We walk for hours, not saying much. Oski leads the way because it makes me uncomfortable to have them behind me and because they stride forth with such a menacing gait that anything ahead on the path will run away.

We stop at last in a field of large boulders, and Oski wants to talk.

“Tell me about the runes,” they say, kicking a long leg out to stoke the small fire we’ve made.

I want to eat and go to sleep, but the presence of a Valkyrie has me on edge.

“What do you want to know?” I ask between sips of moss soup. The deep night is cold and the ground even colder. It seems as though we are surrounded by stones, and even the sky could be made of rock for all we know. If it were not for the presence of the red moon overhead, I would have thought we were in a tomb. The world is a graveyard.

“Show me how the runes work.” Oski moves closer, and I get a better look at their face in the firelight. Their skin is so fine that I’m not sure it even is skin. They have no eyelashes or eyebrows, and no hair on them at all that I can see. When they cast their eyes at me it is unsettling, like looking into a deep crevasse. It isn’t menacing or unkind. It’s more primitive than that. Like any other powerful force that comes from nature, Oski has an innate indifference in their eyes. Looking into them is not unlike staring into the sea or witnessing a huge wave sweep someone from the shore and drown them. It isn’t personal. It just is.

I don’t know what I have to fear from Oski, but they are here, so I will talk.

“These are my practice runes,” I say. “A caster must carve their own, but these were given to me. Some casters use a cloth to cast upon, but I like to cast them onto the earth. I don’t know why, but it helps me. I’m not that good at it, in truth.”

“Is that why do you not call yourself runecaster?” Oski asks.

I don’t answer. “This is the stave,” I say, holding one up and running my finger around its edge. “It’s the shape of the rune, or what it’s made of. These are wood. But they would be more powerful if they were made from bone or a rare stone.”

Oski nods. “How do you read them?”

“Well, when I cast them, they lie in their stead, which refers to the direction they’re pointed in. Their position helps me divine their nature and meaning, and whether they are dark or light, up or down, positive or negative. And I feel it.”

“Feel it? How?” Oski asks, reaching out to touch one of the runes.

I swat their hand away before I realize what I’m doing. “No,” I say and then immediately cower away from them.

Oski recoils, a flash of anger across their face. “You strike me?” they bellow, their voice sending a wave of fear through me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done that. But you cannot touch them, you see? They could be drained of their power. And they are fickle enough as it is.”

“Fine,” Oski mutters. “I just wanted to see what it feels like.”

“You could get your own,” I say, gathering my runes and securing them in the pouch around my neck.

“At least show me a casting,” Oski says.

I sigh. “Very well. But you need to ask a question.”

“Tell me about your sister.”

“That isn’t a question. You must ask something about yourself.”

Oski scoffs. “I already know everything about me. Tell me about her.”

I hesitate. I don’t want to talk about Sýr right now, but at the same time I miss her so much that talking about her makes me feel closer to her.

I give in. “Sýr is the sister everyone wishes they had.”

Oski smiles their wide, unsettling smile. “I don’t have any sisters. Or brothers. Or parents.”

I nod. “Well, it’s like having someone who is always on your side. Always on the same quest.”

Oski brightens at this. “I like that.”

“Then you would love Sýr,” I say. “She’s smart and strong, and she always knows what to do.”

Before I realize it, I am crying. I’m horrified to be showing weakness in front of Oski, but I can’t help it. The tears come anyway.

“My heart tells me she is alive,” I say through my sobs. “For I believe the world itself would cease to exist if she were gone. It would for me.”

“There, there,” says Oski. “I will help you find her. Maybe she is in the stars?”

I glance up. “Maybe,” I say. I clutch my runes, staring up into the night at all the twinkling stars the gods use to watch over us. Rubbing at the scabbed vegvisir on my hand, I whisper to it, “Help me find Sýr.”

My vegvisir doesn’t move, but something else does. A flock of white moths flutters from the dark sky like stars come to life.

“Am I seeing this?” Oski says.

The moths cluster together, forming the shape of a person.

“What is this?” I say to Oski, but they seem far away, and my vision starts to rattle and shake. I feel woozy, like I’m going to pass out, and I know I’m having my sickness again.

Everything goes white, and I hear Sýr’s voice. Stay with me.

“Sýr!” I call out, but I can’t see anything through this white fog. It won’t clear.

