The sound that made everyone in the arena freeze, including Tiberius. The blind woman stood, her head tilted at an impossible angle, and when she spoke, her voice was different. Older. Darker.
“The hunter’s mark burns twice.” Her covered eyes turned toward me with perfect precision.
The mark on my palm flared white-hot. I bit back a scream as her voice filled only my mind. “Beware the father that was robbed of the kill.”
When I looked up, Wickett was watching me with the patience of someone who knew exactly how long their prey had left to live. This had just become a completely different kind of game to him.
Chapter 13
Syneca
When magic binds what nature meant to sunder, pain becomes the only honest conversation.
Icouldn’t find Calder anywhere, and the infirmary reeked of burnt flesh, medicinal herbs, and the unmaskable, iron tang of blood. Healing runes carved into the stone walls pulsed with soft amber light, their ancient symbols trying desperately to keep survivors breathing.
Bandages floated from cot to cot, wrapping themselves around wounds, while bottles of various tinctures lined shelves that seemed to shift when you weren’t looking directly at them, organizing themselves by need rather than alphabetical order.
The scorched medics squeezed between cots with practiced efficiency, their movements economical and silent. They’d learned long ago not to waste energy on sympathy. Where Wickett and I had struggled, others had truly suffered.
I didn’t need the infirmary, not really. But it had been offered by a passing shifter with a clipboard and a pair of glasses that hung on a string around her neck, and I had wanted to appear asnormal as anyone else. Right now, information, even small bits, was power.
That wasn’t the only reason, though. The tether between teammates hadn’t dissipated like I assumed it would. I was still magically bound to Wickett. The ribbon between us, no longer visible, pulled taut whenever we got too far apart.
The same was true for the other survivors as well, but pairing my new tether with the Hunter’s Promise branded on the inside of my palm made my stomach churn, my chest tighten. Every moment of this went against my nature.
I was meant to hide.
To burn.
To die the moment I was ready, so another may be born from the ashes of my power. But this? This was so much worse.
I leaned against the wall, staring at the angry red welts wrapped around my right wrist like a brand. The binding ribbon’s mark had blistered during the trial, each dark, magical connection to the Ripper leaving my flesh raw and weeping. The medic had slathered it with a salve that reeked of sulfur, but the burning never stopped. And no one even mentioned the Hunter’s Promise.
“Witch magic was never meant to bind with hunter steel,” the scorched woman said, not looking at me as she wrapped my wrist in clean linen. Her voice carried no judgment, just tired fact. The scorched had seen enough impossible things to stop questioning the cruelty of magic.
I stood there for several minutes waiting for Calder to show up, but he was nowhere to be found. I knew he was pissed at me for about thirty different reasons at this point, but it wasn’t like him to avoid me.
Three beds from the door, what remained of Tessa lay covered by a sheet that couldn’t hide the charred outline beneath. The young fire witch had burned from the inside outduring the trial, her inexperience with her own element turning deadly the moment real pressure hit. Her honey-brown hair still smelled of smoke.
Darius Crane’s corpse occupied the bed beside hers, though only part of the hunter had made it back. Whichever shifter he’d been up against had certainly shown no mercy. The Mortalis claimed its victims without grace.
“Vera didn’t make it either,” Pip whispered as she passed by. The little sprite’s wings trembled with exhaustion, their usual iridescent shimmer dulled to the color of old pewter. “The maze... it got her. And Wither too.” Her voice cracked on the name of the third sprite.
Wither, Tessa, Darius, Vera and Thimble had all died. Five wasted lives. And three more would fall before this bloodbath was over. Only Pip had secured her place in the hunt.
Felix sat upright on his bed, methodically cleaning his blade with a cloth that came away red each time. The hunter had emerged from the trial with only minor cuts, but something in his eyes had changed. He moved the cloth in precise strokes, over and over, like he could scrub away whatever he’d been forced to do in that labyrinth after we’d left him for the finish line.
The infirmary door swung open on ancient hinges with a low groan. Though I knew he hadn’t been able to wander too far, still I could sense my executioner before he entered, stealing all of my focus in the process.
The Ripper moved with predatory grace between the beds, noting the dead with clinical detachment. When his gray eyes found mine, they held no warmth. No concern. Just cold assessment, like I was a tool that might break before being properly used.
The binding mark pulsed. He felt it too. I could tell by the way his jaw tightened. I’d have been lying if I said that didn’tgive me a sense of odd satisfaction. Served the fucker right. But where the magic burned me, it seemed to slide off him like water from a stone.
“Time to go, witch,” he said. “Dinner’s being served.”
I wanted to tell him exactly where he could shove his dinner, but arguing with a man who’d just sworn to kill me sounded like wasting far too much energy at the moment.
Instead, I stepped away. “You’ve such pleasant bedside manners. They must teach charm alongside murder at the big, bad hunter school.”
