Page 14 of Bright Soul

He motioned for me to follow. There was a men’s restroom waiting just down the hall. Unlike the waiting room, which looked as if a hurricane had ripped through it, the restroom was mostly untouched. I could’ve used a shower, but this public space was better than nothing. I bent over one of the sinks and got to work with soap and lukewarm water, soon ringing the drain with my fuchsia blood.

My skin was purpled and puckered around the wounds as I scraped them clean with cheap paper towels. Endaeron hadmade the furrows across my armor and chest with his claws, ruining a new leather chest piece I’d painstakingly etched with runes next to the seams.I inspected the destruction with a tisk.

“What did you wish to discuss?” I asked. Not because I wanted to hear Garroway’s voice, but if I kept him talking, it was less likely the Hungering Darkness would rouse.

Garroway had changed into a new set of clothes since the last time I’d seen him. He undid his belt to tug the line of his pants down on one side and removed his shirt, revealing a gigantic blood rune. Its magic was dormant and black, forming three spiky rings of runes that encompassed most of his right side from hip to armpit. Four healed and scarred slashes crossed the rings haphazardly.

“I was wondering if there was any salvaging this, to regain control of myself,” he said.

I pictured the moment of his possession by the Hungering Darkness. Endaeron had made those scars to prevent this blood rune from… I leaned in, reading the intent off the many runes Garroway had tattooed onto his skin.

He’d wanted to make his body a cage. The intricate spell bore marks of suppression and containment. If Endaeron had not destroyed it immediately, Garroway would have gained allthe power of the Hungering Darkness with no foreseeable downsides.

It was unthinkable. And now he sought my help, as if I’d allow him such unchecked power.

“It is not possible,” I stated.

Such a flat answer displeased Garroway. He bared his fangs and said, “The truth, dimensional. Tell me what you know about how to fix these runes.”

Pain hooked behind my eyes the moment I thought to defy his order. I knew a great deal of things I wasn’t willing to open up and share, but I told him enough to soothe the poundingheadache setting in. “There is a pinprick of hope for you. Your kind has always used dimensional magic to make these blood runes,” I commented. “From a single weapon shattered into several pieces.”

“Yes. And your fool brother destroyed the part I possessed,” he stated through gritted teeth.

I tipped my head. “If you were to get a second piece…”

“There is nothing else that will fix the magic of these runes?” He demanded.

Again, the pain dug into my head. I hissed with all the banked hostility within me. He was poking a predator through the bars of its cage, and I was just about ready to snap off his finger for it.

I answered in a low voice. “The weapon you were using to make the runes was unique. Endaeron was the one who forged and shaped the original great sword. It was made less for carving intricate displays of runes like this”—I gestured to his body—“and more for branding the flesh of any he faced in battle. It marked body and soul alike for his control.”

“Ingenious,” Garroway breathed.

I was about to call itcrueland share that I’d convinced Endaeron to shatter it, but the remains of my goodwill shriveled up. The few pieces of the sword that’d come to Earth with us had ended up filtered into the hands of the blood barons. They used them to mark the skin of their victims, witches like Ben, who bore the Agonia rune embedded into him permanently.

I knew his type. I’d slain a couple vampires like him in my time searching for the pieces of the sword, trying to destroy Endaeron’s legacy before it endangered too many lives.

Unfortunately, I’d learned the hard way that destroying those shards also killed those who were being directly controlled by the man or woman who’d branded them with it. The mass casualties that’d followed when Endaeron had crushedGarroway’s piece a mere day ago were additional stains on his already black soul.

“This is Myuna’s work, marking souls, permanently branding others for control.” He traced one of the runes marked in his own flesh.

Hatred flared within me at the reverence in his tone. “Myuna had little to do with it,” I said, but he wasn’t listening anymore.

“She is the most powerful being I’ve met in my long life,” he continued. “A truegoddess, not like the imaginary figurehead witches pray to. And she has chosen me as her right hand. Since it’s not possible to repair this rune, as you’ve said, I think I will accept what she’s given me.” A slow, cruel smile shaped his lips.

The Void’s chill seeped into my voice. “That only means she will eat you last. You are a servant now, truly disposable to Myuna. She will slurp you up without a second thought, just like those two poor witches you brought before her,” I sneered. I finished scrubbing my wounds clean and threw away a bloodied wad of paper towels.

He jabbed at my enflamed skin with a finger. “Don’t take that tone with me, dimensional.”

I snarled as his control dug in yet again, this time swiping my claws at him. He reared back with vampiric reflexes. “You wanted honesty. Here it is: you are a fool to think you’re anything but a pawn,” I snapped, switching to full venom since he forbade cold judgment.

“Wait. Pause.” He held his hand palm up, and I froze.

I probed at his control, finding it as solid as Myuna’s.

His voice became a velvet drawl. “We don’t have to be enemies, dimensional. Don’t you want to see your purple-haired girl again?”

My whole body tensed, recognizing the threat.

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