“WHERE THE HELL are we going?” he whispered to Dreya. The strange girl was only a few feet ahead of them, and she walked through the woods with a quick, assured step. He could barely see her in the deep shadows.
No one answered.
Even with Earth pulsing in his gut, he couldn’t feel anyone else stirring in the woods. Just the four of them, moving deeper and deeper into the wilderness while the approaching army roared toward them.
“The first line is coming up,” the girl said. She paused and held out a hand. “I suggest you hold on from here on out. It can be difficult to follow the path if you’re not accustomed to the way.”
Devon didn’t hesitate. He took the girl’s hand and Dreya took his. She held her hand out and raised an eyebrow at Tenn. If that wasn’t an admonishing glance, he didn’t know what was. He took her hand. His pulse was a panicked throb in his ears. Here they were, holding hands in the woods while their imminent death was minutes away. And yet, the girl was about as unconcerned as was humanly possible, and the twins weren’t much different.
A few steps later, the girl disappeared. Devon appeared to be holding his arm out to thin air. Another step and Devon vanished into the night. Another step and Dreya was gone, though he still felt her hand in his. Something washed over him, a tingle that swept through his gut like vertigo and nausea and that sick feeling from spinning around too fast. It passed in an instant, leaving him feeling as though he’d just stepped off a ship to dry land. The girl and the twins were visible once more, the chain unbroken.
He glanced around as they moved forward. Something unsettled him, something in the very pit of his gut that just felt wrong. He looked behind him. Had they gotten turned around? He started to release Dreya’s hand. Surely he’d left something behind...
“Don’t be fooled by your instincts,” the girl said. “We’re approaching the second line. Just follow me.”
Dreya gripped his hand even tighter.
This time, although he was prepared for it, he nearly yelped when the girl disappeared from sight. His grip on Dreya’s hand was tighter than death as every fight-or-flight nerve in his body began to fire. He was going the wrong way. If he kept walking, he was going to die. The little girl wasn’t one of the Witches—she had been sent to capture them. To kill them.
Devon disappeared.
Tenn knew if he stepped through that invisible wall, he’d be torn apart. Fear welled up in his throat, fluttered in his chest as Dreya disappeared, as that blankness came for him.
Another step.
A wave of nausea rolled over him, stronger this time. The forest churned around him, sloshing from side to side as he stumbled. Even the twins were unsteady on their feet, staggering as the girl led them onward.
“Only one more,” said the girl. She walked calmly, smoothly. “This is always the worst.”
There was no mistaking it now. He needed to turn and run. He couldn’t go another step, and yet the girl dragged them forward. On the other side of that invisible veil was Matthias, waiting to burn them alive. He could practically hear Jarrett’s voice in his head, yelling at him to stop, to turn around, to flee. Dreya’s nails dug into his skin.
The girl slipped from sight.
Then Devon.
No.
No.
No.
Dreya vanished.
He closed his eyes and bit his tongue to keep the screaming in, to keep his heart from exploding in its frantic beat.
Electricity rolled across his skin in a tingling wave. Pleasant, almost. And when it cleared, the panic was gone. He opened his eyes and gasped.
The trees had given way to a clearing roughly the size of a city block. A stream split it down the middle, and campers and trailers radiated out from a central bonfire like spokes on a wagon wheel. The crackle of fire and scent of wood smoke filled his head, along with the murmur of conversation. He paused. How the hell is this possible? He hadn’t sensed any of this from the outside.
The girl didn’t give them any time to ponder. She released Devon’s hand and turned to them.
“Mother will see you now. You’ve kept us waiting.”
Then she turned and walked toward the trailers.
The three of them paused. Dreya looked to Devon and took a deep breath. Devon nodded and squared his shoulders, looking for all the world like he was about to go into battle. They began to follow, but Tenn reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Dreya’s coat. Although the panic from before was gone, there was still the gut-deep fear that came from knowing that, at any moment, the forest was going to be overrun by Howls and necromancers bent on their destruction.
“Are you sure we’re safe here?” he asked. And the unspoken question: Are they safe from what we’ve brought toward them? He glanced back to the trees. He fully expected to see shadows darting through them, for people to start screaming as the nightmares leaped forth. But the woods were silent.
“We can trust their magic,” Dreya said. She gestured to the trailers. “They have clearly been living here for some time.”
And she was right. Camper wheels were covered in dead vines and weeds. Some trailers were propped up on cinder blocks or nestled in the earth.
