Runebreaker

by Alex R. Kahler

  But the city itself—the wide boulevard, the winding side roads that stretched up into the rolling hills of the West End—was nearly deserted.

  “Not exactly the hero’s welcome,” Aidan muttered to Kianna.

  She grunted. Watched a small child run off into a nearby building.

  Was it the rain?

  Normally, he’d feel his hackles rise, but the city didn’t seem abandoned or off. It just seemed...blasé. They walked deeper in, making their way toward the University. The architecture here had been mostly salvaged. The long sandstone tenement flats that housed all of Glasgow’s residents. The winding cobbled and concrete streets.

  Just like before, the tenements facing the main road had shops on the ground floor. But they had changed drastically in the past few years, cafés and chippies and barbers giving way to more important vestiges of humanity. Like open-air grocers. Seamstresses.

  And pubs.

  There was still a pub on every corner, if not more. They were the only things that had truly survived and thrived post-Resurrection. There was always a reason to drink your troubles away. And in this country, there was always a need for a warm place in which to do it.

  A few civilians stared from windows as they passed, holding pints or small children before them like shields. Before, Glasgow had been fairly chic. But now, with all clothing passed down and recycled and restitched, the emphasis was on warmth rather than fashion. There were still peacoats and cardigans and hints of tartan, but they had all been layered and repurposed. And soiled.

  It made Aidan’s blood boil, seeing them cower within the walls that he and his troops kept safe. Acting as though he were part of the problem. Fire roared within him, told him to show them just what they should be afraid of—set a flat on fire, turn the rain to embers. The rest of him knew it wasn’t personal. Commoners treated every mage like a boil-covered witch.

  To the civilians, he and the rest of the Guild were a necessity, but a terrible one. Using magic, they were no better than the monsters and necromancers that prowled outside. He’d always thought that Scotland would be more receptive to magic, that maybe somewhere up in the highlands they still believed in the Fair Folk and other worlds and all the rest. But the truth was, humanity was all the same.

  The people here didn’t trust what they didn’t understand, same as everyone else.

  Which meant that even though Aidan and the rest of the troops were the only reason any of them were alive, they were regarded with the same hatred as Howls and necromancers. At least the civilians tried to keep that hatred concealed behind layers of drunkenness and fear.

  Aidan made sure to look each and every person he saw in the eye. To remind them who was in power.

  Who it was that paid for their new freedom in blood.

  He wondered if that freedom would be enough to change the council’s mind.

  They cut through Kelvingrove Park, which had been converted into magically fueled greenhouses and grazing grounds. Fields of barley and hops and wheat stretched along the River Kelvin, bowing under the weight of rain, while glasshouses brimmed with vegetables. Distantly, he heard the bleating of sheep. And a bagpipe. Of bloody course. He hated bagpipes.

  Above it all, peeking up over the few remaining trees, was the building the Guild had taken as its own: Glasgow University.

  Even after everything that had happened—the buildings lost, the cities destroyed—there was a magic to the University that belied the turn of years. Its tallest tower still stretched up to the graying sky like a castle turret, as it had when Aidan first visited. Umber stone, intricate latticework in the upper windows, slate-tiled roofs. Castle-like. Majestic. Sprawling. The other University buildings might have fallen, but this one endured.

  It filled him with pride just as it filled him with dread.

  This had been his home. Not even a week ago, it had been torn from him. Now, like a scorned lover, he had to hope that it would accept him back.

  No, Fire seethed. You should never feel the need to grovel. It is they who should beg for forgiveness.

  He curled that confidence around himself. They would beg to have him back, and he would allow it. So long as being there served him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Aidan wasn’t allowed in the council chamber.

  That was his second clue this homecoming wasn’t going to plan. The lack of cheering crowds he could forgive, but this? He was forced to wait in the hall outside. The meeting took place in one of the old lecture halls, and where the exterior of Glasgow Uni was grand and archaic, the interior—here, at least—was modernized, an anachronism in its own right. Blue carpets, fluorescent lights that hadn’t seen electricity in years, makeshift lantern sconces carved into the walls.

  He sat on a wooden stool and stared out the window at the deepening gloom. All he could hear was the pounding rain and the occasional rumble of voices deeper in the hall.

  He couldn’t even try to spy. A burly guard had been stationed outside the door. The guard stared straight ahead, arms crossed at his chest and a wicked mace resting against his hip. He looked like he could crush Aidan with a single hand—and Aidan knew he could, seeing as he’d trained with Markus many times. Normally, he’d have tried to chat.

  Now Aidan just sat in silence, fuming, unable to even play with Fire for fear it would be seen as a threat.

  He must have been waiting for at least an hour. The sky deepened to pitch-black, and a lone Fire mage came around to light the lanterns. Even that small act of magic made his Sphere twitch and anger flare—not that he wanted to be the one lighting lamps, but he sure as hell hated that he was being told not to. He kept his Sphere slightly open in his chest, soothing it like a kicked dog, waiting for the time he could let it out to play. By the time the door opened and Kianna stormed out, he was ready to burn the whole place down from agitation.

