Rune Magic. Maya already received an impromptu crash course on it in typical fashion of emergency circumstances when one of Feye’s subjects went haywire and they needed to contain it.

  Runes were far more direct in spellcasting than Seier’s subtle nature.

  Their magic took effect through sound or carvings, requiring less philosophical understanding but just as much caution.

  Maya returned to the living room, carefully holding a wooden box carved from spruce. A bindrune carved was etched onto its cover, intertwining all symbols of the Elder Futhark alphabet—the oldest form of the runic alphabet.

  Before Maya could say anything, Fey snatched it from her hands.

  Maya scowled. “Geez, I was going to give it to you.”

  Balancing on her crutch, Fey ignored Maya and pried the box open, revealing a set of 24 carved rune stones.

  “Oh, pretty,” Maya chirped, peeking over Fey’s arm.

  “They look pretty, but they’re pretty weak,” Fey muttered. “A children’s set. My mom gave them to me so I’d find some neighbourhood kid to teach evil magic.”

  Maya wrinkled her nose. “...You don’t actually plan to do that, right? …Right?”

  Fey shrugged, not really answering the question.

  Instead, she picked up one of the stones. One with a vertical line and two horizontal strokes—the Ansuz rune.

  “For wisdom and the secrets of magic, Odin sacrificed one of his eyes.” Fey mused, rolling the rune between her fingers. Then, with a smirk, she clenched it into a fist, shaking it. “But don’t worry. We won’t be doing that.”

  Maya let out a sigh of relief.

  “Each rune has a name and a range of esoteric meanings. To use them properly, you need to understand both their intent and their contradictions.”

  “Doesn’t sound too hard.” Maya shrugged. “You already taught me some last time.”

  Fey scoffed. “You know nothing, love.”

  She opened her fist, revealing a soft white glow radiating from the rune. Lights broke and flickered, floating inches above her palm.

  “Ansuz represents knowledge, insight, and communication. But it also embodies manipulation and miscommunication.” Her voice turned sharp. “Use it incorrectly, and you’ll get the opposite of what you want.”

  Maya gulped.

  For a moment, she hesitated whether it was such a good idea to learn magic or not.

  Squaring her shoulders, she composed herself. “Still, I want to learn it.”

  Fey studied her for a moment, unsatisfied by her eagerness. But she sighed, setting the rune back in the box.

  “We will start with something more obvious. Something more direct.”

  She plucked out another rune. This one had a vertical line in the middle and a horizontal triangle sprouting from the middle and pointing to the right.

  “Thurisaz.” Fey twirled the pretty stone between her fingers. “Represents masculinity and empowerment, but also defencelessness, compulsion, and betrayal.” Fey smirked. However—”

  The rune crackled with energy, lifting off from her hand in small, sparkling arcs.

  “It is the rune of Thor, the God of Thunder. A good choice for striking down vicious enemies—or charging your phone.”

  Maya eyed the sparking stone warily. “So, if I mess up, it’ll blow up in my face? Is that even safe?”

  “Oh, calm down.” Fey rolled her eyes. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Then, without a single fair warning, Fey tossed the rune into the old closet at the corner, which was left behind by the previous owner and still not cleared out yet.

  Maya barely had time to react to what happened next.

  The explosion rattled the room. The old closet disintegrated into splinters and Halfdan, the small Draugr, who was diligently watering a young plant, got brutally caught in the blast.

  Not a single trace remained of the closet or Halfdan.

  Maya gasped in horror. “You killed Halfdan!”

  Fey, completely unfazed, shrugged. “He’s fine.”

  “Fine? He just blew up!”

  “Skill issues. A minor setback,” Fey dismissed. “He and the other two are surprisingly sturdy.”

  “That’s not what I just saw!”

  Before the arguing could continue, Carl, the helmed Draugr, rushed into the room and picked up Halfdan’s half-charred head from the rubble. He brushed off the soot and dust from his face.

  “...Groar?” Halfdan croaked, only for Carl to hug him tightly, and gather his remains.

  Maya clutched her heart at the sight.

  She turned to Fey, shaking her head in disbelief. “If you keep mistreating your workers, they’re gonna unionise one day, you know?”

  Fey snorted. “Sure they will.”

  She waved her hand, and Leif, the fancy Draugr, walked in with a dustpan, promptly sweeping up the rubble. He fished out the rune and returned it to Fey, fancily.

  “I was aiming to get rid of that old closet, anyway.” Fey blew the dust off the rune and handed it to Maya. “Your turn.”