All at once I find myself rushing forward as if the world is falling around me, and I come to a stop on a green hill, surrounded on all sides by a shimmering golden lake.

I turn and see Oski standing before me, but they have long, flowing red hair and massive wings that unfurl behind them. I stretch a shaking hand toward them, but before our fingers can touch, I am yanked backward, tumbling into a cold darkness.

I come to with Oski’s concerned face above mine, and their strong, icy hands gripping my shoulders. “Runecaster,” they say. “What was that?”

I groan, sitting up. My head is pounding. “My sickness,” I manage.

“But why did you take us there?” Oski asks.

I stare at them, and they stare back at me.

“Us?” I ask.

“Yes, runecaster. Us,” they say.

“Stop calling me that,” I mumble. “It was a dream, my sickness. I get them sometimes. But I don’t have Sýr to help me with her sleeping spells and her tinctures. So I’ve been getting worse.”

“I don’t know what that was,” says Oski, “but it was no dream.”

“Wait,” I say. “You’re saying you were there with me?”

Oski nods.

“What did it look like then?” I ask, testing them.

“A golden lake,” says Oski. “One I’ve been to before, a long time ago.”

I shake my head. “No. That’s impossible. You’re reading my thoughts, and you promised you wouldn’t.”

I stand and begin gathering my belongings. This Valkyrie can’t be trusted.

“Stop, Runa, please. I am not lying.”

“No?” I ask, incredulous. “A golden lake? I’ve never been there in my life. Impossible.”

Oski shakes their head. “But you were there.”

“I don’t have time for these games. I have to find Sýr.”

“Wait,” says Oski, holding up a long arm. “I hear something.”

“Now you’re stalling,” I say.

“Shh,” Oski says, standing so fast that I don’t have time to react. They grab hold of me and clamp an icy hand across my mouth. This is it. They’re going to kill me now.

They whisper in my ear. “Someone approaches.”

“Who?” I ask, my voice muffled by Oski’s hand.

“I don’t know,” Oski says, “but they’ve been following us for some time. And they stink of elf. They’re close.”

I hold still, my heart hammering in my chest, but I don’t hear anything. Oski drops me to the ground and whirls around with blinding speed, emitting a battle shriek. They unsheath a long bright sword from inside their cape, one I didn’t even know they had, and it glints through the night as it strikes against a large rock. Sparks fly, and I don’t see anything at first, but then I glimpse a shadow dodging Oski’s movements with incredible speed.

“Get them!” Oski yells, and I see a large shadow hurtle toward me. I grab my spear, but instead of jabbing the pointed end at the dark figure, I ram the blunt end into its center by accident.

“Oof,” a voice bellows, and the shadow falls limp at my feet, gasping for breath.

Oski leans down and rips back the attackers woolen hood, revealing the face underneath. It’s Einar Ymirsson. I’ve knocked the wind from his chest and he is lying there, vulnerable. I spin my spear and jab the pointed end toward his throat, but Oski snatches it back at the last moment, preventing me from exacting my bloody revenge.

“What are you doing?” I shout. “He is the enemy.”

“No,” says Oski. “He isn’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. He made the dust that cursed my entire clan. He’s responsible. He has to die.” I struggle to pull the spear from Oski’s grasp, but they are unmovable. They look at me with a quiet pity.

“Aargh!” I yell and then start kicking Einar in the side until Oski lifts me away, holding me under one arm the way an exasperated mother might hold a tot who refuses to listen.

“Release me!” I shriek, but Oski does not let go.

“When you are calm, I will release you. Stop squirming,” Oski says.

With my free hand I grab my rune pouch and hold it while I stare at Einar. I summon all my hatred and rage, trying to remember the darker runecasts Sýr warned me against using. I pluck the leather cord around the pouch, and my runes tumble onto the black ground, glowing as red as the moon overhead.

“Pain,” I hiss, directing all my power in Einar’s direction.

Oski drops me, wailing with a tone I’ve never heard before in nature. It’s so loud that both Einar and I grasp our heads and cover our ears. Though bothered by the noise, Einar does not seem to be in pain. My runes did not cast onto the correct foe. Instead they attacked Oski.

I turn and see Oski writhing on the ground, their body glowing red-hot, steam rising into the cold night air.

“You’re burning them alive!” Einar shouts. “Stop it now.”

“I can’t,” I say, stepping backward. “I don’t know why this is happening.”

