Runemaker, page 22
He looked around at their camp. Mara stood at the front, Fire a low burn in her chest. He knew leaving her Clan felt like heresy, but that seemed to be the theme for everyone’s life now.
The only way forward was through betrayal.
He forced himself not to look at Jarrett or Aidan. Forced himself to stay focused. He reached through Earth and twined it through the runes, felt as the others around him did so, as well. In a far corner of his mind, he knew the Dark Lady or any lower necromancer could storm in and use these runes to follow them straight back to the Guild. A veritable bread crumb trail.
But that was also the point.
* * *
Jarrett hadn’t been exaggerating.
Outer Chicago was in chaos.
Tenn hadn’t bothered teleporting outside the gates—according to Jarrett, the defenses had been down for hours, and the shield that protected Outer Chicago from the outside world had fallen as the mages that upheld it sought instead to put out the fires inside the city. There was no use protecting an ash heap.
Cassandra led the Witches into the Guild, introducing them to other Hunters and showing them their rooms—though it seemed unlikely those rooms would ever get used. Jarrett hung back, pulled Tenn to the side.
“I’m leaving him in your care,” he said, nodding to Aidan.
“You aren’t going to lock him up?” Tenn asked. “You still have that sigil.”
Jarrett stared at Aidan and Kianna, doubt in his eyes.
“I’m going to trust you,” he said. “Besides, locking you away didn’t do anything, and I have a feeling he’s wilier than you are.”
He smiled. Tenn didn’t know if he was trying to make a joke or an insult. The smile slipped.
“If we get out of this,” Jarrett said, “I want... I want us to try again. Start over. Not as Tenn and Jarrett, but as ourselves. Not Hunters. Just humans. Would you...you want to try that?”
A few days ago, Tenn would have jumped on the offer. But now, he didn’t know what he wanted, least of all from Jarrett.
“We’ll talk when it’s over.”
Jarrett inhaled like he wanted to say more. Instead, he nodded and headed back into the Guild to rally the army.
Tenn watched him go. It felt like losing him all over again, but this time, it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it should. We’ll talk when it’s over. He doubted it would ever be over. He doubted that was a future he could hope for.
Dreya’s hand on his shoulder forced him back to reality. He turned. She and the others stood, silent, in the foyer of the Guild, waiting for him to make a move. Once more, he was in command. Once more, he was entirely unsuited for the job.
“Tenn,” Dreya said. “We must hurry.”
Outside, the storm clouds Tenn had thought were only above the Witches’ camp had followed. Lightning streaked through the sky and winds howled, casting sprays of ashes up into the darkness from where the fires hadn’t quite been put out. Tenn stared at the wide boulevard leading to the Guild. Only weeks ago, he had walked up there for the first time, past Caius and his converts and all those who wanted Hunters dead.
Now, this was where they would have the last stand.
Water quivered in his stomach; he felt the wrongness seeping through the world, the plague of the Dark Lady strengthening and spreading. It wouldn’t take long to reach here, and they had to be ready when it did.
Tenn nodded.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
TENN
Tenn’s old room was cramped, but it was the most private place he could think of, and the most secure. Nothing about it felt like home—not the worn bed or threadbare rug or stone walls, not the lantern light casting heavy shadows. And definitely not the four Hunters crammed in with him.
Aidan sat cross-legged on the bed, Kianna beside him with a hand on his shoulder. The twins stood against a wall. Which left Tenn by the door, watching them as they watched him.
“So.” Great leader he was.
“So,” Dreya replied. She took a step forward, her blue eyes glinting in the lantern light. “The Violet Sage...she taught you how to attune to Maya?”
Tenn nodded. His gaze flickered to Aidan. Before we were interrupted.
But whatever animosity he might have held was muted, dulled, drowned out by the pain Water dredged up. Aidan had only wanted to save his mother. Try as he might, Tenn couldn’t hate him for that. Aidan seemed to catch the glance. He looked down to his hands. Or, what was left of them.
“It is dangerous,” Dreya said.
“Yeah,” Tenn replied. “She said that no one had achieved it before. At least...”
Not until the Dark Lady.
“What happens to those who fail?” Kianna asked.
“They die, I think.”
“No,” Aidan said. “They become the Prophets.”
Everyone turned to him.
“You’ve seen the Prophets?” Tenn asked.
“I killed them.” He hurried on, as it was clear his statement wasn’t a welcome one. “I had to. The Dark Lady, she...well, she was persuasive. You don’t want to end up like them, Tenn. Trust me. They were mad. Mumbling nonsense to themselves, locked in a cave in the dark. It was inhumane. I don’t even think they knew I was there. I don’t think they even knew they were being killed.”
“At least you didn’t say killing them was a humanitarian act,” Kianna grumbled.
“Not much of anything I’ve done has been humanitarian.”
“So how did she do it?” Dreya asked. “If none could attune, save her, what was her secret?”
“She said—she said that she had been close to death. That Maya wasn’t a godlike Sphere, but a Sphere of the gods. And that she was already a goddess.”
“None of us are gods,” Devon said. “So what hope do we have?” He took a step forward. “Should we all just have a shot at it, then? See who goes mad and who becomes divine?”
