TurtleMe

Soul Forged: Chapter 7

Added 2025-08-22 17:58:46 +0000 UTC

Groans sounded off all around me as the blackness receded from my vision and gave way to blooms of red. I lay on my back, pinned beneath a warm weight that began to slowly roll away. I tore open my lids, and a faint light stabbed my eyes.

“Torrin,” came Seth’s croaking voice. “Torrin, are you alright?”

“Ermph,” was all I could muster as I rolled onto my stomach and got two hands braced on either side of me, forehead on the cool soil. I ran my tongue over a puffed lip and tasted blood.

Vague voices and heavy footfalls brushed at my eardrums. Closer by, a low pop came in tandem with a grunt from Seth.

I pushed onto hands and knees too suddenly, and a drilling pain bored through my skull. Everything went fuzzy at the edges, and my stomach heaved up breakfast. Gasping, I sat up, knees bent beneath me, and spit until my mouth felt clear.

“Better?” Seth asked.

“Peachy.” I looked to find him gingerly rolling the shoulder he must’ve just popped back into its socket. “Thanks.”

His uninjured arm reached out and grabbed my shoulder in a quick squeeze. The movement drew a pained grunt from Seth, and both our gazes dropped to a sharp piece of earthen armor plate embedded in the muscle of his side. His leathers were shredded. Shallow cuts surrounded the deeper wound, but the bleeding had already been stanched by the raden faintly glowing beneath his skin.

Seth gripped the armor plate and tugged it free with a sickening squelch. He looked pale, jaw clenched tight, chest rising and falling quickly.

I knew any voiced concerns or inquiries about his pain level would go unanswered, so I just dug in my pack for a clean polishing rag and handed it to him. He nodded his gratitude and pressed it to the wound. Bruises faded on his jaw as his raden went to work, and a blistering burn on his neck from the raden steam looked less angry by the second.

“What happened?” I asked, careful not to turn my head too fast as I searched for the dragon. “Did it explode?”

Even though I asked, I knew it couldn’t be true. The corpse was still intact. But all the armor was gone, blasted outward, embedded in trees and several unmoving ardents who lay broken in puddles of blood. The golden threads of raden that had run through the dragon’s skin had gone black. “Must’ve been a last-ditch defense mechanism,” I muttered to myself.

Seth’s hand appeared in my eyeline, and I took it. I wobbled a little and reached up to feel a lump on the back of my head. Didn’t feel any blood, though. So that was something.

“You guys good?” Jace called out as he looped another ardent’s arm around his shoulders and helped the man limp toward the medic station.

“Yeah,” I called back as Seth gingerly raised a hand.

A form crouched next to the dragon corpse straightened, and I recognized the runesmith. He carried a knife and a jar filled with blood, his raden-glowing hands providing the proper temperature regulation to keep it in liquid form. Despite the hammering in my aching head, I couldn’t take my eyes off his work, captivated by the rune being siphoned right in front of me. This dragon definitely seemed like a candidate for a powerful rune aspect.

A cluster of surviving boneforgers watched the runesmith from afar, hesitant to approach the corpse. When he stepped away safely, they began to trickle forward, moving to carve up pieces of the unprecedented specimen’s unique vents and adaptable skin before it stiffened too much to be fully usable.

I knew I should join them, see what knowledge I could glean from the beast’s parts, but I still felt woozy.

Lots of people were following the runesmith’s tracks, and curiosity swiveled my gaze after them. I took two steps in that direction and paused, glancing back. That dragon was a new discovery. Probably a drake type of some sort. I should really help out…

“We can… take a minute,” said Seth, resting his hand on my shoulder, turning me back toward the runesmith. “Catch our breaths.”

My gaze returned to the tattooed smith. He had settled at the workstation he’d set in the no man’s land between the dragon and the warped remnants of the forger tables. Seth and I approached the loose ring of onlookers, but halfway there, he staggered, hip knocking against me. Instinctively, I caught him around my shoulders as he went down, his sudden weight dropping me to one knee. He let out a garbled groan, eyes fluttering, and I saw blood dripping over his lip onto his chin.

