For both brothers. One is upright, one is toppled. They appear different, and they tell different stories. But it is the very same rune.”
“Why are you telling me this, Master Ivo?”
“So you will understand my . . . fear. For you and for the temple. For Saylok. I cannot ignore the signs. Especially when there are many. Especially when the cave keeper is convinced Hod is the son of Banruud.”
It was the one thing she hadn’t been certain he knew. Ivo was not present in the square when Arwin had pled with the king in Hod’s behalf.
“You said yourself . . . he is addled,” she whispered. She could not believe it was true. Hod would have told her. Hod would have said. She would have seen it.
“I did not say it was true. I did not say I believed it.” He frowned and clacked his nails together, ten tiny blades engaged in battle.
Desdemona had proclaimed Bayr to be Banruud’s only son. But that was not something Ghisla was supposed to know, and it was not something Ivo seemed willing to divulge. She wondered if he and Dagmar had discussed Arwin’s ramblings. She thought not. Instead they stewed, interpreting signs and keeping their secrets. She was weary of it all.
“Hod is not a god. He is just a man,” she said. “And he is gone.”
“And you mourn him.”
“I mourn many things.”
He glowered at her, but his chin trembled, like he couldn’t decide whether to scold her or sympathize with her.
“I will draw a rune to help you forget him.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to forget him.”
He sighed and threw up his hands.
“I am afraid for him. I have not known how he fares since that day. And he will not understand why I have not called out to him.” She turned her hand again so he could see her awful scar.
“It is better this way, Daughter,” he warned.
“Better for whom, Master?”
“Better for Saylok!”
“I want only to know that he is well. And then . . . I will do my best to forget him.” For now. “Can you help me, Highest Keeper?”
He grumbled and sighed again.
“Sit down and close your eyes,” he ordered. “And hold out your hands.”
She obeyed, sensing he was going to help her.
She heard him rise from his throne, and a moment later felt the wet of his blood against the flesh of her palms. He was drawing runes and he did not want her to see.
“Press the runes to your eyes, Daughter,” he instructed. “Then ask the Norns to show you what—or who—you seek. Each rune drawn in blood will only work once—if it works at all. The fates decide.”
She hesitated, half-euphoric, half-afraid.
“Do not let them dry, and do not pull away. The moment you do, it is done,” Ivo barked.
She raised her palms to her eyes and pressed them against her lids.
“Show me Hody,” she said.
There was a sense of falling, as though she’d thrown herself from a cliff, but the landing never came. Instead, she became formless, and the sanctum around her was no more. She resisted the urge to withdraw her hands—she still felt them there—to catch herself, just as Ivo had instructed.
His back was bare, and he stood in the water up to his waist, his arms to his sides, palms touching the waves as they rolled past him. She despaired that she could not see his face, only to find herself looking at him from a new direction. His shoulders and chest were muscled and his abdomen notched from top to bottom, but his ribs and collar bones were too pronounced, and he’d let his hair grow. It bristled from his head and jaw like he’d just emerged from months of hibernation. She saw it then, a resemblance to Banruud, and she almost lowered her hands.
He shuddered, his back stiffening like he’d caught a chill. He cocked his chin, the way he did when he was listening, and his pale eyes were striped with shadows like they’d been that night on the hillside.
“Ghisla?”
“I am here,” she said, but her voice had not made the journey with her, and the runes were played out. The sanctum settled back around her and the sound of the sea and the scent of the brine was replaced by incense and old men.
The blood on her hands was smeared, and the Highest Keeper stood over her, his hands folded on his scepter.
“He could not hear me.”
“No.”
“But he looked well,” she whispered. She would