Chapter 19 Rune
rune
. . .
The human territory west of Fate Hollow in the winter always reminded me of a gray monochromatic painting, and it was fucking depressing. Gray sky, gray snow, and gray fog. The cold bit through the fabric of this suit, no matter how many warming enchantments were built into it.
Our suit-clad feet crunched over frost-crusted dirt. There was a faint hiss of wind weaving between the dead pines around us. The village looked as peaceful as it always had, with many supernaturals living together.
But the peace had been shattered for the day.
Two human corpses were reported here, and everyone was blaming a family of trolls.
Jesper’s voice broke the quiet around us. “We verify, document, and de-escalate. This is just an investigation. No escalation.”
Fates, he was hot when he went full-agent mode.
“Copy,” Dimitri murmured beside me, his red eyes glinting prettily from the snow’s glare.
Slater gave a mock salute, a small Snakey dancing between his fingers. “No stabbing unless the lead agent says so. Got it, venom baby?”
“Slater,” Jesper warned, not even turning. “I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Slater grinned, snowflakes catching in his red hair. “Just keeping it fun, boss man. And Rune stabs when she flirts.”
“Remind me to stab you later then,” I teased him softly.
“I won’t forget you said that.” He winked.
My chaos manifestation materialized before me, hissing at Slater. “Unworthy!”
“The Fates disagree with you,” he sputtered.
Worthy faded back into me.
“Rune, Worthy is being mean to me again!” Slater sniffled, and Snakey licked his tear away.
“Poor Havoc baby,” I cooed.
He nodded. “You should make me feel better.”
“Later.” Zuko bumped his shoulder. “We have a mission to focus on.”
Koa fell in beside me, his phoenix fire simmering just over his skin. The air around him shimmered faintly, keeping the snow from landing on him. “How are you feeling, little vixen?”
I nodded. “I’m good. Are you?”
He offered me a half-smile. “Yeah. I just want to spend some time with you soon.”
“I want that, too.” I reached out and squeezed his hand, sending my feelings for him down the bond.
He exhaled deeply and smiled at me.
We were finally approaching the troll family’s home. It was a stone hut carved into the ground. Only two shapes lingered near the main fire pit, and their blue-colored hair was dim in the firelight. They watched us approach with expressions between suspicion and exhaustion.
Jesper raised his hands, palms out, to show he wasn’t a threat. “We’re here on Council orders. We need to ask a few questions about what happened last night.”
A teenage troll with bright blue hair stepped forward. “I’m Krev. Dad and I didn’t mean to kill them. I swear.”
“You didn’t?” I asked, studying him.
“They came here,” Krev said quickly, fists curling at his sides. “They had weapons. They tried to take my sister. They tried injecting her with something, but the needle broke. You know, trolls are hard to harm. Um, but my father stopped them. We—” He stopped, voice catching. “We didn’t mean to—”
From the shadows of the hut behind him, a deeper rumble came. “Enough, boy.”
A troll with darker blue hair stepped forward. “We defended our own. They forced our hand.”
Jesper nodded respectfully. “May we see the bodies?”
The man gestured toward a storage hut at the edge of the clearing. The stench of blood hit us well before we reached it.
Kyle wrinkled his nose. “That’s not a normal scent.”
Two humans lay broken with their necks at odd angles and blood dripping from their noses.
Dimitri crouched beside the corpses. “This one’s blood isn’t right,” he muttered.
“Maybe he had that supernatural blood injector thing?” Slater offered, peering over his shoulder.
“No,” Dimitri said, voice firm. “This is something different.”
I knelt beside the corpse and looked at the blood dripping from his nose. Something glimmered in it. There were tiny shards of black metal flowing with the dark red. The shards vibrated faintly, humming like an insect.
“Koa,” I asked. “Do you feel that? Do you know what it could be?”
He crouched beside me, eyes narrowing. “Human tech. Military grade. The blood’s humming with nanobots. The Human Network Resistance mentioned it being used often by another resistance faction, but they didn’t enjoy using them unless they had to.”
Slater’s brows knit. “So, it’s a human thing?”
Arban hung near the doorway, her voice echoing. “Another human resistance faction?”
“One that hates supernaturals and magic,” Koa answered. “Instead of combining magic and tech, they just want to eradicate supernaturals with tech only.”
“All species have those with superiority complexes,” Dimitri said bitterly.
“But it doesn’t make sense that they would try to take her. Only the faction we’re dealing with has been doing shit like that,” I pointed out.