“Oh God,” I murmured, then called out, “Medic!”

There was a lot of commotion all around, but my cry and waving arm caught a free medic’s attention. When she reached us, she took one look at Seth and her hands set to work searching for injury, flipping his bedraggled cloak aside and giving me my first good look at his back. Blood seeped from dozens of wounds clogged with blue-black flecks of the dragon’s armor. His raden must’ve broken down the larger projectiles, but hadn’t totally been able to shield his body from them. The medic ushered Seth away to a makeshift station formed of salvageable pieces from the old one, shooing me when I tried to follow.

Gavin was over there getting a nasty map of bruising across his left ribs tended, but Fintan wasn’t hovering at his shoulder like I would’ve expected. I looked around and found him hanging back with the boneforgers acting as supplementary carvers. He bent with his nose practically inside one of its wounds, a finger prodding, coming away black with blood. He wiped it on his armor and started scribbling away on a notepad. He wasn’t exactly playing with dead things, but it was still kind of unsettling.

I hobbled back to the runesmith. He adjusted his safety goggles, scanned the faces around him, and puffed up as if gorging on the anticipation in the air. He set the jar of blood on a thermal plate and pulled a small nugget of raden resin out of a little pouch at his hip. Next, he took out small chisels, drill bits, and grinding burrs, lining them up beside a small canister of compressed air. At last, he unscrewed the jar and poured the blood onto the sterile work surface beside the resin piece and cupped his hands on either side of both. His raden pooled around his hands, growing between them and then billowing out in a bubble that started to spin at speeds high enough to create a vacuum. Finally, he pushed the nozzle on the air canister, introducing Earth’s atmosphere to the low-pressure bubble.

Here was the moment of truth.

I held my breath, swaying forward. Colter took it a step further, moving to stand opposite the runesmith, his hands braced on the table, gaze transfixed. I couldn’t quite look at him after seeing how Braden and Nina had died. It didn’t sit right. I kept seeing Colter’s hand reach out, seeing Braden stumble.

It looked so… I winced at another spike of pain through my temples. I rubbed it, shaking away the end of the thought. It couldn’t have been deliberate.

“Back, please,” the runesmith snipped as the blood started to bubble.

Colter dropped his hands from the table but stayed where he was, the raden vacuum spinning in his pupils.

The blood came together, as if its surface tension had tripled, gliding on the slick table like a little snake. It began to twist and turn, making a new shape—proof that the dragon had a high enough raden output to allow the crystallization of its blood within our atmosphere. The smith was on the clock now, and my pulse quickened, mirroring the urgency in the hard set of his mouth as he concentrated a light aura of raden around his fingers and the instruments he selected. He had to carve a matching shape inside the resin nugget. It sounded difficult in books, but seeing the swift, decisive cuts he needed to make in split seconds put it into a whole new light. If he went too fast, tried to predict the shape prematurely, he’d never get the bloodrune to mesh with the resin container. If he went too slow, the blood would lose all malleability, and the bloodrune would break before he could get it inside the container.

A stark light in my peripheral irritated my left eye, and I squinted toward the bright red edge of the inner rift. The lowest point of the giant, otherworldly rip hovered some thirty feet off the ground and cut through one of the golden trees. Just like the cut platform in the original rift, the tree looked like its upper branches had been lopped off. A fist-sized flying insect, with a jade beetle-like carapace and two blinking antennae, buzzed out of the leaves, taking off straight for the rift. As it crossed the boundary, the red rim flashed, and the beetle poofed out of existence in what looked like a little burst of wings and legs.

I rubbed my stinging eyes and returned my gaze to the table at a soft, wordless exclamation from the runesmith. He was drawing a second piece of resin out of his pouch.

“What’s that for?” Colter asked. “Did you screw up the first one?”

