Still children.
Shadows erupted from Rune’s back, catching weapons mid-swing, blocking Sana’s bone-blade and catching Jalen’s weapon mid-swing. Rune caught the scythe, wrenching it from Jorik’s grasp.
“Is this the limit of your skill?” Rune asked, striking a kick to Jorik’s chest, shadows laughing the other two away. “Pathetic.”
Jorik merely laughed. “The pathetic one is you. Chasing what you can never have.”
The words struck deeper than any stream of sunlight ever could.
Rune’s chest heaved, rage burning like slow magma in his veins.
“Your bride is dead, Rune.Youkilled her,” Jorik said, voice sharp with cruel certainty. “And nothing you do will ever bring her back.”
The wounds pounded against Rune’s temples.
“The divine ashes from my parent’s pyre have been hidden in a place you will never find them. The seeds of immortality weredestroyed. Do you understand?” Jorik sighed, straightening from his stance. “Your bride isneverrising from the dead.”
Exhaling a breath, Rune let the scythe drop at his feet. His hollow breath echoed in his ears like a distant heartbeat.
“Never…” he repeated faintly. “Jökull said the same when I begged for her life.”
Then he smiled.
“But you forget,” he said softly, lifting his gaze, “that your father left three other seeds.”
Jorik’s eyes widened, realization dawned too late.
“And I need the blood of only one.”
Rune flung out a hand, and his shadows impaled Jalen through the stomach. The demigod dropped with a choked cry, his ice melting instantly. Sana screamed. Rune caught by the throat when she attacked and he hurled her backward with such force she vanished into a wall of enemy soldiers.
“No!”Jorik scrambled for his weapon.
Rune didn’t give him the chance.
Shadows pinned Jorik at the center of the array circle, shadows binding him to the earth. He writhed, snow matted hair sticking to his damp brow.
Rune crouched beside him. “Thank you for bringing your father’s power to me,” he said softly. “I will take it now.”
He gripped his nephew’s head as he delicately cut a symbol into Jorik’s forehead with his claw.
Jorik cried out as blood poured down his temples and spilled over the glyphs.
And the array ignited with crimson light.
Any who attempted to aid their king were cut down by the Harbingers or eaten by Drakon.
The air went ice cold as Rune’s will was poured into Jorik, seeking, siphoning,pulling the death-magic from his blood like smoke from fire. Jorik convulsed, eyes rolling back. His veins blackened, mouth splitting in an agonizing scream.
Rune shuddered as the power surged into him, ancient, cold, anddivine.
“Yes…” He hummed, closing his eyes as his veins chilled with the power of death.
The storm above them stilled. Even the wind paused as Rune drank deep from Jökull’s legacy, the stolen magic weaving into his marrow.
Every soul around him lit up in his sight and he tasted their fear, sensed every death as the battle wore on.
“Marvelous.”
