Chapter 2
Selena’s fingers trembled around the needles she’d let slide from her coat sleeve, knuckles bleached white.
“A… I-I think I heard her too… before. And the others.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“But it can’t be Phoenix. She’s gone. Even if she somehow survived those Ignises, she wouldn’t have made it past sunrise. ”
The rogue fires painted stark shadows across her face, and her eyes blazed with an intensity I’d only seen once before—when she discovered her parents had arranged her marriage to a noble pureblood more than ten times her age.
She swallowed hard, her jaw stiff. “I don’t know what’s happening, but those aren’t our dead speaking, they can’t be.”
The line connecting me to the Black Guild exploded in an uproar.
“Phoenix…?” Terraknight’s familiar rumble filled the Transmitter. “Those bastards took her?”
Dove-white wings beat furiously above as Hummingbird circled over the square. “Didn’t Cap handle this already?”
“There was no time, you idiot!” Gale snapped, her airstrike scattering a pack of approaching Stalkers. “It was an ambush! And the projector was critical.”
A lone Glacie broke through the iele’s assault, its massive black wings carrying it straight for Harbinger. The creature passed right over Terraknight and Pearl as if they were invisible, its nightmarish face—a grotesque fusion of human skull and satyr—fixed solely on its target.
My pulse spiked.
Ice crystallized along the Glacie’s arms as it readied its strike.
I reached out with my blood magic, but Terraknight’s vines erupted first, ensnaring the beast mid-dive.
The ground shuddered. Pearl stepped forward, eyes blazing azure, raised her scaled arms, and drove an ice spear through its core.
They returned to their positions without a backward glance, protecting their captain with the seamless efficiency that came from years of fighting at his side.
I tracked Harbinger’s movements through the square, his form blurring between portals as he carved through the horde. His lips moved in a pattern I recognized—counting, just like in Sibiu. But this time he circled the same cluster of Stalkers once, twice, searching.
“Ember. North-east, five-hundred yards,” his voice came loud and clear through the din. “Front row, second Nebula from the right. Group of ninety-five.”
“Got it.”
The crack of Ember’s shot split the night. The Nebula’s leprous head snapped back, dark blood spraying from the hole between its beady eyes.
My fingers dug into Selena’s arm. “The Voices… they’re coming from the Stalkers.”
Then realization hit.
Harbinger had tracked that single voice through the chaos, hunting the creature that dared steal Phoenix’s final words, all while fighting to avoid getting killed.
He stood in the center of the square, monsters closing in, shoulders pulled back and muscular arms relaxed at his sides. A muscle twitched on his forehead as he tilted his head skyward. His battle-rage had morphed into ice-cold calculation.
“So now you’re after my friends?” The words carried the glint of a double-edged sword.
Phoenix’s mimicry still echoed its desperate plea, but fainter now, nearly lost among the other tortured souls. More shots rang out as Ember methodically eliminated each Stalker that carried sounds of the dead.
Harbinger vanished in a glitch and materialized thirty feet from the Nebula still speaking in Phoenix’s voice.
The creature struggled to its feet, riddled with bullet holes.
From her perch on the roof, Ember continued firing.
The fury in her rapid shots betrayed how desperately she wanted to silence the monster wearing her friend’s voice.
Metal clicked empty, but Ember kept pulling the trigger until Harbinger stepped into her line of sight. He waited, watched the Nebula struggle upright, then raised his arm in a wide arc. The halfmoon portal that shot from his hand cleaved the creature’s hairless head clean from its shoulders.
“I don’t want to—” Phoenix’s voice died mid-scream.
Time stopped. No one moved. No one breathed. The change in atmosphere was palpable, like the calm before a devastating storm.
Then it hit.
An invisible wave that made every muscle in my body tense. Hundreds of glowing eyes turned as one and fixed on a single target: Harbinger. The ground trembled as Stalkers converged on him from all directions.
Limuses howled, releasing the Gloom.
Glacies took to the skies by the dozens, dark leathery wings blotting out the moon. Gale and Hummingbird landed, flapping copper and silver wings to disperse the thickening sand rising around them.
Fear struck deep in my gut as I grabbed Selena’s arm and charged toward them. Instead of trampling us, the Stalkers split like a massive river, gray, rotten bodies writhing past.
My magic responded, rising to the surface with surprising ease despite the throbbing in my head. Pain seemed to fuel it rather than hinder it.
