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. Superhuman. 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.”
He set down the cat.
“Why’d you have to take it there?”
She shrugged. “Would you expect anything less?”
She had a point.
“What will you do?” Kianna asked.
She lounged on the couch under a thick duvet, hearth fire dancing across her features. Aidan curled up on a recliner by the flames. They’d managed to clear out most of the dust and broken china, and a few spare blankets blocked out the morning sun. The Sphere of Fire still smoldered in his chest—he never let go of it, not fully, as it felt like letting go of life itself—but he let it rest there, let it turn to embers. It still drained him slightly, but it was worth it to feel warm.
“What?” he asked dumbly. Their salvaged dinner of rehydrated beans and rice made him want to pass out. Even though a small part of him feared sleeping with so many flammable objects around. Kianna included.
“On the other side of this. When Calum is dead. What will you do?”
Rule.
Aidan bit down the word, the images of him on Calum’s throne, of making Scotland bow. Of Tomás at his side. He hadn’t given much thought to the dream since they’d left Glasgow. Killing Calum was an overwhelming urge. But, sidled up next to that goal, was the image that still haunted him—Tomás, promising Aidan everything. A throne. A country. A partner.
Tomás isn’t real.
And yet, the desire for him was. Aidan didn’t know what was worse—wanting to screw a Howl, or wanting to screw a figment of his own imagination. He wasn’t one for introspection. Probably for the best—he didn’t want to know what it meant that his subconscious had fleshed this out.
“We move on to the next Kin,” Aidan said. He looked at her. They’d never really spoken of “after” when they’d spent so long preparing for this. “There’s nothing else.”
She just nodded, staring into the flames as if they told a future he couldn’t see.
Anyone else would have given a speech on there being more to life than killing. Not Kianna. Another reason they got along. They knew the truth about the new world. There was no hope of settling down, of having a home or a family, no chance of love or working toward a brighter future. That was all bullshit.
The only thing left was killing or fleeing.
The two of them knew precisely which side of the line they stood on.
People like Trevor, they thought there was an after to all of this. As though one day all the Howls would be dead and the necromancers gone and the world could return to normal. Aidan was smarter than that. He knew there would never be an after. There was only this: the rain and the bloodshed, the monsters and the madness. This was the world now.
Dreaming of a world after Howls and magic was as stupid as dreaming of a world where dinosaurs returned.
Things changed.
Just like the dinosaurs, things ended.
In this case, “civilization” had been on the chopping block. Frankly, Aidan thought they’d all earned it for bringing this about. This wasn’t some otherworldly plague—the Howls were created by humans. It was humanity’s nature to fuck things up. Another reason he didn’t really think there was or should be an after: humanity didn’t really deserve to carry on.
He sure as hell didn’t.
Though it would be nice to have a civilization around to remember him.
“Get some sleep,” Kianna muttered. She rolled over on the sofa, back to him. “I’ll wake you in a few hours.” She had an inner alarm that was as good as any clock.
Aidan grunted in response.
“And, Aidan?”
Another grunt.
“Seriously, if you burn this place down, please start with the cats.”
Despite everything, Aidan grinned.
On the other side of sleep, he was going to make history.
I’m coming for you, Calum, he thought, staring into the flames.
As his vision blurred, he could have sworn he saw Tomás smiling back.