The runesmith didn’t even spare him a glance. He had his nose practically pressed to the raden vacuum, his drills whirring over both resin chunks.

The sound made my head start throbbing again. A little dizzy, I took a step back and averted my eyes from the spinning drills, but that didn’t help much, as the jagged seams of the rift tear had taken on a wavering, mirage-like quality that only worsened the sensation. It was playing tricks on my vision. I could have sworn the tree trunk jumped one foot to the left, moving so fast the leaves seemed to lag behind. Bald branches reached toward the rift, and then the whole thing snapped back into place, the foliage fresh and golden.

I held my head, seriously worried I had a concussion.

“Amazing,” murmured the runesmith, wiping at the sweat pouring down his face.

The two resin containers were now interlocked by holes the smith had drilled in their middles, arranged so the engravings meant to hold the bloodrunes could interlock, becoming a larger shape.

Curiosity pulled the air taut. No one dared utter more than soft, inquisitive sounds as the runesmith picked up the linked containers and flipped them over the similarly intertwined bloodrunes that had formed on the table. He aligned the engravings with surgeon-steady hands, and when they were almost touching the table, the bloodrunes curled like cats arching their backs and sank into the grooves. Only then did the runesmith withdraw his raden.

He lifted the pieces up to a little penlight he clicked on over his ear. “Extraordinary,” he said, breathless. “I’ve heard of this but never seen it.”

“What is it, Mark?” Colter’s hands latched back to the table, his whole upper body leaning toward the runes, and I saw the wolf in his eyes again, hungry and searching. A prickle ran down my spine.

“A parasite,” said the smith, laying the pieces in his palm and bringing the light closer to the etched markings.

Colter reeled back, nose wrinkled. “Parasite?” In a breath, he brushed back his hair and gathered himself. “Just one of them, right? The other is the drake creature’s?”

“Exactly,” said the runesmith, entirely fixated on the pieces, never noting Colter’s invasive proximity. He pointed to the bottom rune. “I’d guess this one is the parasite. It’s the weaker construction of the two. Still decent, though; I’d estimate class four.”

“And the other one’s class?”

“Judging by the raden output it required to form…” He gave his head a small, disbelieving shake. “It’s at least a class seven.”

My own awed murmur mixed with a few in the crowd. Seven?

“Maybe eight, but never having seen one, I can’t be sure,” the runesmith continued.

Colter seemed to vibrate, his body and voice suddenly frenetic. “But this one is at least a class seven? You’re sure?”

Colter reached out and tapped the rune that bore a triangle etching, and the runesmith finally looked up. The smith inched back, fingers closing over the runes as he pulled them toward his chest.

“Yes, as sure as I can be without further study. Once the more senior runesmiths at Hogun and Krutz confirm my assessment of its class, it’ll be sent to the Global Defense Council for observation. But I’ll get you a list of its postulated abilities in case you want to apply for it.”

Colter’s fingernails scraped the table, arms going rigid, but when he straightened, he struck a casual pose, hand raking his shaggy hair again as he let out a soft chuckle. “The Conglomerate runesmiths are perfectly capable of confirming its class. We won’t need any third-party contractors.”

The runesmith’s brows jumped. “Look, Colter, I came here as a favor to you, but the law is the law. As the forging runesmith, I’m required to make sure any class five or above that I craft gets sent to the government for strategic placement.”

“Mark…” Colter leveled him with a knowing, amiable look. “The Valera Conglomerate will use every resource to accommodate this slight breach in the due process.”

The runesmith countered Colter’s easy grin with a thin-lipped frown. “There’s a six-month turnaround period where you can apply as a potential candidate to receive the rune. Just send in a resume like everyone else, and—”

“You’re mistaken,” said Colter, a knife’s edge in the new slant of his smile, though he kept his tone good-natured. “That’s Conglomerate property.” His head cocked slightly, and unease pooled in my gut. “Valera property.”

