Runebinder

The Sphere connected him to the rain hammering from the sky and the blood pooling on the ground and the pulse in every vein of every creature within a mile. He could feel it. All of it. He felt Katherine a few yards away, her heart throbbing so fast it hurt his own. He felt the Howls, their pulses thick and jagged and starved.

Most of all, he felt power. More than he had ever tapped before. The rage, the fear, the anger, the thirst. It made his limbs vibrate, made his breath catch, made the rain around him seethe and hum. And in that split second after Water’s opening, he wrapped his fingers deep into the torrent and screamed.

The rain shivered. Changed. He twisted the power and twisted the elements and raindrops became ice, became shards sharper than glass, became hammers that lashed from the sky with sickening velocity. His Sphere raged in joy and agony as its power unleashed, as the bloodlust filled his darkening vision and screams filled the air. His screams. Their screams. Blades of ice met flesh, sliced through skin and bone. Ice spilled forth blood, and Water rejoiced as the world drenched itself in crimson.

Power ran through his veins, and this power craved revenge.

It was over in seconds.

He felt the Howls die. Felt their blood leave their bodies and pool against the sodden earth. Felt their pain. Felt their final heartbeats. And when every heart had stilled, the power in his chest winked out. He collapsed.

“You’re going to do great things,” his mom says. She hugs him. Wipes tears from her eyes. “You’ve already done great things. The moment you came into my life. That was the greatest thing.” And he tells himself not to cry. Not here, in front of the dorm. He tells himself he will see her again. “I will always...”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Kevin asks.

“A linguist,” Tenn replies. “Or a writer.”

“You like words?”

“Yes. Words have power.”

“Your words do.” They go silent, and the stars slide past as they watch from the library. They go silent, and the stars speak for them.

He sees her. He sees her hand. He sees her hand from where he stands in the doorway. It droops from the shed, a finger cocked. Her fingernails red. Fingers red. Red, red—

Tenn curled against himself. Curled against the memories.

Nothing else moved in the world.

Just the rain.

Just his breath.

Just his blood mixing with the dead.

CHAPTER TWO

HE DIDN’T KNOW how long he lay there. The wind and rain were a constant roar, but their sound was distant compared to the throb of blood in his ears, the roar of memories in his head.

His house is empty. Too empty. He walks. The gun is gone. His hand is covered in blood. Blood, like the blood streaking the walls. Where is the gun? Where are his parents? He shakes. He walks. Water roars within him, a tide that drowns the screams outside. His house is too empty. His house is too silent. He shakes as he walks and the blood-streaked halls tilt. He shakes, and the back door swings. He walks, and his silent house bleeds.

Something brushed his cheek. Frayed nerves snapped to life, and his eyes fluttered open.

Katherine knelt beside him. Blood stained her skin, and long gashes webbed across her in leaking lines.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice was angelic, if only because he had been certain he’d killed her.

Tenn could only nod. There were tears in his eyes. He couldn’t force them away. He was hollowed out. Raw. Earlier, he’d wanted to break the world, but the world had broken him.

Even as the memories ebbed, the pain and the sadness lingered in his lungs. Tears leaked from his eyes unchecked.

“You’re bleeding,” she continued. “Badly.”

He tried to sit. His muscles wouldn’t cooperate. He felt it then...or rather, he felt the lack of feeling. The numbness leaking through his limbs as blood leaked to the soil. His wounds would kill him. Just as her wounds would kill her.

“So are you,” he managed. He bit back a sob. The world was spinning. Fading. Fast.

“You’ve already broken orders,” she said, without the slightest hint of sarcasm. “We might as well live to face Derrick’s wrath.”

Tenn closed his eyes and reached deep into the pit of his pelvis, to the place where the Sphere of Earth rested. It was the second and last Sphere he’d been attuned to. He coaxed it awake and sank his focus into the rich soil of it, to the heavy power that rooted him to the earth. Energy filled him with green light, with the warm, calming sap of gravity and flesh.

