Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(6)

“You killed them. All of them.”

“I know.”

He wondered if Michael had still been alive when he called down the power. Pain wrenched in his chest at the thought. If he’d killed Michael by accident...

“Did I—”

“He was already dead,” Katherine whispered. “I saw him go down.”

That shouldn’t have been the relief that it was. It almost made him feel worse.

She looked at him, but her eyes quickly flicked away.

“I’ve never seen that much power,” she said. “How are you still standing?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. He felt like a broken recording.

“Did you know...”

He shook his head. “I was ready to die.”

“Me, too,” she said, and went silent.

Despite the fact that they needed to move, despite the cold and the scent and the bodies, they stood there in silence and let the minutes drip by. Tenn tried to gather his thoughts, tried to create an argument that would hold up against Derrick’s inevitable tirade. He failed. He couldn’t stop looking at Katherine, at the old blood trickling down her face and the small quiver in her fingertips. What did she think of him, after what had happened? What would she say to the others?

Tenn looked back to the bodies. Michael was under there, somewhere. He deserved a better burial than this.

“We need to burn them,” Tenn said. “In case...”

In case they attract attention. In case any are still alive. In case others come along and devour Michael’s corpse...

She looked at him, and maybe it was his imagination, but that look was different. Like she wasn’t certain who or what she was staring at. She didn’t speak, just nodded tersely, and light flickered in her chest as she opened to the Sphere of Fire. Heat shimmered around her, made sweat break out across his skin. Then, with tendrils of flame snaking around her fingertips, she lashed out.

The fields erupted into flame. Tenn hid behind his arm as the world around him roared with heat and anger. Katherine screamed as bodies caught fire, as rain sizzled and the earth cracked. She screamed and cursed until the roar of flames drowned her out.

Fire was the Sphere of passion and hate. It pulled from the heart, just as it burned it apart.

It lasted only a minute. But when the power died down, the fields were nothing more than smoldering ash and steam.

He put a hand on her shoulder, trying not to wince from the heat of her skin.

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

He stepped back.

This was why he didn’t get along with Fire users. After using their powers, they were unstable at best.

Then she started to laugh. He took another step back.

“Sorry,” she said through the laughter. She sniffed and wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s gone,” she continued. “The fucking deer. It’s gone. They ate it.”

Tenn turned to the road. She was right. Hell, there was nothing on the road anymore save for the burned-out scraps of cars and pools of the dead that streamed like magma.

“Michael would be so pissed,” Katherine said. She giggled. Then her laughs choked into a sob. “We should have let him eat the tongue.”

*

The walk back to base was long and silent. Tenn ate some jerky from their packs, but it didn’t assuage the hunger gnawing at his bones. That, he knew, would take hours and a few days of rest to overcome, just like the waves of sadness that kept washing over him. He didn’t stop scanning the fields, but both he and Katherine kept their Spheres closed off. Katherine didn’t ask him any more questions; somehow that made things worse. He was asking them all himself, and he didn’t have an answer.

How had Water opened like that? The Spheres weren’t sentient, they were just energy centers. Everyone had them, but only those who were attuned could use each particular Sphere. Even then, it required training and concentration to get them to influence the outside world. Magic wasn’t just something that happened; it was something you had to force. So how had Water taken over? As though it were a reflex, as though the Sphere itself hadn’t wanted to die. And where the hell had that power come from? It should have been beyond him, should have drained him entirely. Yet here he was. Alive.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Everything. Everything.

For the first time since he’d been attuned to Water, he was scared. Not of the monsters. Not of the world outside. But of the power that rested within him. The power that seemed to be scratching for control.

Only one thing was certain, and it wasn’t a truth he wanted to think about. The Howls they’d faced weren’t the army his troop had been warned about. It had been a roaming band, one of the thousands scattered throughout the uninhabited swathes of America.

That meant there was still another, bigger fight left.

They reached Outpost 37 before nightfall. Home sweet home. Once, it had probably been some quaint touristy harbor town. Now the scattered houses along its perimeter were empty. Whole lots were charred to piles of ash, while other homes were unscathed save for shattered windows or scratched facades. Lawns entangled forgotten toys, and fences lay like dominoes. Everything had that sick old stench of antiquity, like a sodden vintage store. Even here, though, there were no bodies or bones, no scavenging birds or mice. The Howls were efficient, if only because they were hungry.