Epilogue: The Dark Inside

He stared down into the dark, the wind tousling his hair.

There was nothing down there. Just the sheer cliff slicing through the ruins of the mansion, everything lit in the red glow of Dragon’s Crown. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear.

Dray was gone.

His hands clenched into fists. All of this, for nothing—

A soft breath hissed in between his teeth, his face setting into stone. The hunters had gone down to search. There was no way they wouldn’t find him. No way they wouldn’t take him.

Jrahking idiot.

“Hey, boy, get away from the edge.”

He stayed where he was.

“Look, kip—“ a sigh and the footsteps halted “—he was your friend, right? Well, I’m sorry to say it, but he’s dead. A shot like that through the core and a fall from this height isn’t going to leave much behind.”

He turned his head, watching the handler from the corner of his eye.

“...I’m sorry, kip. Whatever happened to him, it turned him into a shaerrolf, and there’s nothing can be done for them. It was for the best.” A hand gestured towards him. “But I don’t want you joining him. Your other friends are over there, they’re still alive and they’re hurting right now. They need someone to look after them. You going to man up and do that, or stand here trying to wish him back?”

Every word that came out of this jrahker’s mouth was worth its weight in mud. He turned back to the drop one last time, jaw clenched, and strode past the man. If he resisted they’d just drag him away.

The others sat by a crumbling wall, a glow button doing a bad job of keeping them out of the dark. Neri glanced up as he approached.

“Stov....” Her smile was hollow. “Did you see anything?”

“No.”

“There’s nothing to see.” Erold’s broken voice cracked. He stared straight ahead, looking at nothing. “He’s dead.”

Stov knelt down, forcing him to meet his eyes. “He’s not dead.”

Erold scowled, his lips trembling. “They shrihking shot him—“

“He’s a therrolf. They can spin whatever in Hahll they like about ‘hitting his core’, but that’s jrahk. It’s not going to kill a newbite high on miasma on Dragon’s Crown.”

Erold looked away, hunching tighter over his knees. “He... he didn’t want to be one. Why did they shoot? He pulled... pulled away from me....”

For a moment Erold’s lips moved soundlessly, his eyes a thousand measures away. Setting his jaw, Stov punched his knee. “Hey.”

The kip twitched back, and Stov held his gaze steadily. “We’ll find him. We’ll break him out and we’ll get him back.”

“But... but if they find him won’t they just...?”

“No. They’ll say he’s dead so they can brush over all of this and not have to deal with people trying to get legal about it. No one can fight over a dead body.” He glanced over at the handler supposed to be babysitting them, the man looking over the drop with a lit stick in his mouth. “He’s an asset to them. That’s what all the therrolves are. There’s no way they’re scrubbing him.”

Erold took a shuddering breath. “So... we’ll find him.”

“We’ll find him,” Stov affirmed.

He met Neri’s eyes, and she smiled wanly, glancing between the two of them. “Yeah. It’ll be okay.”

꘠

The night bled crimson into the morning, light brushing the tear-stained face of a little girl hugging a giant stuffed dog. It rose over empty ruins, creeping into the outskirts of the city, crawling through the leaves of trees lining streets, touching weary faces lined with grief, and descending through inescapable darkness.

A soft glimmer bled down through the cracks, the ghost of sunlight brushing shivering ribs and illuminating eyes that had been the colour of lakes and seas, once. It teased at trembling, bare skin and dark veins with a light all their own, whispering into ears with memories of the voices they’d once known.

“We’ll find you....”

Breath hitched in a shuddering throat, shaking body hunching in on itself.

And in return, a cry rose, ringing off the walls closing in, seeking the echo of bygone days as it clawed for the distant, blue sky. A longing call. A chilling howl.

“Come back.”

It died into a soft whimper—a trembling, rasping whisper. His whisper.

An inhuman sound.

“I’m sorry.”

Ragged, grating sobs shook naked skin as nails clenched against the hollow filling his chest, and even those didn’t sound human, anymore. His head tipped forward, dark hair hiding his eyes. Nothing left....

Nothing human, anymore.

For a long moment, only rasping breaths and soft whines filled the quiet, crimson tears dripping through the darkness, echoing off cold walls.

“No.”

Teeth gritted. Cold, trembling fingers lifted, touching the warm band of a collar, and clenched into a shaking fist. “I’ll find a way back.

“I promise....”