Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(98)

Tenn glanced back at the man who, only moments before, had threatened his life. He deserved to die. He deserved to die like this. Right?

What are you becoming?

What have you become?

The question made his heart sink. Dreya pulled him again, and he followed.

“I’m sorry,” Tenn whispered. He doubted Justin heard it over his own, terrified screams.





CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

THE SKY BURNED RED. Not just the red of fire, but the red of a wound, raw and bleeding. Clouds dripped fire like lava, and the once-picturesque mountain landscape now looked like the fangs of some broken beast. Flames roared on the hillside, weaving trails of smoke up into the air as lightning forked back and forth with strobe-like speed. Everything was heat and fury. Every hair on Tenn’s body stood on end, his Spheres echoing the destruction around him. And yet, in spite of the havoc that wove like madness through the countryside, the town below was strangely untouched. Only a few fires leaped between buildings, snaring the dark shadows that raced through the streets. Tenn knew Devon was trying to avoid the innocent lives that swarmed near the outer wall. Trying, and probably failing. There were just too many to save.

Dreya paused in the doorway and turned to him. Her breath was still erratic, and she looked paler than usual, as though her skin was becoming translucent. She reached out a shaky hand and took Tenn’s arm.

“I must go help my brother,” she said.

“Is Jarrett...?”

“Alive. With Devon. Though we will speak of what happened later. You must finish this.” She took a deep breath. Swayed. “I am no help. I should not have killed the Breathless One like that. Anger overtook...”

Tenn reached out, steadied her.

She shook him off. When she looked at him, her eyes were fierce, even if the rest of her seemed uncertain.

“Leanna cannot make it out alive,” she said. “End this.”

His legs were lead. He’d already run in here alone. But to be left amid the destruction?

“I can’t—”

She shook her head.

“Your pain gives you strength,” she said. Another chill swept through him. Did she know she was repeating Tomás’s words? “And that will help you win this fight. Just don’t let your pain consume you.”

Air flickered in Dreya’s throat. It was faint, barely a trace of its normal strength, but the wind still whipped around her and sent her white coat fluttering. She lifted herself up, hovered a few inches above the ground. “Good luck,” she said. “We will see you on the other side.”

And with that, she shot through the air like an arrow, speeding toward her brother.

It wasn’t until he turned to find the Kin that he realized her parting words were far from comforting.

*

Tomás was near, that much was certain—the incubus’s tracking rune glowed in Tenn’s mind, a red lace against the fibers of the Howl’s heart. Tenn ran around to the back of the house. His body screamed with protest, but he shut it down, deep in the recesses he usually reserved for silencing Water’s screams. Those, he let loose. If ever there was a time to drown in the wrongs he had suffered, in the rage he wanted so badly to unleash on the world, it was now. He had Jarrett back, sure. But he was done with being used. It was time to use his power.

He found Tomás in the courtyard. The house formed a horseshoe around a cleared space that had, at one time, been beautiful. Now it was the scene of an eerily silent apocalypse.

Every window facing the yard was blown out and gaping, shards of glass sticking from the churned mud like incisors. Chunks of concrete jutted from the soil, along with toppled trees and statuary. The earth itself rippled like static waves in a black sea. In the center of it all was Tomás, standing on a dais of black marble.

And there, at his feet, lying in a circle of frost and snapped icicles, was Leanna. Tenn thought she was dead. He stopped in his tracks and stared at them. Tomás glared down at his sister, his chest heaving, his whole body shaking. For a moment, he thought the man was mourning. Then the sound of thunder faded, and he realized Tomás was laughing.

“Worthless, she said.” His voice made Tenn take a step back. He’d seen Tomás upset. Now he seemed unhinged. “Who is worthless now? Dear, dear sister, how sweet you look like this.” He knelt down, one knee crushing into her chest. She gasped, and Tenn felt his lungs expand. “Now who is helpless, sister dear? Now whose heart is made of ice?”

Tomás’s hand snapped forward, quicker than lightning, and Leanna spasmed. His wrist sunk deep into her chest. She didn’t bleed. Just arched against his hand, a soft cry escaping her lips. Another snap motion, and he pulled his arm back in a spray of broken bone and old blood. He held something up in the red twilight.

Her heart.

Tenn watched in horror as Tomás’s fingers clenched the red muscle. It didn’t beat, not like in the movies. Instead, the crimson flesh turned black under his fingertips. It was only when it began to crush in his grip, falling to the ground in sand-fine wisps, that Tenn realized Tomás had frozen it. Tomás let the last of the shards filter through his fingers before standing. He looked down at his sister, still writhing on her bed of ice. Then he turned his head, ever so slowly, and stared straight at Tenn.

“I had hoped,” he said, hopping off the dais and taking a limping step toward him, “that you would arrive in time to see that.” He snickered and his whole body convulsed. The air around him shivered red.