23. Twenty-Three

Twenty-Three

I showered in my old bathroom. The water carried away the dirt that covered my hands and blood that spattered my skin. But it couldn’t carry away my grief. My guilt.

I lifted my hand in front of my face. Skye’s magic had sealed the wounds where solid corruption had torn through my skin.

Mana had surged and erupted from me before. The first time had been in the Colosseum when the undead attacked. It had never felt like something I could control, but this time had been different.

I shivered.

This time, it felt like my flesh was being torn apart. This time, I’d hurt people I cared about.

Sebastian was right. Corruption offered a different sort of power. Unimaginable power. At a cost.

I tipped my head back and let the hot water hit my face.

I’d felt so much on the battlefield. Now I just felt ... empty. Like I was missing a limb, a part of myself. The thrum of mana was gone. My muscles felt weak, even after Skye’s healing. My hunter blood had magic. But now, it was gone. I even missed the gnawing hunger of the corruption.

I sighed into the flow of water and turned off the faucet. I wrapped a towel around myself and stepped out of the shower. A stranger stared back at me in the fogged mirror.

Her face was gaunt, and shadows swam in her silver eyes. Her wet silver hair stuck to her thin frame. Her veins were dark beneath her ashen skin. Like the black roots of a rotting tree.

The corruption had given me an insatiable hunger, but it hadn’t been for food.

I turned away and walked into my old room. I’d been surprised my father hadn’t turned it into a gym or whatever single dads did after their daughters faked their deaths to escape.

All my things were still here. Untouched, like I’d left yesterday. Folded clothes sat neatly on my carefully made bed. Someone had done a dead girl’s laundry.

I pulled on a black T-shirt and sweatpants. They still fit. In fact, they were a little loose. I had to tie the drawstring tight at my hips.

I picked up the lopsided knife on the dresser. It was a gift from Genevieve for my tenth birthday. Her first project at the forge. She never did have a talent for her family’s trade.

But it seemed she’d found her calling as my replacement with my father. I dropped the knife on the dresser.

How could she be close to Elias after she saw what he did to my mother? Maybe Genevieve really had what was needed to be the true Morgan heir. The cold, calculating heart my mother and I lacked.

I tied my boots and left my room, running straight into a wall of muscle.

“Enchanter.” Cyrus had changed clothes, but blood and dirt still speckled his skin and pale blond hair. He cleared his throat. “I was—I was just waiting for you to finish up.”

Quillon stood leaning against the wall. “Max is still searching for a suitable place for us to sleep, though my vote is to stay in the large, empty, comfortable house.”

Cyrus glared at him. Quillon shrugged and winced.

I stepped closer to him. “Are you okay?”

“Just dandy.” Quillon straightened to his full height and winked.

“You said you’d never lie to me.” But I knew why he lied now.

“You would never hurt me. Whatever did that wasn’t you.”

“Come on.” Cyrus ushered us towards the stairs, but I hesitated.

Paintings lined the hallway. My father hadn’t taken them down.

Bouquets of flowers. Landscapes of peaceful meadows and sunlit forests. Scenes of elk and birds.

“They’re beautiful,” Quillon noted, gazing at a painting of a waterfall. “The technique could use some work, but the spirit’s there.”

I swallowed past the stone in my throat. “My mom painted them.”

She was an enigma to me, perhaps even more now. At home, she’d been thoughtful and gentle. Creative and intellectual. But when we went on hunts, she’d slaughtered otherworlders as efficiently and coldly as any hunter. Until the night she didn’t.

And he killed her for it.

I never thought she harbored any softness for the otherworlders. Maybe she was a prisoner here, too. Forced to hide that part of herself to survive. Running was never an option for her. She would have never left me. She’d have rather died.

I should have turned back and gone downstairs. I knew better than to pick at old wounds. But something pulled me forward, down the hall. I walked numbly. Quillon and Cyrus followed wordlessly as I wrapped my hand around the worn brass doorknob and twisted. The door opened with a creak.

My parent’s bedroom.

Their bed sat centered on the far wall. More of my mother’s art covered the walls. Walking in felt like I was crossing a threshold. Entering another world. But I was no stranger to traveling between worlds.

I flicked on the light. Dust drifted through the air around the lamp.

The air here was stagnant. Cyrus remained in the doorway, but Quillon stayed beside me as I explored.

A set of hunter leathers, a Morgan dagger, and my mom’s shortbow sat on the dresser. I touched the duster. The leather was soft. Freshly conditioned. Too small to be my father’s. I unfurled it, letting the leather kiss the carpet.

I slid my arms through the sleeves. It fit perfectly. Rose perfume filled my nose as the leathers molded to my body.