  “What did they say?” he asked, standing.

  She glanced at him. She didn’t stop walking.

  He looked back once to the open door, hoping to see the council members, hoping to get a sense of what had happened. Kianna grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked.

  “They aren’t exiling me again, are they?” he asked. He’d tried to make it sound like a joke but realized the moment the words left his lips that it sounded more serious than not.

  Especially since she didn’t answer right away.

  “Kianna—” He had to jog to keep up with her. “Kianna, they aren’t exiling me. Right?”

  “No.” She looked back to the council chambers. Walked faster. “But also yes.”

  His heart dropped to his feet. He desperately itched to open to Fire, to burn off the anxiety. He held out. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means they’re letting you stay,” she said, not meeting his eyes, “but they aren’t letting you lead. You’ve been demoted.” She paused. “Basically, you’re a new recruit. They’re assigning you to a squadron tomorrow.”

  It was worse than exile.

  It was anonymity.

  “You’re shitting me,” he whispered.

  “I wish. I had to fight for that, too, so you can thank me later. They were going to throw you out.”

  “Even after all I did for them? I killed Calum. I’m the first person to kill one of the Kin! Those sorry mother—”

  “Actually...”

  Somehow, the way she said it made him feel like whatever she was about to deliver was worse than his demotion.

  “What?”

  She hesitated. Looked back to the door, though they weren’t being followed.

  “You weren’t the first,” she said. “They’ve had word from the Voice of the Prophets. Back in America. Someone else killed one of the Kin.”

  “What?” Aidan stopped dead in his tracks. His question hung in the air above them, a guillotine ready to slice through the last remaining
shred of pride he had. In the back of his mind, he had thought he would always have this. They could take away his title. They could take away his home. But no one could take away his victory. His place in the halls of history as being the first. His name in the immortal list of deeds that had changed the world.

  And yet, some prick over in America apparently had.

  He didn’t even realize Fire had opened within him until Kianna cocked an eyebrow at the flames twisting around his clenched fists. She didn’t seem frightened. She just looked frustrated.

  “Aye.” Her voice was heavy with regret. “I’m sorry, Aidan. But apparently Leanna was killed over there a few days ago.”

  “And we’re just now hearing about it?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t have the internet anymore. And pigeons tend to get lost over the Atlantic.”

  “This isn’t funny,” Aidan said. His teeth ground so tight a small part of him worried about chipping a tooth. Again.

  “Never said it was. But look—these are the cards we’re dealt. You’re allowed back into the Guild. You still killed Calum. We know what you’ve done. And everyone important knows it, too. It will filter out that you were the one who liberated Scotland. You’ll still get your place in history.”

  He knew she was trying to make him feel better, but the truth was, she didn’t know what he’d done. Not the half of it. Fire burned away the little voice inside saying that without this victory, he was nothing, and the lives he sacrificed to get here were sins staining his soul. Fire burned it away, but not fast enough.

  “So what do you suggest we do?” He tried to force down the rage that threatened to burn over. Tried to keep himself from running out of the Guild and setting someone else on fire.

  Again.

  “I told them we needed to take this opportunity to cleanse Scotland,” she said. “That if we hesitated, the necromancers would regroup and retaliate. So tomorrow, they’re going to be sending out a few parties to scour the rest of the country. They still haven’t decided what they’re going to do with you. But if it makes you feel any better—which I know it won’t—I told them I wouldn’t go anywhere without you. For now, though, we wait.”

  It was a punch to the gut. He’d come here to be celebrated. To rule. And now, the best he could do was be relegated to cleanup crew. Fire seethed. It refused for this to be the answer. Even Kianna’s small offer of friendship burned up in the inferno.

  “I thought you wanted to go to Europe,” he said. “Go kill the rest of the Kin. Fuck orders and all that.”

  “I do.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in. For her, that meant leaning down quite a bit. “But Aidan...we gotta play this smart. Everything is in an uproar. Two Kin are dead, and there’s rumors the guy who did it over in America could read the runes. Maybe even create new ones.”

  Aidan glanced to his arm at that. He could feel the burn of the runes against his forearm, his Hunter’s mark. But he also felt a whisper, the barest breath of memory as the runes and sigils etched into Calum’s skin drifted through his brain. Somehow, he knew the ones on Calum were different from the ones on his own arm. Like a different language altogether.

  The marks on his arm never made sense to him, but the ones on Calum...those, he felt, were like a language he had read in a dream. Perceptible, but just barely.

  “So?” he asked. I can, too. Sort of.

  She studied him for a moment, her expression frustrated. “I ain’t about to give you a lesson in magic,” she finally said. “Or what it means that someone out there could make new runes. The important thing is us. This. There are two ways you can play this, Aidan. Either you get huffy and storm off again and get kicked out for good, or we play it smart and bide our time.” She glanced around. There was no one in the hall. Not that it meant they weren’t being spied on. “Eventually they’re going to want to send troops to Europe. They’re excited. They think we might finally be able to start gaining back territory, and if America can send over reinforcements, we could really turn the tide.”

