Excerpt: The Pact: Outrider

Forgetting about her walk, Serenity shut herself up in her room and bolted the door. She didn’t want to see or talk to Rook, or Lexi, or any of them right now: instead, she dug into the bottom-most drawer of the ornate bedside cabinet—the sheer frippery of the décor in this fancy city was almost maddening, sometimes—and pulled out her rune-cards, slipping into a quick, distracted shuffle as she stalked out onto her balcony.

Jacqueline hadn’t housed them in the apartments off the Compass Room above; the quarters Serenity and her friends occupied were simple guest quarters on the first few levels of the tower, but hers was still high up enough that she could see out over most of the glittering sprawl of the city. She chewed her lip as she shuffled and watched; her window faced south, and she had a good view of the docks and the milling wharf on the bluffs below. She took a deep, steadying breath of the crisp salt air, and began muttering the futhark under her breath.

"What should I do?"

The question was loud in her mind. She had reached the end of her rope trying to muddle through the decisions on her own—she needed guidance.

She dealt three cards out onto the balustrade. Jera, mannaz, and raidho, all reversed.

She swore silently to herself, but read them anyway.

The first card indicated poor planning and loss. It was the sign of the fruitful year, but in merkstave it was all caution and warning. Blind activity would lead to ruin—if Jack, her Jack, could have seen it, he would have said the cards were telling her to be very patient, and very thoughtful. And a hell of a lot of good that had done her so far.

Mannaz was the sign of man, humanity. Its merkstave aspects spoke of confusion and alienation. Its warning wasn’t much better than the first one.

Finally, raidho was the rune of movement, often one of her favorites, but again heralding the wrong time, bad decisions, movement in all the wrong directions. She swore again, this time out loud, and swept the cards back up into their deck.

~So what does that tell you?~ D’aej prodded.

“It tells me I need a new deck of cards,” she growled, tossing the ones in question back into their drawer and kicking it shut. She’d never disparaged the deck Jack had given her before, but she was angry.

~It would seem the spirits are trying to ward against exactly this kind of attitude.~

“I changed my mind,” she grumbled. “I’m not in the least bit interested what the spirits have to say to me now.”

~Serenity, you’re being petulant.~

“So what? Haven’t I earned the right to feel a little put-out by all this? For the last year I’ve only been trying to do what’s right and look where that’s got me!”

The darkling snickered. ~You sound like your old self, alright.~

“Just shut it, darkling,” she snarled.

~I take it you’re not going to follow the runes on this one, then?~

“No.”

She stopped her pacing, halted in her tracks. The cards hadn’t held the signs she’d been looking for, no… but they’d certainly made everything a whole lot clearer.

“No, I’m not,” she said again. “Forget the runes. Forget the cards. I can’t stay here anymore.”

~And where are you going to go?~

She could only think of Whit: the way he had looked at her just before the end—the desperate gleam in his eyes as he stayed behind to let her escape.

"I’ll find my way back to Nostra! I’ll be alright, just get going, you stupid witch!"

“Nostra,” she said. The veracity of it actually startled her darkling.

~You… would seriously go back to the midnight lands?~

“That’s where he said he’d go,” she replied.

Her darkling paused, wary. She could feel him weighing the revelation against her earlier resolves, unsure whether he could trust what she was saying.

~Farbeit for me to argue against returning to the north, but really, fleshling, do you honestly think there is anything left of that obstinate dog? He was transformed into a garmr demon, Serenity, he is dead.~

“He said he would find his way back,” she insisted. “And so will I.”

Silence from her darkling. She had truly astounded him.

More importantly, she had finally made a decision, and right now just having that resolution was worth any risk that came with it.