The Half-Lives Series

Dark Designs

18,000 BCE

Darkness.

It began as a cool wind creeping through the trees, stirring the boughs. Ssshhh, it whispered.

The people gathered closer to the fire, casting glances and thoughts into the blackness waiting beyond the light. Animal skins couldn’t protect them from the air brushing over their skin, so they drew closer to the flames.

There’s something out there, someone whispered. Something dark. Hungry. It waits for us.

Fires died, fires were born, and the dark watched. Something was out there. In time they were right.

17,050 BCE

It crept through the breeze, weaving through tides of grass and trees until it sensed life.

They were warm, chaotic things, but something about them called to it. It drew closer and found them placing stones around a fire.

It studied their ritual. The flames sheltered them, and in turn they sheltered the flames. The fire also could hurt them, so they took care with it. There was a beauty there. The thing was awed.

The flames trembled, casting a melancholic light to the people. They were thin creatures, with animal skins wrapped around their flesh. They set the stones around red-gold flames, and then went back for more until the circle was complete.

They were pleased. It felt a ghost of the feeling. It wanted more. It crept closer, lapping at their skins.

Feelings, thoughts, threads of life and magic seeped into it. They were afraid, of it, of the dark, of anything in the night that could hunt them.

A shudder passed through them. Stronger feelings followed; fear, hunger, dread. The sensations coiled in the thing, drawing it closer to them.

Sharp, anxious whispers greet it. The people moved back to the fire’s embrace. It followed.

It was cold out in the dark, but here the people warmed it. It ebbed closer-- The heat from the flames stabbed it.

It--the darkness--stumbled back. It wanted them, wanted that fear, that warmth. It moved closer.

The flames forced it back.

Threads of feelings crept through it. Anger. Frustration. Longing.

It crept back. It didn’t want to leave--

At the edge of the flames, it sensed another form.

The darkness approached it.

In the foot of a tree, a man slept.

The darkness circled him, brushing against his skin. He was as warm as the others, though the skin along his leg was torn. Dry blood and magic stitched the wound closed.

The hint of blood, of life, drew the darkness closer. It lapped at it.

The skin trembled and then the sutures broke. Hot liquid lapped at the darkness, the flavor sweet and bitter all at once. It seeped into the blood. Inside the man’s flesh, there was darkness and warmth. It crawled in deeper. And then images began.

The man, the chieftain, approached the edge of a pit. Quiet moans crept out, surprising him. He’d thought everyone he’d tossed in was dead.

The pit held the remains of another tribe. They’d attacked his people, but they had magic and the others didn’t.

The others retreated, but the chieftain and his warriors followed them back to their camp.

After the skirmish, his mages suggested integrating the survivors. The others had skills they didn’t. Let unity come from this.

The chieftain considered, for though he did not understand their power, he relied on it.

Then his new bride found gnawed bones near the fire pit. They belonged to adults. Children.

The mages withdrew their words, and the chieftain and his warriors killed the remaining tribe. Vile creature were not worthy of being taken to the cave housing their ancestors, so they dropped them into a pit for the scavengers. It’d been several moons since that day, but still he thought of them.

Now, when he stood before the pit in his dream, the moans grew louder. A leach pale hand reached out, grabbing hold of the edge, and pulled itself up.

The chieftain darted back. No. They were dead. The scavengers had ripped the meat from their bones.

The darkness and the chieftain watched the pit dwellers crawl out. Other hands followed, and soon they were focusing on the man.

They moved awkwardly, but steadily. Their wounds gaped but did not bleed, and when he struck one it did not care.

He ran.

The figures followed. Whenever they drew close, they tore and ate his flesh. A delicious brew of emotions bubbled out of the man: fear, horror, hate. The darkness drank them in. The awe and wariness they felt for fire was powerful; this, this was life.

Pain exploded in the chieftain’s chest.

The feelings stopped.

Warmth fled his skin, followed by an ephemeral sense of the man.

The Darkness grabbed at it, but the thing was gone, taking the chieftain with it.

It sighed, turning the air around it cold. If it couldn’t go to the humans, perhaps it would get one to come to it.

17,050 BCE

Moonless nights cloaked the world in their mystery, drawing people around the fire. Ava drew her animal skin around her but stayed near the edge. She could summon fire with a little effort. Let the others have this one.

The wind ghosted over her, stealing the warmth from her skin.

Shivering, Ava drew the pelt tighter around her shoulders. This chill stung her, but it could be lived with. There were tales of cold, flaying winds that whispered dark secrets in the land to the north. Her mother’s mother had moved the tribe away from them, down to a place where the ice walls did not encroach on them and hunting was good.

She would have liked this place. The trees here sheltered them. When the wind picked up, though, the dark whispered through the trembling boughs. Ssshhh. Ssshhh.

Sshhh.

Ava turned. As a child, the wind breathing through the trees frightened her. It was as if someone was there, calling her. Now, she stared into the dark, curious but unwilling to investigate. People who went into the dark rarely came back.

Sshhh . . . sshhhild.

“Dark,” she whispered.

“Child . . . come to me . . . be my life.”

No.

Ava turned back to the flames. She was a creature of light and fire. Whatever was in the dark was cold and lifeless. Nothing could draw her to it. Across the fire pit, Adamah rose and stepped into the dark.

Ava stared after him. The last man to have stepped into the night had never returned. Had he heard the dark?

She followed him, weaving around the trees surrounding their camp.

The wind whispered over her. She whispered back, binding it around her to sense was was around her. Air and fire were kind to her. As a child, she and Adamah used to play with the elements, sometimes daring each other to see who could touch fire. The red-orange flames caressed her skin, warming it.

Him, it burned. He’d wince, and then bury his fingers in the earth. The black soil nursed him, and when he withdrew his hand, it’d be fine. They’d laugh, and as long as no one was hurt, their elders looked the other way.