He didn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t. Just as he couldn’t move his arm to meet hers, to start healing. His fingers twitched, and she placed her bloodied hand in his. Energy connected, a snap of power, and slowly, painfully, he began his work.

She winced as flesh knitted itself back together. There was no shortcut—he had to heal each wound one at a time. If his connection to Earth had taught him anything, it was that dying was easy; healing was the painful part.

“So like you,” she muttered. “Healing me before yourself.”

He laughed. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t let his concentration break. Even when something warm dribbled from his lips.

“You’re the pretty one,” he whispered, and choked down a sob of pain or despair, he couldn’t tell which.

When her wounds had closed, he turned his attention to himself. Arcs of fire lanced across his skin, seared through his bones. He didn’t grimace. This pain, this physical hurt, couldn’t hold a candle to the hell that Water had dragged him through. This was just a reminder that he was still alive.

After what seemed like hours, he closed off to Earth.

The Spheres all had a backlash as unique as their power, but Earth’s was, in many ways, the most dangerous. Earth was like a drug: when you were on it, you felt invincible, high, immortal. The moment it left you, you were sharply reminded just how weak and mortal and close to death you truly were.

His limbs, though healed, shook as he forced himself to sitting. His heart raced and his stomach wanted to eat itself, but at least he hadn’t used so much that he passed out. Or lost a chunk of hair. Again. He just hoped that nothing would break when he moved.

Together, the two of them hoisted each other up to standing. Katherine wouldn’t meet his gaze; she stared out at the creatures littering the ground around them. Limbs and carcasses were splayed everywhere and, even with the rain, the stink was atrocious. Blood pooled dark and thick like an oil spill.

“Michael?” he asked.

She shook her head and continued looking off into the distance. The rain hid whatever tears she might be shedding. He bit back an apology; apologies wouldn’t bring the guy back. Idiot or no, he had still been their companion. He was still important.

For a while, they stood there, looking out over the massacre. Tenn’s heartbeat didn’t slow, but it was no longer just the blowback of Earth. It was the fear. The fear of what he’d done, or what Water had done. He’d jeopardized their mission by using magic.

Rather, the magic had used him. How? And where the hell had that power come from?

“How did you do that?” Katherine asked.

He started, wondered if he’d spoken aloud. Then he realized that of course she would ask that, because no one could use that much magic and live. At least, no one he’d ever met.

“I don’t know,” he replied. His voice rasped.

“You killed them. All of them.”

“I know.”

He wondered if Michael had still been alive when he called down the power. Pain wrenched in his chest at the thought. If he’d killed Michael by accident...

“Did I—”

“He was already dead,” Katherine whispered. “I saw him go down.”

That shouldn’t have been the relief that it was. It almost made him feel worse.

She looked at him, but her eyes quickly flicked away.

“I’ve never seen that much power,” she said. “How are you still standing?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. He felt like a broken recording.

“Did you know...”

He shook his head. “I was ready to die.”

“Me, too,” she said, and went silent.

Despite the fact that they needed to move, despite the cold and the scent and the bodies, they stood there in silence and let the minutes drip by. Tenn tried to gather his thoughts, tried to create an argument that would hold up against Derrick’s inevitable tirade. He failed. He couldn’t stop looking at Katherine, at the old blood trickling down her face and the small quiver in her fingertips. What did she think of him, after what had happened? What would she say to the others?

Tenn looked back to the bodies. Michael was under there, somewhere. He deserved a better burial than this.

“We need to burn them,” Tenn said. “In case...”

In case they attract attention. In case any are still alive. In case others come along and devour Michael’s corpse...

She looked at him, and maybe it was his imagination, but that look was different. Like she wasn’t certain who or what she was staring at. She didn’t speak, just nodded tersely, and light flickered in her chest as she opened to the Sphere of Fire. Heat shimmered around her, made sweat break out across his skin. Then, with tendrils of flame snaking around her fingertips, she lashed out.

The fields erupted into flame. Tenn hid behind his arm as the world around him roared with heat and anger. Katherine screamed as bodies caught fire, as rain sizzled and the earth cracked. She screamed and cursed until the roar of flames drowned her out.

