Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(27)

CHAPTER EIGHT

TENN SAT IN the branches of a willow tree; its long limbs dipped into the lake stretched out below. Across the water, glinting like stars scattered across the sky, warm windows shone with the promise of home. He brought his knees closer to his chest and stared out. He’d come here, to the Academy, to learn about magic. He hadn’t known at the time that the biggest lesson he’d learn was loss and the heavy absence of home.

The lake was where he’d spent most days over the last month or so training. Ever since he’d been attuned to Water, he’d come out here with a small handful of other classmates to practice connecting to the waves, all from the warmth of their small lakeside pagoda. The hours were long and boring—staring at the water, trying to feel it in his veins, trying to stretch and manipulate it like a limb. But it wasn’t the practice that was getting to him—it was the Sphere itself. Water seemed to have a life of its own. He’d been to the guidance counselor weekly since the attuning, thinking he’d developed schizophrenia or depression or bipolar disorder. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop falling prey to visions of his early childhood: all the family fights he hadn’t consciously remembered, all the time sitting alone in his room and wishing elementary school would grant him at least one friend. All the tears he’d shed or hidden. The counselor assured him it was normal. That was just what Water brought up for people.

That might have been nice to know beforehand, he’d thought at the time, but he knew it wouldn’t have changed anything. They didn’t have a choice in which Sphere they were attuned to. After the testing period, they were all paired up to their optimal match and given the tattoo that connected them to the magic. Your magical mark, his professor had said.

The Mark of the Beast, the protest signs along the road warned.

Tenn pushed those images away. The protesters scared him more than the power, even if Water did seem to set everything on edge. But the fact that the overly emotional Sphere had been considered his best fit made him question his own stability...and that wasn’t something he wanted to be worrying about.

At least it might have explained all the emotions that had bubbled up around that boy in his history class. Kevin. It wasn’t the first guy he’d crushed on, but it was the first time he’d let himself realize it. The first time he let himself imagine it going somewhere. Kevin just had this presence, this calmness, to him. And when he smiled...ugh. Tenn hated just how much he loved it when Kevin smiled.

It didn’t help that the guy was crazy smart and cute, in all the ways Tenn felt he was not.

“So this is what you dream, Tenn?”

Tenn jerked around, nearly falling out of the tree.

A man stood on the shore a few yards away. He was unfamiliar—pin-striped black suit, slicked gray hair. The man didn’t belong here. But then again, neither did he. He glanced down at his hands. They were worn—calloused and scarred, hands used to battle and bloodshed. And he wasn’t in school uniform; he wore the ragged blacks of a Hunter.

“What are you doing here?” Tenn asked.

He half expected the dream to fade, now that he was aware he was, in fact, dreaming, but it didn’t. Somehow, that was worse.

He tried opening to the Spheres, and nothing happened. It was as if he’d never been attuned. He couldn’t even feel them.

He was facing the man who’d killed his comrades, and he could do nothing about it.

“I’m just observing,” Matthias answered. He took a step closer. His feet didn’t leave an impression in the sand. “After all, someone whom Leanna so actively seeks must surely be an interesting specimen.” He chuckled to himself. “I must say, I am so far unimpressed. All you seem to be good at is running away and letting others die in your place.”

It was a blow to Tenn’s gut. The tree around him seemed to shudder from the pain, from the sudden wind that howled through the branches, screaming like Tenn’s fallen comrades.

“Get out of my dream.” Tenn stood up on the thick branch. He wanted to fight. He wanted to prove that he didn’t just run. But he had no weapon and no magic—what good was he against the man who had killed Derrick with a snap of his fingers?

Matthias didn’t answer. Instead, he sauntered closer to the tree.

“Why do you dream of this night?” he asked. “Why is this so tender in your heart?”

Tenn said nothing. Matthias glanced out to the horizon. Above them, the stars began winking out with small flares.

“Ahh,” Matthias said as recognition dawned. “I see.”

More stars blinked out. Even the lights on the horizon faded as the dream twisted into nightmare, as the wind picked up and the howls became inhuman.

The sky dripped darkness.

“This is the night before the Dark Lady began her work.”

Tenn shivered. The Dark Lady: the woman who had created Leanna and Tomás and the other four Kin, the woman who vanished off the face of the earth once her work was done—some said killed, others said in hiding. She was the woman who had set the world ablaze—follow her, and you would have immortality. Destroy for her, and She would grant a new life.

The Resurrection occurred when She turned the first human into a Howl. It had been impossible to miss—every television station, every radio channel, every website and social media outlet, all of them had been hijacked. All of them had aired the same footage, at the same time, on repeat. It was the first human turned into a new form. That was the day monsters and twisted magic became mainstream and the necromancers began their attacks.