The Witch's Daughter (Rune Alexander Book 7) Read online

  Rune watched them both for a long, silent moment. “What am I supposed to do with that? What do you want me to do with that?” She spoke to Snow but pointed at Owen. “Do you think I should hate him for what he is? I don’t. I hate those who create us.”

  “Don’t put yourself in the same category with the hums.”

  “Why not?” Rune asked. “Tell me why the fuck not.”

  Snow looked away. “I apologize,” she said, finally.

  “You loved him,” Rune said. “And he abandoned you. Ask him why.”

  But Snow remained silent, and it wasn’t Rune’s question to ask.

  “I’m sorry, Snow,” Owen said. “I’m never going to be the knight.”

  “No,” Snow agreed. “You’re only ever going to be the user. That’s all you’re capable of. I hate what it takes to make you.” The bitterness made her face hard and for a second, less beautiful.

  “Then blame his creators,” Rune said. “It’s not his fault.”

  But Snow clenched her fists and shook them at Owen. “Ask him about the baby. The one who looks like you. Ask him what has become of her.”

  Rune couldn’t breathe, or think, or speak.

  The little black-haired baby.

  Her baby.

  Owen had sent the baby to Skyll.

  She could forgive him nearly anything.

  But she wouldn’t forgive him for that.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rune closed her eyes to shut out Owen’s anguished face. “Where’s the baby, Owen?”

  He answered her, but his voice held no life. “I don’t know. She was given to Blood.”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “I didn’t take her, Rune.” He tried to move and listed to the side. No one moved to help him.

  “Who did?” But she knew what he would say.

  “Elizabeth. Her lord wanted it, so she delivered. Maybe she hoped it would soften his anger when he was denied Fie.”

  “A dead woman can’t dispute those claims,” she snarled. “Her death is very fucking convenient for you, isn’t it?”

  “No,” he denied.

  “What did he want with her?” The question was almost impossible to ask, because she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “He wanted a piece of you,” Owen answered. He flashed a self-deprecating smile. “Same thing we all seem to want.”

  “I’m certain he wanted to build another hum,” Snow said. “One more powerful than any of the previous ones, because it would be created from parts of you.” She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “It’s too late for the infant now, but we can still save the world.”

  “She’s dead?” Rune asked.

  “I don’t know,” Snow replied. “But even if she’s not dead, she’s not the baby who left your world.”

  Olson, Jim, and Mel waited patiently.

  The Rune zombies surrounded the camp. The crows had scattered but could still be heard calling to each other in the distance.

  Snow’s companions sat on the ground and talked quietly amongst themselves.

  Rune looked around at all of them, her heart heavy, her mind tired. So fucking tired. Was there anyone in any world who was just a decent person? Anyone?

  Yes. There was Ellis in one world and Z in the other.

  But Owen…

  Owen was not a decent person.

  The little black-haired baby had been her hope.

  It’d been her baby—the only baby she’d ever have.

  And Owen had helped kill that dream. That hope. That baby.

  Sorrow’s puppy trotted over to her and sat on his haunches. He panted lightly, his light gray gaze never leaving her face. Until that moment, she’d forgotten about him.

  “Where were you, pup?” she asked, her mind still on the baby.

  “He stays with the army,” Jim said. “Seems to like the zombies.”

  Rune sighed. “Get everything ready to move. We leave in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll travel with you,” Snow said. “You’re going to need me.”

  “What about him?” Jim asked, jerking a thumb toward Owen.

  “Leave him.” Rune turned away. Snow was right. He couldn’t love. He could only ever betray and kill and lie. He couldn’t care about her or about anyone. “Leave him the horse and a weapon. And some water.”

  “Rune,” Owen said. “I didn’t take the baby.”

  “You didn’t save her, either. You let her be taken. That’s the same fucking thing.” She clenched her fists, still halfway hoping he could say something to make it right, but knowing he couldn’t. “She was mine, Owen. You ripped my heart out and you didn’t give it a second thought.”

  And it was all too much.

  Owen.

  She’d known not to trust him, not to care about him.

  But she had.

  He’d released the rotting disease. He’d killed Lex. He’d stolen the baby—or he might as well have.

  He’d made her care about a man who didn’t even exist.

  “Please, Rune. Nothing I had to do meant I—”

  She spun around. “Shut your fucking mouth. Don’t ever speak to me again. Don’t think of me. Don’t let my name leave your lips.” She strode back to him and grasped the edge of the cart so hard it creaked. “Just don’t. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  Finally, she was pissed. She was beyond her shock, and she was pissed.

  But she was sure he could hear the lie in her voice.

  Bastard.

  “You’re going to be alone,” he called. Then, “Rune. I need you. You need me.”

  She ignored him but her heart was heavy. As she strode away, Sorrow’s pup trotted along beside her. She ignored him as well.

  If she didn’t ignore, she’d kill.

  Everything, everyone.

  She didn’t even try to tamp down her black rage.

  What was the use in that?

  Better to wear rage than sadness.

