“Our forces are dwindling,” she was saying.
Her voice was powerful, and it carried throughout the gym. Dreya had made it sound like the whole of the guild was there, but the bleachers were barely half-full. He’d heard stories of Outer Chicago, and how great its fighting forces were. If this was all they had left...
“Our hold on civilization is slipping. Leanna is pushing her forces east. Already we’ve received reports of her armies as close as Des Moines.” She paused under one of the brilliant balls of fire floating high above. “We can barely hold on to the little land we do control, let alone try and topple Leanna’s compound. No previous attempts have proved successful. America is dying. Every day, another guild or outpost falls and another Farm takes its place. If we don’t do something fast, our great nation will be left to the Howls.”
A murmur rumbled through the bleachers, and Tenn didn’t need to be among the troop to know the gist. None of this was new information, but it wasn’t something anyone wanted to hear. Even he had heard the horror stories of attempted conquests—the Hunters who made it back from raids on Leanna’s compound and could barely speak through their shock; whole armies, wasted in a heartbeat from magic or hordes of higher-Sphere Howls. Even attempting to liberate the Farms had proven useless—the necromancers learned to protect their prized stock, and too many Hunters had fallen for the few innocents that had been saved.
He hadn’t heard of an attempted attack on Leanna or any other Kin in over a year. His stomach dropped at the idea of how this could relate to him.
“Which is why,” she continued, walking out of sight. Tenn stepped closer, so he could see her over the stands. “I have asked you all here.” She gestured to the shadows at the side of the space. “Jarrett, if you please.”
Jarrett walked out next to her, his boots echoing in the otherwise-silent room. He wasn’t in his field attire, and he looked like the Resurrection had never happened—ripped blue jeans, black combat boots and a gray T-shirt with a logo that had faded beyond recognition. Even from here, Tenn could see the intricate lines of Jarrett’s Hunter’s mark on his right forearm.
The sight of him made Tenn’s pulse race. He tried to find a trace of the boy he used to know. He tried, but every time he thought back to Silveron, Water surged with dangerous abandon.
It wasn’t Jarrett’s appearance that brought everyone to a deeper silence. It was the object he gingerly placed in Cassandra’s hands. Tenn’s dread doubled at the sight of it.
A small glass jar, with a curl of flame hovering within.
Cassandra raised it high above her head like Lady Liberty with her torch. Even from here, he could feel the wrongness, hear the whispers he could only describe as evil. Even from here, it made his Hunter’s mark tingle with goose bumps.
“This,” she said, “is the weapon used against us. This is the Dark Lady’s greatest secret, the one her minions have died to preserve and protect from us. Until now.” She smiled at Jarrett. Her grin reminded Tenn of a feral cat. “Now we have insight into their dark magic, and with that knowledge we can finally turn the tide of this war.”
Tenn wasn’t watching Cassandra as intently as the rest of the troop. He was watching Jarrett. And Jarrett looked terribly uncomfortable. He must have known what would come next. Tenn did, too. His chest constricted from the memory of it.
“But first, a demonstration. Sam and Maria, if you please.”
Two Hunters from the front row came forward. The girl had a strong, lean figure and dark hair that curled past her shoulders. Sam was about the same height, with spiked brown hair and a goatee.
“Maria,” Cassandra said, holding out the jar, “if you would take this for a moment.”
Maria took it without hesitating. She held the jar in one hand, staring at the flame with a small smile. Cassandra told them to face off. That was when fear began to show on Sam’s face. Especially because Maria was still staring at the jar, the flame reflecting in her eyes.
Cassandra didn’t seem to notice, or she just didn’t care. “When I say so, channel a thread of Fire into the jar. I want you to focus on Sam while doing so. When I say stop, you stop. Understood?”
Maria didn’t say anything.
“Maria—”
The girl looked up.
“Yeah. Got it. Go easy on him.” She smiled at Sam, who took a step back.
He didn’t have time to reconsider.
“Go.”
Fire opened in Maria’s chest. The flame within the jar burned brighter and the symbols on the glass flared to life. Sam cried out as his back arched and Tenn could see his Sphere being tapped, could see the tendrils of heat and energy spiraling from Sam’s chest and into the ever-burning jar. That wasn’t what made Tenn’s skin go cold, though—it was the voice, the whisper, the harshest female rasp: drain, devour, be mine. Tenn clenched his fists as the voice hissed in his head, seethed with steam and hatred. He felt himself falling. Falling. Twisting into that burning void.
He felt the Dark Lady’s nails scraping within his head. Calling him. Demanding him.
Listen. Be mine. Be mine.
And then, like a switch, it stopped.
Dreya’s hand was on his shoulder, and Devon looked at him with concern in his eyes. Tenn realized he’d fallen to his knees. His breath burned in his chest and he feared he’d screamed. But the show was still going on center stage. Sam clutched his own chest, his eyes angry and trained on Maria, who was already handing the jar to Cassandra and walking away.
Only the twins seemed to have noticed Tenn’s collapse.
Well, them and Jarrett, whose eyes bore into him.
“What the hell was that?” someone called out as Tenn pushed to his feet.
“That, comrades,” Cassandra said, “is how the necromancers have been creating the Howls. This is how they are able to drain a human’s Sphere past the point of depletion.” She traced the jar’s surface with a finger, the line of symbols seeming to glow under her touch. “They’re using runes. Runes we’ve never seen before. And if we can understand them, there may be a way of combating them. Perhaps disabling them. Perhaps even reversing the process.”
The gym had been silent up until then, but that statement started an uproar of conversation.
Reverse the process?
For years, they’d been trained to believe that the only way to eradicate the Howls was to kill them—even if the host had been human, even if they’d been someone you knew. This wasn’t just a revelation or a way forward: this was a tragedy. How many people had Hunters killed in the name of defying the Dark Lady? How many died when they could have been returned to normal?
The thought made Tenn want to throw up. All that blood. All that blood. And the only way he’d been able to handle it had been the thought that it was the only way...
Jarrett opened to Air, and when he spoke, his voice cut through the general din of the room.