Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(59)

She leans in close, her green eyes blazing.

“Then you understand why I must do this.” Her eyes flash to the blade in her hand. She isn’t a Howl—one of the monsters that had been kept out of sight of society until yesterday. He knows that much. She’s worse. He’d watched her slow progression toward madness and power. And like everyone else at the Academy, he’d done nothing to stop it.

Hell, he might have encouraged it.

He’d been on the admissions board, and had handpicked the students she used for subjects. He’d found fuel for her madness. So much of this was his fault...

“I’ve studied the words of the Dark Lady. I know her secrets. And I think,” she says, leaning in, like this is some intimate secret and not his death sentence, “I think I can become just like her. I could become a goddess.”

The Sphere of Water courses in her stomach. You’re unstable, he wants to say. The Spheres have made you crazy. But there was no logic with her, no reasoning. Not anymore.

“With these runes, I can keep you sane. I know the science. The base creatures, they lose their minds. Only those of Water or Fire or Air have sentience, but even that is fragile. But I know. I know how to keep you mine. I know how to give you power.”

He can’t scream as she pushes the blade into his skin, scratching marks along his arms and chest that he can’t see and can’t comprehend. Runes to bind you to me, she’d said. Runes to make you like the Kin. Runes to let you keep your magic. There had been tears in her eyes the first time she’d made a cut, unflinching as she’d been.

Not anymore.

Now she’s smiling, his blood staining her lips a deeper crimson as her scalpel licks him again.

Tenn surfaced from the flood, barely able to gasp as Water’s grip loosened and reality crashed against the waves. His thoughts were dim, congealing. He knew those people. Dmitri had been his biology teacher. And Helena...he knew her all too well.

She had been Silveron’s president.

Dmitri’s body twitched beneath his hand, breath escaping in a hiss from long-silent lips. A voice inside of Tenn screamed, begged him to run from the Howl at his fingertips, the Howl that was slowly coming back to life, but Water bellowed louder. Water wanted to help Dmitri, wanted to mirror his pain.

Water won.

“Please,” Steven cries. “Please don’t do this.”

The boy squirms on the table, but the ropes hold him strong. Helena stands beside Dmitri, watching him work, watching as he sobs with hunger and hatred.

She hands him the knife.

“Do it,” she whispers into his ear. “My love, my slave.” She kisses the back of his neck.

Dmitri’s hand trembles as he brings the knife down. He can feel Steven’s pulse without touching him, can hear his heartbeat echoing his own. The water, the water—it’s all he can sense, all he can taste. His throat burns with hunger, with need. He’d heard that higher-Sphere Howls could control their hunger, could remain sentient. Helena swore the runes she carved into him would make him like a Kin, would let him keep his mind, his emotions, his identity.

She lied.

The runes only make him more aware of what he does. Of the hunger he has no control over.

Steven struggles as Dmitri slowly lowers the blade. It feels like a blessing, like the most intimate of touches. It makes Dmitri’s bloodlust rise—that increase in pulse, the terrified patter of the boy’s heart. He barely hears the boy scream as the blade pierces through flesh, shallow first, then deep as the hunger takes over. Red fills Dmitri’s vision. Red fills his lips. His starving Sphere sings, and hunger becomes ecstasy.

Tenn jolted back, surfacing with a gasp. Dmitri pulled him closer. Tenn couldn’t have pulled away; he didn’t want to pull away. Water throbbed inside of him. Everything felt slower, drugged.

Dmitri brought Tenn’s hand to his cracked lips. Tenn didn’t flinch when the bloodling’s teeth sliced into his flesh. Water, Water, Water was all. Dmitri drank, and Tenn fell under the waves.

“Dmitri, please,” Helena whimpers.

“Dmitri is dead, you made sure of that,” he hisses. She struggles against the bonds holding her to the table, but the knots hold strong. She taught him those knots, and he was nothing if not a fast learner.

Everything rages inside of him. Every hurt and hate, every regret. Every hunger. Every guilty drop of blood. Her fault. All her fault. Make her pay for what she did.

“Don’t worry,” he says, leaning in close. “I’ve had practice. I can keep you alive forever if I like. Just like you showed me.”

He digs a finger into her forearm, his nail burrowing deep. Blood pools within the depression. She screams. Tears fall down her face as he leans in and licks up her blood. Her blood, like poison, like honey.

Her blood, like power.

“Stop,” Tenn whispered.

Water fluttered inside of him now, a thin stream siphoning through a tunnel. It didn’t hurt, that loss. He didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt, not even as Dmitri’s teeth dug into his wrist, warmth spilling across his skin. The numbness was a beautiful release. It was freedom.

Tenn slumped down on top of Dmitri. It felt like falling on bones.

“Quiet, kids, quiet now,” Dmitri says. But they won’t stop screaming. They won’t stop crying.

Blood everywhere. On hands and knees, cleaning every drop, licking every drop. But still hungry, so hungry. Not enough blood. Never enough blood. They’re crying blood. The water is never enough. Never enough.