Runebinder

by Alex R. Kahler

  “What are you—”

  “We heard a crash,” Dreya said, skidding into the room. Her eyes took in the scene in one quick sweep. “What happened?”

  Tenn closed his eyes. The lights in the room were so bright. “I saw...something.” The scene played itself out over and over behind his eyelids. It wasn’t just a vision. He had been there, standing in the corner, watching the family die. He could hear them gasping. He could feel their panic, their dying emotions. He was there. They were here. It didn’t feel like the past at all.

  “What did you see?” Dreya asked. Her voice was closer. He didn’t open his eyes, but he heard her kneel down beside him, her jeans crunching in the glass. She put one hand on the back of his neck. Her touch was cool and tingled with magic.

  “I saw them die,” he whispered. “The family that lived here. I saw them get attacked by a Breathless One. And then he called out for Matthias.”

  Jarrett was on his feet in a second.

  “Here?”

  “No. I mean, yes. But not now. It was like a vision...but stronger. Water opened up, and I saw it. No. I was there. I felt them. All of it. I felt them gagging for air.”

  “Emotional transference,” Dreya whispered.

  Whatever magic she’d been working had done its job. The pain in Tenn’s temples subsided. He opened his eyes and squinted. The twins were lost in a silent conversation, staring at each other as though their expressions could convey stories. He desperately wanted to know what they were thinking, just as much as he never wanted to know.

  “What?” Jarrett and Tenn asked at the same time.

  Again, another glance between the twins. When Dreya spoke, she didn’t look away from her brother. Devon’s eyes were furrowed with concern, and he kept looking over to Tenn like he was a newfound threat.

  “Emotional transference,” she repeated. She sighed. “It’s rare. Very rare. But sometimes, if you use a Sphere for long enough, it becomes sensitive to the external world. Normally, the Spheres respond to inner triggers—emotional responses, like fight or flight. Or they are willed into use through training. But if a Sphere is sensitive enough, it can pick up triggers embedded in the nature of things. Strong emotions, from memories ingrained in the wood of a place.” She trailed her finger along the same dusty path he had. If she saw anything, she didn’t show it.

  “How do you know this?” Tenn asked. “They never taught that at Silveron.”

  Then again, there was a lot he hadn’t learned at Silveron. Maybe because the training was cut short. Maybe because his teachers didn’t actually know.

  “Because we get it, too, at times,” she said. She sounded sad. “Fire and Water, they’re emotional Spheres. They resonate highly with the pain and anger in the world. You’re just able to tune into it more than most.”

  “How do I control it?”

  Dreya shrugged. “You don’t. Any more than you can control your inner workings. When the world wants to speak to you, it will use whatever tools it has. And Water is the most vicious tool of all.”

  “Can I stop it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How?”

  It was Devon who responded.

  “You die.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TENN SAT ON a stool in the corner of the kitchen while Jarrett cooked. Pretty much everything in the house had expired, but they’d managed to find some canned carrots and dried beans that still looked good. Dreya sat at the island in the center of the room, idly chopping a few wild onions and fueling the fire simmering under the large cook pot Jarrett was stirring. Devon had gone out into the night—who knows where—and no one had questioned him. Tenn had a feeling Dreya knew precisely where her brother was at all times, and that was enough for him.

  He still couldn’t force out the memory of the family’s last moments. There was no telling what other horrors he would have seen if Jarrett hadn’t snapped him out of it. Matthias had been here, in this very house. Almost like he was hunting Tenn’s past.

  He shuddered.

  He’d never encountered a Breathless One in real life, but the memory had been enough to tell him he never wanted to. Kravens were the most common Howl, the Sphere of Earth being the quickest to deplete. From there, the Howls got more deadly, more humanoid and thankfully more rare. He’d encountered a fair number of bloodlings in the field. Tomás had been his first incubus. But a Breathless One...a creature who could kill crowds with a single inhalation...that was the stuff of nightmares. His lungs still burned with the trace of memory.