Fire was the Sphere of passion and hate. It pulled from the heart, just as it burned it apart.

It lasted only a minute. But when the power died down, the fields were nothing more than smoldering ash and steam.

He put a hand on her shoulder, trying not to wince from the heat of her skin.

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

He stepped back.

This was why he didn’t get along with Fire users. After using their powers, they were unstable at best.

Then she started to laugh. He took another step back.

“Sorry,” she said through the laughter. She sniffed and wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s gone,” she continued. “The fucking deer. It’s gone. They ate it.”

Tenn turned to the road. She was right. Hell, there was nothing on the road anymore save for the burned-out scraps of cars and pools of the dead that streamed like magma.

“Michael would be so pissed,” Katherine said. She giggled. Then her laughs choked into a sob. “We should have let him eat the tongue.”

* * *

The walk back to base was long and silent. Tenn ate some jerky from their packs, but it didn’t assuage the hunger gnawing at his bones. That, he knew, would take hours and a few days of rest to overcome, just like the waves of sadness that kept washing over him. He didn’t stop scanning the fields, but both he and Katherine kept their Spheres closed off. Katherine didn’t ask him any more questions; somehow that made things worse. He was asking them all himself, and he didn’t have an answer.

How had Water opened like that? The Spheres weren’t sentient, they were just energy centers. Everyone had them, but only those who were attuned could use each particular Sphere. Even then, it required training and concentration to get them to influence the outside world. Magic wasn’t just something that happened; it was something you had to force. So how had Water taken over? As though it were a reflex, as though the Sphere itself hadn’t wanted to die. And where the hell had that power come from? It should have been beyond him, should have drained him entirely. Yet here he was. Alive.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Everything. Everything.

For the first time since he’d been attuned to Water, he was scared. Not of the monsters. Not of the world outside. But of the power that rested within him. The power that seemed to be scratching for control.

Only one thing was certain, and it wasn’t a truth he wanted to think about. The Howls they’d faced weren’t the army his troop had been warned about. It had been a roaming band, one of the thousands scattered throughout the uninhabited swathes of America.

That meant there was still another, bigger fight left.

They reached Outpost 37 before nightfall. Home sweet home. Once, it had probably been some quaint touristy harbor town. Now the scattered houses along its perimeter were empty. Whole lots were charred to piles of ash, while other homes were unscathed save for shattered windows or scratched facades. Lawns entangled forgotten toys, and fences lay like dominoes. Everything had that sick old stench of antiquity, like a sodden vintage store. Even here, though, there were no bodies or bones, no scavenging birds or mice. The Howls were efficient, if only because they were hungry.

Cities were often the emptiest. After all, what was a city to a flesh-craving beast besides a buffet?

It wasn’t just the Howls that had destroyed the town. Necromancers had done their own part, and the Hunters that fought against them probably hadn’t helped. Lake Michigan swallowed half of the buildings, and a small hill erupted through another city block, the houses there toppled and tossed. Much had changed in the chaos of the Resurrection—whole cities burned or buried, mountains collapsed or created. Magic had altered the face of the country in more ways than one.

The world didn’t like being manipulated. At times, it seemed, the very planet fought back.

Katherine said nothing as they trudged through the streets, stepping over rusted bikes and piles of old refuse, dodging craters and overturned cars. Both her swords were clean and bared, and Tenn’s grip on his staff was just as tight as hers. No matter that the rest of their troop was only a hundred yards away—anything could have happened in their absence.

Every time Tenn walked through the base, he was reminded that they hadn’t been stationed here to thrive. Nothing in this shell of a town hinted at humanity—the storefronts were shattered and looted, the houses razed. There was no music, no industry, no trace of civilian life. No real reason to wake up in the morning, save to fight.

Shadows shifted over the rubble, and he jerked his staff to the ready. Then the shape stepped into the road: a small fox, its ribs horribly pronounced with hunger. The creature didn’t flinch as he and Katherine walked past. It watched them intently before finally turning and slinking back into an alley.

