Blood Binds (Beyond the Gloom #2)

Prologue

Thirty-five years ago.

Blood paved my passage through Medias like a curse upon the snow. Each step bled a darker shade into the white, a stain that the monsters would track come dawn.

The gash across my chest had soaked my shirt rust-red, and my right shoulder burned where the Glacie’s ice shard had punched through muscle and scraped bone.

Ma’s immortal blood, strong and defiant, fought to knit flesh back together with reluctant threads, but even that ancient power faltered, as if the night conspired to end me right there in the ice.

The Chronoportal had drained my magic reserves to nothing. I’d managed thirty miles from the slaughter near Sibiu before my legs gave out and I lost control of the portal.

Half of my guild lay dead in Dumbrava forest. Good people. Experienced fighters who’d survived a decade of this war.

The Stalkers had known exactly where to strike. Where we’d be vulnerable. Like they’d studied our formation, understood our tactics. If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone had sold us out, or given them a goddamn map.

I shook my head and passed through the massive stone gates of the 8th Ward, where Republic words sculpted in relief gathered dust and bird shit.

‘Scientia potentia est’—Knowledge is power.

Rich coming from the leeches who excelled at ignoring the truth.

What good was knowledge when you systematically buried your head in the ground and refused to act?

Bunch of stupid zealots.

I stumbled into the city, boots slipping on ice-slicked stone, and coughing more blood. At this rate, I’d leave a trail a child could follow. Fucking brilliant.

Medias after dark belonged to scavengers, but the library offered shelter. Granite walls that were three feet thick. Heavy oak doors with iron reinforcement. A defensible position if I could make it that far without bleeding out.

My boots slid in the thin sheen of my own blood and icy cobblestones.

The shadow of Medias Library rose ahead.

The outer iron gates gave little resistance, which I was grateful for.

Then I hefted the main doors open with my shoulder, panting, allowing the weighty fuckers to amble shut behind me as I entered.

The main library chamber stretched into shadow, thick beams arching overhead. Shelves loomed, towering as if acting as my very own gallows. I raked in a stuttering breath, glancing around.

Dozens of brass lanterns hung from chains, their glass covers clouded by grime. Dust motes danced through moonlight from broken windows, and the air reeked of parchment and decay—or perhaps the decay was just me, my wound open and festering.

Dad used to drag Conin and me here when we were young. Before the Total Rendition, when halfbloods could travel between wards without papers and interrogations. Before everything went to shit.

I collapsed between the stacks, back against cracked spines and moldering pages. The musty books reminded me of better times. When the worst threat was some prissy librarian lecturing us about proper text handling.

Pretentious bastards.

The night’s chill cut through my clothes. Winter in this part of the continent meant killing temperatures, especially after losing too much blood. My teeth chattered. I clenched my jaw and leaned my head against the shelf, focusing on the sharp pain instead of the cold seeping into my bones.

At least the walls would hold against whatever prowled outside. For now.

Howls drifted through the ruins. Distant, but closing in. My blood trail would draw them into the city like a dinner bell. Either they’d find me here, or dawn would force them back to their holes.

Fifty-fifty odds. Maybe worse.

Then I heard it.

A voice needled my head. Not my guild’s usual chatter through the Harmonization. Something else. Someone calling to me. Familiar.

Static hissed through the mental link, like two radio frequencies overlapping. I dragged a bloodied hand over my face. Fresh blood welled from reopened cuts.

“Harbinger?” Gale’s voice cut sharp and clear. “Are you alright?” Wind whipped past her—she was airborne. Still alive.

My chest tightened. The Chronoportal had worked. Got them out before the massacre.

Worth burning through my reserves if it kept them breathing.

“I’m fine,” I said, teeth gritted.

“You don’t sound fine.” Pearl’s voice was steady as always. “Where are you?”

“8th Ward library.”

“Stay put until we reach you.”

Static filled the link. Then the other voice took over, pulled deeper. Multilayered echoes that bypassed my ears and went straight to the bone. Recognition hit like a sledgehammer to the gut.

I knew that voice. Would know it anywhere.

“He’s calling me.” I pushed against the shelf, forcing myself upright. Torn muscles screamed. Vision blurred. My knees buckled, and I braced against the frame as a book thudded to the floor. “I need to check—”

“Don’t you dare leave that building,” Terraknight growled. “You’re half-dead, and those bastards are circling the city.”

But I couldn’t ignore him. My brother’s voice carried childhood words he’d used when storms made him afraid.

“Radu? Radu, where are you? I can’t find you in the dark.”

I’m coming.

Wind struck my face as I rushed through the library’s doors. Medias had been transformed into a white grave. Ice cracked overhead, and I jumped back as a massive icicle shattered to the floor where I’d been standing.

Close. Too fucking close.

I stepped over it and pressed forward, Conin’s voice buzzing in my head, drowning out my guild’s protests to stay inside. Stay inside. Stay inside.

The storm had passed, leaving killing cold and silence thick as death.

I passed the ward’s Postal Office, squatting on the corner, its red brick facade split down the middle.