  At least no necromancer had learned how to tap into the Sphere of Maya. He couldn’t even imagine what sort of Howl that would breed.

  For a while he could only sit there, imagining the rest of his life like this—falling apart whenever he stepped into a room touched by tragedy, reliving every nightmare. The States were scabbed with pain and hatred. There was no way he could manage if this emotional transference shit kept happening.

  Still, if the twins could do it, so could he. You’re not as strong as they are, Water hissed within him. You’ll succumb eventually.

  He pushed the dark thoughts from his head and focused on Jarrett, who had taken off his coat and was dancing around the kitchen with his long white sleeves pushed up to his biceps. More scars laced his pale forearms, crossed over his single tattoo. Every once in a while, Jarrett would glance over and smile. Every time, Tenn blushed and looked away. He was already dreaming of Jarrett in their own kitchen, making coffee and reading the paper. It was a beautiful image, even if it was an impossibility.

  Then again, maybe Jarrett was right. Maybe he did have to envision a better future. Maybe it did make everything else more manageable.

  The strangest part was the ease with which Tenn could visualize that future. Even before the Resurrection, he’d been a fatalist: couldn’t imagine reaching his next birthday, or what college would look like. A few of those fears had been realized, sure. So why was it so simple to build a warm and happy home for him and Jarrett in his head now? Jarrett, whom he barely knew? Water usually curled doubt and questions through his gut, but even it was quiet. He might not know if Jarrett was right for him, but Jarrett was here, in this kitchen, and that had to mean something. Something that a cold, desperate part of Tenn wanted badly to discover.

  The near silence of the kitchen felt comfortable and calming—the sound of simmering soup, the chop of metal on wood. After everything that had happened, this alone threw him for the biggest loop. This was all so normal, so fucking familiar, that it hurt worse than any stab wound. They’d driven here in a car and, sure, they’d used magic to get the car running, and even now Dreya’s chest was glowing red with the thin flicker of flame she funneled into the stove’s burner, but it was so easy—the normalcy, the ability to forget that at any moment another Howl might burst through the window and try to kill them just as it had in Tenn’s vision. They all knew the world was no longer safe, but this felt safe. It felt like nothing could possibly be wrong in the world. And that was the most dangerous thing of all.

  While Tenn was lost in his thoughts, Jarrett came over holding a wooden spoon.

  “Try it,” he offered.

  Tenn took a sip and smiled. “You make an excellent housewife,” he said. He hadn’t meant to say the words he’d been imagining, but Jarrett—rather than freaking out—just smiled.

  “Always knew that was my calling in life.” Jarrett moved back to the stove and said, “Dinner will be ready soon. Is Devon nearby?”

  Dreya nodded. She was reading a cookbook she’d found on the shelf. It was the last thing Tenn would ever expect to see her reading. She seemed more like the Foucault and Kierkegaard type, not that Tenn had ever actually read either of them. He’d been too busy studying magic to focus on literature.

  “He’s just outside rummaging. He�
��ll be in soon.”

  Sure enough, Devon returned a few minutes later, carrying a few sacks of stolen goods that clunked when he set them down.

  “Food,” he said. “And clothes.”

  “Good work,” Jarrett said. He ladled out a few porcelain bowls of soup and passed them around the island. No one suggested eating in the dining room. Tenn doubted any of them would go in there again.

  “You seem quite happy, all things considered,” Dreya said to Jarrett, one eyebrow raised. She took a delicate sip of her soup.

  Jarrett just shrugged.

  “It’s not very often I get to spend a day without having to kill something. I count every one of those days as a blessing.”

  “The day is not over yet,” Dreya said.

  * * *

  Tenn fully expected the dinner to be held in silence—after all, the twins were far from talkative and Tenn was a close runner-up—but Jarrett managed to get everyone talking and laughing. Even Devon.

