Runemaker, page 16
“Safe. Which is more than you could say.”
Jarrett lowered his voice. And for the first time since they’d traveled off to find Aidan, he actually looked as she had once known him. Human. Hurting.
“Do you think I wanted to do it?” he asked. “It killed me, Dreya. To see him struggling. To see myself losing him. I thought if I took him here, if I kept him safe—”
“If you locked him up and severed him from magic. That is not saving. That is inhumane.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I do understand. You were angry. Aidan and his broken magic was only partly to blame. You were angry because you feared you would no longer be important to Tenn, that duty and another would take him from you. You forgot that he is a grown man. That he is able to make his own choices. And from the day he met you, he chose you.”
Jarrett swallowed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“What you did or did not mean to do is no longer relevant,” Dreya said. “The past is done. We have larger things to worry about.”
“I thought you said Tenn was safe.”
“He is. For now. But we must hurry.”
Jarrett took a step back and looked over the three of them. Air burned brighter in his throat, casting away all doubt, all emotion.
“What have you done?”
“We didn’t do anything,” Kianna said, stepping up and patting Jarrett on the shoulder as she walked to the main gate. “But my mate brought back the devil incarnate. Things are about to get really fun around here.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
TENN
The moment the dust of the runes cleared, Tenn was smacked with the overwhelming weight of heat. Heat, and a dampness so profound, his clothes stuck to him like a second skin.
He blinked against the brightness. Everything green and vibrant and lush, so bright he thought perhaps he had died. Minus the heat, this place had to be heaven.
Dense jungle foliage draped all around him, giant fronds and lush grass, as close and cloying as the heat and the air that filled his lungs. A shudder coursed through him—in the last few years, even the summers had been cold and damp and unpredictable. To have this heat, this lush beauty, was more a sign than anything else that he was somewhere altogether new. Somewhere, well, magical. He stood awestruck in the copse and stared at the green and the flowers and the sunlight filtering in from above.
Maybe he had died. Though he doubted he would go to heaven after everything he’d done.
It was then he realized what truly felt strange.
He heard birds.
Dozens, if not hundreds of them, singing in the trees, calling out in a myriad of voices. Birds, and other animal noises, too. It felt like being in a zoo, an aviary. How long had it been since he’d been in a place that had really seemed alive? Most everywhere in America had been stripped bare of life—anything with a pulse had become food for the Howls. How had this place escaped that fate?
“Welcome, Tenn,” came a woman’s voice.
He turned slowly, like he was moving through honey. And there, on the path before him, was the girl who could be none other than the Violet Sage.
She couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen. Her long white dress draped around her in folds and layers like the petals of an orchid, her black hair hung loose down her back. At first, he thought her skin was mottled by the sunlight, but when she moved he saw that in fact her skin was a blend of light and dark, brown and pale pink. And her eyes... He knew her eyes were what gave her her name. They were stunning amethyst, and he swore they saw straight to his core.
She smiled at the look on his face.
“You will get used to the heat,” she said. She turned and beckoned him to follow. “We do not get many visitors here, and I’m afraid that time is of the essence, so I cannot give you the full tour...”
“Where are we?” Tenn asked. He jogged to catch up with her, giant leaves smacking wetly against his shoulders as they moved.
“An island.” She looked over at him. “Forgive me for being discreet. We cannot risk this haven becoming known. We have already lost so much. To lose those who live here would be catastrophic.”
“Who lives here?”
“My disciples. Those who seek to understand Maya. You call them the Prophets.”
Despite everything, Tenn felt a hitch of excitement in his heart.
The Prophets lived here. The mysterious mages who could tell the future, that had dictated the movements of so many battles, had held the lives of so many Hunters in their hands. Including his.
They were also the ones who sent Jarrett and the twins after him. They had set all of this in motion. Fitting that here, at the end, he would finally meet the ones who caused the beginning.
“Is that what I’m here to learn?” Tenn asked. “How to access Maya?”
She nodded.
“That is our hope.”
They walked in silence after that, even though Tenn was overflowing with questions. He had felt the weight of destiny heavy on his shoulders before, but this...this was more than he could comprehend.
No one really knew what Maya was, beyond that it existed, beyond that it had more power than the other Spheres combined. The ability to change creation. A Sphere that was almost sentient.
To have Water act up was one thing. To be told he needed to access the Sphere that—to his knowledge—no one ever had wielded was quite another. What chance did he have? He could barely control Water. How the hell was he supposed to control a Sphere that was truly omnipotent?
Thankfully, he wasn’t with his thoughts for long. The path veered and opened, and the sound Tenn had thought was wind through the trees turned out to be waves crashing on a beach. Despite the urgency, he stared in wonder.