“This is our resistance, I’m sure. Lysa,” Jesper told the intelligence analyst, “collect a blood sample and send it to the lab.”
She bent down and collected a sample in a vial, and the nanobots slithered around robotically. I’d seen human tech fused with magic before, specifically when they’d taken me. The nanobots, or whatever was in the blood, weren’t infused with magic. It was pure tech. Something about that unnerved me.
Eleanor knelt beside the oldest troll, her voice calming. “Tell me what happened, please. Everything.”
He hesitated before sighing. “They broke down our door and grabbed my daughter. I hit one with my hammer. My son stabbed the other with his own tech-like knife. We didn’t mean to kill. We only—” He stopped, eyes glistening. “We only wanted to stop her from being taken.”
Dimitri’s gaze flicked to Jesper. “Compelling him would confirm it.”
Jesper nodded. “Do it.”
“Hey, I can make others tell the truth, too,” Zuko pouted, crossing his arms.
“Sorry, but House of Torment doesn’t want you to rely on your special powers,” Jesper said apologetically.
“Good thing House of Twilight expects us to use our special powers to our advantage,” I muttered under my breath.
Zuko pouted more. “Must be nice.”
Slater chuckled. “House of Torment even torments its own.”
I couldn’t see Zuko’s eyes because of his bandage, but I knew he was glaring at Slater.
Dimitri’s eyes glowed as he made eye contact with the man. “You will tell us the truth. All of it.”
The man stiffened. “My son and I killed them because they tried to take my daughter. We buried their weapons in the snow. My mate hid our daughter.”
Jesper straightened slowly. “Cut and dry self-defense. Now, the question is, why did the humans target you?”
Tobias’s voice crackled over comms. “Found a burned camp half a mile into human territory. No bodies, but there are rations and burn marks. Someone torched the camp but failed to do much damage.”
Tobias, Jesse, April, and Sylver were searching for any human activity around the village.
Jesse added, “Looks like they left in a hurry. Maybe after word got out about the human’s death.”
“Or maybe,” Lysa said, “they wanted us to find it.”
“Or worse,” I added, feeling queasy from the nanobots squirming in the blood. “They witnessed their human’s death from the nanobots and bolted.”
The wind howled.
Our comms screeched with a blaring static before a distorted voice came through it, “Shipment East…Safehouse…Operation Whimzle.”
Every muscle in my body went taut. That name burned in my head like acid.
Aura Whimzle.
Allison Whettlock.
The human who’d worn an imp’s persona and betrayed us. I’d genuinely thought she was a friend, but she orchestrated me being taken and even framed me.
My breath hitched. “Jesper,” I whispered. “Did you hear that?”
His jaw tightened. “I heard.”
Dimitri looked at me sharply. “Aura”
“Has to be.” I swallowed hard. “She’s the daughter of their leader.”
Koa’s flames flared brighter, melting snow at his feet. “If the Human Resistance Network is behind this—”
“I don’t think it’s them,” Lysa interrupted, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. “Think about it. Why the nanobots?”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “But I doubt they’re working together.”
Eleanor gasped. “What if they’re trying to start a war? Pinning this on the faction we’re having issues with?”
“That makes far too much sense,” I said.
“Kyle, go get the weapons. Kane, go with her,” Jesper ordered them. “Arban and Eleanor, go talk to the daughter of the family. Everyone else, look for clues in and around this family’s home.”
We moved back toward the main hut. I could feel eyes on us from the villagers, but the family was eager to cooperate with us.
My magic itched under my skin as we walked inside. Warmth clung to the air, thick with smoke from the fire. I scanned the small kitchen, looking for anything out of place. A sterile scent caught my nose. It was out of place here.
I turned toward the refrigerator.
“Slater,” I called for him. “Give me a lift.”
He sauntered over, a smirk playing on his lips. “I’ll give you a lift any day, venom baby.”
“Bend down,” I ordered him.
“You sure you wouldn’t rather me get on my knees?” He crouched.
“I would, but not during a mission, Havoc baby.” I climbed onto his shoulders, balancing with my hands in his hair. “Don’t move too much.”
“Not promising anything, venom baby,” he said, and desire flooded the bond from him. “All I’d have to do is flip you around, and…”
“Slater,” Jesper warned from the doorway.
“Working, boss.” Slater steadied his hands on my thighs. “Totally professional.”
I reached up and felt along the top of the fridge. My fingers brushed something cold. I pulled a small thumb drive wrapped in paper down before sliding down Slater’s back.
“So soon?” Slater whined.
“Look at this.”