  Later, Jarrett found a bottle of whiskey and spent a good twenty minutes teaching them how to drink it (A drop of water at most. No mixers, no ice. Take a sip on the tip of your tongue first. Let the flavors blossom. Then drink in earnest.) and by the time the bottle was halfway gone, Devon was in tears on the ground, laughing his ass off over a joke Tenn had been too tipsy to follow. Dreya started singing, opening to Air, and she made the spoons and napkins dance around the room erratically, her hiccups making them fall. It looked like some strange Disney montage. Tenn hadn’t laughed so much or so hard in his life. There hadn’t been time. He leaned against Jarrett, with Jarrett’s arm slung over his shoulders.

  Life felt warm and golden. Life felt possible.

  They sat around the table for hours, telling stories of life before the Resurrection. Well, Jarrett and Tenn did. Jarrett told them about growing up near the beach in St. Augustine, Florida. Days surfing, nights spent riding around. He talked about Silveron, about all the trouble he’d gotten into. Tenn chimed in on occasion to add details about professors or the color of the dorm hallways or when sign-in was. At times, it became their own little conversation—just like on the bed before—but the twins didn’t seem to mind. Dreya watched with excited, glossy eyes. Even Devon muttered that he wished he’d gone to school there.

  Sometimes, when Jarrett would quiet, Tenn would pick up the slack. He talked about growing up in Iowa. He talked about his dying town, about playing video games with friends. About nights spent watching horror movies and drinking too much soda, and days hungover on sugar and junk food. About staring out at the Mississippi at two in the morning, watching the stars slowly scratch across the sky. He talked about why he’d decided to go to Silveron—to find something new, to do something big with his life. And because he always wanted to be a wizard.

  He talked about a life that he’d forgotten he actually had.

  Eventually, Dreya told stories about the places she’d traveled with her adopted, fashion-designer mother. Devon chipped in details—the hotels they stayed in, the dinners they had—but for the most part, he stayed silent, giggling to himself and sending small flares of fire dancing into the air. She spoke of visiting beautiful fabric shops in New York and Milan, of making her first dress at the age of eight and jumping into cosplay immediately after. She said she always had the best costumes—not because she was good, but because her mother always helped. I did, too, Devon chirped in at one point. Dreya had just smiled and patted him on the shoulder and went back to talking about her dreams of being a major designer. And chemist. Because even as a kid she had been keenly interested in the nature of things.

  She made it sound grand, all of it. Like she had been the player in some beautiful story. Which made Tenn wonder—albeit hazily—what had happened to her in the interim to turn her into a battle-hardened warrior? She didn’t speak of magic or her training or the Witches. Not once. And Tenn was perfectly fine with it staying that way.

  The night wore on, and Devon fell asleep in his chair, signaled by a napkin catching ablaze from a wayward spark of his.

  Dreya smiled and shook her head, looking over to her brother through her pale white hair.

  “It was the hardest on him,” she whispered, her smile dropping, becoming forced. “I hope you understand that. It was the hardest on him. And I don’t want him to experience it again.”

  Jarrett’s mirth slipped, as well.

  “You know it wouldn’t... I wouldn’t have done it. If I didn’t have to.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Tenn looked between them. What were they talking about?

  “You should sleep,” Jarrett said. “We all should.”

  Silently, Dreya stood and looped Devon’s arm over her shoulders. It was such a tender movement; it made Tenn’s heart break. What did it feel like to have someone you wanted to protect? Someone whose life meant more than your own?

  Jarrett stood and helped her move the mumbling Devon. Tenn watched him. The way Jarrett bent and moved, the small ways his face changed depending on his thoughts... Tenn already felt he could trace Jarrett’s image in memory.

  Maybe Tenn was starting to understand again what it meant to have someone he didn’t want to lose.

  He followed the three of them up the stairs, though he diverted and went into one of the smaller bedrooms. It was dark, and now that the flickering lights in the hall had faded, he had to navigate by Earth and feel alone. There were teddy bears along on bookshelf. A pile of clothes in the closet. A bed, made tight and neat like a hotel. It made him smile. He sat down; the bed reminded him of how his mom had made her bed. Tears welled up in his eyes.