The beach before them was crystal white, stretching far into the distance and out into the sea in an undulating curve. Farther out, the beach gave way to thick grass tumbled with stone paths and small platforms. And behind those, nestled amidst the jungle, were huts of raw wood, windows open to the sea breeze. Dozens of huts in all shapes and sizes, all of them with large porches that jutted toward the sea. From here, he could see a handful of white-robed people milling about the paths and buildings.
“This is...”
“Paradise. A reminder of what we are fighting for. And what the world could become again.”
He felt the words she didn’t say ringing between them—if you don’t fail, that is.
But that wasn’t what he’d wanted to say, not precisely. Because beneath the awe, another emotion bubbled to the surface. Anger. This is unreal, he’d wanted to say. This is unfair.
“How?” he asked. She’d begun walking again, and he hurried to her side.
“How can we re-create this?” she asked.
“No. How can you live like this?”
The anger intensified as he looked out at the pristine waves, the idyllic blue skies. The scent of flowers and baking bread filled his nostrils. It should have made him feel peaceful, but instead it stoked the flames.
These people were living in bliss, while the rest of the world crumbled away. People were starving, literally living in their own shit, wondering if they would even have the luxury of waking up in the morning or if they’d be eaten or turned or destroyed in the night. This may as well have been another planet. How could they live with themselves when they knew humanity was suffering—no, not suffering, going extinct—on the other side of the ocean?
“I do not understand,” she said, her smile dropping.
Maybe it was from being around Aidan too much, but the hypocrisy of this burned in his chest, a rage at all the injustices in the world coming to a fine point.
“You live in paradise,” Tenn said. “And we’re out there starving. Dying. Every day, dying and fighting and failing just so we can survive another day, and you get to live here. No Howls or necromancers or danger. How the hell can you live with yourselves? If we had known...”
She studied him, her purple eyes pensive if not a little hurt, while around them the seagulls and waves mocked him with their ease.
“Years ago, humans were given the most powerful gift the world could give. And they used it to destroy themselves and the very planet that bore them life. We live here, in paradise, cut off from the entirety of the world, not because we believe we are better, not because we believe we deserve a special life apart, but because we carry the burden of knowledge, of a power even greater than that which humanity has already bastardized. We must be kept apart. If the rest of the world found us, if a single necromancer made his way here, civilization as we know it would be doomed.”
“It’s already doomed,” Tenn said. “What knowledge could you possibly have that would make things worse?”
“Maya. The ability to erase or reform creation itself.”
It felt like too simple an answer, a brush-off.
“If it’s so powerful,” he growled, “why haven’t you used it to save us?”
“We have tried,” she said. “And we have failed. And every time, we lose another great mind, another guardian of a power nearly lost. Maya does not give readily, Tenn. The Creator owes us nothing. No, the Creator owes us only spite. For what we have done with the gifts, the world, the very life beating in our hearts. Maya will not restore what we have destroyed. That is not nature’s way.”
It didn’t make sense, not really.
“Then why am I here?”
“Because we must try. Time and again, we must try, and we must hope, and we must pray. Pray that Maya will answer our cries, and heal our wounds.”
“And you think Maya will answer me?”
“I think there is a chance,” she said.
“Why not before? Why wait? For Aidan to do what he did. For the Dark Lady to rise again. If I’m here so you can teach me something that will change the world, why wait until now? You could have prevented all of this.”
Her eyes cut straight to his soul.
“Because attuning to Maya may very well kill you. We knew you were important, in ways we still do not understand. We could not risk losing you. If we had, there would have been no chance at turning Aidan, and our future would have been moot. We had to let you try to convince him on your own. And when that did not work, we have only one option left.”
“And you think that will work? You think I can attune?”
“No,” she said. “But I think you will try. I have watched you, Jeremy. I know you will throw your life on that altar, that you will sacrifice everything, if there is even the slightest chance it will help those who suffer. And that is why I have summoned you here. Not just because you are special or powerful, but because you are willing to give up your life to save the world. Because, in so many ways, you already have.”
Tenn swallowed hard. Thought of Jarrett and the future that had disintegrated before his eyes way before his lover had tossed him in the prison cell. Once, he thought he was willing to be a martyr. Now, he wasn’t so certain the world deserved it.
Now, he thought Aidan and Kianna might have been right all along.
There wasn’t anything worth living for. Only things worth killing.
“You don’t know me as well as you think,” Tenn said.
Again, that long, soul-searching stare. Tenn tried not to shuffle his feet in agitation. Tried not to let his anger drown in the pity and doubt that curled in the waves of his mind.
“Pray that you are incorrect,” she said. Then she turned and walked away.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
AIDAN
“We don’t need him,” Aidan growled.
He paced back and forth in front of a fireplace twice his height in the dusty library. They hadn’t left Natasja’s castle, and even with the blaze in the hearth and the burn in his chest, he was cold. Or maybe it wasn’t ice scratching at his limbs, but boredom. Agitation.
