Ailsa lingered in the doorway separating Vali’s bathing room from his bedchambers, waiting for him to return from the Light Palace library. She requested he retrieve the Futhark, the scroll of Elder Runes of the old language that had been passed down from the gods to all beings in the beginning of creation. She knew most of the script by heart, having written protective runes on her family for years. But his search bought her time. Time to think and time to process.
She wanted him more than a soul could want for another. But could she do this? Nearly at the end of her thread, and fate chose this moment to send her the love she’d been waiting for. If her life was written as a song, the worlds would think their story a tragedy.
But even with the promise of numbered days limiting their time left together, Ailsa wouldn’t want to spend them with anyone else. When he asked her to be hisFraendi, when he said helovedher, her heart almost shattered with reprieve. She had been happy enough just enjoying the last week with him, exploring Alfheim, seeing where he trained, learning all his favorite foods, and hearing his childhood stories.
But this… His mate? It was something she didn’t know was possible, and now that it was, she wanted nothing else than to mark him forever. To give him a piece of her to carry forever. And if he wanted her in return, then that was enough to give her peace over the decision.
So Ailsa moved toward his desk at the far side of the room, finding ink to write with and a piece of parchment to practice. And while she waited for Vali to return from his futile search, she designed the rune that defined their story, the hope they found in their tragedy, and a love so powerful that not even fate could destroy it.
The black jagged lines that would soon be written into their flesh, embodying a saga of sunshine and starlight.
* * *
“I see you started without me.”
Ailsa looked up from her work to see Vali holding her requested text. He threw the old scroll to the side where it landed on the bench at the end of his bed, seeing she no longer required it. She gave him an impish smile. “I’m sorry, I just needed some time alone. I hope you don’t mind.”
He combed his hair back with his fingers, pushing loose wavy strands out of his eyes. The lazy movement still somehow sensual on him. “Of course not. I needed some time as well, it turns out. I kind of threw this on us both rather quickly.”
“Having second thoughts?” she asked, hiding the potential disappointment in her voice.
His smirk showed itself. “Definitely not.”
Ailsa held up the final draft of their rune, her fingers now stained with ink. “Good, me either.”
His grin stretched wider as he strode to where she sat and took the parchment from her hands, studying the rune himself. She watched his golden eyes flicker over the intersection between the markings of sun and star, branching from the rune of eternal love and rooted in faith and strength. It wasn’t particularly complicated or long, but Ailsa thought it fit them.
Vali dropped the paper from his gaze slightly, just enough to lean forward and kiss her long and hard. One of his hands slipped beneath her crown of braids, combed the length of the free-flowing tresses cascading down her back with his fingers. He broke their kiss to mutter, “It is perfect.”
That raw edge in his voice made something primal lurch in her heart. She licked her lips, mouth suddenly feeling dry. “You pick where it goes.”
His brow arched as his gaze raked over her body still sitting in the round desk chair. His chest purred a sound of ponderance. “That’s a hard one. There are so many divine places on your skin where this could go.” He pulled her out of the chair to stand in front of him, his fingers brushing back her hair over her shoulder, where his lips kissed the curve of her shoulder.
“I like here,” he whispered into her skin, though his hands were searching for other possibilities. Ailsa bit her lip to quiet the sigh of appreciation his touch drew.
With a feather weight of pressure, his fingers skimmed over her left breast, tracing the outline of the rune over her heart. “Maybe here,” he murmured in her ear.
Her eyes fluttered, fighting to shut and surrender to his sensations. “That’s a good spot,” she managed to say.
Vali mumbled his agreement, but his palms dipped lower and stopped at her hips, gathering her night shift between his fingers to push it high over her waist. She was about to ask what he was up to when he knelt and pulled her closer, trailing kisses above her navel. “How about here, where you stabbed me the first day we met.”
Ailsa giggled and pushed him back. Her flesh remembered the last time his mouth had been so low. A fresh heat pooled between her legs when his breath brushed her middle.
“Fond times,” she breathed, combing his hair with her fingers.
“For one of us.” Her shift fell back over her hips as he took her hand in his. Still on his knee in front of her, he placed his lips on the back of her wrist. Then smoothed over the spot with his thumb as if to seal it there forever.
“Here,” he finally said.
“Our hands?”
He nodded, rubbing her knuckles across his soft lips. “So it will always be seen. So I will be reminded of myFraendiwith everything I do.”
Ailsa took his face into her hands and pulled him up from the floor. “Then so be it. Show me what is next,Sólskin.”
He took her into the next room, where the hearth mirrored into the sitting area on the other side of his bedroom. In front of the fireplace was a bowl and a sheathed dagger, both sitting on a cot of blankets and pillows.
“Just in case we do not make it to the bed,” Vali explained. He sat in front of the fire, the parchment still in his hands, and laid out the rune sketch between the golden bowl and the matching dagger. She slowly lowered herself to sit across from him. Her heart beating an unsteady beat in her ears, hiding the tremble in her fingers by fisting her hands.