morning lit his face, bathing his skin in honeyed hues. He raised a hand into the sunrise slowly, as if reaching for something unattainable. His fingers trembled, and she saw it, the precise moment he realized there would be no pain.
Rune’s chest rose with a sharp inhale. He slowly sank down to his knees, staring at the horizon, and the next breath shuddered out of him like he’d been holding it for a thousand years.
Alora’s heart clenched. There was awe on his face.
Real, naked awe.
Like a child seeing snow for the first time. The tense line of Rune’s shoulders softened, the stiffness melting from his body. His eyes, usually red as fire, were warm like amber.
Her breath stilled. She hadn’t known gods could…
“Rune?” Alora whispered, her fingers stroking his cheek. “You’re crying.”
He turned toward her, slow and dazed. He rubbed his face as if he didn’t quite believe her, his fingertips brushing the tears with startled astonishment.
“How long have you been in the dark?” she asked, breath catching in her throat.
Rune didn’t speak right away. He stared at the pond, at the sunlight scattered like liquid gold across its surface.
“For an eternity…” he admitted, voice barely above a breath.
Alora stood beside him, watching his profile glow in the light, as if it shimmered beneath his skin. It made him look otherworldly, like a being not of this world. Almost pure. Like what had made him so frightening, so sharp and intimidating had somehow vanished in the dawn.
“When I ruled the shadows… I would lose my vision in the daylight,” Rune murmured. “It’s not merely blindness. Colors were engulfed by the light. People were blurs. Their faces…” his brows knitted faintly, “Were smears of white fire that burned behind my eyes. But no matter how deep I hid in the lowest pit or blackest tomb, whenever the sun rose, it seared me from the inside.”
There was grief in his voice. A sorrow so quiet, it hummed like a memory.
Rune observed the sky again, captivated and awed, like he had not seen it before. “I had forgotten…”
“Forgotten what?” Alora asked as she sat next to him.
He looked at her and a soft smile rose to his face. He brushed his knuckles along her cheek, thumb grazing the line of her jaw. “How beautiful the light could be.”
Her chest expanded with a deep breath, and in that moment, she saw it. Clearly. Achingly. This wasn’t the god who rose from the mountain in wrath. Not the shadow-drenched monster from her dreams. Not the immortal who whispered threats in the dark.
This was someone else entirely.
This was a man who had forgotten the color of the sky.
Who had lived too long in silence and darkness.
Rune had not always belonged to the shadows.
“After many centuries, I learned to adapt,” he continued, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “Jökull cursed the day he unintentionally created Bloodstones, which allowed me some reprieve.”
Her eyes widened curiously. “Who is Jökull?”
Rune scowled faintly. “The God of Death, one of my many brothers.”
Ah.