They had been here for hours.
Hours.
Him and the Dark Lady and a castle of corpses, and the corpses had been more engaging than the Dark Lady.
She sat in a large wingback chair before the fire, nursing a veritable goblet of red wine—at least, he assumed it was red wine—and watched him pace. She hadn’t divulged the secrets of the netherworld or announced some diabolical plan. She just sat. Silently. As if she hadn’t just spent the last four years in a similarly catatonic state. As if she had all the damn time in the damn world.
As though she weren’t the most powerful mage on the planet, who could take over it all with a cock of her finger.
Well, second-most powerful. He had to keep reminding himself of that.
He wasn’t her lackey.
She wasn’t his superior.
Which didn’t make waiting around for her to open her bloody mouth any easier.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
Aidan brought Tenn’s tracking rune to mind. He could feel the boy out there, distant. Not the same place as before. But he couldn’t place where. Could only point like a needle to due north.
“There,” he said, gesturing out the window. “Somewhere.”
The Dark Lady shifted forward in her seat. Swirled the wine in her glass.
“That is not good enough.”
Finally, something new.
“If you’re so all-powerful, why can’t you find him yourself?”
She stopped swirling her wine. He stopped pacing.
He stared her down, Fire roaring assurances in his chest. A tiny voice inside him questioned if he’d pushed her too far.
Then she smiled.
He smirked, let out a chuckle.
Her eyes narrowed.
Pain shot through his chest.
He staggered back, clutching his heart as it screamed and froze and he screamed and froze and fell to his knees before the fireplace, digging at his chest as if to scrape it open.
She rose and stood before him, her dark dress a billowing shadow at her feet, the air around her wavering with power, or perhaps it was the tears staining his eyes.
“You forget your place.” There was no vitriol in her voice. No passion. She spoke to him as if he were nothing but a pedestrian passing on the street. She stepped forward and placed her foot on his chest. He howled as more pain flooded him, as she pressed him to the rug. “Pray that it does not happen again,” she said. “For your own sake.”
The pain stopped.
He lay there, gasping, sweat drenching his skin as shivers raced through him.
“Sorry,” he choked.
She sat back down and picked up her goblet. “Sorrow is for the weak.” She took a sip. “I do not tolerate weakness. Now, I ask you again, where is he?”
Aidan tried to force himself up, but his body refused to cooperate. He settled for crouching, hunched over before the fire, trying not to fall back into the flames.
“I don’t know.”
“Then you are weak. Do you require another reminder?”
“The runes,” he said. “They don’t show me where he is exactly. Just a direction.”
“Then create new runes.”
It struck him silent.
Create new runes?
Shivering, he looked to his arm, pulled back the sleeve to reveal the cauterized marks he’d scratched into his skin. He’d done it before. He’d thought they had been her words, but he realized he had been wrong.
The runes weren’t the words of the Dark Lady.
They were older. A source outside of both of them.
But she couldn’t hear everything he could. She needed him.
She needed him.
He swallowed hard and let his sleeve drop. He didn’t ask what to do. Didn’t say he couldn’t. Because he could. He already had.
He shuffled and turned to face the flames. Fire had always spoken to him. Through him. But it wasn’t Fire he needed now. It was the voice behind it, the power that fueled it. He let his eyes unfocus and stared into the flames as Fire ignited within him.
Show me how to find him, he thought. Show me.
He pulled through Fire, but he didn’t use it to manipulate, didn’t use it to burn. Instead, he fed himself to the flames, let them burn through his consciousness, until he was no longer Aidan. No longer a Hunter. No longer human.
Until he was nothing but a flame, the flame, and he burned with the spark that turned the wheel of time.
Show me, he thought, the words echoing in the fire, the bliss, the heat. Knowledge coursed through him, but it wasn’t words. Fire didn’t speak in words. Only emotions. Only in action.
Distantly, he felt his body move, felt his arm reach into the flames, his fingers digging into the coals and ashes. It should have burned his skin, should have melted fat and flesh from his bones, but it was a distant tingle, the barest brush of sensation.
Flame couldn’t hurt flame. It could only embolden. Burn brighter.
Fire took over, and he pressed his other hand to the fibers of the rug. Tendrils of flame laced from his fingers, webbing over the rug, searing a circle of symbols around him. The stench of burning dust and fiber filled the room, distant to his senses. All he knew was the flame, the vibrating pulse in his chest that flooded from the heart of the flame before him, through him, into the rug and around him. A circle of sigils, burning through his consciousness even as they burned through the rug, seared themselves into the stonework below.
Runes completed.
Flame connected. Burned a brilliant orange around him, a tapestry of glimmering power as his eyes fluttered to the back of his head, as the room flooded orange, orange, brilliant and bright. Power swirled. Vision blanked white.
And then he saw.
Granules. White granules. Sand.
