Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(81)

Fire opened in Matthias’s chest. Snakes of flame raced across Matthias’s skin, twisted through his clothes. Tenn yanked out his staff as the fire swept higher, as Matthias burned himself alive.

Tenn wanted to scream, to cry out, but all he could do was watch Matthias self-immolate.

“She has him,” Matthias yelled through the blaze. “Your lover’s still alive.”





PART

3

    BLOOD SINGS

    “We have no way of fathoming

the evil these creatures possess, the malice

in their hearts. Our only hope

is the dying chance

that they retain a semblance of humanity.”

    —President’s Final Address.

P.R., Week Two.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

TENN SCREAMED. WATER ROARED.

Matthias’s body was a funeral pyre blazing in the night, and Tenn was blazing, too. Water raged in his chest, churned with such ferocity he had no doubt that the power would tear him apart. Matthias was burning, burning, and Tenn howled.

There was no thought. There was no questioning.

Water raged.

Water wanted everything to hurt as much as him.

He plunged his senses into the earth, reached deep to the aquifers running silently below. He dragged the water up, pushed it through rock and soil. The earth rumbled and split, a beast coming to life, and then it broke. Water burst from the cracks, lashed high into the night sky, flickering red and orange against the firelight. He held out his arms, power spiraling around him in blue waves. He felt his feet leave the ground, but the sensation was distant, his body barely an impression in the power flooding through him. Fire hissed and steamed as he forced more water up, up, up into the night sky, twisting it like serpents. The tendrils hovered there, stared down into the midst of the army horde. The screams of the army cut short as even the kravens stared up in awe.

Then he brought the water down, brought it crashing against the enemy camp, the flood devouring the beasts within. He had no mercy. He gave no quarter. He felt bones shatter, felt lungs fill as water crashed down like fists, pummeling into the earth, churning snow and blood and earth to mud. The torrent swirled in front of him, a wall of waves twenty feet high. The sky went dark as flames hissed out. He could feel the bodies. He could feel them float and kick and scream as they fought to find air in the swirl of madness.

Then he twisted the power.

Water froze.

He dropped to his knees and stared up at the cathedral of ice. Hundreds of Howls and necromancers were encased within their glass prison, screams frozen on silent faces. But he could hear them, all of them. He heard the tremor of their hearts and the howls of their stilled lungs. Each second the cacophony rose, until everything was pain and heartbeat, agonized ice. Until, as one, the voices cut out and the monsters perished.

The power faded, dropped him to the ground. He fell on hands and knees, felt Matthias’s warm ashes beneath his fingertips.

Everything fell to darkness.

*

“Well done, my prince.”

Tomás’s voice echoed through the shadows. Tenn felt a cool, soft bed beneath him, felt Tomás’s hand on his back. But he couldn’t open his eyes. Everything in him hurt like hell, as though he’d acquired every injury from everyone on the battlefield. Everything hurt except Tomás’s touch.

“Your part of the bargain is nearly complete.”

Tenn moved his head, winced. Pain filled him, and then he felt Tomás’s lips on his neck, the chilled burn of his touch.

“Deliver me Leanna, and I will make you king.”

Tomás bit his neck, and the darkness exploded in burning stars.





CHAPTER THIRTY

WAKING WAS LIKE surfacing from an abyss, pulling himself up from a void that wanted nothing more than to suck him back down and devour him whole. He almost let it. But Jarrett’s face kept him struggling toward the surface. The thin light streaming through cracks in the window shades was enough to set his temples on fire, though the cool cloth on his forehead kept the pain from raging. Mostly. Everything smelled of musk and earth, woodland herbs and cool streams. Comforting smells, but not enough to take the edge off the ache in his bones. He’d pulled far too much from the Spheres; this was their way of paying him back. He knew in the dark corners of his mind that he should be dead—that much magic would kill another man. Even the twins.

Moonlight streamed through the trailer, turned everything the shade of dust and memory. Dreya sat in a chair across from him. She was asleep, her eyes closed and her chin drooping against her chest. Innocent. Tenn shifted, making the mattress creak. Dreya’s eyes shot open.

“You are awake,” was all she said.

“Where—” he began, but the moment the words left his mouth he had to fight back a gag.

“You are safe. We found you on the battlefield...after what you did... We are back with the Witches. In their camp.”

He tried to sit up. The process was slow, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have. Dreya watched him like a hawk and didn’t speak again until Tenn was upright, the sheets gathered around his waist.

“You’ve been asleep for two days,” she said. “We thought...we thought you might not make it. You’d drawn too much. I’ve never seen such power. Not even the Violet Sage could—”