Einar leaps up and tries to grab Oski, but he snatches his hand back. “Ah! It burns.”

I look at my runes, still aflame with my anger. I bend to pick them up, but they’re so hot I cannot gather them.

“Please,” I plead with my runes. “Stop.”

“Do something!” Einar shouts as Oski continues to wail.

Think, Runa. Think. I have to interrupt the pattern. But how? My spear. I grab my white spear stick and flip my runes over so they’re no longer casting their murk-staves. Turning them so the opposite side, the bright side, is up will help me to cast a new spell. As I flip them, Oski quiets, and their color turns from red to pink.

“Keep going,” says Einar. “More.”

I bend down and blow on the runes, willing them to cool, but I am still angry, and my runes are connected to me. They’re much more connected to me than I realized.

I take a deep breath. I must try to calm myself. I think of Sýr, of her open, kind face, and my heart fills with love.

I say the rune for ice, “Ís,” and at last the runes are cool again. Scooping them back into their pouch, I put them away. “Sleep now,” I whisper to them.

I turn to see Einar helping Oski drink from a jug.

“What is that?” I ask suspiciously.

“Mead,” grunts Oski, revived by the drink and returned to their normal color of bone white.

“Don’t drink it,” I exclaim. “You don’t know what’s in it.”

Oski waves a lithe hand at me. “I don’t care.”

“He’s a known poisoner,” I say, my voice growing vicious again. I struggle to quell the rising anger within me as I advance toward Einar, my spear stick held out.

He places his hands up, relinquishing the jug to Oski, who downs it at once.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Einar gasps at my feet, his face lit warm by the fire’s glow. “You don’t understand. Please don’t set me on fire.”

“It really hurts,” grunts Oski between gulps.

“You. Destroyed. My. People,” I say through gritted teeth.

Einar shakes his head. “No. I didn’t want to. Katla has my clan under her spell, and my father…” He trails off.

“Is a coward,” I finish for him.

“He’s not,” Einar argues. “He’s enchanted. They’re all enchanted. It’s dark magic.”

“You poisoned them.” I draw my spear back toward his eye and he leans back, shaking.

“Yes,” he says. “But not in the way you think. It’s true that I made the dust, but…” He tries again. “Katla wanted to kill everyone. She wanted a dust that would melt everyone to ash. Even the children,” he adds.

“Go on,” says Oski, tossing the empty mead jug aside.

“I asked her to let your clan live and allow me to use a different kind of dust if…” He doesn’t finish.

“If?” I ask, kicking him in the side with my boot.

“Ow!” He recoils. “If I could guarantee your clan would be under her control. Permanently. I told her it would be a waste to kill everyone. That you could be used. She liked that. There’s nothing she likes more than absolute control.”

Oksi curses and mutters under their breath.

Einar continues. “So I made a sleeping dust, a complex one, but then Katla enchanted it and made it so that no one would ever wake from it.”

Einar’s amber eyes take on a faraway look. “She’s so strong. So strong. She demands sacrifices. She says she needs more power before the competition. She has been stealing people. Even elves.”

I think back to the elf I met at the crossroads. Falleg.

“Katla’s been burning them in her fires,” Einar continues.

“So the runecaster and the witch have something in common,” says Oski, giving me a pointed look.

I narrow my eyes at them in return.

“Yes,” says Einar, “but you’re very different in another way.”

“How?” I ask.

“I saw her eat…the flesh of the people she killed,” he says, his voice quiet and haunted. “The people we helped her steal.”

We all remain in silence for a moment, taking this in.

Then Einar continues in a whisper. “We heard a baby crying in the night. A tiny village in the forest. She wanted me to get the baby for her.”

My heart lurches in my chest.

“Did you?” Oski asks what I cannot.

“No!” Einar says. “I could never do such a thing. That’s when I knew I had to get away. But I couldn’t just run. I didn’t want her to kill my father or punish my clan. I had to convince her to let me go.”

“How?” I ask. I don’t believe a word this Jötnar is saying to me.

“I told Katla I would find you and use you,” he says.

“Use me for what?” I ask.

He hesitates.

“For what?” I shout, pressing the spear into his side. This time Oski doesn’t stop me.

“Ah,” he cries out. “Because if your sister doesn’t survive, she will need a substitute.”

I don’t like where this is going.

He sighs, holding his hands up again. “Please, listen to me.”