Across from it, the Tax Registry’s timber-framed walls leaned inward, the upper floors jutting over the street.

Wrought-iron lanterns stood dark on every corner.

The electrical grid had failed decades ago when the power station in the 9th Ward fell to a Nebula pack.

“Cap, we’re tracking your position,” Hummingbird said during a break in Conin’s summons. “Just wait—”

But the voice called again. Stronger now. Desperate. The same tone my little brother used when fever dreams made him cry for me to find him in whatever nightmare had claimed his sleep.

“I’m scared, brother. It’s so cold here. Why won’t you answer me?”

My boots crunched across powdered ground toward the central plaza. Each step sent electric jolts into my shoulder. Didn’t matter. Couldn’t stop. Not when my brother needed me.

Hendrik’s Bakery sign—Fresh Bread Daily Since 1847—creaked on rusty hinges as I followed the voice to the Founders’ Memorial Fountain.

The three-tiered marble structure had once sprayed water from the mouths of three carved dragons.

Now the top tier was blown to smithereens and the northernmost dragon’s head lay in pieces in the basin.

“I’m here, brother,” he said.

I looked past the broken fountain. Through the curtains of white, a dark shape slumped against the memorial wall.

My heart stopped.

No. Please, no.

I lurched forward, white drifts swallowing my legs to the knee. The figure sat motionless, winter settling on familiar shoulders. That tilt of his head. Platinum-blond hair almost lost in white.

My throat closed. I couldn’t breathe.

I rushed to him. Waded across sleet. The wind bit my face, but I felt as if I were moving in quicksand.

“Conin.” His name came out cracked. Broken.

He lay against frozen stone, the snow rising over him like it meant to bury the last warmth he’d ever given the world or given me.

Like a shroud. It clung to his dark-blond lashes, his face, his chest, his still hand—that same hand I had once steadied when it was too small to lift a weapon.

It now, in a frozen fist, clutched Dad’s sunsteel blade.

Moonlight glinted and bled over the frostbitten steel, appearing pale as death itself.

My body failed me.

Knees hit the cobbles hard enough to send a crack into the silence. Then there was nothing. No wind. No breath. Just the quiet ache.

And beneath the snow, older layers were soaked with his blood, dark and frozen. It seeped up through the newer frost as if it needed me to witness it.

With trembling hands, I brushed powder from his face. Couldn’t look at his eyes. Not yet. The cold had preserved him. He looked as if he were sleeping. Like any moment he’d complain about me waking him too early for training.

Please wake up. I’m here now. I found you.

His skin held the blue-white of marble statuary. The birthmark on his right temple—the stupid thing I’d always poked fun at—stood stark against bloodless skin. His lips curved in a ghost of a smile, as if he’d found peace before the cold took him.

Silver shone at his throat. The black opal necklace Ma had given him on his twentieth birthday. Twin of the one I’d lost in a camp fight.

My fingers closed around the gemstone. Biting cold. Like the rest of him.

The chain snapped with a brittle ping.

Something cracked in my chest.

I pressed the pendant against my ribs and doubled over. No sound came out. Grief had stolen my voice, left me hollow and shaking beside my little brother’s body. It built and built like the downpour of snow until it was crushing, suffocating me under its weight.

He’d fought until the end. Died with Dad’s blade in his hand, defending himself against the monsters.

And I hadn’t been there.

I took the Sunsteel too, prying his frozen fingers from the pommel. My throat burned, but nothing came.

A thunderous crack split the air.

The distinctive hiss of Hummingbird’s air wave sliced the snow. Terraknight’s roar shook the ground, and for a split second, silence reigned over the plaza before agonized howls echoed into the night.

The bastards had sniffed my blood and made it into the city.

Pearl reached me first. Her breath caught when she saw what lay in front of me. The others gathered close.

“Radu…” Pearl’s voice quavered.

“He’s gone,” I whispered, and my stomach churned. “Conin’s gone.”

“He shouldn’t have died alone,” Hummingbird hissed. “Not like this.”

“Captain.” Gale squeezed my shoulder. “Look.”

A few feet behind the monument, a barren tree rose from the ground. I tilted my head, and my breath caught at the sweep of branches reaching skyward.

“Cherry blossom,” she whispered. “You always said they reminded you of home.”

“The tree where you and Conin sparred as boys,” Hummingbird added, his voice soft. “You told us about the petals falling around you.”

I could only nod as the world blurred. All I wanted was to gather my little brother and carry him home. But the Gloom lay too thick between here and there. We’d never make it together.

Terraknight kneeled beside me, gripping my other shoulder. “It’s fitting. A guardian from your childhood to watch over him.”

The branches reached over the monument. For a heartbeat, I saw them heavy with pink flowers. Heard Conin’s laughter as we sparred together.

The frozen earth would deny him burial now. But here, under these familiar branches…

I looked to the east. The sky was already lightening.

Dawn would take him away, leave nothing but dust beneath this tree. But in spring, I’d return for whatever remained.

“I’ll come back when the blossoms wake. You’ll rest beneath home, brother.” I cupped his frozen cheek one last time. “Wait for me here. Just until spring.”

I love you, little brother.