Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(28)

The day that Tenn realized his life as he knew it was over.

Matthias’s next words were low, the mockery gone. He looked at Tenn as though he knew the most intimate details of his soul. Like he’d been following his every step. His every thought.

“This is the night before the world was damned. The last night you had a home.”

Tenn said nothing. He didn’t move, just stood among the branches and watched the lights wink out, one by one, as the screams grew louder.

“She’s not gone, you know,” Matthias said, his calm words piercing the din. “Not really. My goddess, She still lives. And She stirs.”

The words made Tenn’s limbs go cold. He gripped a branch until he felt blood drip between his fingers.

“I don’t believe in your goddess,” he whispered.

“But She believes in you,” Matthias said. “And in the end, that is all that matters.”

All the lights winked out, save for two red eyes on the horizon. The Dark Lady smiled in the depths of the darkness. She purred.

Then She swallowed Tenn whole.

*

Tenn woke screaming. The sheets were tangled at his feet, and the hurricane lamp burned low on the nightstand, casting shadows throughout the room.

He was alone.

His heart raced as he looked around the room. He had the worst feeling that he was being watched, but neither Tomás nor Matthias lurked in the corners. Or—he thought, with a certain sense of disappointment—Jarrett. He flopped back on the bed.

For a long time he just lay there, trying to calm the furious racing of his heart, the staccato of his breath, wondering if someone would come in and ask if he was okay. He could still feel those red eyes on him, and every second that ticked by made him feel more and more alone. With every blink, he expected to see her, the Dark Lady, watching him from the shadows. Matthias’s words echoed in his skull: She believes in you.

A few years ago he’d barely been a presence in whatever outpost he’d been stationed. Now, every force of the Dark Lady was after him.

His thoughts drifted. What had Tomás meant about Jarrett? Hell, what had the incubus meant about anything?

Water surged in his stomach. It didn’t want to be toyed with; it wanted to be in control. Tomás and Jarrett thought they had the power, but Water wanted to prove otherwise. If only he would let go. If only...

“Damn it.” If he stayed in here, he’d probably flood the whole compound.

Tenn pushed himself out of bed and followed the copper pipes hanging in the corridor toward the bathroom, watching the walls change from smooth earth to moldy tile. A shower wouldn’t fix everything, but it would definitely help. At least it would get him out of the room and keep his mind off things.

The showers were clearly part of the original gym, and Tenn highly doubted that they’d have hot water—not many places did anymore—but when he walked over to a stall and slipped out of his ragged clothes, he discovered that they had hot water in excess. He stepped under the spray and felt his muscles unknot and his stress melt away. He sighed and pressed his forehead to the cool tile wall, watching the water drip down his limbs.

His eyes caught on his Hunter’s mark.

He’d received it after undergoing all the preliminary tests at Silveron: the written exams, the consultations, even the strange free-association art projects. The series of concentric circles and strange symbols had seemed like a badge of honor at first, some sort of badassery on an otherwise-boring kid like himself. He’d definitely been the youngest from his hometown to get a tattoo, let alone one that connected him to a Sphere of magic. But now, as he stared at the crossing lines, at the circles and symbols he’d researched and realized were variations on Celtic and Norse—and many unknown—runes, the whole thing felt like a curse. It whispered to him, the symbols murmuring of power. Of servitude. He wanted to scratch it off his skin. Wanted to burn the ink from his flesh.

Not that that would help. He’d seen comrades lose limbs. They could still use magic.

Once you were attuned, there was no turning back.

He really wished they would have told him that at the Academy.

Tenn couldn’t help but wonder about Jarrett, about why he had such a tug on him. Maybe it was just the connection to his past. Jarrett was probably the only living person who knew him from before. Who knew him as Jeremy, and not a name he now bore out of necessity. He wanted so badly to corner Jarrett, to ask him about what he remembered from childhood, from before he became a weapon. He wanted to figure out why he still felt the pull toward him. Why, after three years apart, after barely even knowing the guy at school, there was a part of Tenn that still spiraled toward him. That still wanted to be in his orbit.

He’d barely thought of Kevin, or Jarrett, or whatever he wanted to call himself, after they’d parted ways. There hadn’t been time. And, honestly, he’d figured Kevin—like the rest of his classmates—had been killed by the Howls.

Now, he was traveling with a reminder of the future he could never have.

He’d spent the last few years running away from it. He’d tried so hard to become something else. But here was Jarrett, holding up the mirror and reminding him that he hadn’t run fast enough.

Tenn closed his eyes, let a finger on his free hand trace the slight raised lines of his mark. Water bubbled at the touch.

He couldn’t run fast enough. I can’t run fast enough.