“Be quick. And if you lie, you die,” I say.

“Fair,” he says, spitting some blood onto the ground.

“Katla isn’t mortal,” he says. “She can’t enter moonwater. Not like you can. And not in her own body. She can’t take the moonstone either or else she will die. She needs to do it through someone else. Through Sýr.”

I take a step backward and stumble. Oski reaches for me, but I wave them off. This is as I expected, but it’s shocking all the same.

“Go on,” I say.

“If Sýr dies, Katla wants you in her stead,” he says.

“What do you mean, if Sýr dies?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

Einar’s sadness is evident on his face. “I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen what happens when Katla takes over a body. The original gets consumed.”

I feel sick, and it’s all I can do not to vomit all over him. It would serve him right. But his words have a ring of truth.

“Why find me?” I demand. “Why didn’t you run? Or find a ship and set sail for another land? Believe me, I would have!”

“Because she’s watching,” he says. “Always watching. And you wouldn’t have run. Not if you’d seen what I have. I cannot leave my clan. I cannot let her continue to hurt my people. She won’t stop. You know she won’t.”

I sit with a sigh, my spear clattering to the rocks. “I know.”

“I’m sorry,” Einar says. “I wish it was different.”

“How do you know all about Katla’s plans?” Oski asks. “The witch tells you everything?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “My mother was her victim too.”

I stare at him, at the openness in his eyes and the sadness he wears like a heavy cloak. His voice is choked with pain as he talks. “Katla took my mother’s form to entice my father and infiltrate the once-mighty Jötnar. Now my mother is dead, consumed by the witch, and Katla still uses her face. She is doing the same to Sýr, and I cannot abide it.”

“And your father?” I ask. “He isn’t complicit?”

“No. My father is a proud man. A just man. But he is under a deep spell, as are the entire clan. They can’t see her for what she is. When my father looks at Katla, he sees his beloved bride.”

“And you can see her for what she is?” I ask.

He nods. “I have been training as a potion mage since I was a boy. Part of that training means ingesting small amounts of poisons and other tinctures that would make others sick. I’ve been drinking a special tea for years, and as far as I can tell, it keeps me from falling under Katla’s spell. But sometimes it’s hard. Confusing. Sometimes I see my mother when I look at her, and I wish I was enchanted too.”

“Why does the witch not mind?” asks Oski.

“I play along,” says Einar. “It’s all that seems to matter to her. Once she is finished with me, she will consume me. And,” he adds, “I’ve done terrible things.”

“Terrible things,” I echo. “Like the dust.”

He nods. “And worse. For my people. And I’d do it again.”

I understand what he’s saying. I’d do anything to stop Katla and save Sýr and my people. Anything. Would I mix a poison dust to curse another clan? If you’d asked me a few days ago, I would have said no. Now I’m not so sure.

“I don’t blame you if you hate me,” Einar says. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“No?” I ask. He is bold to say so.

“No,” he says. “Go ahead and hate me. Kill me if you must. Just promise me you’ll destroy her. She’s taken everything from me, and no one wants to see her dead more than me.”

“I’d be willing to fight you on that,” I say. Can I believe him? “What can I do?” I ask him. “Why me? I’m just trying to find my sister. She’s the one you need.”

He sighs. “I know Katla’s secrets because I’ve been watching and listening. I know she covets the moonstone. And I know there is something about you that worries her. It unsettles her enough that she let me go. She fears you in some way, and that’s reason enough for me to help you get to moonwater to stop her.”

“But I’m no one,” I say. “I’m not even a real runecaster.”

Einar shrugs. “I just know that I need your help. My clan needs your help. And I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

I look at Oski, who nods. “I’ve seen inside his mind. He tells the truth.”

“I’m sorry,” Einar says. “I had no other choice but to mix the dust. Nothing else would have worked. And everyone would have been killed. I didn’t know this would happen.”

“About this dust,” I ask. “Can my people be restored?”

He looks uneasy. “I’ve never made it before. It’s a complicated potion. If it hadn’t been enchanted, then I could have made a cure for it. But now nothing will work unless the witch is defeated. If we kill her maybe we can set everyone free.”

We stare at each other in silence before Oksi interjects. “Fine. No cure unless we kill the witch. I am all for killing. Now how do we do it?”

Einar looks at me, his gaze intense and hopeful. “I think a runecaster can kill her. Like you.”