  “Hell nah.” Maya snapped her hands up in refusal, shaking them vehemently. “No way I will use that now. With my bad luck, I will blow up the entire apartment.”

  Fey flicked her tongue, and rested her fist on her hip. “Relax. These are kid's runes. Their magic output is tiny. The only reason that one was so strong is because I have a substantial amount of divine blood running through my veins.”

  Maya frowned at her. “What divine blood? Are you some sort of goddess?”

  “One quarter,” Fey said nonchalantly. “But let’s put a pin on that.”

  Fey slammed the rune into Maya’s palm and closed her fingers around it. She then pointed at the cauldron.

  “Less whining. More action. Speak the rune’s name and focus on the desired effect. Worst-case scenario, you get mildly electrocuted.”

  Maya grimaced. “You’re so reassuring.”

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  Maya didn’t like her prospects, but Fey’s pushy attitude was hard to go up against. Her hand dug into Maya’s shoulder as she stood right behind her, ushering her toward the cauldron.

  Maya stared into the bubbling mass, feeling her confidence dropping. Then she looked at the small rune stone in her hand.

  It was so small, like a pebble. But the destructiveness it presented was off putting. Was this really what Maya wanted to learn?

  She took a breath.

  No use backing out now.

  Maya held her shaking fist over the water.

  She thought of her desire to be stronger. To fight like Val. To be capable like Austin. To be sorcerous like Fey. Between a Valkyrie, a witch, and a giant, Maya was just… regular.

  An ordinary human.

  Though, today she wished to prove the opposite.

  Her fingers tightened around the rune. Then, she let go.

  “Thurisaz.”

  The stone sparked. When it dropped into the cauldron, Maya backed away instinctively.

  Ripples fanned out where the rune landed. Sparks flickered along the liquid surface, making the green water shimmer with white-blue light.

  Silence. Nothing was happening.

  Fey crossed her arms. “See? Nothing happened, you goose. Perfectly harmless—”

  And then it went boom.

  Ok, maybe boom wasn’t doing it enough justice.

  The cauldron didn’t just explode—it detonated in a massive blast.

  First, its contents shot upwards upwards in a violent geyser, dousing the room in a cascade of steaming liquid. A heartbeat later, the pewter frame burst apart. The sheer force sent both Maya and Fey flying backwards, while the Draugr were obliterated entirely by the shockwave.

  Fey was definitely getting some noise complaints from her neighbours.

  Fey groaned as she pushed herself up, coughing up dust and lingering smoke.

  She scanned the wreckage that used to be her living room. None of her furniture had survived. The floorboards were cracked and her walls riddled with deep fissures.

  And worst of all.

  Her new flea market carpet was ruined.

  She hobbled to spot where the cauldron used to be. There was no sign of it left, except for a single stone rune sitting in the center of the blast radius.

  She bent down to pick it up, but the moment her fingers brushed its surface, it crumbled to dust.

  The magic from the stone was gone. For good.

  “Fey,” Maya’s voice was hoarse as she staggered to her feet. “Are you ok?”

  Her eyes swept over the devastation. Everything was in shambles or damaged beyond repair.

  Fey dusted ash off her pants. Her hand gripped her aching leg. “I’m fine,” she muttered. “Nothing happened to me.”

  “But your apartment—” Maya’s hands covered her mouth, with a voice cracked with guilt. “Oh, Fey, I’m so sorry— I… I didn’t—”

  “It’s fine.”

  “But I did it,” Maya looked around, desperate to fix something, anything, but all she touched crumbled to dust. There was nothing in this room that wasn’t damaged. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

  She bent down, reaching for a splintered piece of wood to start cleaning up, but Fey’s crutch swung down, knocking it out of her hands.

  Maya was too startled to look up.

  “...Fey?”

  “Leave it.”

  Maya hesitated, and kept her head low. Her hands tried to reach for another piece of debris.

  The sharp end of Fey’s crutch stabbed into the floorboards, right beside her hand.

  Maya froze.

  Fey’s expression was flat, unreadable; but her eyes?

  They were dark. Too dark.

  “I said leave it,” Fey repeated. Her voice was low, barely above a growl. “The damage is done. Things happened. Go home. I’ll deal with this.”

  Maya’s chest tightened, her eyes looked down. “Fey, I can’t. This is my fault. Let me help—”

  “Did I stutter?” Fey stepped forward, looming over Maya.

  She was afraid to move; afraid to take a step back. This wasn’t Fey no longer. This was a witch who could barely contain her anger.