  She didn’t wait for her men to break camp. She didn’t look back to see who followed or if the zombies noticed she was moving out.

  She just went, and half wished she could go alone.

  But eventually, they all followed her.

  Her, the princess. The redeemer.

  The monster who was supposed to save the worlds.

  Snow caught up with her and the pup, tying her long hair out of her face as she rode the horse that had once carried Ian.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “He meant something to you.”

  Rune shrugged. “You had nothing to do with the choices he made.”

  They rode in silence until Snow glanced at the pup. “Have you named him yet?”

  “Not my place to name him.”

  “He’s yours, Rune. Sorrow gave you the gift of raising her offspring. He’s your responsibility and naming him is your obligation.”

  “Ride with them.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ride with your group.”

  “Princess—”

  Rune turned on her. “Give me some fucking space.”

  Snow said nothing, but did not follow when Rune kicked her horse into a run.

  Rune could feel the strange woman’s stare drilling into her back all the way down the long, winding road.

  Sister.

  They were all watching her.

  Owen was gone.

  Z was gone.

  She would get Z back.

  Owen…

  Owen had finally crossed a line. He was dead to her.

  And she mourned.

  She let the grief come. Memories, images of his shadowed eyes and laconic voice and sexy walk flashed through her tired mind.

  “Fuck you, cowboy,” she whispered. “Fuck you.”

  She’d known there was something off about him.

  She hadn’t wanted to face it.

  Maybe she missed the cowboy.

  But he’d crossed that fucking lin
e.

  She rode on, alone but for Sorrow’s stubborn pup, riding to her destiny.

  As though he absorbed her mood, the pup, ungainly and growing larger by the minute, looked up at her and chuffed. His eyes were mournful and somber, and he no longer smiled.

  “Sorry,” she said. “You’ll have to get used to the world being a grim place if you’re going to hang with me.”

  She slowed the horse to a walk. “Guess I decided on a name after all.”

  He looked at her, and she swore she saw a question in his stare.

  “Grim,” she told him. “That’s a good enough name for the pup of Sorrow.”

  To the north a roar like cannons sounded, and explosions brighter than the sun streaked across the sky.

  Grim flinched and gave a short yelp, then looked at her apologetically.

  “Another thing to get used to,” she said.

  But there came a different sound, quieter and unfamiliar and more sinister than the cannons, and sudden chills shook Rune’s body.

  Jim caught up with her. “It’s the sky hand. We have to take cover.”

  “Sky hand? What the fuck…” But she remembered seeing the hand in the sky when she’d first arrived. Rushing across, overwhelming with its enormous, monstrous formation. “What is it?”

  She saw the hand then, streaking overhead, and dead birds began falling like black rain around her.

  “Not my crows,” she screamed, stunned and sickened that the crows, quite surprisingly, were like her children.

  But crows fell. Many, many crows.

  And other things.

  They splatted loudly upon the ground, hitting the dirt with thick, stomach-turning thumps, creating with shocking quickness a carpet of dead birds.

  “Come on,” Jim yelled, and led the way.

  Grim’s barking added to the abrupt chaos—barking, screaming, booming of distant explosions, and the dead birds thumping like hail upon a roof.

  “Not my crows,” she begged.

  Her horse reared, nearly throwing her before he fell to the ground, screaming. A second after she jumped free, he went still and silent.

  A piece of metal dropped from the sky, twisting and turning like a deadly windmill, and struck Mel so hard it split his head open. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  They rushed into the forest where the trees afforded them some shelter from the falling birds and debris.

  And from the colossal, inconceivable hand in the sky.

  At least for a little while.

  “Okay,” she said, the gun cradled against her chest. She crouched upon the forest floor, her back against a wide tree. No one mentioned Mel. “The fuck is the hand?”

  “Pure magic,” Olson said. “Pure, evil magic.”

  “Belongs to the witch?” Then Rune realized someone was missing. “Where’s Snow?”

  Her people weren’t there yet, but they’d been on foot. It’d take them a while to catch up—if they made it past the hand. Rune and her men crouched at the base of trees, waiting for the hand to pass.

  “She went back to see Five,” Jim told her. “Said she’d catch up with us.”

  “Fuck me.” Rune ground her teeth. The urge to protect Owen was so strong she’d climbed to her feet and taken a few steps before she stopped herself.

  Owen Five was no longer her responsibility.

  He was on his own.

  When she was once more settled, Olson began to talk about the hand.

  “The hand,” he said. “Belongs to no one. If you’re in its path and it reaches down to touch you, you’ll get the true death. It comes, it purges the skies, and it goes away again.”

  Rune peered up at it through the thick tree tops. It made her queasy and anxious to see it. Made her feel like she could easily slip out of her own skin. Her own mind.

  The hand sparked, and a display of lightning broke it up, for one instant, into a colorful bunch of clouds. She thought she saw something falling from it—not birds, whatever fell was too large for a bird—and then the lightning show ended and the hand began to slide away. Higher into the sky it went, dispersing into—

  “Oh shit,” Rune said. “I know that hand.” Voices intruded into her thoughts…no, not voices. One voice.

