Runebreaker

by Alex R. Kahler

  His kingdom.

  But not anymore.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kianna led him up the street, their feet kicking loose rubble, the fog swallowing sound hungrily. They might as well have been ghosts in the gloom, one tall and bladed, one hunched and broken. He hated that he was the shattered one.

  He had no idea where she was leading him. He had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with himself, no idea where there was to go in this city. Save for the West End, where the Guild had set up its base on the University’s grounds, all of Glasgow was abandoned and rubble. After the Resurrection, the necromancers had done what they could to tear down the city. First, the Howls came through, snatching up anyone they could for food. Then the necromancers, snaring the rest for converts and demolishing centuries of architecture in the process. Maybe so humanity would have nothing left to return or hold on to. But probably just to be dicks.

  He and Kianna had barely gone a block when she turned down what was left of a side street. She guided him over broken concrete and steel girders, everything coated in fog like a bad horror movie set. Except the monsters here were real.

  Most of Glasgow had been abandoned, civilians evacuated to safety behind the Guild’s walls, which should have meant there was nothing here for the Howls to hunt. The last few years, the streets had been fairly safe in their emptiness. But now, with most of the country’s resources depleted, the Howls were hungry. Desperate. Scavenging in places they hadn’t been seen. Like Laura, seeking a human to drain of blood.

  Humanity might be losing, but that meant the Howls were losing, too. And they were more reckless when it came to assuaging their eternal hunger.

  Now, Glasgow’s streets weren’t necessarily as abandoned as they once were.

  “Where are you taking me?” Aidan muttered.

  A shiver tore through him when a droplet fell on the back of his neck. Please, just let it be condensation.

  Another drip. Moments later, the sky broke into a full-on downpour.

  He shuddered and Kianna pulled him closer.

  “Not much further, love.”

  He glanced at her. She sounded concerned. Like, actually concerned. And that concerned him. How much had she heard? How much would he have to explain?

  “I’m okay,” he lied.

  She just grunted and kept her eyes on the rubble at their feet, navigating expertly over glass and stone, the crunch of their boots muffled in the fog and rain. He wanted to reach for Fire, to wrap the warmth over and through him, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough. He’d drawn too much. Any more, and he might burn himself out or lose control entirely. Again.

  Kianna pushed open a steel gate in the side of a tall, mostly intact building, the interior hallway remarkably untouched by the apocalypse. It was still covered in trash, but at least it wasn’t caving in. She flicked her lantern on in the half light, directing him down the hall and up a flight of stairs littered with scraps of clothing and furniture. He noticed she made sure to lock the gate behind them.

  Two flights of steps, the darkness dancing with lantern light. Then a hallway, the hum of rain outside. Everything here was steel and concrete, modern and sparse.

  “What is this?” he asked. Why were they still in Glasgow? Trevor had told him point-blank he wasn’t welcome here. Not that he really cared what Trevor said.

  “A place for the night.” She pulled a key from her pocket and opened a door.

  Inside, the flat was clearly awaiting their arrival. A cold but set fireplace, a teakettle beside it. Rugs and pillows, wooden crates and bottles of water, food stores and weapons. Everything was so modern and untouched that for a moment his head spun with anachronism. If not for the weapons, he could almost imagine it was three years ago, before the mess of the Resurrection, when he’d first stepped foot on this accursed island.

  “You’ve been preparing,” he mused. His eyes snared on the empty fireplace. A shudder wracked through him, and he nearly toppled them both to the floor.

  Shite. He’d drawn even more power than he’d thought. If he didn’t warm up fast, he would catch his death of cold. Literally.

  She led him straight toward the fireplace and set him down somewhat gently on a pillow beside the hearth. Without speaking, she lit a match and set the kindling alight while Aidan shivered uncontrollably at her side. She noticed his helplessness, but save for a grunt to herself, she didn’t say anything. She just peeled off his sodden jacket and shirt and threw them both to the nearby kitchen tile, where they landed with wet thwaps. He stared at his dark arms and chest dumbly, his myriad black tattoos making constellations over his skin: alchemical symbols, star charts, Norse war runes, BURN THEM on his knuckles, and even a sexy merman on his pec. All of those tattoos had become like a second skin, symbols of his countless victories. But now, his vision snared on the concentric circles and arched lines on his forearm, the mark that had attuned him to the Sphere of Fire three years ago. The mark that had helped him secure Scotland’s survival and brought him up the ranks until he was co-commander in a country he never wanted to call his own.

  The mark that had also, somehow, cost him every single one of those conquests.

  Then Kianna wrapped a wool blanket around Aidan’s shoulders, obscuring the tattoos and leaving him to take off his drenched trousers and pants himself.

  “I figured this day would come,” she said, settling herself by the roaring fire.

  “Did you?” His teeth chattered. He was seconds away from asking her to come under the blanket with him. He needed the warmth.

  “Have you met yourself?” she asked. “Only a matter of time before you pissed someone off enough to be exiled. Frankly, I’m impressed it didn’t happen sooner.”