They were my mom’s hunter leathers.

Cyrus and Quillon watched silently.

I sniffled and moved to my mom’s side of the bed. A vase of fresh roses sat next to an open book on the bedstand.

I ran a finger over the red petals. My mother loved roses.

I hissed through my teeth as my finger caught on a thorn. Blood welled on the tip of my finger. Black blood.

This time I didn’t hide my blood. There was no point. There was no longer any doubt that the corruption was taking over.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” I whispered. “The corruption feeds from my mana.”

My lifeforce.

I’d felt it for some time but saying it out loud made it feel real .

I was dying.

Quillon hooked a finger under my chin, raising my gaze to his. “You simply need more mana, love.”

I shook my head. Quillon wasn’t stupid. Why was he lying to me? Or was he lying to himself?

“You haven’t been feeding off us like usual,” Cyrus added from the doorway. “You’re a hunter. You need mana to survive.”

“I can’t exactly absorb mana with all this bloodforged iron. And I’m not taking it off.”

“Other hunters drink blood.”

I grimaced. “I’m not drinking your blood, you weirdo.”

“You need it.” Cyrus tilted his head and straightened to his full height. “I could make you.”

“You know, I think this is the strangest conversation we’ve ever had. And that bar is high. The answer is no.” I moved to go around him, but Cyrus held out his arm, blocking me.

Cyrus growled. “You’ll need your strength.”

“For what? I’m basically useless cut off from my abilities.” I shuddered. “Human.”

Quillon chuckled. “I won’t tell your short-legged friend that.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Max said, appearing in the doorway. “I found you some lodging for the night.”

Quillon perked up. “Where?”

Max pointed through the window to a cottage near the compound’s wall between a couple garden patches.

“Rosco’s cottage,” I said. I remembered the family who lived there well. Rosco and his wife were healers, treating the Morgan clan with the herbs they grew in their gardens for decades. “He’d tell me stories while he wrapped my blisters.”

I wiped my black blood on my pants. Was Rosco letting us stay with him? He always was kind. He had the gentlest touch, even as he dug shrapnel out of your shoulder.

“The prior occupants are dead.” Max avoided my eyes, instead looking at Cyrus. “Their immediate family members were taken. Use their quarters and take what you need.”

Cyrus nodded and left with Quillon. I slumped onto the bed.

Dead.

Rosco was dead. Like my mother, like Kira, like so many. Ari was separated from his soul. My father was taken.

I hugged myself, letting the soft leather under my fingers soothe me. “What happened to them?”

Max was silent.

“Rosco and his wife. What happened to them?” I looked to Max. “Please tell me.”

If I’d killed them, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Rosco was one of the only hunters in this compound I actually liked.

Max inspected my hunter leathers. “Your mom would be proud of who you’ve become, you know.”

I scoffed. “You saw what I did today.”

“Katlyn judged the soul, not the deed.” Max scowled at the bedside where fresh roses sat in a glass vase. “That’s why she loved your father. Even to the end.”

“She believed every soul was pure.” My mother was the one who told me the shimmering orbs that rose from the dead were souls. She’d say we were releasing them from their cursed forms. Maybe that’s how she excused her actions.

“Come now.” Max took hand and pulled me to my feet. She grabbed the Morgan dagger from my mother’s nightstand, wrapping my fingers around the hilt. The roaring head of a lion decorated the pommel. “Let’s not linger with the dead. We have plenty of living people to worry about.”

“Out of my way.” A man with silver hair and dark gray eyes tore across the yard, shoving Max into me.

“Watch yourself, Morgan,” Max growled. I tried to help her, but she shook me off and jogged to follow the man. I didn’t recognize him, but apparently, he was part of my family.

“They took my wife,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Who?” I kicked into a run. Had the dark hunters come back?

“Those otherworlder bastards.” The man spat on the ground and drew a long, curved blade from his belt.

Uh-oh. I sent a wide-eyed look over my shoulder at Max. We were headed straight for the cottage we’d be spending the night in.

“Wait!” I called after the hunter.

He threw himself into the door and started knocking furiously.

Felix opened the door, shirtless. He was bandaged now, but he still looked like he was a stiff breeze away from death. “What the hell, man? It’s unlocked.”

The hunter pushed Felix into a wall as he strode into the house. I sprinted through the doorway, sparing Felix a worried look.

Felix moved to run after him but stopped. He gripped his stomach and braced himself on the wall. His druid marks squirmed on his skin. “I don’t think I can—”

“Then don’t,” I said. “Save your energy to heal.”

A clattering sound shook the cottage, and I ran down the hallway to the kitchen, skidding to a halt to avoid crashing into the hunter.