The runesmith rose to his full height and raised his chin so he could attempt to look down his long nose at Colter, tucking the runes protectively in his crossed arms. “Name-dropping’s not going to fly with me, Valera.”

“No, but you’re a smart guy. So I’m confused why you have that stick so far up your ass.”

Gavin chuckled deep in his chest as he came to flank Colter, flashing those white veneers. Fintan materialized behind them both, blue eyes hard. Beside Colter, Rhea, bounced her hazel eyes between them all with a deepening frown. I could practically hear her soldier brain whizzing through possible outcomes and what I hoped were deterrent strategies.

“Come on, Mark,” said Colter, opening a palm and beckoning with his fingers, “just admit you don’t know what class it is and hand it over.”

Growing dread tightened my chest, trapping my next inhale. A few hours ago, I would have chalked this up as a meaningless dick measuring contest that a little paperwork could solve. But I’d seen what Colter did to Braden. I was more certain he’d pushed him with each passing second.

Leon shoved through the hushed crowd next, arms crossed to flaunt his biceps.

Mark stood his ground, though I watched his Adam’s apple bob. “You’re not going to push me around,” he sniffed. “You have a problem, you take it up with your legal department.”

Colter’s fist slammed the workstation, leaving a dent in the metal surface, and I jumped a foot. A few others around me started to back away, some awkwardly clearing their throats as they coaxed friends toward the medic and forger stations, not wanting any part of the escalating argument.

“Our contract says that for today, you work for me,” said Colter, breathing heavily, though he kept the stretched smile plastered on his face as he uncurled his fist. “That rune belongs to me.” He jabbed a finger into his own breastbone. “I’m in charge of this mission. I killed that parabeast. I saved everyone’s asses, including yours. Anything that comes from the beast is rightfully mine.”

Mine. Not the Conglomerate’s. He’d claimed it, and his voice had dropped an octave, approaching a snarl.

It had always been a little odd to me that the heir to the company didn’t have a rune when less accomplished ardents did. Now it seemed like maybe he’d been holding out on purpose, and he’d at last found what he wanted.

Mark’s nostrils flared, but he held his tongue. He picked up a small metal case, pushed in a three-digit code on the lock that flipped up the latches, and opened it to reveal a padded inner lining where he nestled the conjoined runes. Before he could shut the lid and lock them away, Colter’s hand shot out and grabbed the upper handle. The runesmith tugged on the lower one, both flaring raden down their arms that made the metal handles whine and warp. They stared each other down with silent snarls, and Colter started stalking around the corner of the table. Mark backed along that side, keeping the tension in the case. Just when Colter’s handle looked ready to snap off, he let out a growling sound of fury, golden raden flaring, and lashed out with the back of his hand.

Mark’s skull caved, his eye socket sinking in as his forehead jutted out unnaturally. He dropped in a heap.

Colter moved to catch that end of the case, keeping the runes from tumbling out. He didn’t even look at the dead man, maybe didn’t even realize what he’d done, until cries of shock and outrage bounced through the onlookers.

Questions started flying between friends, witnesses filling in those who’d missed it in hushed voices. Numbing disbelief spread through my chest. I felt my mouth fall open and couldn’t command it to close.

Colter tossed aside the case and clutched the runes in careful fingers, looking down at last when someone rushed in to take Mark’s pulse. Colter went very still, blinking at the runesmith’s misshapen head.

“No vitals,” said the inspecting ardent, shaking his head.

“He… no, he’s…” Colter’s throat tensed, and he looked around. “He provoked me. It was an accident. You all saw it.”

“Yeah. Still gonna be a hell of a lot of paperwork on that,” grumbled Leon, shaking his head.

“Are you kidding?” someone cried. “He’s not even Conglomerate. His bosses are going to ask questions, and I, for one, am going to have answers for them.” The speaker, Darrel, pushed to the forefront of the growing huddle. He had a buzz cut, a flame red beard, and a splatter of freckles across his nose. He glowered at Colter. “You’re a murderer,” he boomed, jabbing an accusing finger. “I saw what you did to Braden, you bastard.”

