Page 148 of Lifebound

“How can you be so sure?”

My poor heart.

“Because…because, I don’t know, Rune, Iknowyou.” I couldn’t really explain to him why it made such perfect sense to me, but it did. I knew it just like I knew that I would die if I stopped breathing. “You would never. Not when you were six, and not now.”

Closing his eyes, Rune smiled a little. “Have you forgotten what I did to those men in the basement already?”

I flinched. “That was different. You knew what they were planning to do to me.”

“And maybe I knew what the Ice Queen was planning to do, too—who knows?”

I reached out my hands and touched his cheeks. “Iknow. I’m alive because of you, Rune. I was a stranger to you, and I made you miserable and pissed you off, and you never hesitated once to get in front of anything for me. People who are capable of killing at the age of six don’t do that. They just don’t.”

Slowly, Rune held my hand to his cheek and turned his head to kiss my palm. “It doesn’t matter, Wildcat. Things are as they are, and nothing can change them. Come on, let’s keep going.”

With my hand in his still, we started walking ahead again as the birds led the way.

“But there might be something you could do. Maybe go talk to the king, ask him to at least take that mark off you. The seal that prevents you from using your magic.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“But have you tried?”

“No.”

“So, how do you know?”

“Because, Wildcat…” His voice trailed off on purpose.

“Becausewhat?” And I was not going to drop this, not now when I knew more.

Until Rune said, “Because he didn’t just banish and mark a six-year-old boy. He banished and marked his son.”

There went my heart again, stopping for seconds at a time. “What?” I breathed.

Rune smiled at me sadly. “That’s right, wilding. I’m the king’s bastard son.”

My brain drew a blank. I had no more arguments, nothing to say. All I could do was hug him with all my strength.

Tears slipped from my eyes and I was breaking all the way. To think that Rune not only had to go through all of that but because of his own father? It was unfathomable. I didn’t know how to make sense of it, so I just squeezed him with all my might.

Rune chuckled that sweet sound as he wrapped his arms around me, too. “It’s okay, Wildcat. Really.” He leaned back and raised my head so he could see my face. He smiled at me as he wiped my tears with his thumb and said, “And you didn’t piss me off. Not for a second. I just didn’t know what to do with all you made me feel.” Slowly, he leaned in and kissed the last of my tears from my eyes, then the tip of my nose, then my lips.

I said nothing because if I did, I would start crying again, sobbing like a fucking idiot. And I didn’t want him to have to go through that, too, so I spared him and kept my mouth shut.

Rune took my hand in his again and led me forward, his step never faltering.

For a while we didn’t speak at all, just focused on the rhythm of our footfalls. Eventually, he asked me questions about back home, about what I did when people bullied me—something he’d asked me before. And so, I told him all about it, held nothing back. It was Rune. I wanted him to know me as I was, too.

But the pain in my heart only grew heavier with every new smile and laugh he gave me for the next few hours. And it felt like it was going to stay there for the rest of my life.

* * *

We stopped onlyfor little water breaks. Rune continuously asked me if I wanted him to carry me, but I would rather just walk beside him, hand in hand. We talked about Earth and about Verenthia, saw a lot more of those moving roots while we were under Mysthaven, and then the tunnel began to become very creepy, too.

“What is that?” I asked when the howl-like sound reached my ears. Rune raised his hand forward, and the birds rushed to reveal to me that the tunnel ahead went two ways. We had never seenthatbefore—there was only one way to go—forward—and if there were corners, they always led to dead ends.

“It’s just the wind. That way leads to Bloomsridge and the Vale eventually. That’s what Raja said, though I’ve never tried it,” Rune said, and when we passed the mouth of the tunnel on the right, colder air made the hair on my skin stand at attention.

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