“Holy shit,” Hummingbird gasped as we reached them. His wings stuttered, nearly dropping him on his ass. “Projector—your face!”
Gale folded her crimson wings tight behind her back and pressed her palms together. Magic sparked under her hands as a shimmering barrier expanded from the contact, creating a Stalker-free air bubble.
Her gaze landed on me and traced what I supposed were the black veins spreading across my skin. “Those markings… they’re like Cap’s when he needs to—”
“Move!” Terraknight burst through the barrier, dripping dark blood everywhere. He skidded to a stop when he saw me, muscles tensed. “Fucking hell, you look like death warmed over. What happened to you?”
Your lying captain happened, I almost yelled at him, but the hunger twisted deeper, and their racing pulses made my fangs ache. “Focus on the Stalkers,” I managed through clenched teeth. “Just don’t let me die.”
“She’s in bloodlust,” Selena snapped, positioning herself between me and the others. “And we’re wasting time.”
An Ignis smashed against the wall, and a wave of static pulsed through the shield. The fine hair at my nape stood up. The clock was ticking, and we needed a blunt approach to lower the Stalker numbers, or none of us would go home tonight.
I’d lost my harmonization with the guild, but nothing stopped me from trying to establish a one-way connection with these hollow-brained monsters. Without the Nexus, I’d have to rely purely on Blood Manipulation.
“Sel, I need you to hold as many as you can,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “If I slip, you know what to do. At my command.”
Her grunt held a universe of disapproval, but I trusted her to snap my neck if I became a threat to the Black Guild.
Terraknight shifted closer. “Projector, what’s your plan?”
I didn’t respond.
Jasmine and cuscus grass—Selena’s magical signature—swirled around us as she summoned her power. My own magic rose to meet it.
What little blood remained in my body surged through my veins, awakening tired muscles.
My heart raced, but the spike in adrenaline made the hunger cramps hit harder.
I gritted my teeth, using the next wave of pain to push my control outward, searching through the sea of Stalkers.
Red crept into my vision. My fangs pierced my bottom lip as I held back a scream.
The world slowed to a crawl.
I pressed a hand against the air shield and squeezed my eyes shut. “Now, Sel!”
Selena’s magic took hold. Three-quarters of the Stalkers in my radius froze, their viscous blood slowing, heartbeats stuttering to a halt.
“A,” Selena’s voice strained, “I-I can’t… hold them for long.”
She didn’t need to.
Their mental barriers were paper thin, some nonexistent. Slipping into their empty minds was easy. It was their sheer numbers that stretched my blood magic to the breaking point.
I couldn’t stand the dried blood cracking across my cheeks. The itch was unbearable.
I felt Selena’s control slipping, her magical threads snapping one by one. She might have called another warning, but it was lost under my heart slamming in my ears and barbed wire tightening around my stomach.
Taking a ragged breath, I focused. Just take over, kill them all, then feed. Warm, metallic liquid trickled down my upper lip. More blood I couldn’t afford to lose, but I licked it anyway, desperate for every drop.
I zigzagged my magic between the Stalkers, snagged their black, gelatinous auras with a ruthless fist. My Blood Manipulation moved with the speed of lightning, bright red and branching in hundreds of different paths. It acted like a magnet as, one by one, it claimed their minds.
Six hundred and fifty-five Stalkers swarmed the battlefield. Far more than Harbinger had predicted. And every single one was now under my command.
Acid squirted up my throat. Burned my tongue.
“Holy shit, is that Projector’s doing?” Hummingbird’s voice threatened to break my concentration.
My legs trembled under me. The hunger wrangled my insides, and my head weighed so heavy it felt like I carried each Stalker’s weight.
The Transmitter buzzed again.
“She’s separating them by type. What the fuck?” Terraknight’s shout pierced my skull.
I forced my eyes open. Through the red haze clouding my vision, I saw dozens of Stalkers laid impaled on his earth creations, ichor mixed with ice shards melting in puddles.
Good Derzelas! Had the Stalkers retaliated before I took control?
My first priority: stop breathing. The outliers’ proximity pushed me over the limits of starvation. I needed to resist the temptation before I lost focus.
I commanded the Nebulas toward the idle Limuses. Some Stalkers still fought back, a spark of intelligence trying to expel me, but I pushed harder, crushing their defiance. Fresh blood gushed from my nose. My focus narrowed to a pinpoint; the world beyond fading to shadow.
Someone shouted, “Kill at will,” and the night lit up.