Chapter 15 Harbinger
Silver light hit the house’s busted facade, throwing shadows across the peeling latticework. Years of weather had stripped the green paint down to rust, and that ugly shower curtain Rosebud had hung still flapped.
‘TWENTY DOWN, TEN MORE TO GO. GLORY TO THE FUCKIN’ REPUBLIC!’
Sabin―Terraknight―kneeled on one knee atop a compact platform of earth that he’d raised to reach the first floor. His broad shoulders blocked part of the moonlight as he worked, paintbrush in hand.
Ten had become nine after Rosebud. Nine became eight when Mandrake didn’t come home. Seven after Phoenix. Now he was crossing out the seven.
Making it six.
He dragged the brush across the plastic. It scraped more than painted, as the paint on the bristles had long dried up.
I laughed, but it came out hollow. The baby zmeu in my lap whined and pressed his cold beak against my neck.
“Yeah, Boy. I know,” I whispered. “I miss him too.”
That tally had started as a joke. Our way of counting down while giving the Republic the finger. Ten stubborn bastards too dumb to die.
Who were we kidding?
It was a fucking cry for help.
The brush paused. Even from down here, I could see Sabin’s shoulders shake.
The earth platform quivered slightly under his weight as pebbles tumbled from the structure, responding to his emotions.
He was taking this harder than the rest of us.
Quakelord had been like a younger brother to him, his drinking buddy. His pupil.
With a long, taxed exhalation, Sabin lowered the brush and stared at his handiwork.
I should call up to him. Tell him to come down. But we all had our ways of saying goodbye.
The Voices clawed at my skull like trapped rats. I shoved them into background noise and focused on Boy’s heartbeat against my ribs instead. Fast. Steady. Real.
Six left. The way we kept dropping, Terra would be up there again before the week ended.
Add another line. Cross out another number.
Another friend I couldn’t save.
Sabin finished and leaned back on his haunches. The six looked crooked, rushed. He inhaled a long breath and exhaled slowly. Then he wiped his cheeks and rose. The platform crumbled as he jumped down, pelting dirt onto the overgrown grass.
I tilted my head back and stared at the sky. Moonlight shifted behind the clouds, racing shadows across the yard toward the cottonwoods. Almost peaceful. If you ignored the bloodstains on the steps and bullet holes in the shutters.
If you pretended we weren’t already dead, just waiting for the Republic to make it official and ship in the next batch of expendables to fill our spots.
The shower curtain snapped in the wind. Rosebud’s message taunted us like a middle finger. Glory to the fucking Republic.
Even the stars seemed to mock us tonight. All that cold light, still shining while another of us was gone too soon. The world kept spinning like nothing had changed, like Quakelord’s death meant nothing at all.
That’s what pissed me off most. How beautiful everything looked when my heart was torn to pieces.
“Say what you want and stop hovering,” I muttered, not bothering to look over my shoulder.
Sabin had been standing in the shadows since he’d jumped down, probably waiting for me to acknowledge him. Or lose my shit. Wouldn’t be the first time. I was terrible company, but I didn’t want to be alone either. Not that I’d ever admit it to him.
His boots crunched on scattered dirt as he moved closer. The scent of jasmine clung to him, thick, with the lieutenant’s blood still on his skin. Part of me wanted to needle him about the target it would paint on his back if the Souleaters attacked us tonight. But I couldn’t talk shit about her.
Not after she’d saved Hummingbird.
After dealing with Quakelord, I’d portaled back to the pass and saw Gale and Pearl shouldering a battered but healed Hummingbird between them.
Then I came here and planted myself by this fountain.
Couldn’t face going inside yet. Couldn’t face the empty spaces where Quakelord’s voice used to be the loudest.
Sabin’s heavy footsteps halted beside me, and I finally met his eyes.
The bastard had an inch on my six-three and never let me forget it.
Built like a bear, muscles straining against his dark shirt.
Dried blood marked his left cheek, flaking in his five o’clock shadow.
His chin bobbed in acknowledgment, but those hazel eyes flickered with something that might have been worry.
“Did you find it?” he asked, voice careful.
Boy hurled himself from my lap, hit the ground in a tumble of wings and claws, and scrambled toward Sabin with excited chirps. The little sounds cut through some of the rage building in my chest.
Sabin dropped to one knee in the damp grass. “Come here, Sugar!” He spread his arms wide as the zmeu launched at his chest. The reunion lasted all of two seconds before Boy started squirming for freedom.