  “Leave,” The V?lva said coldly. “Before I repeat myself.”

  “I… okay…”

  Maya bowed her head. She whispered an apology before moving away toward the door, leaving the apartment without changing first. She hesitated, keeping the door open for one last moment.

  “I’m sorry, Fey…”

  “Dagaz.”

  The door slammed shut with a loud thud.

  Fey’s fingertips smoked as white mist frizzed from her nails. She rubbed a hand down her face, and exhaled shakily. Her hand gripped for her aching leg.

  She took another look around.

  The Draugr were obliterated but they slowly reformed.

  Stubborn bastards . No matter what happens, they always come back.

  Fey tugged at the smoking curtains, now blackened with soot, and ripped them off. The metal rod that held them up came down with it and bonked her against the head.

  She hissed, clutching her skull. “Just my luck. Always this stupid, broken, and—”

  Her foot stepped on something soft. She stopped, and noticed the colour beneath her shoe wasn’t just soot and dust.

  It was red.

  Like the favourite little sofa of her ferret.

  “...No.” Her head snapped up, eyes darting wildly around the wrecked living room. “Missy? MISSY!”

  Fey’s breath hitched. She couldn’t hear anything past her thumping heart. Limping through the wreckage, she frantically overturned debris after debris..

  The crouch hurt her leg, but she bit through the pain, tearing through piles of wood and rubble. Her hands turned black from soot. Her lungs burned, the pain made her dizzy, but she couldn’t stop.

  She just couldn’t

  “Missy, where are you!?”

  Her heart pounded against her ribcage.

  “Come out, girl.”

  Her fingers trembled, and stretched out her hand.

  “Hagalaz.”

  Magic surged. Perspiration clung to Fey’s face. She was beyond exhausted but she couldn’t stop casting her spells to find her pet.

  Rubbish was cleared, separating wood from metal, ash from stone. Yet, there was still no sign of her. A desperate knot twisted in Fey’s chest.

  Then, she heard soft chittering sounds.

  “Missy!?” Fey’s head snapped towards her bedroom.

  She bolted to the door in a stumble. The handle was warped, bent out of shape and wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on,” Fey gritted her teeth. “Open up, you piece of trash— Berkana!”

  The spell washed over the door. Nothing happened. She cast it again before realising the reversed meaning of the rune.

  Anxiety. Rigid Control.

  Instead, her magic locked the door.

  Fey banged against her bedroom door; slammed her shoulder against it, but nothing. Her eyes snapped toward her reanimating servants.

  “Obey me, open the door!”

  Fey’s palm ignited with vile green energy, travelling up her arm like a burn mark. The magic lashed out like writhing tendrils to her undead.

  She forced them to reconstruct, warped their bodies in ways they shouldn’t. Their agonised minds screamed against their magical shackles until their will was broken and formed to her will.

  Magic should never be rushed, Fey knew it, but she was out of time.

  The monstrosity of what once was her former servants lumbered ahead. Its malformed hand ripped the door off its hinges before it collapsed. A defeated groan left its grotesque entity before it dissolved into a heap of dead flesh.

  Fey clambered over the corpse.

  “Missy?” she called out in hitched breaths.

  The jittering came from under the blanket. Fey carefully lifted the fabric. Relief washed over her as Missy looked at her with worry in her tiny eyes.

  Fey sagged in relief.

  “Come here, girl.”

  Missy sniffed her fingers before licking them gently. Without hesitation, she scampered up Fey’s arm and nuzzled her face against her neck.

  Fey clutched her tightly. “I’m fine, girl… I’m fine.”

  Her legs gave out.

  She gritted her teeth, gripped her bad leg, but the pain was too much. Her crutch slipped from her grapes, and she collapsed against the desk.

  Missy chittered anxiously, and jumped onto the edge of the desk, watching as Fey was rummaging through drawers. She tossed reagents and books onto the floor, searching for something.

  Her face was sweating, her heartbeat rising. All the adrenaline came crashing down on her.

  Finally, her fingers closed around a small metal tin.

  She tore it open, revealing pills, smokes, and a lighter.

  She popped a pill into her mouth and leaned heavily against the desk, waiting for the painkillers to take effect.

  It took too long. So she lit a cigarette.

  Her fingers shook as she brought the stick to her lips. The smoke burned her lungs, filling it with ash and tobacco.

  Her knees buckled, and she slid further down, head in her hands.

  The pain wasn’t disappearing. It was only getting worse.