When houses gave way to the broad downtown avenue, his nerves calmed. Their hotel rose up from the buildings on the other side, one of the few structures still intact. Uprooted trees stretched like black veins across the concrete. Marble slabs and pillars of other structures tumbled across the road in piles of white bone. Only the hotel stood strong and seemingly deserted, the clean red brick and white marble an anachronism in the destruction surrounding it.

Something moved and Tenn turned on the spot, ready for the attack. A girl in black stepped out from the crumbling post office.

“Audrey,” he said. He lowered his staff.

“Jesus H.,” she said. There were two daggers in her hands, the kris blades glinting like wolves’ teeth. “I thought... We thought you were in trouble. Derrick’s had us on high alert since noon.” She looked between them, and it seemed to click then that Michael was missing. Her voice became a whisper, and her shoulders slumped. “What happened? I’ve never felt that much power. It was like a bomb going off.”

Tenn’s pulse began to race. If the troop had felt their use of magic all the way back here, there was no way the necromancers had missed it. There was no way Derrick would let him live for his insubordination.

“Where’s Derrick?” Tenn asked. The last thing he wanted was to admit what he’d done. Not when he wasn’t certain himself. He didn’t want to face their commander, either, but it would be easier to get it over with than wait in fear.

Audrey nodded to the hotel. “His office,” she said. “He’s meeting with the captains now. Everyone else has been stationed in the field in case...”

“In case we brought anything back,” Katherine finished.

“Yeah.”

“How pissed is he?” Tenn asked.

Audrey gave a small grin, though it was more forced than anything.

“Well, I wouldn’t go near him. Though maybe he’s cooled down by now.”

“Right,” Tenn said.

He’d have rather faced another bloodling.

* * *

Their base was depressing even during good days. Today definitely wasn’t a good day. The rain wasn’t helping.

Outpost 37 hadn’t been built to house civilians, but to act as a buffer between Outer Chicago and the wild lands beyond. Wild lands that were inhabited by necromancers—mages who bowed in service to the Dark Lady, the Goddess of Death—and the Howls they created and controlled. There were other settlements and other outposts scattered across the States, many of which Tenn had bounced between after the Resurrection. Hunters had no say in where they were stationed to fight the forces of the Dark Lady. They went where the battle was. And, frankly, the battle was everywhere.

Outpost 37 was home to him and maybe thirty other Hunters. For now.

These were the trenches. Those stationed here would fight until they died, and their bodies would burn or be tossed in the lake, and a fresh batch of Hunters from Outer Chicago would come in to take their place. Or they were transferred to die in service somewhere else.

Being a Hunter wasn’t glorious. But it did mean you were fighting back, trying to return the world to what it once was, rather than sitting around waiting to be eaten. After everything he’d seen during the Resurrection, joining the Hunters was honestly the only way forward. Revenge was the only reason he could live with himself.

A few Hunters mingled in the hotel lobby. Maybe mingling was the wrong word; they were clearly all waiting for the alarm to sound. Their weapons were at hand, and though a few were reading musty paperbacks and another group was playing cards, there was a tension in the room that belied the apparent ease. Tenn nodded at those who looked up, waiting for them to ask about what had happened in the field. About what he’d done in the field. But they said nothing. Even the new recruits—easy to spot, from the lack of scars and the life in their eyes—knew better. Someone had fucked up, and since Tenn had been in charge of the food-scouting mission, it was on his shoulders no matter what.

He looked down and continued up the emergency stairwell to the top floor.

“What the hell happened out there?”

The words were out of Derrick’s mouth before Tenn closed the door behind him.

Whereas the rest of the encampment was cold and dark, this suite was warm and brilliantly lit, albeit far from welcoming. Flames danced across every surface, fires fueled by magic alone. It should have been beautiful, but it just set Tenn’s hair on end. The Sphere of Fire burned brightly in Derrick’s chest and his eyes darted with agitation. That was never a good sign.

Derrick himself stood behind a grand mahogany desk, its surface coated in papers and maps and weapons. He was tall, commanding, his Mohawked hair burnt-red and his skin traced with scars.

