CHAPTER 31: THE HUNTERS ARRIVE

Kaelen pov

The explosion shattered the night.

The entire house shook as the front wall erupted inward in a spray of stone and splintered wood. Kaelen was thrown backward, crashing into Serenya’s bookshelf. Books and artifacts rained down around him as dust filled the air. He hit the floor hard, the impact driving what little air he had from his lungs.

Pain radiated through his back and shoulders, adding to the constant ache in his chest. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything through the dust and debris, couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears.

"Fuck!" Serenya’s voice cut through the chaos. "They found us already!"

Through the settling dust, a figure stepped through the massive hole where the door had been. He was enormous...easily seven feet tall with shoulders broad enough to fill the doorway. Muscles rippled beneath his clothes with each movement, and his skin had an unnatural gray tint that spoke of something fundamentally wrong beneath the surface.

Even without his full Aether sense, Kaelen could feel it. The same wrongness he’d sensed from the engineered creature they’d fought weeks ago. The same artificial, corrupted energy that felt like death wearing the skin of life.

This man wasn’t fully human anymore.

Serenya was already moving, though Kaelen could see the exhaustion in the way her hands trembled as she grabbed a blade from the wall. She yanked her silver hair back into a ponytail with practiced speed, but her breathing was already labored. She’d used too much power getting them here, maintaining the wards, fighting their way out of the trial. Now it was catching up to her.

The man turned his head slowly, surveying the room with those glowing green eyes. When he moved, it was with the same unnatural speed Kaelen had seen in the Marches creatures...it was predatory and wrong.

One moment he stood at the entrance. The next, he was outside again. When he returned seconds later, he carried something.

Joanna.

The water mage hung limp in his grip, blood trickling from her temple and matting her dark hair. She must have been keeping watch outside when he’d taken her down.

Tiara pushed herself up from where she’d been resting in the corner, wind already gathering around her raised hands. But her face was pale, her movements slow. Like all of them, she was running on empty.

The man looked at Joanna’s unconscious body for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then, almost casually, he threw her.

Joanna’s body flew through the air like a broken doll. Tiara caught her with a cushion of wind at the last second, but the effort made her stagger. The strain of catching that much weight showed on her face as both women hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. Joanna’s head lolled at a sickeningly wrong angle before Tiara managed to cradle it properly.

Kaelen tried to reach for his Aether. Desperately, frantically, he pulled at the power that should have answered him. It was right there, he could sense it like a light just beyond a closed door, but the moment he tried to touch it, his chest exploded with agony so intense his vision went white.

He collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, gasping. A scream built in his throat but came out as a strangled whimper. His whole body shook with the effort of staying conscious through the pain.

Nothing. The power was there, tantalizingly close, but it wouldn’t come. The suppression effect still had him in its grip, and trying to force it only made everything worse.

He was defenseless. Completely, utterly defenseless.

Serenya moved between the man and the others, blade ready despite the way her hands shook. The man studied her for a moment, head tilting like he was assessing prey. Then he attacked.

He was fast. Impossibly fast for something his size. His fist came at Serenya’s head like a battering ram. She barely managed to duck under it, using every bit of her training and experience to read the attack. Her blade flashed toward his exposed ribs in a perfect counter-strike. The edge should have cut deep, should have opened him to the bone.

It barely scratched him.

The sound was wrong...metal on stone rather than metal on flesh. His skin was reinforced with that same corrupted Aether, turned into something harder than normal human tissue.

The man’s backhand caught Serenya across the face before she could recover from her failed attack. The impact spun her around and sent her crashing into the wall hard enough to crack stone. She slid down slowly, blood streaming from her nose and a cut above her eye.

Tiara sent a blast of wind at his back while he was distracted. It hit him hard enough to lift furniture and make him stumble forward a step, but he recovered immediately. When he turned toward her, those glowing eyes held no anger, no emotion at all.

Kaelen forced himself to his feet, using the wall for support. Every movement sent fresh waves of pain through his chest. He reached for his Aether again, knowing it was useless but unable to stop trying. He had to do something to help.

The pain drove him back to his knees immediately. His chest felt like it was being crushed from the inside, like his ribs were splintering into his lungs. Tears streamed down his face as he gasped for air that wouldn’t come.

The man spoke then, his voice rough and damaged like his vocal cords had been burned and reformed. "Valerius."

Then he moved toward Kaelen with that terrifying speed, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

Serenya threw herself in his path despite her bleeding face, despite the way she could barely hold her blade steady. Her strike caught his arm, opening a gash that would have crippled a normal person. Blood that looked too dark, almost black, seeped from the wound.

He didn’t even flinch. His fist drove into her stomach, lifting her completely off her feet. The air exploded from her lungs in a pained gasp. She crashed through what remained of the furniture and lay still, curled around her injured middle.

Echo launched himself at the man with a snarl that shook the house. The massive wolf’s crystalline teeth aimed for the man’s throat, powerful jaws ready to tear and rend. The man caught him mid-air like he weighed nothing, his reinforced hands closing around Echo’s body.