  “You okay?” Jarrett asked.

  Tenn sniffed and wiped away the tears. Amazingly, Water didn’t rage—especially strange, since Tenn wasn’t forcing it into submission.

  “Yeah,” Tenn replied. For the most part, he actually meant it.

  Jarrett sat down next to him. In the frigid room, Jarrett’s heat was like a furnace.

  “You’re freezing,” Jarrett said. He rubbed his hand along Tenn’s back. Tenn practically purred.

  “I run cold.”

  Jarrett sighed, like there was something deep weighing on his mind. When he spoke, though, he kept his voice light.

  “So what do you think? Want to move to a city or the country?”

  It was so absurd Tenn laughed aloud.

  “What’s so funny?” Jarrett asked.

  “Sorry,” he replied, but chuckles still built up in the back of his throat.

  “I’m serious,” Jarrett said. “I figured you’d be more of a country boy. And besides, every Earth user I know prefers staying away from large groups of people.”

  Tenn nuzzled his face against Jarrett’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, I think I’d like that,” he admitted. “A place in the middle of the woods, maybe by a stream. Nothing too fancy, of course... I just need a fireplace and some trees and I’m happy.”

  “Dog or cat?”

  “Both.”

  He never thought he’d have this conversation again. Tenn had only had a few friends at the Academy, but he and one girl—Amanda—would go out for lunch every once in a while and chat about their dream houses. He’d always had this beautiful log cabin in mind.

  This was the first time he’d let himself dare believe that he could one day occupy it along with someone else.

  “I’d love a wolfhound myself,” Jarrett mused. “Don’t know where you’d get one anymore, though.”

  Tenn didn’t want to wonder if there were any more wolfhounds left in the world, so he pushed the conversation down a different path.

  “What about you? City or country?”

  “Oh, I’d be okay with the country. So long as it was near enough to a city. Culture and all.”

  Tenn laughed.

 
“Yeah,” he said, “can’t miss out on all those concerts and museums.”

  “Hey, art’s important,” Jarrett said. “Art and love are what we fight for.”

  Tenn sealed his lips. Fight for was just a reminder that this little fantasy was just that—a fantasy. There’d never be a cabin in the woods or an apartment in the city, no black-tie affairs at the symphony or fancy dinner parties.

  It made him sink a little lower.

  “Hey,” Jarrett said, noticing the swift decline. He shifted a bit. “Don’t go down there.”

  “Sorry,” Tenn replied. “It’s just...”

  Jarrett nodded, their foreheads pressing together. “I know,” he said. “But no matter what the future looks like, I’m still going to fight for it. So long as it includes you.”

  Then he leaned in a bit farther and kissed Tenn on the lips.

  Tenn was still swirling down in the cesspool of his thoughts, but that kiss was a buoy, a tie to dry land. It filled him with hope, with light, and it made the world golden again, gilded in a way that lasted longer than his intoxication. And he knew, so long as he had Jarrett, that thread would always be there. There’d always be a way out. A way forward.

  The war would always be worth winning.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TENN WOKE WELL before dawn, when the sky outside was just starting to turn blue with light. His heart raced, but he couldn’t remember his dreams or why he’d woken up with sweat drenching his skin. Jarrett sprawled out beside him, his breath deep and regular. Despite the fear racing in his chest, the last few hours bled through his memory in a golden hum. There had never been any question about Jarrett sharing his bed. Just as there had never been a question as to what would happen.

  He lay there for a few seconds, watching Jarrett breathe, watching his bare chest rise and fall, letting his own nightmarish heart settle. Tenn reached over, gently traced a scar on Jarrett’s pec, let his fingers memorize the guy’s smooth skin, his heat. Jarrett mumbled something and curled over, toward Tenn. Tenn let himself be swept up, encircled. Jarrett even smelled like home, in a way he couldn’t quite place. He kissed Jarrett’s muscled forearm. Somehow, that brought to mind Tomás.