Fire blooms in the valley, sharp and hot, searing through the woods like the hands of a hundred gods. Devon’s magic knows no bounds, holds no distinction between Witch or necromancer or Howl. Flesh is flesh, and flesh is food. She fuels his flames with Air, until the night sky grows white and bright as day. The roar of fire is deafening, a scream and hiss that pierces through her bones. The hell feels like it should burn and last forever, but the fight is over in an instant. She doesn’t open her eyes. Not until she hears him sobbing beside her.
She turns and looks to her brother, tries to find some words to comfort him. But she can smell the smoke of flesh filtering through the air, can taste the dead. Air leaves her breathless, without thought, without words. She can only gasp as she puts a hand on his shoulder. He cries, his fingers clenching and unclenching in the dirt as if trying to tear the world apart. As if trying to make the world feel their pain.
Tenn snapped his hand back. His senses were on fire, every inch of his skin tingling and burning as the aftereffect of the vision faded. Dreya watched him, her expression carefully guarded. There was a look in her eyes, though, one he wasn’t used to seeing. Expectant. Like she was waiting for him to cast his judgment.
“What was that?” he finally managed.
She held her hand to her chest and stared into the flames.
“That is why we avoid the Witches. Violence goes against the very core of their beliefs, and we killed our entire clan. We killed everyone we ever loved. They were innocent, and they died by our hands.” She cradled her head in her hands. “I can still hear their screams.”
Tenn closed his eyes. Her grief was fresh in his mind and heart, just as raw and nagging as his own. He felt her memories lingering with his, filling in cracks, becoming his own history.
“You had no choice,” he whispered. We’ve all done horrible things. If it were his parents being turned, if he’d had that chance to save them from an agonizing death or an eternity of mindless devouring, would he have done any differently?
“We always have a choice, Tenn,” she said. “Every day, I question ours. Every day, I try to convince myself we chose properly.”
“You did,” he said. His words sounded hollow.
A few beats passed in silence. He opened his eyes, but neither of them looked at each other. Finally, Dreya spoke.
“Do you remember when you asked us how to control the madness of the Spheres? How to stop the visions and nightmares?”
He nodded. Of course he remembered. Devon’s words burned in his mind behind every thought: you die.
“I would give anything to silence them,” she said, almost to herself. “But we cannot die. Not yet. Not until the necromancers are gone and the threat of this happening to anyone else is vanished. That is why we joined the guild, why Jarrett did us the greatest of services. We told him what we had done, yet he let us fight by his side. And that is why we will follow you to the very end.
“We cannot rest until we have destroyed every servant of the Dark Lady. Then, and only then, will our deeds be absolved. Until that day, we live knowing we killed our own family. We live with the madness, and we let it burn.” She paused and looked at him, the fire glinting in her pale, wet eyes. “We let it burn until it burns us alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DEVON ARRIVED A while later. His scarf was wrapped high over his ears and around his head to keep out the cold. He put a hand on Dreya’s shoulder. Now that Tenn knew that they actually could read each other’s thoughts, the exchange was, oddly, a little less strange.
“The humans are asleep,” she said. “If we are to strike, we should do it now.”
Tenn nodded. Adrenaline coursed through his veins at the thought of running headfirst into a town overrun with the undead. He stood and kicked some snow into the fire. They left before the last ember died out.
They kept to the highway as they made their way to the town. It was so dark and the wind so biting it was impossible to see more than a few feet in front of them. They made their way from car to abandoned car, finding brief solace against toppled semis. Every once in a while, Dreya would pulse a small flame between her hands, letting the faint light filter out between her fingertips to guide the way. Then darkness would swallow them again. What Tenn wouldn’t give to once more live in a world with electricity. Or at least a flashlight.
It was the third or fourth time that Dreya opened to Air that she stiffened and halted them in their tracks. The flame in her hand burned longer than usual, but her eyes were focused on the road before them.
“Something is moving,” she said.
Tenn’s grip instinctively tightened on his staff. Even through the thick leather of his gloves, the metal was bitingly cold.
“Howl?” he asked.
“I do not think so,” she whispered. “It is staggering.” She sniffed. “Blood. I smell blood.”
“Tori,” Tenn said.
He opened to Earth and Water, a quick flash, just enough to let him sense the figure’s approach. Sure enough, it was a young girl, maybe thirteen, maybe younger. He could feel her cooling flesh, taste the blood that sprinkled on the ground with every footstep. Every shivering, bare footstep.
“She’s hurt,” he said. Then instinct took over. He opened once more to Earth and ran, the power guiding him through the dark.
“Tenn, wait!” Dreya yelled, but it was too late. He had already taken off, the twins falling fast behind him. He knew it was a trap. He knew that he was running to his death. But Water and Earth told him all he needed to know: Tori’s pulse was failing, her skin was bare. If he didn’t reach her soon, she was as good as dead.
He wouldn’t lose someone else because he was too slow, because he had hesitated. He wouldn’t let someone die because he hadn’t been there to help. Not again.
He couldn’t get Jarrett’s face out of his head.
He ran full speed, Earth fueling his muscles and numbing him to the wind and the snow that beat down in chunks of ice. A few hundred yards. A hundred. Fifty away, and he felt her stagger. She fell into the snow, shivering. He felt her heart skip.
He reached her seconds later, dropped to his knees in the snow and tried not to panic. Now that he was near, he could sense all the things he’d been too distanced to notice before. Like the way blood smeared over every inch of her flesh. Or the thousand cuts slashed across her bare skin. Not one inch of her was clothed, and not one inch was spared from the slices that slowly bled her dry.
When he placed a hand on her shoulder, she flinched away and screamed.
“Shh, shh,” he whispered. “It’s okay. I’m here to help.”
But the girl was lost to him. Her screams split the air, and with every inch she tried to put between them, another ounce of blood was lost. If he didn’t act fast, she’d bleed out before he even had a chance to start healing. If she didn’t die of hypothermia first.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He reached out and grabbed her arm, clamped it tight as a vise. Then he began pouring Earth into her body.
She screamed again at the pain he knew the process was inflicting. Her heart hammered fast. Stuttered. She fell silent.