  “Catch the hand when you’re ready. It will bring you back to me.”

  Gunnar the Ghoul’s voice. Gunnar’s words.

  The words she’d forgotten on the path.

  “What do you mean?” Jim asked.

  Grim sat at her feet, panting.

  “Princess,” Jim prompted. “You know the sky hand?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, the daughter of the witch, the daughter of Skyll. Her voice was quiet but her heart jumped. “It’s not just a hand.”

  “What is it?” Olson whispered, his eyes round. “What is it, Princess?”

  “That hand is the path upon which I traveled to get here.”

  And for the briefest of seconds, as the crows continued to drop and the darkening sky began to spit a light rain, her sensitive ears picked up a sound in the distance that reminded her so much of the berserker’s familiar roar she could do nothing but clutch her chest, try to breathe, and wait for the pain to pass.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  She lay unsettled and sleepless upon the ground, covered with a thin blanket. Grim curled against her and fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down, and occasional whines adding to the distant sounds of fighting.

  He slept with the tip of his tongue out, which amused her despite her uneasiness.

  Finally she fell asleep, but it wasn’t a good sleep.

  Almost as soon as she closed her eyes she dreamed, and in her dream she was visited by…someone she forgot as soon as she left her dream.

  When she jerked awake, all she could remember was a vague and terrible warning.

  She had to go on alone.

  Those who traveled with her were not safe.

  She was a target, and that made them all targets.

  She’d already lost half her zombies, and God only knew how many crows.

  People were dying and disappearing almost as soon as they began walking with her. It was her destiny and her duty and she wasn’t risking anyone else.

  Snow had not returned to join the group.

  But she forced away thoughts of Owen and his horrible condition and the fact that the witch’s daughter might have killed him.

  She had to.

  She rose silently and gave a last look around at the sleeping people.

  When she slipped from camp, Grim was at her heels.

  “Go back,” she told him sternly. “Stay with the zombies.”

  He completely ignored her, his head bobbing as he trotted along beside her. Afraid he’d either lose his way or get attacked by one of the creepies of Skyll if she took him too far from camp, she made the decision to outrun him when they’d gone less than a mile.

  She had no idea how to find the witch, but knew she would find her. It was what she had to do.

  There was no doubt in her mind.

  “Goodbye,” she told the dog. “Be safe, little dude.”

  And before he could do more than tilt his head and chuff a rebuke, she was gone.

  She ran like the Rune of old—the vampire, the monster, the freak. The speed was exhilarating, a release she hadn’t even been aware she’d needed. The wind, cool and fragrant, slapped at her cheeks and tangled her hair.

  She ran until dawn began to gently light the dark sky. It was time to find a town and get directions to the Magic Shimmer.

  Finally, it felt right.

  One thing at a time.

  “Destroy the witch, save Z,” she muttered. And she whispered the words under her breath like a mantra as she jogged the next few miles.

  Maybe she just needed to hear a voice, even if it was her own.

  Because where she’d ended up was…wasteland. And she didn’t see a single person.

  The morning didn’t gradually heat up. One minute it was comfortably c
ool and the next it was so hot that layers of sweat gathered on her skin and sat there stubbornly, refusing to evaporate.

  Lightning zoomed across the vivid, dull red skies, and angry thunder boomed sporadically.

  And God, it was hot.

  She had the very strong feeling that she’d somehow passed into Magic without realizing it as she’d streaked impossibly fast through the night.

  Not just because of the difference in the land, or the heat, or the streaks of lightning in the stormless skies.

  But because she felt the heavy presence of the witch.

  It was a confusing feeling. It was confusing because it wasn’t terrible.

  She shook it off.

  “I’m coming, Z,” she promised.

  She searched the distance for signs of habitation as she walked through the arid land, but saw nothing other than dry, scorched earth, twisted black trees, and mounds of brown rock.

  The land was hauntingly beautiful, in a horrible sort of way.

  Bleached skulls lay scattered haphazardly upon the ground. Some appeared human, some animal. There were some with needle fangs as long as her forearm. Some with horns. Some of them lay half buried with parts of their skeletons strewn around them.

  As she strode through the silence, the berserker’s roar echoed through her memory, making her feel even lonelier.

  I miss you, Berserker.

  She missed them all.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the smoky scent of the hot air, and let herself believe, for one second, that she was back in River County.

  That Z was there with her.

  When she opened her eyes the impatience to kill the witch overwhelmed her.

  She stopped walking and clenched her fists. “Damascus,” she screamed. “Damascus…”

  Claustrophobia choked her like an inescapable noose and she clawed at the neck of her filthy shirt, trying to get some of the blistering air into her lungs.

  But Damascus did not show herself, and Rune was left alone to battle her demons.

  The farther she went the more bones she stepped upon, and occasionally she spotted a sad wooden stake or cross that had been hammered into the ground to mark some unfortunate soul’s grave.

  Finally, the clusters of knotted and gnarled trees standing sentinel in the boneyard grew thicker.