“Ungrateful little shit,” he muttered, releasing him. Then his eyes found mine again. “Well?”
“Nothing left to take.” I swallowed, and it felt like crushed glass going down. Thinking about the Shepherd, about what its power had done to Quakelord… My fingers drummed against my thigh, each tap sharper than the last, and I admitted, “There wasn’t… much of anything left of him.”
Sabin’s face went blank. We’d all seen what that energy bolt could do to flesh and bone.
“Just grab something from his room then,” he said, tucking his hands in his pockets.
“Maybe pull the queen from his chess set. Bastard loved protecting her more than winning.” His voice trailed off.
We both knew Quakelord’s favorite excuse every time he was about to lose a match.
Something we’d all heard nightly for years.
“‘What gentleman sacrifices a woman to win?’” we said in unison.
My vision blurred. Eyebrows trembled with the effort of holding it together. Not that Sabin hadn’t seen me break before, or me him, but we both preferred avoiding each other’s emotional wreckage when possible.
Real fucking warriors, the both of us.
He slumped down beside me with a long sigh. “He’d be cursing us both for sitting here moping.”
The smirk tugging at his mouth pulled a snort from my throat.
“Remember when he flipped the board that night the girls got drunk? Said Phoenix was distracting him on purpose.” I scrubbed at my face with dirty hands. “She wasn’t even in the room.”
“Course she was distracting him, he had the hots for her.” Sabin’s grin faded. “Twenty-eight years, and he never beat me. Not once.”
“Maybe you should’ve let him win. Just once.”
“Tried. He called me out every time.” Sabin shook his head. “Said pity victories weren’t victories at all.”
The silence stretched between us, filled only by the rustle of wind through the cottonwoods and Boy’s soft snuffling as he hunted for beetles in the grass. Somewhere in the distance, a night bird called—lonely, mournful.
Just like the rest of this godforsaken place.
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and stared off toward the trees.
“Damn. Not even a piece, huh?” His voice went flat, detached, as he pulled us back to his original question.
The way it did when reality cut too deep to feel.
“Figures, since he took that blast head-on.” Sabin turned to face me, jaw muscles tensed.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’ll say it anyway—it wasn’t your fault. ”
Then whose was it?
I gave him a fleeting glance and shrugged. He didn’t need to know how deep this guilt went. How it dug its claws into me, eating me from the inside out. How desperate it made me to find the monster who’d taken my brother. To end this before I lost anyone else.
Conin’s necklace burned against my chest. The black opal pendant had been my burden since I’d found his frozen body. A cruel reminder that his soul was still out there, trapped.
Because of him, I could hear the Souleaters.
But I’d almost been too late sensing those Ignises today. Too focused on what the Shepherd planned next instead of the immediate threat.
Could have lost everyone because I wasn’t paying attention.
Turning toward the northwest, where Solomon’s Rocks lay buried somewhere in the Curvature Carpathians—a hundred and fifty miles of jagged peaks and hidden valleys—I forced the words out.
“I heard him, you know.” The admission tasted like curdled milk. “But I figured he’d hold the attack until he got closer, like he usually does. He was still too far out to matter, so I didn’t…” I dragged my fingers through my hair. “Fuck!”
Restless energy shot through my veins, priming me for a battle I couldn’t have.
My knees bounced with the need to run after the bastard and face him once and for all.
After today? I wasn’t sure I could end him before he killed me.
And if I died, I’d leave my guild defenseless. Conin’s soul trapped forever.
“An attack like that could level entire cities,” I continued, shooting to my feet. The words stoked white-hot flames in my chest. “Pointless against moving targets, a waste of energy on a single guild.” I started pacing. “Had to be a test firing. Show me what he can do.”
“While picking off two of ours in the process,” Sabin said grimly. “We’d have been ash if he hadn’t withdrawn.”
“If this becomes his standard play, it’ll be more than two next time.
” I stopped pacing, muscles loosening as the energy bled out of me.
“The Republic won’t stand against that kind of firepower.
Millions of purebloods turned into feeding stock.
Think about how many Black Sheep would evolve into Shepherds overnight. ”
Sabin stayed quiet, letting me work through it.
“Not that it’d matter to us—we’d be dead.” I slumped back down beside him. “But the projector needs to survive. She’s the only one positioned to stop them from reaching those walls—maybe even end this for good.” My voice dropped as I added the last part.
“Think her plan will work?”