He was pointing his sword at Shael, paused over the kitchen table where Genevieve sat half-naked. Shael cradled a jar of green goop in one hand, the other raised in front of him. Green paste covered a deep wound on Genevieve’s bare thigh.

“Well, that’s not what I expected.” I wasn’t sure what exactly I expected, but Shael rubbing green goop on my cousin certainly wasn’t it. I tilted my head at Genevieve. “I didn’t know you were married.”

Genevieve’s husband pressed the tip of his sword to Shael’s chest. “What are you doing to her?”

“Hey!” I reached for my own blades as Skye stormed out of a bedroom.

He pulled water from a cup on the table, freezing it into a knife that he pressed to the hunter’s neck. “He’s trying to heal her, you incorrigible oaf.”

Genevieve jumped off the table and began pulling on her pants. “He’s right, Ren. I came here looking for Rosco, but ...” Genny shook her head and pointed at Shael. “He was just helping me.”

Ren’s gray eyes flicked between Shael and Genevieve. “Why would he do that?”

Shael shrugged. “She was hurt.”

“Now, put the blade away, or my brother will have two patients instead of one,” Skye whispered.

Ren pressed his lips together and sheathed his sword in a slow, tense movement.

“Great.” Max snapped her fingers at the couple. “Now get the hell out of here. Clinic’s closed.”

Ren gripped Genevieve’s wrist and pulled her from the room and out the door. I watched them leave.

“I’ll have your volunteer meet you at the gate at daybreak. Keep your heads down for the night. Tensions are high.” Max nodded to us as she left.

“Shael insisted on helping the hurt hunters.” Felix carefully lowered himself into a seat at the table, wincing as he settled.

“I told him it was a bad idea.” Skye let the ice knife melt and directed the water back to Felix’s glass. Felix lifted it to Skye and took a sip.

Shael’s blood-red hair fell into his face as he shrugged. “The whole place was filled with healing supplies. I figured I’d help.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Skye scoffed. “Hunters will only ever see you as the enemy, Shael. Dangerous outsiders in their pure world.”

“They’re people.”

“They’re monsters,” Skye snapped. I found myself shrinking back into myself. “And we’re the vermin they exterminate. They feed on our blood, Shael. We’re their prey .”

Apparently being around hunters for the past few days hadn’t softened Skye’s views on them.

Cyrus appeared in the entryway to the kitchen. His broad shoulders touched the sides of the narrow hallway. He took in the scene in the kitchen, the jars of poultices, bloody bandages, and Skye.

Skye ran his fingers through his hair and paced. “Why am I the only one who sees this alliance will never work? I say let Sebastian wipe them out. Less work for us.”

I flinched, drawing Skye’s attention.

“Are those new hunter leathers?” His expression darkened. “Planning on going back to murdering otherworlders in the name of your almighty god?”

Anger rose in my belly, and with all the bloodforged iron I wore, this was all my own. “These leathers were my mother’s. She was executed in this compound for her crime of protecting an otherworlder.”

Skye ground his teeth together and looked away before storming off. Literally. Thunder rumbled and boomed, shaking the air as lightning illuminated the dark windows.

“I know it’s hard to tell, but he doesn’t mean to be an asshole ... most of the time.” Felix hobbled to the cabinet and filled another glass with water. He handed it to me. “He has an ugly history with hunters.”

“I know.” I took a small sip. My stomach squeezed painfully, and I placed the glass on the table.

Shael pulled a dirty metal hilt from his pocket and held it out to me. “I found Ted on the ground outside where you ...” Shael scratched the back of his neck.

“Exploded with dark magic skewers like a corrupt porcupine?” I offered him a small smile and took Ted from him.

Shael chuckled. “Yeah, that.”

Ted didn’t respond to my touch, but I was wearing way too much bloodforged iron to be able to activate his bennu runes. I brushed the dirt off his normally shiny surface.

“Oh no.” I rushed to the sink and ran water over Ted’s handle. A deep gouge cut through the leather of his handle and across his carved runes. I turned to Cyrus, shoving Ted into his hands. “Activate him.”

Cyrus didn’t miss a beat, and Ted’s runes began filling with golden light. But the light flickered and died as it reached the damaged runes. Cyrus shook his head. “I’m sorry. He’s lost crucial runes.”

I snatched Ted back and cradled him to my chest. “Are you sure you’re doing it right?”

Cyrus took a deep breath, like he was gathering his patience.

Another casualty. Ted wasn’t just a weapon, or even just a magical whip with emotions that could rip your face off. He’d become a friend. A part of the ragtag band of misfits we’d gathered.

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Why couldn’t it have been someone I didn’t care about? Why couldn’t it have been Skye?”

