Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(68)

“Why?”

Luke folded his hands and leaned back in his chair.

“To understand, you have to grasp the nature of magic. The runes are the language of the gods. They are, quite literally, the words that created our existence. This language is the magic that keeps the cosmos spinning, the threads and the loom on which everything is woven. The runes themselves are just markings, but they allow us to tap into that language, to harness its power.” He reached over and pushed up the sleeve of Tenn’s coat, revealing the twining Hunter’s mark. “The runes of your mark allow you to use the elements, but you aren’t really creating anything new. You’re just using the powers that have already been built into the world. You’re speaking a language spoken for centuries.

“And just as there are many races of man, there are many types of god. Each god has their own language. The language of the Dark Lady is as old as time and was spoken by countless other tainted souls before the Resurrection—the Dark Lady was merely the most recent, and perhaps the most successful. It is a language of evil gods, of forces that wish to rip the world apart. Every use of that power is another tear in the weave. You wish to reverse her work by twisting the words She used, but that will simply cause more destruction. The language of her gods is one geared entirely toward chaos. Any attempts to change it, to control or reverse it, will only unleash more evil. The repercussions could destroy the world.”

“How do you know all this?” Tenn asked.

“Because we have tried,” Rhiannon said. “In the beginning, when the Howls first formed, we begged the spirits for a solution. A cure. But not even the spirits we served were willing to delve into those darker mysteries. So we attempted on our own, tried to reverse or mute the language. It only made things worse. And, in our hubris, the spirits we served turned their backs on us.” She sighed and stared out the window. “There was a time, years ago, when we could hear the gods in every sigh of wind, in every drop of rain. Now they have grown almost silent.”

“Hearing the gods is my calling,” Luke continued. “For some reason, the gods chose me to be their vessel. I’ve become the one person in all the clans who can hear their voices and translate those words into runes. That’s how we learned to cloak ourselves from danger, how to purify water and grow food in barren soil. But it was like hearing a melody from far away. They were whispers from the past, old skills. The spirits refused to speak anything new. No matter how much I begged or tried to prove myself, they refused to speak the greater magics. I wasn’t... I’m not a suitable vessel for their power. They refuse to help us do anything more than scrape by and survive.”

“If that is true,” Dreya said, “why did the spirits tell you to wait for us? Why do they want Tenn?”

And, Tenn wondered, why didn’t you tell anyone else? You could have saved millions! The anger rose in his chest, but Rhiannon’s words stamped it out.

“Because they need a host who can handle the power these words would carry. To speak the full language of the gods, one must be godlike.” She looked at Tenn.

For a moment, his heart refused to beat.

“I’m not godlike,” Tenn whispered. His words caught in his throat. If he had any special power, he would have been able to save Jarrett.

“So says the one toward whom the elements bend.”

Tenn swallowed hard. Water seemed to curl in his stomach at the words; instantly, all he could think of was the battlefield only days ago, when the Sphere opened against his will. As if to keep him alive. As if the element itself was trying to protect him...

“How did—”

“I felt it the moment you stepped into our camp,” she said. “The elements swirl around you like moths to the flame. You don’t wield power. You attract it.”

For a moment he envisioned Tomás and Matthias; he was attracting a great deal of power. Most of it, he wanted to avoid. He shook his head and tried to keep the memories down. He didn’t need them to be acting up. Not here. Not with everyone watching.

“Water...” he said, trying to stay in the present, “it’s been acting up. Taking over. Sometimes it’s almost like it wields itself. Like it’s trying to survive.”

“The greatest vanity of our time has been the belief that we can control nature,” Rhiannon said. “We manipulate the elements, but they always fight back. Look at what has happened to the earth. Rivers boiled, mountains moved, forests turned to deserts and deserts crumbled to the seas. We don’t control or wield the elements—only those who serve the Dark Lady would be so vain as to think we could truly change creation. No, the elements allow us to work with them. But humanity has always tried to claim dominance. The elements have been waiting for years to find someone that they could work not with, but through.”

“Why me?”

She smiled, as though she’d been waiting for him to ask that question the entire time.

“Because you never asked for power. Power asked for you.”

Tenn wanted to say that they were insane, that he wasn’t special or chosen or anything like that, but before he could voice his concerns the trailer door slammed open. A boy burst in, his face bloody and a mangled arm held to his chest.

“Mother,” he panted, gripping the doorframe. “We were attacked. Howls in the forest where we were playing. Near the final barrier. They took...they took Tori.”