“Someday soon,” Aidan whispered, maybe to her and maybe to Trevor, “this will be mine again.”
“What are you doing here, Aidan?”
Trevor’s voice echoed up the stairs behind him. On impulse, Aidan opened to Fire and whirled around, but he managed to stop himself before immolating his former co-commander.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Aidan asked. Instantly, whatever sadness he’d harbored evaporated.
Trevor stepped slowly up the stairs, a mace in one hand and the other hand shoved in his coat. Water boiled in his stomach. His eyes were sunken and there was a stoop to his shoulders. Maybe Aidan’s exile had cost him some sleep. Or maybe Trevor was realizing that organizing an army wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. Either way, there was a large part of Aidan that was pleased to see Trevor suffering. Even if only emotionally.
Granted, that tended to be one way Trevor was always suffering.
As always, Aidan was grateful he hadn’t attuned to Water.
“I thought you’d be back,” Trevor said. Now that he wasn’t angry, his brogue had softened, though his words were still rounded and rolling. “Which I guess answers my first question. You never were good at letting things go. Especially if you didn’t get the last laugh.”
Trevor stopped a foot away. So close, Aidan could practically feel the warmth of him. Though, with Fire in his veins, everything felt blissfully warm. And he felt blissfully impervious.
“Is that why you stayed around?” Aidan asked. “To rub it in my face?” He shook his head and crossed his arms, turning to stare out at the wall. “If you think I came back to grovel, think again.”
“I think you came back because you’re scared.”
Sparks raced beneath Aidan’s skin, and a soft voice whispered within that he never had need to be afraid. Not with Fire in his control.
“Then you know me even less than I thought,” Aidan replied. He swallowed. “How did my army take my...leaving?”
“Better than I expected,” Trevor said. He almost sounded like he regretted the words. “A few questions, but no one was too surprised. You have a...reputation...among the troops.”
Despite everything, Aidan smirked. “Good.” Admittedly, he was pissed that no one had revolted. But there was something endearing at the thought of his troops expecting him to be exiled. It was sort of badass. “I hear you’ve started marching.”
Trevor didn’t reply right away. The rain hissing down around them quivered at Trevor’s agitation.
“Aye,” he finally admitted. “The first ranks left this morning.” He stepped up beside Aidan. “Frankly, I’m surprised you’re not out there trying to beat them to the castle.”
“The day’s young,” Aidan said. “Besides, I need someone to distract Calum so I can sneak in.”
“You’re really doing it then? You’re going against orders and trying to take the Kin by yourself?”
Aidan shrugged. “You never ordered me to stay away from Edinburgh, and now I’m no longer under your jurisdiction, so it’s too late to try. I’m a free agent. I can do whatever I please.” He glanced to Trevor. “I trained my guys well—they’ll have that castle down in minutes. We just better hope they don’t get in my way when I go to kill Calum. I can’t promise there won’t be a repeat of yesterday morning.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Trevor said with a sigh. “Maybe if you stay back, we can talk after Calum is killed—”
Instantly, Fire flared in Aidan’s chest.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he roared. “You are the one who just took everything I’ve worked for away. Do you really think I’m just going to wait around for you to kill Calum? Do you really think I want your pity? Your bloody forgiveness?”
In his mind’s eye, Aidan saw the burning castle, the throne of skulls. And he heard the words of Tomás, the faintest memory: Why do you serve, when you should rule?
“Calum is mine. This country will bow to me. Nobody is going to stop that. Because you know what? I don’t feel bad about Vincent’s death. He was nothing. And me? I am everything. Soon, I’ll make sure the whole world sees it.” Aidan looked Trevor in the eyes. “Get in my way, and I swear I’ll kill you, too.”
Trevor regarded him for a long while. Aidan said nothing, but he kept the fires within stoked as he turned back to the Guild wall. He refused to sink down to Trevor’s melancholy level. He refused to let himself feel bad over what he’d done, and what Trevor had done in return.
Fire only moved forward. Fire only burned, and burned through anyone in its path.
It was about time Aidan did the same.
“I don’t know who you are anymore,” Trevor finally said.
“Who I’ve always been,” Aidan said. “And who you’ve always been too scared to see. At least now we know the truth about each other.”
He began walking down the street, not caring if anyone else noticed his use of magic. Water hissed and steamed from his skin. He thought it was an apt metaphor. Trevor had drawn the line in the sand, and Aidan had chosen his side. There was no looking back.
No rain or sadness would ever touch him again.
“Just remember,” Aidan said. “You did this. You did all of this.” He snapped his fingers, and the abandoned shops on the street corners burst into flame, haloing him in harsh light. Trevor stepped back into the safety of the escalator tunnel. Aidan made sure to raise his voice, so Trevor could hear him through the blaze. “You made me choose. And I choose myself.”
With that, he brought the fires raging down behind him, blocking himself from Trevor’s view.
Trevor wanted to make Aidan out to be a monster?
Aidan would happily comply.
“Britain will ever endure.
We have already faced
the deepest darkness,
and carry the sun
of hope in our hearts.