“I didn’t mean to—” Tenn began, but Derrick cut him off.

“What do you mean, you didn’t mean to?” He stepped around the desk, hands clenched tight into fists. Small sparks flickered around his skin. “I felt your fucking magic all the way out here!”

Tenn wasn’t about to point out that none of them should be using magic and that Derrick was betraying his own orders, but he knew that the amount Derrick channeled wasn’t enough to give them away, and, frankly, Tenn didn’t think Derrick would appreciate the reminder.

“We were surrounded,” he said, lowering his eyes. “There were dozens of kravens. We wouldn’t have made it.”

“Then you should have died.”

Derrick’s voice was so terse, so fully void of emotion, that Tenn barely realized it sounded more like a command than anything else. It was a stab in the gut. Water churned over. You should have died, you should have died—your life is worth nothing, and neither is your death.

“I meant to,” he said. His words sounded small. “But Water took over.”

“The Spheres don’t control you. You control the Spheres.”

It was ironic, seeing as Fire users were notorious for the tempers their chosen Sphere gave them. But it was a phrase they’d all learned during training. It might not be true, but the meaning was clear: you didn’t give in. Ever.

“Not this time,” Tenn said. He looked up then, just in time to see something new flicker across Derrick’s features. Fear. “Water took over. It... I don’t know. It killed them. Every last one.”

“You aren’t that powerful,” Derrick said, his voice muted. It wasn’t a dig; it was fact.

Tenn didn’t have anything to say to that.

“I should have you killed for this,” Derrick said. He stood up straighter, as though taking more control of himself and the situation. “You jeopardized the safety of everyone in this troop. Because of you, we have lost the element of surprise.”

This outpost has been here for over a year. We lost that element a long time ago. But Tenn didn’t say that. Of course he didn’t say that. Outposts always changed locations. Keeping one in place had been a new tactic, decided by the higher-ups of Outer Chicago itself. If it was expected that base locations changed, having one stay put would be a surprise to the necromancers and the Howls. So long as it kept a low profile. So long as it wasn’t compromised.

“I’m sorry,” Tenn said.

“Tell that to your comrades who are going to die tomorrow.”

Tenn’s eyes shot up.

“Tomorrow?”

Derrick turned and walked back toward the desk.

“Our scouts have spotted them. The armies are moving. They will be here by sunrise.”

A lump of dread twisted in Tenn’s stomach.

“We need every fighter we have,” Derrick continued. “So I won’t kill you. Not tonight. I’ll let the necromancers do that in the morning.”

There wasn’t the slightest hint of humor or mockery in Derrick’s voice.

Tenn bowed his head and turned from the room.

It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stairs that he realized he hadn’t even mentioned that Michael was dead.

It didn’t matter. In the morning, thanks to him, they all would be.

CHAPTER THREE

THE RAIN TURNED to a drizzle as the night bore on. Tenn stood on the hotel roof, watching water pool and stream below. The hotel offered the best view in town—quite literally—and without magic to guide their sight, they needed all the vantage they could get. There was a small, guttering torch on the ground, the only source of light in the darkness. Beyond, everything was dark and sifting and slick with rain.

He knew that Derrick hadn’t sent him up here out of necessity. He was up here for punishment. Far from the glory of battle. And, being so high up, he’d be the first thing the necromancers could target.

Tenn turned at the sound of footsteps. Katherine. She’d been chosen as the other lookout, probably on some sort of probation because of him. He wondered if this was the worst of her punishment for not killing him in the field.

“We need to talk,” she said.

He didn’t answer, just tightened his grip on his staff and stared out into the dark. His stomach flipped over, and once more the thought flickered through his head, What is wrong with me?

“What happened out there—”

“There’s nothing more to talk about.”

“I wanted to thank you.”

Tenn’s internal tirade silenced. He turned to her. Firelight flickered over her face, but even in the shadows he could feel her eyes trained on him.

“What?”

“You saved my life. You avenged Michael’s death. So...thank you.” She brushed a strand of hair from her face and looked toward the darkness. “Don’t make me say it again.”