“I guess,” Tenn said, though he didn’t really buy it. He kept a light touch on Earth, just in case, constantly scanning the woods for any sign of movement. He could feel the Howls and the rest of the army swarming against the edge of the trees, but they didn’t come any farther. They just darted around it, swarming like ants around a stone. Was it true? Were they somehow magically hidden from the Howls and the necromancers? It seemed impossible. After the Academy, the illusion of safety set him on edge.
The girl led them over to a tan trailer that looked fairly generic—a few curtained windows, an awning slumped with snow. The only thing that set it apart was the amulet hung over the door: a seven-pointed star resting in the curve of a horned moon. She opened it without knocking and stepped inside, leaving Tenn and the twins to follow behind. The twins didn’t move. After an awkward moment of standing there, being stared at by a few passersby, Tenn took the lead and stepped in.
Inside, the trailer was warm and cozy, filled with draped fabric and flickering candles. It was simple: a kitchen table in a small kitchenette, with a large tapestry hiding the rooms beyond. The girl was already sitting at the table, a mug of steaming tea in her hands. A woman stood by the stove, stirring a pot of soup that smelled like carrot and ginger. Everything in the trailer had the taste of home, and it was so perfect, so inviting, that Tenn’s nerves immediately fired into defense mode.
Nothing in the world could feel this safe. Not unless it was all about to be torn away.
“We don’t usually welcome Hunters in our midst,” the woman said, not turning away from the soup. “Even if they do know our code.”
She rested the spoon on top of the pot and wiped her hands on her apron. She was tall and slim, with long brown hair flecked with gray. Her gaze took in the twins and finally settled on Tenn. She didn’t smile; she looked like she was appraising them, and for a split second he wondered if she would kick them out. He wondered if this was why the twins had been wary of the Witches: in the woman’s eyes, Tenn felt his sins laid bare.
“Though perhaps we can make an exception for the ones the spirits told us to wait for.” Her lips quirked into a small smile at Tenn’s obvious shock. “You must be Tenn.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know much about you, young Hunter. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Rhiannon. I’m the Mother of our clan. And we’ve been waiting for you for quite some time.”
“How could you have been waiting for us?” Tenn asked.
Rhiannon just smiled again and went back over to the pot. She grabbed a ladle from the counter and began doling out soup into bowls. Tenn felt like he was stuck in one of those books he’d read as a kid—hanging out with a band of witches in the woods, eating soup in a caravan. Almost like the stories, if not for the dread that settled in his gut and the monsters looming on the horizon.
“You ask many questions, Tenn, but I’m afraid they aren’t the right ones. At least, not for the moment.” She handed a bowl to him with a smile. Even that felt storybook.
“Then what is the right question?” he asked. He couldn’t keep the bite out of his words. Dreya noticed and shot him a glare.
“If we can help you in your quest, of course.” She leaned back against the sink and nodded to the bowls in their hands. “Eat up before it gets cold. I suspect it’s been a while since you’ve had a home-cooked meal. Mara, if you could make some room.”
Quest. This wasn’t a quest. He’d just lost the guy he’d been falling for and had been dragged through hell. That wasn’t a quest. That was torture. That was life.
The girl at the table, Mara, slid to the side, allowing them space to sit and eat. Tenn couldn’t help but notice that the twins were unusually silent. It didn’t help his nerves.
What had they done to incur the wrath of someone so kind? Or was Rhiannon hiding a darker secret?
“Now,” she said once a few minutes had passed. “We know you are here to learn about the runes. The spirits have told us of your need, and we know what rides on your shoulders. We will aid as we can.”
The soup caught in his throat, but he swallowed it down. Was it that easy? She would just give them the information like that? Rage filled him, but was quickly suppressed. If they’d gone faster, if they’d gotten here sooner, Jarrett might still be alive. But that was dangerous thinking. There were a dozen things he could have done to save Jarrett, had he known. The first being dying during the Resurrection...
Then another, more bitter thought crossed his mind: if the Witches had shared this knowledge sooner, they could have prevented the deaths of millions.
“You have to teach us—” Tenn began, but she waved him off.
“You are too hasty,” she said. “What do you know of the runes?”
Tenn glanced at the twins, since they were the ones who seemed to know more than anyone, but Dreya kept silent. She hid behind her hair, spinning her spoon idly in her soup.
He pulled back his sleeve to reveal his Hunter’s mark.
“I know that the runes connect us to the elements,” he said. He wasn’t about to mention that he could hear them, in a way. “They’re what let us use the Spheres. I know they’re magical. That they can turn people into Howls.”