“I don’t think that’s what any of us are saying,” Dreya said.
“No,” Tenn said. “It should be me. I’m the one the spirits picked out. If anyone has a chance, it’s me.”
“Conceited, much?” Kianna said.
“Did you want to try?”
“Nope. One Sphere is more than enough for me. Frankly, I’m hoping to return it once this is all over.”
“Focus!” Dreya snapped. “We do not have time for lightheartedness. The Dark Lady will be here any moment. She has Maya. She has a Wight. We have nothing. One of us must attempt attuning.” She looked to Tenn. “You are right. You are the one the elements bend toward. You are the one the spirits called to. And that is precisely why it must not be you who attunes. It is too risky. When the Dark Lady attacks, we will need our most powerful mages. And that is you.”
Tenn’s heart sank.
“Then who do you recommend?”
She opened her mouth, but it was Devon who answered.
“Me.”
“What?”
“You said it yourself—we need the most powerful fighters when the Dark Lady comes. You, Dreya, are the fiercest fighter I know. Let me attune.”
“I cannot—”
“It is not your place to decide,” he said. He looked to Tenn. “Teach me the runes. Let me try.”
“Devon, I can’t—”
He shook his head.
Slowly, deliberately, he unwound the scarf from his face, looping it between his hands. Tenn had never seen Devon without the scarf. He’d expected to see the face of a grizzled warrior underneath, scarred and scruffy, but his jaw was smooth, unlined by war. Boyishly handsome.
“After our Clan died,” he said, looking straight at Tenn, “we found this in the ashes. It had been our mother’s. And I vowed, on that day, that every breath I took would be with the ashes of my family in my lungs, so I would know precisely what had been lost, and precisely what I was fighting for. You would honor me, and them, by allowing me this chance to avenge them. Let me attune. With Maya, we could wipe out the scourge forever.”
Tenn wanted to say the runes didn’t work like that. Maya didn’t work like that. Devon was powerful, sure. But he wasn’t a god.
None of them were.
Vibrations shook the floor, rattling the hurricane lamp.
“We don’t have time to sit around and play spin the bottle to see who’s going first,” Kianna said. “He volunteered, and Dreya’s right. We need you around.” She looked at Devon. “No offense, mate, and best of luck.”
Devon smiled. “None taken.”
He sat on the rug in the center of the room.
“Okay then.” He looked up to Tenn. “It’s decided. Show me the runes.”
Tenn glanced at Dreya, but she wasn’t watching him. She stared at her brother as if she were about to lose him. Perhaps, in a way, she was.
Another rumble shook them. He had no idea if it was the Dark Lady or something else, but he knew it meant there was no more time to spare.
“Okay,” he said. He opened to Earth and began darkening the pigments in the rug before Devon. “Let’s just hope this works.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
AIDAN
Aidan knew it wasn’t going to work the moment Tenn started drawing the runes in the carpet. They weren’t right. He couldn’t place it, but they seemed incomplete.
He kept thinking about what the Dark Lady said, about her already being a goddess. That entire tirade had been convincing, but it also had the note of a lie. She had attuned to Maya without fear of failure. She was brave, but she wasn’t stupid.
If there had been any chance her return would be thwarted, she wouldn’t have done it. If Maya was so unreliable, she wouldn’t have attempted attuning. She would have forced someone else to do it. She had spent too much time trying to become immortal. She wouldn’t have risked death or madness the day she came back to life.
“Wait,” he said.
Devon was already settling in, his eyes closed and his scarf draped over his lap. He opened an eye and glared at Aidan the moment the word left his mouth.
Aidan ignored him. He crept off the bed and onto the ground, peering at the runes intently.
“What?” Tenn asked.
This close, and Aidan couldn’t deny that there was a pull to Tenn. Not an attraction, but a gravity. A power.
He’d underestimated Tenn. Had thought he himself was the strongest one here. Now, he was starting to realize Tenn was on par, even with Aidan’s new runes. Aidan might have been fire and fury on the surface, but Tenn’s power was still, deep and deadly. Just like water.
He almost rolled his eyes at how perfect it was.
“These aren’t right,” Aidan said.
“They’re the ones she showed me.”
“I know.” They’re the ones I stole.
The runes made sense. In a way. But as Aidan looked at them, he realized what seemed wrong. They felt like half an equation.
“The Dark Lady...” he said, but he didn’t finish the sentence. The Dark Lady spent four years half-dead, surrounded by the true dead gods, hearing voices we could only dream of. She had to have learned something. “She wouldn’t have spent four years floating around. She would have been trying to find Maya on her own—she wouldn’t have just been waiting for someone else to do the dirty work. What if...what if that’s why you were sent to find me?”
“I don’t follow,” Tenn said. Which was fine, because Aidan’s thoughts were going so fast, he could barely follow them.
“You said the spirits told you to find me. And we know the Dark Lady serves different gods. What if Maya requires the language of both? The, I don’t know, good ones and bad ones. What if that’s how she was able to attune so quickly, when the Violet Sage and all the Prophets never could? They were listening to only part of the story.”