My stomach knotted. He’d seen it too…

Mutters rippled through the crowd, ardents and auxiliary staff alike turning to one another for assurance they’d heard correctly.

The freckled ardent faced his fellows. “Colter pushed him right into that monster’s mouth so he could get the killing blow!”

A suffocating quiet fell, a few soft gasps sucking up what little air was left.

“Knock it off,” Rhea said, not having to raise her voice to draw eyes from every direction as she moved between Darrel and Colter. “It wasn’t intentional. He didn’t use a weapon; he hit too hard, that’s all. Lost control of his raden. It could happen to any of us, and you know it.”

“What about Braden?” Darrel snarled, matching her lowered tone.

“You’re mourning your friend. I get it,” said Rhea, skin pinching around her eyes. “But don’t start pointing fingers. This is a warzone. People die. They take one false step and don’t come home. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“That’s bullshit,” snapped Darrel. “You didn’t see what I saw.”

“Are you sure you even saw it?” she countered. “Do you really want to file a complaint against Colter Valera with no evidence?”

He studied her hard and said in gruffer tones, “Do the right thing here, Dunn.”

“I am,” she countered. “We need to stick together. One overblown accusation and you’ll not only ruin his life but all of ours. You want those kooks who tried to register us as deadly weapons and monitor our every move to come back through the woodwork?”

“You’ve always been his lap dog. I never got it.” Darrel shook his head, lip curled. “Step aside. I’m going to escort Valera to Internal Affairs myself.”

Rhea bent her head closer to his, voice dropping to a deadly octave. “You’ll have to get through me first.”

Gawking boneforgers started moving backward with nervous glances as ardents formed two camps on either side of the runesmith’s body. Colter’s team was at his side in an instant, Priscilla slinking from the shadows to join Rhea, Leon, and the Calhouns. Darrel had three with him. Four more ardents hovered at the edges, scattered, undecided, Matthew and Arnold among them.

I spotted Taj with the retreating auxiliaries and started to shift that way when a familiar voice cried, “Hey! Everybody, calm down.”

Jace had stepped onto the line drawn into the sand, and fear for him constricted my lungs. He had his hands up, turning to meet the eyes on both sides.

“Stuff it, Vargas,” Gavin jeered. “Get out of the way.”

“No,” said Jace. “There’s more important things going on here. A man is dead, and he’s still lying on the floor.” He raised his voice toward the medics’ station. “We need this man tended and put in a body bag, please.”

Two medics rushed to oblige, parting the crowd and letting me catch a glimpse of Seth, sitting hunched over as the medic worked on his back. His head was swiveling toward the commotion.

Jace turned to Rhea. “Nobody needs to drag Colter into the towers like a prisoner.” He cut over Darrel’s protests and met his eye, saying, “When we file our reports, everyone gets to voice their opinion, but I think we can all say no one meant to kill him. There’s no need for this to escalate.” He gave Darrel a long, meaningful look, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s just walk out of these rifts together, all right?”

Darrel stared hard into Jace’s face. “Fine. We’ll follow protocol.”

Jace nodded. “Agreed.” He faced the other way. “So, Colter, I think you need to put the runes in the case, all right, man?”

Colter, who was busy manipulating the interlocked runes so their etchings were no longer touching, barely glanced up and said, “Yeah… I don’t think I will. Because, see…” A fine sheen of raden spread over his fingers, and there was a snap and a tinkling sound as he broke apart the base of the parasite rune, separating it from the dragon rune. “There’s no issue here.” He pinched the parasite rune between two fingers, lip curled as he swiveled it toward Gavin to take, then admired the dragon half. “This rune belongs to the Conglomerate, which means it belongs to me. And the runesmith…” He licked his lower lip, nervous eyes bouncing around the ardents gathered on his side. “I… I didn’t mean to hit him.” His restless gaze steadied on Leon to his right. “Did I?”