For a moment, the wolf and man were locked in place. Then the man threw Echo through the remaining wall. The wolf’s yelp was cut short as he disappeared into the darkness outside, followed by the crash of his body hitting something hard.

Kaelen tried one more time, pulling at his Aether with everything he had. The agony was so intense he screamed, the sound raw and desperate. But nothing came. Just pain. Just the crushing certainty that he was going to watch everyone die and couldn’t do anything to stop it.

The man’s hand closed around Kaelen’s throat and lifted him off the ground.

Kaelen clawed at the iron grip, feet kicking uselessly in the air. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. The man’s glowing eyes studied him with something like curiosity, as if he were examining an interesting insect.

"The Valerius heir," the man said slowly, his damaged voice making each word sound like grinding stone. "Weaker than expected."

Tiara hit him with everything she had left. Wind roared through the room with enough force to tear the remaining furniture apart and send debris flying. The man staggered, his grip on Kaelen loosening for just a moment.

Kaelen dropped to the floor, gasping and choking. His vision was graying at the edges, consciousness flickering like a dying candle.

The man turned toward Tiara with deliberate menace. She sent another blast of wind, but it was visibly weaker now. She was spent, running on fumes and sheer determination. The man walked through it like it was nothing more than a strong breeze.

His fist caught her in the ribs. Kaelen heard bones crack from across the room...multiple breaks, the sound sickeningly clear. Tiara’s scream cut off abruptly as she collapsed, struggling to draw breath with damaged lungs. Blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

Serenya tried to stand, got halfway up with her blade in hand, and fell back down. Her face was swelling where he’d hit her, one eye already closing. She fumbled for something, anything to use as a weapon, but her hands couldn’t seem to grip properly.

The man picked Kaelen up again, this time by his shirt, lifting him until they were eye to eye. "The council wants you alive," he said, his tone almost conversational. "But they didn’t say how many pieces."

His free hand drew back, fist clenched, preparing for a blow that would shatter bone.

Serenya threw something from the floor...one of the fallen artifacts, a crystal sphere that pulsed with stored power. It exploded on impact with a flash of light and concussive force that knocked everyone back. Kaelen hit the floor again, ears ringing.

When his vision cleared, the man was still standing, though parts of his exposed skin were smoking and blistered. But Serenya had collapsed completely now, the effort of throwing the artifact taking the last of her strength. She lay face down, motionless.

The man looked at each of them in turn, taking inventory of his work. Tiara, curled on her side, breathing in shallow, wet gasps that suggested punctured lungs. Blood pooled beneath her. Joanna, still unconscious from the initial attack, her breathing worryingly shallow. Serenya, face down and unmoving. Echo, somewhere in the rubble outside if he was even still alive.

And Kaelen, who couldn’t even stand without support, who couldn’t summon even a flicker of his power.

They were finished. No magic, no strength, no way out.

The man reached for Kaelen again, those massive hands ready to finish what he’d started.

Then, from somewhere outside, came the sound of footsteps. Multiple sets, moving fast toward the house. Voices calling out...city guards, drawn by the explosion and the noise.

The man’s head snapped toward the sound. His corrupted senses apparently picked up something more than just the guards approaching. He stood there for a long moment, weighing his options.

He looked back at Kaelen, at the broken bodies scattered across the demolished room.

"Next time," he said in that ruined voice. "Next time, there won’t be interruptions."

He dropped Kaelen and walked toward the hole in the wall. At the threshold, he paused and looked back one more time, as if memorizing the scene.

Then he was gone, disappearing into the night with that same unnatural speed that had brought him here.

Kaelen lay on the floor where he’d fallen, unable to move. His chest was on fire, every breath agony. Around him, his companions were equally broken. Tiara’s breathing was wet and labored...definitely punctured lungs, maybe worse. Serenya hadn’t moved since throwing that artifact. Joanna’s head wound was still bleeding slowly.

They were alive, but barely. And only because something about the approaching guards had made the man decide to leave.

Kaelen tried to crawl toward Tiara, but his arms wouldn’t support his weight. He collapsed, cheek pressed against the cold floor, watching her struggle to breathe. Each of her breaths was shorter than the last, more desperate.

They needed help. Needed healing. But the guards approaching would arrest them on sight. They were wanted criminals who’d just been found at the scene of a massive explosion.

And the man would be back. He’d said as much. Next time, there would be no interruptions.

Kaelen’s vision was narrowing, darkness creeping in from the edges. He fought it, knowing that if he passed out now, they were all dead. The guards would take them. Or they’d die from their injuries before anyone could help.

But his body had nothing left to give. The pain, the fear, the desperate attempts to use his blocked magic...it had all drained him completely.

The last thing he saw before unconsciousness took him was Echo dragging himself back through the rubble. The wolf was limping badly, one leg held at an odd angle, but still alive. Still trying to reach his master despite his own injuries.

Then everything went black.