Rune Kingdom by Alisha Klapheke

Author:Alisha Klapheke [Klapheke, Alisha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

I woke on the icy ground, to muddied leather boots and rumbling voices. Shutting out the world, I closed my eyes again and let Father carry me home, a blur of pine needles, my heart beating in my hands, his warm chest, and a light touch on my cheek—Mother’s calloused fingers.

My mouth wouldn’t open. Stuck, my tongue wouldn’t work. I’d eaten burning glass, foreign desert sands, and swallowed fire that fought to escape through my hands.

Mother wrapped my butchered hand in cloth that smelled like honey and some bright herb. My lips parted to say something, but it came out in a rasp.

Her eyes met mine. She tucked my hand gently by my side and stood. “I’ll get you water.”

The cool liquid made my mouth work again. “Why is the room so…why is the firelight…broken?” My thoughts swirled and drowned like fallen leaves in a flooded river.

“It’s the poppy. For the pain. It will pass. Sleep.”

But I didn’t want to sleep. “Where is the Graybook? Where is my carver?”

Mother paused in coating my burned hand in a bitter-smelling salve. “You’re done with all that.”

“But you can see my bone ring. You know I’m not lying. You at least know there is something to my story. Just tell me if the Graybook survived.”

Her eyes pinched as she studied the whale’s tail on my first finger. “We will not speak of it. Never.”

Then I remembered the Announcement. Had I missed it? Who had been chosen to die for Fellriki?

I tried to sit up and dizziness forced me back onto my pillows.

Mother touched my shoulder “You haven’t missed anything. We still don’t know who will be honored as the sacrifice.”

“And you’re still going to go if it’s you? You won’t at least let me show you what I might do to stop all this?”

She stood. “Quiet, Brynja. Another word about any of it, and I’ll lock you in here for the rest of your days.”

“You won’t be able to if you die.”

Her breath came out in a gust.

“I’m right and you know it.”

She jerked my bed curtain closed and her footsteps knocked along the wooden floor beyond.

I heard the door creak open.

“Rakel?” It was Rafn’s voice.

I sat up so fast that my head nearly came off. I blinked to stop the curtain twirling around me.

“May I see her?” he asked.

Mother must’ve nodded, because the curtain moved and his face appeared. He knelt beside me, his eyes clouded, his lips tight.

“I don’t know why I’m here, really,” he said quietly as Mother banged a pot near the firebed.

I leaned close, breathing in his incense scent. “Because you are sorry for taking his side. Because you know I’m right.”

He put a hand to his forehead and let it slide down his face. A vein pulsed under the raven inking above his ear. He’d shaved the sides again since I’d seen him and his skin bled on a spot near the short braids and tangles that crowned him.

“You have to help me find my carver. They hid it.

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