Rune simply held still behind her, quiet in a way she wasn’t used to.
They rode for several hoofbeats before Alora spoke again, softer this time, but firmer too.
“We have met before, haven’t we?”
His grip on the reins tightened, tendons flexing. The bond tightened with it, like a heavy vault door of thick stone, sealing closed. He was shielding his thoughts.
“I know you won’t answer,” she murmured, staring straight ahead. “For whatever reason it’s a secret you must keep. Though I suspect we both know I will find out the truth eventually, Rune.”
She waited for a deflective answer, but he offered none. He was always so talkative. Smug. Clever. Infuriatingly quick with a retort. Except when sheneededhim to speak.
Frustration gathered behind her ribs. “Do you mean to stay silent the whole way?”
Rune hummed. “I didn’t realize my wife required constant serenading. Shall I whisper poetry in your ear to keep you entertained? Or bore you with the history of the ages?”
She rolled her eyes, fighting a smile. But the offer did give her another thought. “History, it seems, is a subject you are well versed in. Tell me, how do you know so much about Khar Avalen?”
Rune’s posture stiffened.
He was quiet for a long pause, then his low breath coiled down her nape with a sigh. “The ruins are not merely ruins, Alora. They are a graveyard of promises. A place built on bargains made at the dawn of creation.”
This time she fell silent, listening.
Rune’s breath warmed her ear, low as distant thunder. “Before the Seven Gods of the Seven Gates, all bowed to the Primordials.”
The word itself drew a gloom over the forest.
“They were Titans,” he murmured, each syllable weighted with old memory. “Seven forces that carved the first breath of creation. They shaped the first realms, the Gates, split the sky from the sea, bent magic into rivers through the fabric of many worlds.” His fingers tightened on the reins. “And they destroyed with the same ease. Creation meant nothing to them. Mortals even less. They could create entire worlds and unmake them with a wave of their fingers.”
Alora swallowed. Images flickered in her mind of the idols Sal’vathar had gifted them on Samhain. The way Rune’s rage had snapped through the air at the sight of them still echoed through her chest.
“Any lesser being was insignificant to them. Seeing the magnitude of their power, and fearing how easily they could be snuffed out, mortals bowed to them out of fear and piety. Primordials influenced the first people to build places like Khar Avalen. Altars were built in forests, in mountains, deserts, and in the seas. They were places to worship where they could pray for blessings and for their wishes to be granted.”
He let out a quiet, humorless huff.
“But Primordials do not grant wishes. They consume them. They devour what they create because hunger is their nature. They have no humanity. No mercy. No respect for life.”
Alora shivered.
“Their greed unmade continents. Threatened the balance of the Realms. And of the seven of them, only one saw the devastation they were truly creating.”
“Who?” she whispered.
Rune inhaled a shallow breath. “…Elyon.”
Alora’s heart shook, goosebumps going down her arms.Elyon… the god her people prayed to. The God of Life.
A Primordial.
Rune’s voice dropped, grim. “He knew the universe would collapse beneath their destruction, so he turned against them. The Heavens waged the first war for the Realms, and the world fell into turmoil. Titan battled Titan. Celestials against the Wild Hunt.”
“The Wild Hunt?” she breathed.
“The foul of the Abyss,” Rune confirmed. “Creatures born from every wicked thing that ever drew breath. Not demons as you know them. But entities of darkness. Older. Hungrier.” He paused. “I called them once to serve me, but they only answer to blood.”
Cold crawled down her spine as she pictured it, celestials battling shadow demons.
Rune exhaled, gaze fixed on the horizon. “The war spanned ages. Many worlds were lost, many more like this one left in ruins. By the end, Elyon defeated them.”
