TENN
“Fuck!” Tenn yelled.
He kicked the low stone wall, but he was so numb, so shocked, he didn’t even feel the pain.
Where they were, he had no idea. Somewhere dark and wet and desolately urban. It was fitting.
With Tomás dead, he had no way of using the tracking runes, no way of telling how far they were from the boy he had failed to save.
He thought it was just raining. Then he realized the pools in his eyes were tears.
Someone placed a hand on his arm. He tried to shake it off.
“Tenn,” Dreya whispered. Her voice barely cut through the screaming in his head. His own voice, calling himself a failure. A failure. “You must get a hold of yourself. We must be rational. We must think.”
Think.
Think of what? The way Aidan’s eyes burned with purpose as he stabbed Tomás in the heart? The bodies of the Kin that had fallen at Aidan’s feet? Or did she want him to think about the power? The power Aidan had wielded like it was nothing, the runes that had burned holes in Tenn’s mind with their might, words and whispers this world had never—and should have never—seen. Aidan had done the unthinkable.
He had brought the Dark Lady back to life. He had unleashed the worst darkness the world had ever known.
And now...now...
“We’re right fucked,” Kianna said.
She paced at Tenn’s side, and Devon sported a nasty bruise on his eye from where she’d punched him in the chaos. She had wanted to leave Aidan even less than Tenn.
“I can’t believe the wee bastard,” she said, her accent thickening in her anger, becoming more Scottish than British. “I knew he was getting dark. I didn’t realize he’d gone that dark. That was the Dark Lady, wasn’t it? He brought the bitch back.”
Tenn nodded and forced down the sadness, the defeat. Water roared within him, the betrayal fresh as a wound. He was still alive. That meant he still had a responsibility.
He’d thought his purpose was to save Aidan. Perhaps not. Perhaps Jarrett had been right all along—perhaps he was meant to end him. The Violet Sage had warned that Tenn could sway Aidan to the side of the living or the dead. Clearly, Tenn had fucked it up and sent Aidan spiraling into the Dark Lady’s clutches.
“She’s back.” He stared up in the dreary night. Even saying the words didn’t make the truth feel real. Nothing actually seemed different. Surely her return should have been more apocalyptic—heralded with blood raining from the clouds and the dead rising from the soil. Instead, there was just the gloom and the haze and the already-destroyed buildings around them. He almost wanted to laugh. “The Dark Lady is back.”
Was there really much worse she could do?
Even thinking that made his stomach clench. Of course there was. Of course.
In that moment, all the futures he’d ever dreamed of having—a house and Labs with Jarrett, a happy-ever-after, a future at all—were crushed under the weight of the new reality. Aidan had damned them all.
Tenn had damned them all. The Violet Sage told Tenn to make Aidan trust him. He had failed. This was all his own doing.
Water delighted in the misery of it.
“So what do we do?” Kianna asked. “I should have put a bullet between his eyes when I had the chance.”
“There is no use dwelling on what was,” Dreya said.
“No,” Devon interrupted. “She’s right. We should have killed him.”
“Hey.” Kianna brandished her gun at him. “That’s my mate you’re talking about. The only one who gets to threaten the wanker is me.”
Devon glowered at her, flames flickering around him like fireflies. But he didn’t say or do anything. Tenn couldn’t tell if Kianna was joking or not.
“We don’t need to fight amongst ourselves,” Tenn said. He swallowed. Remembered all too well how touchy everyone had been around Aidan when his Sphere had been damaged. Maybe this was the aftershock of what they’d seen, what Aidan had done. “That’s what he would have wanted us to do.”
“And what do you want us to do, oh fearless leader?” Kianna asked. “Teleport back there and kiss his boots and beg for mercy? Because we sure as hell can’t kill him now. He’s gotten a taste for power and he won’t stop until he has it all.”
“But he has it,” Tenn said. “He had it. He killed the Kin like they were nothing. He was the most powerful mage in the world. Why would he bring her back? It just means there’s someone else more powerful than him in existence. Someone else to kill.”
“Not if he thinks he can use her.”
Kianna’s words made Tenn’s heart flip.
“What? That’s...that’s...”
She grunted.
“I never said he was smart. Fire’s gone to his head. Always told him magic would get the better of him. Always said he was addicted. And look what he’s done now.”
“It’s not him,” Devon said. “Not really.”
“Oh?”
“It’s Fire. He’s consumed by it.” Devon’s eyes glittered with the flames around him, his entire body haloed by firelight. To think, there was a time when Devon’s might intimidated Tenn. Now, even this display of agitation barely bothered him. Still, it was a good reminder that Aidan wasn’t the only one playing with, well, fire. “He is no longer the man you once knew. That has been burned away. He will crave only one thing—to spread. To consume. He will do everything he can to burn the world down. And if he thinks he can use the Dark Lady to do so, he will.”
Tenn shook his head. How could Aidan be so naive as to think he could use the Dark Lady? He must be really desperate.
Of course he is, Water seethed. You felt his pain. The boy hurts more than all of us combined. You should have saved him. You could have saved him. Now you are too late. Too late...
He forced the thoughts down, drowned them under Water.
“But what can she possibly offer him?”
Kianna shrugged.
“Power changes people. Before and after the Resurrection, people have always been the same. Taste power, and you won’t settle for anything less than more.”
Tenn knew she was telling the truth. He’d seen it in Aidan’s eyes.
Aidan had tasted power none of them could dream of.
“I have to believe there’s still good in him.”
Kianna cawed with laughter, so loud Tenn jumped.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Tenn,” she said through tears. “You really don’t know anything about him, do you? If you think we’re going to find some good left in that one, you’re in for a serious disappointment.”
“I’d say all of this has been a serious disappointment.”
Kianna nodded. “That it has been. That it has.”
They stood in silence, the rain drizzling around them.
“Where are we?” Tenn asked. The place looked like any other ruined town in America.
“Near Outer Chicago,” Dreya whispered. It was one of the few times she’d ever sounded timid.
Tenn bit down his anger. Back to where Jarrett locked me up.
“I thought it safest,” she continued. “And the most prudent. We must let the Guild know what we have seen. They must prepare. They must tell others to prepare.”
“No one can prepare for this,” came a girl’s voice.
For a split second, Tenn recognized the voice. So much that he just assumed it was one of his party. Then the moment passed, and he realized it wasn’t Kianna or Dreya. It wasn’t anyone he knew.
He turned on the spot—all of them did—weapons raised and Spheres blazing.
But it wasn’t a Hunter or necromancer standing in the street before them.
No, it wasn’t human at all.
The silver fox stood in the haze, glimmering like moonlight on water.
“The true end has come,” the fox said, bowing its head. “And only together can we face it.”