“In a sense, but not quite,” Rhiannon said. “The runes are an alphabet—they hold no power in themselves. Ages ago, man and the gods communicated freely. As time progressed, the communication turned into a written language. The gods granted mankind words to influence the world, the words the gods used to will creation into being. Because when humanity thrived, so did the gods humanity served. Every culture had its own alphabet and its own words, as the gods were as unique as the culture and land. In time, however, the languages changed. Became diluted. Humans lost sight of the gods and the origin of their words, and as they turned away from the source, the words lost their power. Eventually, magic bled from the words, and only the holiest of mortals were able to tap into the original power. Only a few remembered the original sigils of change. Runes, hieroglyphs, even the words we speak today, were all derived from the lost words of power.
“But the gods never stopped speaking. Years ago, when we learned how to tap into magic again, it was not because we stumbled upon the right symbols by accident. It was because we finally learned how to listen to the gods, and to the language they’d been speaking this entire time. When we use the runes, we tap into their power. We literally speak the language of the gods our Ancestors once served.”
“So these runes,” Tenn muttered, pulling back his sleeve to stare at his arm, “these were spoken by gods?”
Rhiannon nodded. “They are the words of creation. The words of the elements.”
“And the necromancers...”
“Serve a darker god,” Rhiannon said, her voice lowering. “They have tainted the sacred language, turned it against the very fabric of creation.”
“The Dark Lady,” he said.
“Yes,” Rhiannon said. She pushed herself away from the counter and walked over to them, sidling onto the bench next to Devon. He seemed to shrink away from her, but if Rhiannon noticed, she didn’t acknowledge it. “The Dark Lady was human once, but She wrapped herself up in the words of gods that were best left forgotten. That knowledge changed her into something more. She became a vessel for something darker, a power that had been lying in wait.”
“But She’s dead,” Tenn said. “She died after creating the Kin. The Church killed her. Now, She’s just a story.”
“You can’t kill a god, Tenn,” Rhiannon said. “The mortal we know as the Dark Lady may have died, but the gods She served, the forces that worked through her—and perhaps even the consciousness She embodied—those live on.”
He suppressed the shudder that wanted to rack him: he knew the Dark Lady lived on. He’d felt her, in his dreams, and in the runes he’d seen carved into her artifacts.
“What can you tell us about the runes?” he asked. The sooner he got what they were looking for, the sooner he could end this nightmare. “How do we use them to kill her minions?”
Rhiannon sighed.
“We do not use magic for violence, Tenn. That is what got us into this mess, and nonviolence is the core of our faith. In that regard, we cannot help you. But we can teach you what we do know of the runes. And perhaps, if the spirits wish to speak through you as they said, they will teach you themselves.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “It is far too late to begin your studies. Besides, our translator is out in the woods right now, doubling our defenses. You three have brought quite an army our way. We must ensure our lines hold up.”
“Sorry,” Tenn said. The rage from before faltered in an instant, all under the reminder that now he was the reason people were dying. The Dark Lady wanted him.
Rhiannon reached out and patted his hand.
“Never apologize for being hunted,” she said. “We have been on the lookout ever since we settled here last summer. The sept nearby has been very active lately. Inquisitors roaming the woods, children missing... These are dark days.”
“Why would you put yourselves in danger by moving here?” he asked.
“Because the spirits told us this is where we would find you. We go where the gods will.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m sure you are tired, but I’m afraid we have no room in our trailers for guests. There’s a tent by the fire. It should keep you warm enough.”
Tenn wanted to demand more information. He didn’t want to sleep. No, he didn’t want to sleep alone. Not that he ever would, with Matthias or Tomás peering into his head. But he’d somehow eaten all the soup, and with every passing moment the warmth and exhaustion seeped through his limbs. Earth rumbled in his pelvis—he needed to rest. If he was to have any chance of killing Matthias, he needed to be at full strength.
“It’s more than enough,” Tenn said. He looked at the twins, who were still staring at their bowls of soup. Neither had tasted a drop. Earth almost made him ask for their portions. “Thank you for the hospitality.”
“Of course, Tenn,” Rhiannon said. “In the morning, you’ll find the answers you seek. Sleep well.”
Tenn nodded and stood, the twins only a beat behind.
“Thank you again,” he said.
“It is we who should be thanking you, Tenn,” Rhiannon said. She watched them leave from the doorway.
He wanted to ask her what she meant.
The majority of him didn’t want to know.