Jesper took the thumb drive from me, frowning. “Why would the trolls have this?”
“They wouldn’t,” I said. “Humans planted it.”
Koa’s voice turned sharp. “Framing seems to be their favorite play.”
Slater flicked his wrist, summoning Snakey. The creature hissed softly as it slithered across the drive and dove in.
“Well, well,” Slater drawled, his eyes glowing a brighter red. “Encrypted. But not for long.”
A ripple of static hummed through the air.
“We need conflict, not peace,” Slater muttered. “It’s what the correspondence says between the humans and this family, but it’s the same shit they used on Koa’s dad and Rune. Fake.”
My blood turned to ice.
Jesper’s fists clenched. “The Human Council swore to handle its own.”
“They failed,” Dimitri growled. “Other factions are still operating under the Human Council’s nose.”
“Clearly,” I scoffed.
Outside, the villagers began to gather. Murmurs grew louder as rage spread through the village.
“They’ll want blood,” Lysa said quietly. “Human blood.”
We moved back outside, and Jesper stepped forward, raising his voice. “Enough! The Supernatural Council will handle this.”
“The Council never handles anything,” an imp spat. “Two humans die, and you come running. Our children vanish, and you stay silent!”
Jesper’s expression didn’t flinch, but I felt the tension rolling off him. “You have my word. This breach will be corrected, and for the record, we investigate every missing child report we receive. There have been no child disappearances from this village in the past two decades.”
They huffed.
Jesper growled lowly in warning.
Eleanor and Arban appeared from the house.
“We’ll ensure the treaty stands,” Arban said, voice carrying through the storm. “Justice will be served. I promise you.”
The crowd hesitated, their anger cooling under the weight of her promise.
Jesper exhaled slowly and turned back to us. “Collect the bodies. Ship them to the Human Council’s gate.”
Rhyse, Zuko’s mentor, moved forward. His shadows engulfed both humans before he disappeared and reappeared a few moments later. “Done.”
Jesper nodded once. “Good. We’ll brief Sabine tonight. Everyone else—memorandums on my desk by morning.”
“Homework,” Slater groaned.
“My favorite,” Dimitri purred.
“You would say that,” Koa grunted.
“Don’t tempt me,” Jesper shot back. “I’ll double it.”
“Please don’t,” the rest of us said quickly.
We started back toward the wayfaer portal next to the fae portal in Fate Hollow, near the edge of Fate Hollow Academy. The snow crunched under our feet the whole way there. The air felt heavier now.
Humans had caused many issues with supernaturals through the years, but we fought hard for that fucking peace treaty. My mom worked her ass off to get it, and what good was it? The humans kept trying us.
Beside me, Dimitri slid his hand into mine, giving a quiet squeeze. “You did good,” he murmured. “Found the clue we needed.”
“I wish it didn’t feel like a bad omen,” I whispered.
Slater fell into step on my other side, his grin spreading on his lips. “Hey, venom baby, you’re getting scary good at this investigator thing. It’s so hot.”
“Everything I do is hot to you,” I said, shoving his shoulder lightly.
“True,” he said, winking. “Shove me again, venom baby.”
Tobias jogged up from behind us, groaning loudly, “Stop flirting with my sister!”
Slater barked a laugh and, before I could react, scooped me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Never, brother-by-mating!”
Sylver said something to Tibby, and he stopped intervening because she successfully distracted him.
I adored her.
“Slater!” I yelped, pounding his back. “Put me down!”
“Not until you admit I’m your favorite!” he said, ignoring Koa’s eye roll, Zuko’s scoff, and Dimitri’s exasperated sigh.
“I don’t have favorites!” I said between laughs.
Jesper glanced over his shoulder, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Careful, Slater. If she bites you, you’ll regret it.”
“If she bites me, I’ll be blessed even more than I already am!” Slater said cheerfully.
“Unworthy!” My manifestation hissed into being.
Snakey appeared and coiled around it, and they started to roll around on the ground.
The wind whipped through my hair as we crossed Fate Hollow Academy’s wards, laughter mixing with the hiss of snow and magic.
Jesper slowed, glancing north toward the horizon where the clouds thickened like bruises. “Operation Whimzle,” he murmured. “Shipment east, and safehouse. I need to look into this more.”
“We will,” Dimitri said. “I hate to say it, but I think the humans are just getting started.”
“Ugh,” I groaned dramatically, letting Slater carry me. “Don’t jinx us, overachiever.”
“The humans are always up to no good,” Morgan said, her voice thick with anger.
“Can’t argue with that,” Koa agreed.