Page 12 of Veil of Blood and Bone

“You’re selling it.” I point to the leather pouch like it isn’t dragging me closer to the table.

Esmerelda doesn’t notice the wince cutting through my forced smile. “Sorry, Blake. Times are tough for everyone. And those are solid bone and crystal. You know their caliber. I've priced them fair.”

This rune set for divination are worth more than she paid me for them. Way more. The bag and the messages inside are my mother’s.

Or were, before she died.

I sold them to feed us. The food is long gone but the glyph set is not.

“You know I’d sell them back to you if I could.” Esmerelda’s tone is oddly sharp.

“I understand. You’re doing what you have to do.” Blood drains from my face. “No hard feelings.”

With Esmerelda properly distracted by her crochet, I take the satchel, and my heart clangs against my ribs. My choices collapsed with Mom’s death, one by one, rows of toppling like dominoes.

I open the bag, and the crystal and bone runes spill into my hand. I know the weight of them, the roundness of their worn edges. Working them in my hand, I toss the tokens into the sack one by one, until only a single polished stone stares up at me from my palm.

Thurisaz (ᚦ).

It’s strange and amazing how quickly one emotion can flicker and transform into another. From grief and loss to confusion, frustration. Back again.

“What you got?” Esmerelda didn’t look up.

“A message, I guess.”

The symbol is meant to embody the raw and elemental power of a storm and the god Thor’s hammer. It’s an unstoppable force crushing everything in its path, embodying danger. Treachery.

Chaos.

Shards of glass lodge inside my throat. I don’t know how I know but I know. Mom always taught us; runes aren’t magic unless someone asks them a question Otherwise they’re nothing but carved stone, bone, or wood.

This isn’t actually a reading, or a message from the universe.

It’s a warning.

I almost put the crystal back, working it between my thumb and forefinger. Almost walk away.

Warnings only matter if you listen.

Which I do not, not even when a small piece of mountain separates itself from the ground. Not when craggy stone shifts into eyes, and the ground rumbles with its first step.

A different type of warning screams through me—worry, for Audra. I see trouble coming and feel it when the next step vibrates through my bones.

But for some reason, fear never comes.

Chapter 3

Forest

The sky brightens the closer the sun tips towards the horizon.

Burnt orange and streaks of red bring in the night and the scant breeze whips leaves of flame to a frenzy.

It’s perfect flying weather.

High above the crowd, over the reek of so many humans in one spot, freedom rides the currents, those highways of air streaming in every direction.

Instead of flying, I’m watching. Her. No hunting. Only this woman I can’t name but I know.