Leon’s stony face never even twitched. “Nope.”

“In fact, I don’t think I hit him at all.” He glanced at Gavin over his shoulder. “Did you see me hit that guy?”

“Nah.”

Fintan’s brows pinched together, but he didn’t contradict his brother.

Alarms clanged in my head, and I wanted to scream at Jace to get out of there as he shifted into Darrel’s line.

“Didn’t think so,” said Colter as he slid one of Priscilla’s daggers free of her crisscrossing weapons belt and undid his vambrace. “Something else happened. We couldn’t stop it. Could we, Priscilla?”

Her eyes got teary, and her voice quivered. “It was just so sad,” she keened one second, then flashed a grin that bared too many teeth the next.

Colter rolled back the end of his leather sleeve to expose the veins on his wrist, making a shallow horizontal cut with a quick press of the blade. As the blood welled, he pressed the rune etching to it, and the bloodrune fluid began to leach out of the resin with a flare of amber light that turned to the red-gold shade of an autumn dawn when it mingled with his blood.

With a low exclamation, Colter’s eyes went wide, basking in the light as he called out, “Who else saw what really happened?”

The few ardents on the outskirts had been shifting on their toes and casting uncomfortable looks around, but now they had to make a choice. Matthew, Arnold, and another ardent went to stand with Colter. Only one joined Darrel’s camp. I hovered just behind them, eyes glued to Jace, unable to tear myself away.

As the rune’s light faded, a halo of golden light flickered around Colter’s irises. He dropped his arm to his side with a satisfied sigh and said, “All right, here’s how it really went down. The parasite is what killed the runesmith…” He cast a pitying look over the opposing ardent line. “Him and lots of other good men and women.”

Colter’s eyes next did a predatory sweep over the auxiliary teams huddled under the lower part of the inner rift. Many had bits of the broken workstation in their hands, being stacked into a makeshift construction to try and get through the red tear hovering above them.

“Colter…” said Jace, trepidation thick in his tone. “You can’t do this. Think about it.”

Arnold shifted on his feet. “Colter, maybe Vargas has a point.”

Colter placed a pensive finger on his chin. “Vargas?” His eyes leveled on Jace and went cold, the hint of a smile tugging his mouth too tight on one side. “Vargas didn’t make it.” A sorrowful sham slid over his features. “We all thought the parabeast was dead,” he continued, half hidden behind Rhea. “Started going about our business, harvesting parts, tending the wounded. The runesmith did his thing, got us those double runes.” Colter shook his head. “But just about the time he finished, that damn parasite reanimated the corpse. Puppeted it around. It did a lot of damage.”

This couldn’t be happening. Colter had gone crazy, and his team was just… going along with it? Who were these people? He couldn’t really be threatening to kill a whole rift unit over this rune.

“We were taken by surprise,” Colter continued, talking faster as he nodded along with the lies taking shape. “People were dying. I just barely had time to absorb the stronger of the runes to protect everyone who was left.”

Panic clawing up my throat, I instinctively looked for Seth but was unable to pick him out in the clustered crowd.

“Colter, you’ve got the rune,” Jace said, forcing my gaze back to the altercation. “You’ve got your father’s lawyers. If you walk away now, you can live your life almost like nothing happened.”

Colter considered him, and everyone fell still, waiting, hoping. But I didn’t like the fevered light in his eyes. “No…” he breathed at last. “Can’t guarantee silence.” He shook his head, color high on his cheeks. “No, it's cleaner this way.”

He nodded to Rhea.

She drew her axes and launched at Jace.

A dark blur leaped in front of Jace, shadowy tendrils rising from a cloaked outline. Seth caught Rhea’s axes on his sword before her crossed blades could take off Jace’s head, their collision swelling with all the force and ferocity of a hurricane. Seth’s shadow swelled, drinking in the force. With a shift of his wrist, he parried the right axe down, then danced away from the counter swing from the left. He surged the pent energy down his blade as he slashed for Colter, who barely dodged as Jace rushed in to block a retaliating attack from Rhea. Colter got his spear unsheathed and met Darrell’s oncoming sword.