Tenn nodded along. Even Dreya looked at him like he might not be mad.
“What do you suggest?” Tenn asked.
Aidan didn’t know. But he thought he had a way to find out. The spirits had always spoken to him through Fire, so he opened himself fully to the source, let the heat wash through him as his chest blossomed open. He let it burn through him, let himself succumb to the heat and the darkness. He let the flames speak.
And as it had earlier, at the Dark Lady’s command, the words began to flow. Embers at first, then sparks and flame, whispers that grew to roars.
Behind his closed eyes, he saw the tendrils of fire appear, dancing before him in serpentine swirls. Runes from a darker language, from more devilish gods, harsh and cruel. And yet, somehow, necessary all the same.
He burned the runes into the carpet, filling in blanks, making small manipulations in the ones Tenn had left. Then the power left him, and Fire winked out in his chest. He sat back, suddenly exhausted, and stared at his handiwork.
Even though he could only truly read half of the runes, he knew this was correct.
“You’re sure?” Devon asked. Not of Aidan, but of Tenn.
Tenn looked at Aidan. Aidan knew that glance—Tenn was trying to decide if they should trust him. Trust that he had fixed the runes, not sabotaged them. Aidan just stared back. Either they trusted him or they didn’t. There wasn’t much he could do now to persuade them either way.
Eventually, Tenn looked back to the runes and nodded.
“They seem right.”
Devon took a deep breath. “All right, then. If I go mad, make sure to kill this one.”
“Done,” Dreya said, staring straight at Aidan.
Then Devon closed his eyes and fell silent.
Seconds passed, slow as blood, and Kianna shifted.
“Shouldn’t you all attune to that shit? If that’s the magic lottery ticket, wouldn’t it make more sense to have everyone attuned to it?”
“It can take hours to attune,” Tenn said. Aidan couldn’t help but notice him glancing his way. “If it even works.”
“Still—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence.
Aidan felt it right before the tremors ripped through the Guild. The sickness. The wave of disorientation, like a bad high. It didn’t leave him as he rolled back against Kianna, as Dreya reached out to keep her brother from falling over, as well.
“It’s too late,” Aidan whispered. “She’s here.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
DREYA
Dreya knelt behind Devon, her hands on his shoulders to keep him steady. Another earthquake rolled through the Guild. She felt it then. The acid that seemed to roil through the air, the faint ripple that twisted stone. Maya. Someone was using Maya, and that meant the Dark Lady had found them, just as Aidan had promised she would.
“What do we do?” Tenn asked. “We can’t just leave him here.”
Dreya’s heart ached. She wanted to side with Tenn. But he hadn’t heard Devon’s final thoughts.
Avenge them, he had whispered to her. And if necessary, avenge me.
Devon would hate her if he woke up to find her still there, while the battle raged on outside. They had trained for this from day one. They had known their fight would separate them. She had just hoped it would be further in the future.
“We must.” She pulled through Air, let it dry her eyes before tears could even form. She laid him back, placing his folded scarf behind his head. “The fight is out there, and he would see us there for it.”
Tenn nodded. He gestured to the others, and Kianna and Aidan left the room. Kianna glanced back, once, and Dreya felt her heart soften. Tenn walked over and placed a hand on Dreya’s shoulder.
“He can do this,” he said. His voice wavered. “I know he can.”
Dreya said nothing. She didn’t have to ask for a moment alone; Tenn knew to give her the space. The door clicked shut behind him.
“You will not lose your mind to this,” Dreya said to her brother. She stared down at his closed eyes, his gentle face. Her brother, her sweet, sweet brother, from whom the world had taken and asked for so much. “Nor will you lose your life. The fight continues. For both of us.”
She kissed his forehead. Tried to memorize him in that moment. So peaceful, and yet, perhaps, fighting the most difficult battle of his life.
Thunder shook the room again. She stood, reached out with Air and snuffed the lamp.
Then, in darkness, she left her brother behind.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
TENN
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The Dark Lady’s voice echoed as Tenn and his companions stepped outside. Storm clouds hung heavy, pregnant and ready to break. Aside from that voice, all was silent. All was still.
It set Tenn’s nerves on edge.
Above and around them, the magical shield surrounding Outer Chicago had been restored. It glittered in the darkening light, shimmering like moonlight on a lake. Beautiful, if not for its terrible duty.
Tenn glanced to the others. Then he shifted the dirt at their feet into travel runes and poured Earth into them, teleporting himself to the uppermost reaches of the wall.
The others appeared at his side in a swirl of dust, and together they stared out at what would be their doom.
Darkness spread as far they could see, stretching to the horizon like oncoming night. But these shadows weren’t from the sun. Kravens and humans and humanoid Howls, hundreds of thousands of them, all spread out into the distance. Smoke hung low and heavy over the field, and it was then that Tenn realized what the earthquakes had been from. Not from attacks on Outer Chicago, but in the suburbs beyond.
The necromancers had razed the city, crumbled it to the ground. Making room for their army.
They had needed it.
“Shit,” Kianna whispered. “That must be every Howl in existence.”