  She moved the iron kettle onto a rack by the flames while he scooted closer to the hearth. He looked around the flat, at the weapons, at the boarded windows, his heart dropping with every observation.

  This was it. This was his future.

  Then he asked the question that had been smoldering in his chest ever since she appeared in the tunnel. “Why are you helping me? After...after what I did?”

  She shrugged.

  “I hate everyone,” she replied. “You, I just hate less.” She paused and looked at him. He expected an interrogation. That’s the least of what he’d earned.

  “Sugar?” she asked. Then began scooping sugar into an empty cup before he could answer.

  “How are you asking about tea at a time like this?” he asked.

  “Because times like this always call for tea,” she said. She wrapped the handle in a handkerchief and pulled the kettle from the flame, then poured the warm brown nectar into both of their cups. She handed him one, then took up her own in two hands.

  For a while, she just regarded him over her cup, her eyes intent through the steam.

  He wanted to ask her what she’d heard. He wanted to ask her if Trevor had changed his mind. He wanted to know if Vincent was actually dead, or if it had truly been a nightmare.

  Her next words silenced any further questions on his part.

  “There are worse things than exile, love.”

  He looked at her—his only friend left in the world—at the tea, at the fire.

  He stared into the flames, remembering the sound of Vincent’s screams. Remembering how little he’d cared when realization dawned.

  There were worse things than exile.

  He knew.

  He’d done them.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It took an hour and three mugs of tea before he felt warm again. Even then, “warm” was an overstatement. Shivers still racked his body, but at least he was dry. The chills weren’t from magic alone. No, that had lessened long ago. This pain was something he would never truly burn away.

  Though he would sure as hell try.

  Not once did Kianna bring up his meeting
with Trevor, the “private” discussion she’d “accidentally” walked in on. Aidan didn’t offer up any morsels of information, either. He just sat there, another cup of tea in his hands while he watched the flames flicker. She filled the silence with busywork, unpacking boxes of weapons and food, arranging gear in duffel bags. Making lunch. Even though it was clear she’d had this place set up ages ago, it was also clear she hadn’t been entirely certain when they would need it.

  There was a part of him—a small part of him—that wanted to feel sad. Depression lingered like a puddle of water on a smoldering board. He could feel the edges of it hissing away at the heat always burning in his chest, threatening to drown the flame, to quench the anger. He could feel the fire fighting back, trying to evaporate the sadness before it gained the upper hand. He felt the sadness, but he refused to let it win, steeled himself with Fire’s strength.

  There was no room in this world for sadness and regret.

  There was only the flash, the burn, the energy and excitement. Life was a flame, not a flood. You lived and you burned and you burned out. Drowning was not an option.

  “This isn’t right,” he said finally, pouring himself another cup from the nearly empty kettle. The handle was hot against his palm, probably too hot for most to bear, but for him it felt like a kiss.

  The kind with more bite than blush.

  “Insightful,” Kianna muttered. She glanced up from the array of daggers spread before her. “I swear to Mary, you say life isn’t fair and I’m chucking you out the window.”

  Aidan managed a laugh.

  The water of despair still sizzled away in the corner of his heart, but the more he focused on his indignation, the more the water evaporated.

  “He’s going to regret this,” Aidan said. He turned his attention back to the smoldering peat fire in front of them—the scent of burnt earth was as familiar to him as his own, now.

  “Are you going to make him? Sounds an awful lot like treason. Especially when it looked like you were about to burn him apart there.”

  “I’m not a member of the Guild anymore.”

  Something hard hit the side of his head and thudded to the ground. He jolted, sloshing tea all over the lambskin rug he sat on, and looked to the dagger now sitting at his hip.

  His heart flipped with anger.

  “You could have killed me.”

  “And yet, you live.” She didn’t even look up from organizing her blades. One fewer than before. “So clearly that wasn’t my intent.”

  “What was?”

  “To stop you from saying something I will make you regret. You’re not a part of the Guild, but you’re still a Hunter. Same as me. Unless you’re thinking of switching sides and joining the Dark Lady’s forces. In which case, the next dagger I chuck won’t be hilt-first.”

  Aidan opened his mouth to say of course that wasn’t what he meant, but the words were stuck in his throat. If he didn’t want to join the Dark Lady, and he wasn’t part of the Guild, where was he? There were only two sides to the coin: you either served the Dark Lady, the near-mythical figure who had caused the Resurrection by turning the first human into a Howl, or you fought against her. Didn’t matter that the Dark Lady wasn’t real, or at least no longer alive—her forces were fighting on without her. The Guild was the only thing standing in her way. Well, the Guild and the Church, but those zealots were as crazy as the necromancers.

  Pissed as he was, killing Trevor would be an act of treason. Would declare Aidan a tool of the Dark Lady and every creature he’d dedicated his life to erasing. Was revenge really that sweet? The fact that he even considered it startled him. Maybe Trevor was right...