As the two sides collided around their leaders, all was amber light and thunder booms.

I took off running, but the battle came to meet me, superhuman fighters lunging huge distances, chasing each other down as fighters paired off. Priscilla was a banner of black hair inside a maelstrom of slashing golden light as she drove another woman into my path to the boneforgers. Her left dagger feinted a stab for the kidney, making her opponent concentrate her raden there, while the right struck viper-quick into the other woman’s throat. She coughed blood and fell, clutching her neck, while Priscilla turned two-toned eyes on me.

Seth smashed into her like a freight train, his shadow outline exploding outward with the force of the raden he’d already absorbed from other opponents’ failed strikes. Priscilla’s raden aura shattered as she went rolling through the soil, Seth hot on her trail, sword poised to kill. She came out of her roll in a runner’s lunge, zipping away as raden fired beneath her heels.

“Go!” Seth thundered at me without even looking.

If there was one thing he’d taught me, it was how to get the hell out of the way. I was already on the move, redirecting through the chaos to the boulder I’d hid behind with the medic. From there, I could wait for a straighter shot to the other boneforgers and a possible escape through the rift.

As I skidded to a stop behind the rock, bracing my hands on its cool surface, a weird, low-frequency sound fuzzed my head—a staticky crackle, distant but impossible to ignore. I dug a finger in my ear as I peered around the boulder, needing to see Seth, to know he was alright, that we were going to make it out of this.

His familiar posture and glowing eyes distinguished him from the tangle of bodies. He stood back to back with Jace, both their swords parrying at least two others in a hectic series of combos my eye couldn’t track, but I did see Seth’s shadowed outline growing, filling with pent energy stolen from every clash with an enemy blade. He unleashed it down his sword in a wide, cross-body slash that disarmed Arnold and sent Matthew staggering off balance.

But Gavin took Arnold’s place, fighting with a raden-covered fist and a one-handed sword.

A quick scan showed why Seth and Jace were fighting so many. Colter and Rhea stood over a dying Darrel, his cracked skull leaking a stream of blood over his freckled face. His allies were either falling or already lying still on the ground. It was just Jace, Seth, and one other man left standing.

I could no longer hear the clatter of blade meeting blade. The static crackle had grown louder, its low tone vibrating through my teeth until I groaned and massaged where my jaw met my ear. I tried to track the source, but the sound seemed to come from everywhere. The flickering red glow of the rift deepened, tinging my skin. I looked down my arm, and my heart stuttered. By my hand, on the rock, a thick clump of golden moss wavered and made me see double. But no, that wasn’t right. The moss was beside my pinky one second, then several inches away the next. It bounced back and forth before my eyes until I jerked away my hand and backpedaled, the gears in my head grinding together, unable to make sense of it.

Was anybody else noticing this?

I looked back to the battle, heart hammering.

Seth still slashed at Gavin, their struggle making them dance further and further from Jace. Seth blocked a thrust from Gavin and kicked him in his bandaged ribs. Gavin went to one knee, but Seth’s finishing blow was parried by Fintan’s glaive. Even as Fintan forced Seth’s sword upward, Seth drove his knee into Gavin’s chin as he twisted to face Fintan. Gavin’s head rocked back, and he went down hard. As he shook himself from the brink of unconsciousness, he lunged his upper body forward, hand chasing after something. Seth’s foot stomped down on Gavin’s hand as his sword kept up a punishing assault on Fintan. He knocked Fintan back, then ducked a swing of Fintan’s weapon to pick up what Gavin had been groping for. I saw golden resin and realized it must be the parasite rune. The one Colter needed to sell his story.

