Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(69)

Rhiannon was there in a moment, her arms embracing the boy as he broke into sobs against her chest. Luke stood.

“I reinforced those runes myself,” he said, shocked and staring out the window, as if waiting for the Howls to seep through.

It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough.

“We’ll find her,” Tenn said. He was on his feet and already heading toward the door, blood pounding in his ears and guilt riding his heart. It didn’t matter how the Howls broke through, only that they had. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. We do. We’re the ones who brought him.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

RHIANNON GRABBED HIS arm before he could make it out the door.

“We are not fighters, Tenn, so you are the only ones who can save Tori, but if you leave without an escort, you’ll never find your way back. You’ll need a tracking rune. Luke—I leave them in your care.”

Luke pulled the brass singing bowl over to the table while Rhiannon left the camper, the boy held tight in her arms.

Tenn hovered by the door. Water was singing its siren song. It was time to kill. It was time to drown. He couldn’t keep his agitation from his words.

“We don’t have time—”

“Then learn fast!” Luke barked. He took a deep breath. “Runes are a language, yes? Each is a different word, a different purpose. But on the page, they’re just marks. Letters. Same way a written word is just ink until read or spoken.” He pointed into the brass singing bowl. A symbol was etched into the center, a dark, deep groove that looked like the letter S, with two strikes through it.



Just looking at it made Tenn’s head ring, sent whispers of waves and an arrow through the dark in his mind. “This is a tracking rune. Most runes require elemental energy to work, but this one runs on thought. Memorize it. Memorize the rune and the object it is carved upon. Each clan has a unique object—it’s how we stay connected, no matter the distance between us. I’m assuming that’s how you found us.”

Tenn barely noticed Devon nod. The rune took up his entire focus: it burned itself into his mind, humming in his head as he memorized the curve of the bowl, the grain of the metal, each individual hammer-mark of its forming. He felt heavy with power, with a knowing that settled into his bones.

“When you have it memorized,” Luke said, his voice barely cutting through his thoughts. The rune seemed to be calling to him. “Close your eyes and bring it to mind.”

He did so. He could still see it, glowing in the dark of his eyelids, orange and fiery like a lantern. The moment he brought it to mind, he could feel it. Like an inner compass, he could sense precisely where the bowl was in relation to him. He turned and felt the proper direction slide around him, always calling him to the bowl.

When he opened his eyes, Luke was nodding.

“Good. Good. The rune is the same across the board—it’s the object it’s drawn on that allows you to focus. It will help you find us from anywhere in the world.” He put a hand on Tenn’s shoulder. “Find Tori. And use the runes to bring her back to us.”

“We’ll find her,” Tenn said. He looked to the twins. They were still avoiding his eyes. “I promise.”

*

They left immediately.

A wave of energy washed over him a few yards from the clearing. The magic of the first barrier tingled over his skin and soaked into his bones, and for the briefest moment he swore he heard a whisper, felt the urging deep within his muscles: run, run fast, run away. Then it was over, a voice on the breeze. Apparently, the defenses didn’t have so strong an effect when approached from behind.

A few yards on and he began to slow. Dreya cast him a glance, but she didn’t speak as he scanned the trees. He could sense the next line of defense, the line of runes that somehow kept the clan safe. He could feel it in his gut. And he knew he needed to see the magic for himself.

Something glowed on the trunk of a nearby tree. He walked over and brushed the snow away. Green light shone beneath the flurry, glowing like a faerie fire. A long line of runes was etched down the tree, a sentence he could almost understand: the second barrier. Flashes burned through his mind the moment his fingers grazed the bark—being lost in the woods late at night, a wolf at your heels; spinning around at full force, never stopping; staring into the mouth of a ferocious beast; a chameleon, hiding in plain sight. In an instant the visions cleared, washed away with a whisper of dark promises. His fingertips tingled as he traced the runes over and over, trying to memorize the markings. Something about the language was familiar, like reading Italian when versed in Spanish—there were traces of things he knew, patterns he could almost but not entirely piece together. If only he had more time to study them...

“Tenn,” Dreya snapped. He looked up. “We must hurry.”

He nodded, guilt doubling as he stood. Every time he blinked, he saw the runes burning in his mind, their whispered meaning nearly drowning out his thoughts. “Sorry. Let’s keep going.”

She led him onward—Devon had already disappeared from sight.

“How did they get through?” Tenn asked as they approached the third barrier—he could feel the buzz of its magic now, could see the faint glow of runes scattered throughout the trees.

“I do not know,” Dreya whispered. “They should not have been able to find their way through. Not without the tracking rune.”