We. Will. Endure.
We have no other choice.”
—Queen’s Address, 1 P.R.
PART 2
THE BRIGHTER THE LIGHT
CHAPTER TEN
It hadn’t taken long to convince Kianna that it was time to move.
Rather, the moment he stepped back in the flat, she was already geared up and ready. She hadn’t asked any questions. She hadn’t needed to. The answer was clear on his face: Aidan was ready to kill, and thankfully, spilling Howl blood was their preferred shared activity. It sure as hell beat talking.
Ten minutes and one quick cup of tea later, they were on the road.
And this time, Trevor be damned, Aidan was using magic to keep the constant chill and rain of this damnable country at bay. Maybe that was part of the reason he wanted to kill Calum so badly—he needed to justify years of misery and dampness. Then he could hop over to somewhere warmer.
“You ran into him, didn’t you?” Kianna asked.
Aidan grunted.
Glasgow was an hour behind them, the only thing surrounding them now a few low houses and the remains of the M8 motorway. Fields and glens stretched out through the heavy gloom, the rain less a downpour and more a constant, irrepressible mist that threatened to settle under his skin and take up residence. Fire burned softly in his chest, a bubble of heat thrown up around them, making rain sizzle and steam against his invisible shield, keeping them dry and warm. Tiny baubles of white danced above their heads as well, guiding their way.
It was more than enough to give them away to the army they trailed. If they were looking. If Trevor was looking. But Aidan knew Trevor would never give the command to kill him, even for this insubordination. Trevor would always avoid a fight, just as Aidan would always seek one out.
Another reason they drove each other insane just as they drove each other to lust.
The last thing he needed was to think of Trevor in any sort of positive light. Thank
fully, with Fire filling him, that was easy enough to manage.
“Let me guess, he knows we’re following now because your poker face sucks.”
“I may have given him that notion, aye.” In his mind’s eye, he remembered the buildings he’d set on fire, imagined the shocked look in Trevor’s eyes. It might have been childish, but damn if that hadn’t been a good exit. He glanced at her. “You don’t have to follow, you know. As you said, you aren’t the one who’s exiled. You could head back. Take up your old post...”
“And what, die a miserable old cow?” She scoffed. “Please. You may be an arse, but at least you keep things exciting.”
“Even though my powers may be uncontrollable in my sleep and I might burn you alive?” He meant it as a joke, but it was an honest question.
“If your stupid pyrotechnics were enough to scare me off, I would have left you ages ago. Besides—” she gestured to the bubble of steam around them “—you’re like a walking space heater. Really, that’s pretty useful, especially since I left my hot water bottle at home.”
“You’re insane.”
“Nah. I think that being your mate makes me a saint.”
“You have to die to become a saint.”
“And I’m following you, so that may happen sooner rather than later. Sainthood achieved. I wonder what they’d make me patron of? Badass bitches?”
He looked at her. Really looked. She was a bloody queen. Shoulders back, head high. Two duffel bags of weapons and food bouncing against her back and a sword and ax strapped to her waist. He knew a bandolier of daggers was across her chest beneath her coat, knew more were sewn into the coat’s lining, just as he knew another bandolier crossed it, this one with bullets. Her pistol was sewn into its own pocket in the breast of her coat, just by her heart. Ever at the ready—which he’d always found odd, since no one in this country used guns, especially not anymore.
And those were just the weapons he knew about.
She was a walking arsenal. A one-woman army. If she left him, she would be just fine on her own—a thought that he didn’t really apply to anyone else.
Which meant that her answer, glib though it was, hid a deeper truth. She wasn’t leaving him because she wanted to be around him. Even though he might be unstable. Even though heading toward Calum was madness. She would rather go out with a bang at his side than die in the ranks of her peers.
Even with Fire burning away his lesser emotions, that was enough to fill him with a small sort of tenderness. And pride.
She looked at him from the corner of her eye.
“Watch where you’re going,” she said.
Right as he fell into a puddle of muck.
Aidan cursed, hopping about with his boot filled with sludge. Kianna crowed with laughter at his side, and while he undid his boot to drain what looked like a whole loch, he began to feel like maybe, even in exile, things weren’t that different from before.
He still had his friend.
He still had his power.
And he still had a shot at immortality.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He’d never truly appreciated cars and public transit until the Resurrection.
Even though they passed plenty of electric cars on the road—ones he probably could have jerry-rigged into working, as electricity was, at heart, just another form of Fire energy—there was no way they could make it to Edinburgh in them. The roads had been torn to hell by the necromancers and the ensuing battles. The countryside itself wasn’t much better.
He and his mum had taken this route, once, before the necromancers had ruined it all. Back then, it had been lovely—rolling hills and fields of sheep, glistening streams and stone cottages. Now, the landscape had changed entirely, partly from the magic and partly from nature’s own frustration.