  Despite everything, a thin note of hope curled through him. “You honestly think America would send troops over here? They don’t give a shit about us.”

  Right after the Resurrection, it had been every man for himself. No foreign aid or relief funds or marches for solidarity. The whole world had gone dark, communication cut off, transportation ended. Nothing but silence. Well, silence and the screams of the dying.

  She stood and began walking down the hall. “They want this over like the rest of us. So yeah, I’d imagine that once they get themselves sorted, they’ll be on their way. They have the numbers. More than we do, at least.”

  Aidan had written America off long ago. But if they were sending reinforcements, that might mean he could get back. He could go home.

  Home.

  Flashes of his mother, torn apart by Howls, and his father, waving from the airport lobby, played through his mind. He did his best to stomp them down. Along with the disappointment that none of this was going the way he’d planned.

  “The council will see reason soon enough,” she said. “You’ve led us to victory once, and they’ll need that foresight again if they want to keep going. But it’s going to take them time to see it, and the best way for them to get to see it is for you to play by their rules. For now.”

  He hated it. He hated that he had worked his ass off to get thrown back to the bottom. He hated that he was trapped here once more, waiting for orders to die, when a week ago he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

  He hated that he had built this place, and here he was, a prisoner within its walls.

  “Come on,” Kianna said. “I’ll take you to your room. You need sleep. Rather, I need sleep, and I can’t deal with your whinging right now.”

  “I know how to get to my room.”

  “No. They assigned you a new one.” The hint of a smirk returned to her face. “Did you forget? Your old one had fire damage.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  His new room was definitely a downgrade.

  Most of the Hunters’ barracks had been hidden belowground, the logic being that if a necromancer attacked the Guild, they’d go for the top bits first. Aidan personally thought it was stupid, and any Earth mage with half a brain would just collapse the warren of tunnels beneath the Guild and be done with it, but he hadn’t been high enough in rank for his opinion to matter at that point in the planning process.

  In any case, this had clearly been one of the first rooms created. The walls and floor and ceiling were all the same flat stone, melded from the earth by magic. A single lantern sat in a nook carved into the wall, and the bed was a twin.

  His last room had been in an upper level, an old office. There had been an armchair and Persian rugs and heavy throws. King-size bed. A fireplace and small liquor table. Perfect for entertaining guests.

  This was basically a casket with some extra leg room.

  He stared up at the ceiling, freshly showered and in pajama bottoms, Fire burning in his chest and small flames dancing through the air around him, sparkling like stars or dust motes. He didn’t know how late it was and told himself it didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter right now.

  It wasn’t a morose thought, honestly. It filled him with anger. He should have been on a throne right now. He should have at least had a room with a window.

  For a while, he considered leaving. Just packing up his shit and going back to the flat Kianna had prepared for them. Telling the whole Guild to fuck off—he’d done his time, Scotland was free and he could do what he damn well pleased.

  But Kianna was right.

  If he did that, he would die of boredom. He’d killed one of the Kin. He couldn’t settle for going around mopping up a few starved Howls. Where was the fun in that?

  Frankly, he’d peaked. And the only way to find a new pinnacle was to head
to Europe and find the next Kin. And the only way to do that was to have the support of the Guild. Once more, bureaucracy was a pain in the arse. Frustrate him though it did, he knew he couldn’t make it over there on his own. Neither he nor Kianna knew how to sail, for one thing, and the Chunnel between England and France was collapsed. And no doubt the borders were heavily guarded, to prevent more Howls or necromancers from coming over.

  Kianna was right, damn her. He needed to play it smart. Needed to bow to whatever whims the Guild had for now. If only so he could influence them later.

  He would get what he wanted.

  He just had to be patient.

  And Fire was horrible at being patient.

  After a while, he became aware that he wasn’t alone in the room, but he didn’t make any movements, not right away. He recognized the feeling of eyes on his body. The shift in temperature. The delightful shiver that told him he wasn’t just being watched, he was being admired.

  He toyed with the flares above him, made them dance over his chest, highlighting his darkened skin, the swirling tattoos, the rise and fall of his muscles. Beads of sweat pricked over his skin, but he enjoyed the heat. Just as he enjoyed the effect he knew it had on his guest.

  “I was hoping you’d show up,” Aidan said eventually, sending sparks dancing around his fingertips.

  “I was hoping you’d be wearing less clothing,” Tomás replied. He stood just behind and to the side of Aidan, against the wall and mostly out of sight. But when Aidan spoke, he stepped forward and let Aidan devour his presence.

  Like Aidan, he was shirtless. Like Aidan, the firelight seemed to worship Tomás’s olive skin, the peaks and valleys of his flesh, the sharp white of his smile. Unlike Aidan, he didn’t seem to mind the cramped quarters.