“I like him,” says Oski in their cheerful way, earning a dark glance from me. “What?” they ask. “I do like him. And he can help.”

“If you’re so powerful with your potions,” I ask Einar, “then why haven’t you killed the witch or poisoned her?”

“You don’t understand,” Einar says, his voice grave. “She isn’t mortal. She is immune to my potions. I have tried, even casting henbane seeds into the fire so that the whole clan has visions and nightmares, myself included. But not her. She never breaks. She eats the hearts of the animals we kill. She moves in total silence and fast too, like a fox.”

“Or something like a fox,” I say, remembering the creature in the field that made me so uneasy.

Einar looks at me. “You’ve seen it?”

I nod. “I think it was a skoffin.”

Oski gasps. “Vile creature. Hard to kill.”

I am confused and exhausted, and this information is hard to take in. I have fantasized that I would find Einar Ymirsson and make him suffer on behalf of my people, but now that he’s here I cannot do it. I believe him. Damn it.

He turns to me. “I saw you up on the clifftop when Katla took your sister. I saw that you took a dagger to the chest. And here you are still. I’ve never seen anyone withstand her magic. I thought if anyone could help me, it’s you.”

I laugh, and the sound is more bitter than joyful. “You thought wrong.”

Einar stares at me, his gaze so intense that I want to look away. “If Katla can harness the power of the moonstone through Sýr, then everything we know will be gone. My people, your people. Everything.”

“What can I do?” I ask at last. “I’m not powerful like Katla is.”

“But you are a runecaster,” Einar says, pointing to my runes. “You’ll have to try to beat her.”

“I can’t do that.” I shake my head. “I’m an apprentice. A bad one. I’m not even allowed to battle at moonwater.”

“Then we are all doomed,” says Oski with finality.

“Maybe someone else,” I begin, but I know there is no one else.

“It must be you,” says Einar. “Sometimes I have feelings about people. My mother had that gift. She always knew when someone was good. When they could be trusted. And you love your sister enough to risk this journey on your own.”

“Not alone,” Oski interjects.

“My point is,” says Einar, ignoring Oksi, “I think you are brave enough to take her on. It’s our one chance.”

I stare at the dark sky, the red moon glowing like the red heart of the gods. I feel a surge of anger as I imagine Sýr being being forced to do unspeakable things by the evil Katla.

“This is crazy,” I say. “But I will fight her. It will be me. In the name of my sister and my clan, I will have revenge.”

I look at Einar, whose face has taken on a hopeful expression, and at Oski, who grins their maniacal grin.

“I will help you avenge your mother and the Jötnar,” I say to Einar. “In exchange for your vow to help me defeat Katla and release my people from their cursed sleep.”

Einar stands and pulls out a dagger, slicing into the meaty part of his palm. The dark blood runs and sizzles as it drips into the fire. “I swear it,” he says. “I pledge myself to you.”

I know this to be a significant gesture, for elf blood carries its own magic and is never spilled on purpose without binding consequences. This vow he makes is the best assurance I can have that his allegiance lies with me, although I will never fully trust him. To do so would be foolish.

I look at Oski. “And you?”

Oski stands, pulling up to full height, and lifts their long, shining sword. “I am Oski, and this is Chooser of the Slain. You will have my sword and whatever is left of my soul.” They run their hand along its razor-sharp length and black blood springs forth, coating it. Oski holds the sword over the fire, and their blood drips into it.

Einar and Oski look at me. I nod and hold out my hand. Einar presses the hilt of his knife into it, and I don’t hesitate. I slice myself as I’ve done several times since my entire life fell apart, the pain nothing compared to what I will feel if we fail on our quest.

My blood flows out of me, carrying with it all my love, all my hate, all my hopes and dreams and fears. It drops onto the dying embers and unites with Einar’s and Oski’s. We are bound together now.

I look at them both and then hold up my runes.

“It’s us now,” I say, my runes aglow in their pouch. “My blood, your blood. You live, I live. I die, you die.”

“Then let’s get to it,” says Einar, holding out his hand.

I place my hand in his, startled by the heat of his skin before I remember that elves run hot. Oski adds their cold hand on top of mine, and we stand together, three unlikely allies under a rising blood-red moon, about to embark on a quest that is destined to kill us all.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little thrilling. I’m looking forward to finding Katla. I’m going to find a way to make her suffer as we have suffered. It’s going to be fun.