Tall peaks rose up like talons from the otherwise rolling landscape, their tips dotted white or hidden entirely behind the clouds. Sinkholes appeared out of nowhere, collapsing miles of highway, devouring entire towns. Lochs had boiled to plains and moorland had flooded to endless oceans of murk. Infrastructure between towns was no longer a priority—especially since Edinburgh was overrun with Howls and Glasgow was one of the few places in the country actually deemed “safe.” There was a Guild in Inverness and a few smaller compounds dotted throughout the highlands, but for the most part, Scotland was dead land. And every single time the remaining humans had tried to rebuild a road or a rail, it was torn apart by necromancers or Howls.
It was no longer a straight shot. No longer an hour train ride. They would be lucky to reach Edinburgh by tomorrow night.
Once more, Aidan distantly wished he’d been attuned to Air, just so he could fly. It sure as hell beat walking everywhere. Even though the trek did mean he had killer legs.
Hours passed in silence. Soon, night hung heavy around them, the only light coming from a muted moon behind the clouds and the flickering flames he cast with Fire. The landscape was fully apocalyptic, especially in the dark of night. No more were the rolling fields dotted with grazing sheep, no longer were the towns they passed through quaint. It was hell on earth. And yet, it was home.
A part of him marveled at the destruction. At the heat that had melted windows and peeled apart foundations, turned roads to rivers and families to dust. It was beautiful, in the way that all broken things are beautiful—pure and raw, twisted and without affectation. It was damaged, destroyed, and it couldn’t pretend to be anything else. Fire smoldered with recognition in his chest, echoing the power and the destruction that had torn this place apart. That had crafted such beauty. Fire wanted to continue the terrible art.
All of this will be ours, Tomás had promised.
All of this already is, Fire assured.
“Do you think they’ll stick to the plan?” Aidan asked.
Kianna shrugged.
Trevor had wanted to camp outside of Edinburgh before going in to battle, thought everyone should rest. Aidan had insisted they use the element of surprise and attack first thing—not that a fifteen-hour walk was a rushing charge, even if they did have magic to help fuel tired muscles and hasten the trek.
This was their one shot at killing a Kin. At making history. Aidan wouldn’t risk anything. Trevor had begrudgingly agreed.
But Aidan did sort of hope Trevor had changed his mind and would allow the troops to sleep. Aidan didn’t have an Earth mage to soothe his own tired limbs or embolden his step. Fire was currently a slow burn, and it gave him an energy that meant he could go for hours. But it also meant that, on the other side of it all, he would burn out.
He glanced at Kianna, who still walked as though she’d just stepped out of her flat for an evening stroll. Not even the weight of her bags had slouched her shoulders.
“How do you do it?” he asked.
“What?”
“Be...you...”
“I’m naturally amazing, Aidan,” she said. “I thought you would have realized that by now.”
“Och, you know what I mean,” he said, even though he didn’t want to ask. Maybe, under normal circumstances, he would have stayed quiet. But it turned out walking for hours was bloody boring, and their mission was suicidal at best. It was a question he had never pressed, and she had never offered. But the words left his lips anyway. “How are you so strong?”
Kianna trained harder than anyone he knew. She’d studied under every Hunter who knew a martial art, had practiced forms and archery and sniping when everyone else was playing cards or sleeping. He knew skill alone didn’t keep her alive. There was no way. But he also knew that, since she never mentioned it, it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.
She didn’t answer. He figured that meant the conversation was over.
A few minutes passed.
“It was a side effect,” she said. “When I transitioned, the magic they used...it made me stronger. Superhuma
n. I didn’t realize it at first, of course. Not until I accidentally punched through a brick wall. They’d told me the operation was experimental. Don’t think they meant turning me into Wonder Woman, though.”
“Is that why you hate magic?”
Her eyebrows furrowed, just for a moment, and that told him the conversation was over.
“No,” she said.
They didn’t speak again until daybreak.
* * *
They stopped when the army stopped at sunrise.
He caught sense of magic, maybe an hour or so ahead of them. And since it got closer with every step, he figured it meant the army had called it a day.
Fire burned within him, told him to keep walking, to outpace the army, to go take Edinburgh on his own. Fire promised that he could.
But even if Kianna was Wonder Woman, they were still both human, and the rational part of his mind—not often used, Kianna would argue—told him they needed to rest, as well. And eat. Mostly eat. Using Fire burned calories like nothing else.
They stopped at the next building they came to. The farmhouse was a little off the road and mostly intact, though the field around it was pockmarked with craters as though someone had been gunning down sheep with meteors.
He’d seen it done. Numerous times.
And yes, he might have done it once or twice. Only when drunk, though.
The house’s interior was probably the quaintest thing he’d seen in a while. Plush carpets. Cat ceramics on the shelves, decorative plates on the walls beside landscape paintings and still lifes. Hell, the sofa even had doilies. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust, the floor covered in shards of ceramic cats that hadn’t made it through the destruction.
“This place creeps me the fuck out,” Kianna said, gingerly poking at a lace cushion. “Practically screams cannibal.”
“I dunno,” Aidan said. He picked up a cat and wagged it at her. “It’s kinda cute. Mrow.”
She raised an eyebrow. “All I’m saying is, I’m perfectly fine with you accidentally burning this place down in your sleep.”
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