Lykara Rune-Song is a shield maiden, a seiðr, and a woman marked by gods who have stopped explaining themselves. When raiders attack the sacred village where women train in magic, Lyka kills enough of them to buy the others time to escape, but she is captured, chained to a longboat, and carried toward a fate meant to strip away everything she is. She should have seen the attack in the runes. The fact that she did not frightens her almost as much as captivity. Her path leads far from the world she knows and toward Darien, a man shaped by a different land, different knowledge, and questions that refuse to stay safely human. Their connection develops against a backdrop of gates, old prophecies, divine interference, and powers that treat mortal lives as pieces on a board. Lyka has spent her life serving gods such as Odin and Freya, but devotion becomes harder when their silence begins to look deliberate. Darien offers another way to understand the forces moving around them, even as his own ties to the conflict make trust complicated. Attraction crosses cultural boundaries and old loyalties while danger follows close behind. Wolves, runes, and the strange power surrounding the Sun Gate point toward a struggle that reaches beyond raiders or kingdoms. Someone is moving the world toward a confrontation, and Lyka's missing vision may be part of the reason. To survive, she must rely on the warrior she trained to be, the seer she fears is failing, and the man she never expected to need. The gods have written stories for mortals long enough. Lyka is ready to find out what happens when she refuses the ending they prepared for her.
Lykara Rune-Song is a shield maiden, a seiðr, and a woman marked by gods who have stopped explaining themselves. When raiders attack the sacred village where women train in magic, Lyka kills enough of them to buy the others time to escape, but she is captured, chained to a longboat, and carried t...