Another wave of thunder boomed so violently, I felt it in my chest. Apparently, the walls here were thin.

Ted had been with me from the beginning. His were the first bennu runes I’d ever activated. He’d been the only thing keeping me alive in the Colosseum, and he’d been with me for every battle since. I slid Ted into the deep pocket of my mother’s duster.

“I …” Cyrus’s glacial blue eyes seemed to melt. “I know an artificer in Niaras that’s handy with this sort of thing. When teleportation is stable again, I’ll take Ted to her.”

I spared him a forced smile. “Thank you, Cyrus.”

The front door opened and shortly after, Quillon popped into the room, freshly showered and carrying a leather sack.

“What’s got you so happy?” Felix asked suspiciously.

Quillon dropped the bag on the table and beamed at it. “I found a room full of gunpowder and bombs.”

“Who left him alone?” Felix pointed between Cyrus and me.

We took a step back while Shael leaned in and pulled a round golf ball-sized bomb out of the bag.

I blew out a breath. “Oh, those are just blood bombs.”

Cyrus’s chest pressed against my back. “ Just blood bombs?”

“What the hell are blood bombs?” Shael inspected the bomb and tossed it between his hands, accelerating it with gusts of air.

“Something I came up with when I was a kid.” I pointed at him. “I’d still be careful with that if I were you. If you threw it, it would explode into a cloud of hunter blood. It would hurt and sap some mana.”

And with the corruption, it would probably hurt me, now, too.

Felix scratched his cheek. “You were a weird kid.”

“I found more.” Quillon plucked a bullet from his pocket and placed it on the table beside the bombs. Spiraling grooves covered the surface, filled with dried silver blood. “It’s carved like hunter weapons.”

“Hunters have been able to use guns this whole time?” Felix asked.

I shrugged. “We usually try to avoid drawing attention and guns make a lot of noise.”

Cyrus squeezed into the kitchen and plucked the blood bomb out of the air as Shael began tossing it higher. “All right, kids, it’s bedtime.”

Cyrus began pushing me towards the bedroom Skye had disappeared into.

“Oh, no.” I pushed back, but he didn’t even seem to notice. “Not that one.”

Felix slowly got up from his chair. “There’s only two bedrooms and the other one is filled with injured hunters Shael took in.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Shael, who smiled sheepishly.

“They’re Grays. They didn’t have anywhere else to stay,” he said.

“Fine.” I stopped struggling and stumbled into the bedroom, taken up almost entirely by a queen bed. It would be a tight fit. “How are we all going to squeeze in here?”

Cyrus fanned out a blanket on the floor. “Quillon can take the couch, and I’ll sleep here.”

Skye was sitting in a plush armchair in the corner. His long fingers gripped the arms as I slipped my mother’s duster off and unfastened the weapons I’d strapped to my body.

Felix hobbled to the bed and carefully slipped under the blanket. He sighed and opened his arms to me. “Come here, pup.”

I paused as Cyrus lowered himself woodenly to the floor. His eyebrow twitched, the only sign of his pain as fresh blood began staining the bandage on his shoulder.

I knelt beside him, hauling him to his feet. Or trying to. “You’re too injured.”

Cyrus shot me a glare. “I’m fine.”

“You just reopened a wound, plus you’re like a thousand years old. Literally,” I said. Cyrus continued to glare. “You’re sleeping in the bed.”

“You can have my spot.” Shael helped me push him to the bed. “I meant it when I said I can sleep anywhere.”

Cyrus grumbled something under his breath, but luckily, he was too beat up to argue. I helped him lie down, almost toppling over when he leaned on me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d lost my hunter strength, or if Cyrus was just that heavy.

I pulled the blanket up to Cyrus’s chin, savoring every moment.

He frowned. “Stop looking at me like that.”

I folded my hands under my chin. “You’re just so adorable when you’re all hurt and helpless.”

“I’m going to make you regret that once I’m healed.”

Excitement throbbed low in my belly, but I ignored it. Not the time.

Instead, I climbed into bed between Cyrus and Felix. Cyrus lay stiffly at my front, but Felix molded to my body. I instinctively reached for his pine and citrus mana, but all I sensed was his warmth at my back.

Cyrus clicked off the small bedside lamp, and the room went dark.

I squeezed my eyes shut as my breathing came faster and more ragged. Would I ever feel their magic again? I could never remove my iron without releasing the corruption, too.

“Relax, pup.” Felix’s soft words stirred the hair at the base of my neck. “Everything will end up all right. We heal fast, and we’re working on a plan to get Ari’s soul back.”

I nodded in the darkness. I had to trust in them. They had a lot to do in the morning. And I had a reaper to visit.