  Quickly, he focused on the flames in front of him, poured himself into the fire like an offering of ash. Doubt burned away, leaving nothing but a skeleton of steel underneath.

  “I’m not joining her,” he said, a flash of rage at the thought. For everything the Dark Lady and her minions had done to him, he would never join her side. If nothing else, he would make her pay. Even this, in its way, was her fault. “I just refuse to let Trevor get away with this.”

  “Don’t worry, love. In a few days he’ll realize just how worse off he is without you and come crawling back for you. Oh, I meant the Guild. The Guild is worse off.”

  Aidan glared at her.

  Her stare was just as cold in response.

  “Look, Aidan, Trevor did what he had to do. Honestly, he was more lenient on you than I would have been and you know it. Hell, if you were in his shoes, you know you would have issued a death sentence. Though that’s mostly because you’re a heartless prick. So don’t pull any of this woe is me shite. You did something bad. You were exiled because of it. Move on with it and be thankful you weren’t killed.”

  “So what do we do?” Aidan asked.

  “Find another Guild? I’d suggest London, but there’s no way in hell I want to go home.”

  Again, the hiss of despair against his flame, this time over the word home. Because she could go home. She could search for her remaining family, could find the familiar walls of her flat. He was stuck here. A thousand miles away from the mountains and forests that had once been as much a part of his world as the smiles of his family. As far as he knew, his hometown didn’t even exist anymore.

  As far as he knew, he’d lost more than just his mother during the Resurrection.

  “They’ll have heard,” he muttered. “I won’t be welcome anywhere.”

  “Then we just go rogue. Head over to Europe and find a Guild that hasn’t heard about you...”

  “I refuse to leave the country. I was stuck here, and I fought to make it mine. To make it free. I’m not leaving until Calum is dead and Scotland is liberated. Preferably by my hand.”

  Kianna snorted. “You and what army?”

  He shrugged uncomfortably and went back to looking at the fire. He wanted to find his future in the flames, a path to victory, to vengeance. So many people had wronged him. So many still needed to pay.

  “Maybe we don’t need any army,” he mused. “We could try to take Edinburgh ourselves. If nothing else, we go out in a blaze of glory like we always wanted.”

  Kianna didn’t respond, and for a moment he let himself see that potential future in the flames: Calum burning to the ground as he overtook the Kin’s castle, as he became the first to destroy one of the six who had destroyed the world. As Aidan didn’t just vindicate himself—he became immortalized.

  That was a thought that made Fire purr. To be known throughout the world. To be revered. Worshipped. That was the treatment Fire demanded. From the very first days, mankind crowded around the flame, seeking warmth. Safety. Nourishment. Fire had provided all of those, just as Aidan had provided for his people. For that, Fire expected nothing less than devotion.

  Just as Aidan deserved.

  Calum had crowned himself the Howl King of Britain early on, and no one had usurped his reign.

  Normally, the Spheres created energy that sustained the body. But a necromancer could tap into the Spheres. Draw the energy out. Until the Sphere collapsed, and the Sphere started draining the host of those energies and nutrients. Unlike most Howls, Calum wasn’t just created by magic, he was able to use it. That was what set the Kin apart, what had let them destroy the world—they could wield the Spheres as well as any human, whilst enjoying the superhuman side-effects of their conversion. He, like the five other Kin out there, was a force to be reckoned with.

  But none of them had reckoned with Aidan.

  Yet.

  “It might be a bit crowded,” Kianna muttered, drawing him from his dreams of victory.

  “Crowded?”

  She sighed. She rarely sighed. And when she looked at him, he felt a flicker of doubt.

  “I heard Trevor before I left to find you. He gave the command. They’re attacking Edinburgh tomorrow.”

&nb
sp; The flicker turned to a roar as anger overtook fear. Fire opened in his chest and he leaped to his feet, flames dancing around his clenched fists as the blanket dropped to his feet.

  “What?” he roared. “That was my mission!”

  Kianna stared up at him, calm and collected in the face of his wrath. The day he saw her flinch would probably be the day he saw her die. “Not anymore. You were supposed to lead them to victory. But Trevor must have known you wouldn’t just sit around after being exiled. It’s like you’d slept with him or something. Many times. Even after your best and only mate had warned you against it for reasons like this. Also many times. He knows you better than you know yourself, and he knows you’ll never let someone else steal your thunder. And Calum is the biggest thunder this country has to offer.”

  Her eyes flickered down. Squinted.

  “Also, I can see your prick. I think.”

  “When?” he hissed, completely ignoring her jab. Something shattered in his hand, and he realized he’d crushed the teacup. He didn’t even feel it.

  His blood sizzled as it fell to the floor.

  “In the morning.”

  “No. When were you going to tell me?” he asked, his teeth clenched tight as his fists.

  “When you cooled down,” she said. She began packing up her blades, slipping them into various belts and pockets of coats strewn about the floor. “So, knowing you, after you died.”

  “You bitch. You were going to let them go to war without me?”