Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(85)

“It worked,” Dreya said. Her voice was breathless, thin in the mountain air. Tenn glanced at her. She stared with wide eyes at the city below them. It looked like the way life once was, a city of life and energy and sound. Yet every human in there served the Dark Lady, willingly or not. It wasn’t like the Farms he’d seen in the Midwest. Those had just been giant kennels for holding human livestock. This was almost worse. Here, the Howls and necromancers feeding on the innocent lived in the same pen.

“Yeah,” Tenn whispered. “It worked.” He had no other words. He still felt the magic swirling within him, the runes an after-trace in his vision. He was too preoccupied with finding Jarrett to be surprised by his own skill.

“What...what do we do now?” It wasn’t Dreya who asked, but Devon. He stared down at the compound with narrowed eyes. His voice was tight, and even though he wasn’t using Fire, Tenn could practically feel the impatience in him, the need to avenge. Tenn felt it, too.

“It could be a trap,” Tenn said. “Matthias might have been lying, just trying to get me to come here. I don’t want you two to be in danger if that’s the case.”

“But we are already here—” Dreya began.

Tenn shook his head and cut her off. “And I’m grateful for it. Leanna wants me. That’s always been apparent. Chances are that means that, even if I’m caught, I’ll make it to her alive. She’d kill you both in a heartbeat.”

The twins shared a long, silent look. Fire flickered in Devon’s chest, just the slightest flare, and Tenn fully expected him to speak out.

“Do you propose we just sit and watch you, then?” Dreya asked when she looked back to him.

“Of course not,” Tenn said. “Once I get Jarrett, you’re in charge of getting us out. I’ll need a distraction. And everyone down there is going to need a rescue.”

“Just like with the Witches,” Devon said. There was a level of hurt in his eyes. Tenn didn’t blame him. They didn’t want to sit around and watch the show. They wanted to be in the ring. He wasn’t the only one trying to avenge his bloody past.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t risk you two getting hurt. You’re more valuable alive and out here. Besides, I don’t know anyone else whose magic can reach as far as yours.”

He caught Dreya rolling her eyes, but she didn’t fend off his lame attempt at pacifying them. There was logic in his words, even if their desire for revenge was stronger.

“What happens then?” Dreya asked. “When the prisoners are freed? No one has successfully overthrown a compound before. Ever. What chance do we three have?”

“No one has had the runes,” Tenn said. He hoped it was the truth, that the small advantage was enough. If he thought about the fact that he only had a handful of runes, ones for hiding and travel, the task seemed even more dire. His plan had worked on the necromancers, but this? Matthias may have been powerful, but he didn’t hold a candle to the Kin.

“How will we know you have succeeded?” Dreya asked.

Tenn shrugged. They were too far away for Earth to reach like last time. Which meant there was only one way to show that he had Jarrett, and was safe.

“Give me until dawn,” he said. “I should be able to get in and back before then. If I need your help, I’ll start an earthquake or something. If you don’t hear from me, or if my tracking rune stops moving... Well, dawn at the latest.”

“And if you haven’t found him? If you are killed?”

“Then there are still hundreds of innocent lives down there for you to save. I’ll create a protection circle around you, just like last time. You’ll be safe to do your magic.”

She gave him a look that said she wanted to argue. But there wasn’t time.

He gritted his teeth, then got to work.

He walked a circle around the twins, melting the snow with a thin stream of Water and scratching the runes into the earth with his staff. Just like with the Witches. It had worked with them; it would work again here. He tried to ignore the fact that, barely a mile away, there was a town filled with necromancers and Howls and worse, all bent on finding him and killing anyone associated with him. This was the nexus from which all of his pain stemmed.

On the one hand, it meant the end of this fight.

On the other hand...it could mean a lot of other ends, as well.

“Why are you doing this?” Dreya’s voice was quiet. It barely carried on the otherwise-silent night air, the town too far away to be heard.

“I’m setting up defenses—” Tenn began, but she cut him off.

“Not the runes,” she said. “This.” She gestured to the town, to the surrounding countryside. “This is suicide. Madness. Do you truly think Jarrett would want you to run headfirst into Leanna’s hands? Alone?”

I’m not alone, he thought.

What he actually said was more biting.

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t do the same?” he asked again. He pointed to Devon. “If he was in there? Would you?”

She dropped her gaze.

“Precisely,” he said. He went back to scribing the runes into the earth.

“But you could die.” The way she said it made her sound so small. “What about us?”

Tenn stopped, felt his whole world come to a grinding halt. “What do you mean?”