Seth tucked it away and blasted both Calhoun brothers back from him with another shadowy burst of his rune. He spun, searching. I followed his gaze to Jace, who was trying to keep Colter and Leon at bay. His longsword made wide arcs as he was forced to constantly twist front and back to keep them both in his sight. Colter struck low with his spear, piercing Jace’s foot, locking him to the ground as Leon brought his hammer down.

“NO!”

Jace’s raden went dark as he crumpled into the dirt, an arm bent awkwardly beneath him. I waited for a sign, a rise of his back, a twitch of a finger, but his familiar face was a wretched ruin, his body broken and horribly still.

My legs wobbled, and I leaned against the boulder, just trying to breathe as Seth swooped in too late. His grief-stricken roar carried through the rift, bounced off the cavern, cut through the static, punched through my chest. Seth snapped Colter’s spear with his first slash, weakened Leon’s aura with his second, cut his shoulder with the third, whirled around to meet Rhea’s axe, hooking it on his blade and flinging it away.

But he was surrounded. They were coming from every direction. His allies were dead. Jace…

Jace was gone.

I didn’t realize I was running until I was halfway to him, and my brain yelled at me to grab something, anything I could use for a weapon. As I bent to pick up a rock, Seth called my name, and the urgency in it stopped my pulse.

My head snapped up to meet his raden-haloed eyes between the encroaching forms of Colter and Rhea. Seth’s raden was thick around him, trying to stave off blades from all sides. His arm cocked back, and the rune arced through the air. The perfect throw landed in my waiting palm right as Gavin’s blade severed Seth’s extended arm at the wrist. Even as his hand tumbled in a shower of blood, Seth rounded on Gavin, wielding his broadsword one-handed. The diagonal slash aimed to take Gavin’s head, but Fintan parried with his glaive, sending Seth’s sword spinning. Priscilla dashed in low, and her dagger sliced through his hamstrings. Seth captured Gavin’s sword arm as his legs gave way, holding himself aloft until he wrestled the blade from Gavin. As he sank to his knees, he twisted to slash at Priscilla, drawing blood across her hip before she could dash clear. With a heavy thunk, Rhea’s axe dug into Seth’s side. His raden flickered, his glowing shadow retreating. He didn’t look at Rhea, didn’t look at the wound. Instead, Seth’s eyes found mine right before Colter’s spare spear punched clean through his chest.

The sound that tore up my throat didn’t belong to me. It couldn’t. Because none of this was real. There was no version of the world where this could be happening.

Seth let Gavin’s sword slip from his fingers, still watching me, never looking away, steady and constant and unbreakable. Like him. But there was blood everywhere, forming dark blooms on his leathers and tattered cloak, spilling over his lower lip.

My legs failed me at the same moment his did, the two of us dropping together, staring over a space that seemed to widen by the second. My vision blurred with tears I hadn’t known I was shedding.

Colter’s teammates were dark, meaningless shapes, but I vaguely registered that they were turning toward me, toward the auxiliaries and the rift.

Colter. The name stirred a beast in my gut. Colter had done this.

The resin bit into my flesh, reminding me of the rune clutched in my tightening fist.

Colter wanted the rune. If he got it, he’d get away with this.

“Seth,” I cried, voice breaking. “What do I do?”

Though fresh blood poured down his chin, his voice rang out strong. “Survive.” He swayed forward, tried to catch himself, but his arm buckled, and his cheek hit the dirt. I watched his chest rise once, watched the strength fade from his dark eyes, leaving behind a face that looked like my brother but had none of him in it.

Ivory greaves blocked my view, marching toward me. “Hand over the rune, Torrin,” said Colter.

I opened my fist and looked at the quarter-sized piece of the snapped rune—the etching still intact in the slim, pointed top.

All this death for a rune.

I looked up at him and his extended hand. He’d sheathed his weapon, knowing he wouldn’t need it to take the rune by force from someone like me.

I narrowed my eyes on him, lifted the rune, and shoved it in my mouth.

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