You won’t know it, when it comes. Your body will scream at you to move, the blood burning in your veins as it courses through you. You’ll walk until you can’t continue, move until you fail, and you’ll do it again, and again. One foot in front of the other.
And one day you’ll realize why. The stars above are burning gas and distance, nothing more. But you’ll find yourself looking up for directions regardless, every restless night.
Because she’s out there. Because of her, the stars mean something.
-Anonymous
The west of Stinjul burned, one dreadful night fifteen years ago. A ship had sailed through the river, a dreadful thing that looked like it had dragged itself up from the maw of Kest herself.
The Anathema.
The attack that blood-red night was the most devastating blow any pirate had ever landed on the Sapphire of the West, the entire market razed as the sky was choked in ash.
And, unseen to any, a cage was broken. A horned thing, a cursed thing, had crawled below, unharmed by the flames that spread like a starving beast across the city.
The West Quarter was rebuilt, poorly. But the old streets were buried, left to fester below. And the creature, now freed, remained down there, watching. Learning.
Feeding.
“It’s in the West Quarter,” Grey growled, arms folded as her father plopped down at the other end of the table, the grizzled older hunter letting out a long sigh.
“Where? We have a week,” he growled. “Been here a month. Moon’s growing fat. Can’t hunt then, and then contract is up. No money, nothing.”
“We’ve got time,” Grey said, rubbing her temples. “It’s so close. There’s something messing with the smell.”
“Maybe you smell the wrong thing,” the old bear said, shrugging. “Maybe witchblood.”
“Zelith is helping,” Grey shot back.
The old bear chuckled, shaking his head.
“Not what I meant. Sure you know Twig’s smell well enough,” he said. “But is she not the only one? Could be more. Look into it.”
Grey stood up, grumbling as the Zarucan lifted a finger.
“You look it up. Do not dump reading on Twig. Letters are important.”
Grey just growled, stalking out of the room.
“There’s…Zelith, we can’t take this.”
Zelith just stared, an uneaten dinner sitting in front of her. Across the table, her father and mother, both worn down and sun-spotted from work at the docks, sat in the cramped old fisherman’s shack the family had managed to save up to buy years before.
“…And why is that?” Zelith said testily, her blue eyes narrowing at both of them. “You’ve said you wanted to move. That is enough for you to move. Simple.”
“You won’t even say where you got it!” her mother said back, clearly worried as her husband just folded his arms, staring at the bag in front of them.
“If they find out this was stolen, we all get in trouble,” he said coldly, not looking up at his daughter as Zelith’s hand tensed.
“I didn’t steal it, Bren,” Zelith said coldly back. Never father. It had taken years to get the bastard to understand that despite her condition, she was still his blood, and Zelith had sworn to never give him the satisfaction.
“…I’ve heard things, Zelith,” her mother interjected, still worried. “I mean, at the docks. You…going around with some woman. I know it isn’t illegal, but…”
Zelith could feel her mind grow colder as she stood, looking at her parents, ice beginning to grow on her side of the table as blue flames danced around her brow, just barely resisting the urge to cast a spell.
“You are keeping the money,” Zelith almost spat out. “I don’t care if you don’t want it or not. I did nothing wrong.”
“Lily-”
Zelith was spinning on her heels, already heading for the door. As she was at the uneven door frame, the warped boards of her parent’s front door in hand, venom she didn’t realize she had in her rose up in her throat.
“You didn’t have any problems keeping the money for this place,” Zelith said, glaring back at them, raising an arm. Covered by Grey’s claw marks up to a point, the older scars were still visible. Dissection marks, all the way up to the shoulder. “Think of it like that.”
Without another word or look, the symbols were drawn, and Zelith vanished from sight.
“I don’t understand why you aren’t having Zelith do this,” Conall said, glancing up at Grey.
“Do not know where she lives, you were closer,” the Sunvaar shot back, pacing as Conall opened another set of scrolls, the dusty air from the temple’s storerooms threatening to make both of them sneeze. “Teleporting trick she does makes tracking difficult.”
Conall couldn’t help but smile a bit bitterly at that as he looked over the old parchment.
“The teleporting trick you…helped her figure out,” Conall said, Grey looking at him as he kept reading.
“Hmm. Angry?” Grey said, tilting her head. “Or…jealous, that is the word. Do not be. Me and my pack will be gone soon enough. Then you and she can return to whatever your mating habits are normally.”
Conall just flicked his eyes Grey’s way for a long moment, before going back over the notes.
“I just want to make sure she’s safe,” the redhead said simply. “Haven’t forgotten that first night. She’s still got those scars on her arm, you know. Claw marks. Hard to forget seeing that.”
The Grey Storm looked to the side, her expression a bit hard to read as she looked at the window.
“Those aren’t the only marks. And she asked for those.”
Conall stood up, slamming the book shut and glaring at Grey.
“Enough. I don’t need to hear about this,” Conall said, running a hand through his hair as Grey gave a bit of a strange smile at the outburst, some measure of respect coming to her expression before Conall dropped his hand.
“…I don’t know where any other witchbloods are. Neither do the records,” Conall said, letting out a long sigh. “Rare. Temples don’t like them much. There’s only one person in this damn city I know who might know something more, and she’s not told me a damn thing about it.”
Grey frowned as Conall started to walk to the door, the younger man storming out into the city streets as the wolf sat in the silence for a moment before following, turning down a street towards the alleys, trying to track the scent again.
She could find it, and she didn’t need to dig into Zelith’s past to do it. That was for damn sure.
Strike The Horizon 