The scent of crushed hyacinth touched the air, drawing her to the left. Moonlight broke through the trees, and a moment later Ava stepped out of the copse and saw him.

Adamah stood in the midst of hyacinth, staring up at the moon.

She approached. Her footsteps were soft, but he turned, one hand slipping to his waist, to the sling he kept there for his blade. Bone whispered against skin as he drew it out.

Ava stilled. She’d carved it for him from an animal’s leg bone, a beautiful narrow shape that curved near the point. Until now, she had always felt good when he drew it out.

“It’s me,” Ava said.

He stilled. “Why did you follow me?”

“I was afraid the dark would take you.”

“It could take us both.”

“It could try.” The words were braver than Ava felt, but they warmed her. She cared for Adamah. The dark couldn’t take that from her, though she feared it would try.

A sigh. From him, it was a sound that bled into the still night. From the blade, it was a graceful retreat back into its sling.

Ava closed the distance between them. So far from the fire, she couldn’t see more than his shape.

“Sshhh.”

She turned. No one was there.

There was a whisper of movement behind her. Ava turned. “I heard something.”

“Sshhh,” Adamah said, touching her cheek. His skin was cool. His lips caressed hers, and it was like she was meeting him again, a smiling boy with eyes the color of rain. Gray, silent but life giving gray. “It’s just the wind.”

17,040 BCE

To Ryen, early memories were brief snippets of life in a sea of blackness.

A woman sang softly to him. She had beautiful long red hair and was dressed in black fur. Mother.

Darkness.

A thin line of fire circled around him and the woman. Figures surrounded them, standing outside of the red-orange flames. The shifting light played across their grayish skin, dead eyes, and sharp teeth.

Darkness.

Mother, talking to three tribe mages. Afterward she held him and smiled, only the expression looked sad.

“Mother?”

“I’m going away for a bit,” she said. She brushed her lips over his forehead. She trembled. He slipped his arms around her.

“You are my light,” she whispered.

Sleepiness lapped at Ryen, so he told her that he would wait for her.

Darkness.

He was awake, but she was still gone. He waited.

Darkness.

And waited.

Darkness.

And then one night she was there, limping towards him. Half of her face was gone, and bit of bone glinted out of the red hollow. One arm dangled from her shoulder, and as she moved closer it fell off.

Ryen rose from his pallet. She was dead. The dead were always hungry.

She was also Mother, and in her remaining hand she held a twitching shape. Fish. His favorite.

Darkness.

She was gone, but the fire was so bright it hurt his eyes. He strayed to the outer edges, where the trees sheltered him against the light.

“The dead should be burned from now on,” one of the elders said. Ryen saw their figures through the trees. A woman and two men, half clad in thin animal skins. He turned to leave.

“So should her son.”

Ryen stopped. He did not want to understand, but he did. He resembled his mother, with red hair and moon-pale skin. He had a stranger’s eyes, though; gray, like an overcast day. The combination did little to endear him to others. “No,” said another elder. “He might not die, and this would only anger him.”

Adamah set the skull on the dirt floor. Red liquid sloshed inside the broken bone, sending threads of hunger through him.

For the one who gave him the power to rise from the dead, he offered his lover’s lifeblood. The taste was different from human blood, richer and poignant, edged by sweetness and power. He hoped it pleased the Dark.

Shadows shimmered around the skull and then red threads crept out of the bone, snaking across the cave wall.

More blood followed, and soon the crimson liquid painted figures across the surface: a man, a woman, and a fire.

The red figures shimmered, growing darker, darker, and then black.

The blood crept away from the drawing, leaving a thin red trail. One hand width later, the blood etched another set of figures. The two people fought, and a hand width later the woman slew the other.

More blood followed, painting Adamah’s waking, Adamah’s hunger.

A warm breeze traced over him. Adama smiled.

“You are minnne.”

Yes.

“My warriorrr. Necrowolf.”

17,020 BCE

The screaming had stopped.

Necrowolf looked up from the shoulder of a woman he had been feeding on. The fires had crouched low, making the encampment look ethereal. Dark, uneven figures feasted around him, creating a symphony of chewing sounds. He liked that sound. It was subtle, but alive. He returned to his meal.

Aided by magic, the woman in his hands was still warm. He had started with her beautifully full and firm stomach, breaking past the flesh and her grasping hands to the sweet unborn child inside.

Its tiny mouth moved in a silent scream, and then Necrowolf tore it apart. From there, Necrowolf ate, watching the light in the woman’s eyes grow uneven. Near the end, Ava’s had been the same.

Amused, he tore out the organs one by one, eating some, sharing bits with the other dead around him. He finished with her lungs, and then, very gently, Necrowolf pried the still beating heart out.

The lump was strong, sending a pulse down Necrowolf’s arm. Rising, he carried it over to a circle of stones.

“Forr youg, Dahk.”

Necrowolf set the heart down.

A chill breeze brushed over him, casting dry leaves around. They circled the heart, dancing around it. The Dark was pleased.

Necrowolf bowed his head.

The wind traced over him.

“I nneed sssomethhhing . . . ssstronger.”

“Morre heartss?”

“Yesss. A livving onnne.”

“I left a couple guards here to make sure nothing was disturbed,” Micah said. His knuckles were white against the tall fighting staff he carried. “I don’t think this was a normal attack.”

Ryen looked around the encampment, frowning. Broken bones dotted the ground. Sharp-edged carving stones, bone necklaces, and feathers lay scattered among them, making him realize what Micah had been concerned about. When tribes attacked one another, they took things. Here, all that had been taken was the meat off the bodies.

He knelt beside a skull. Marks had been carved into the bone. Ryen picked it up, cradling it against him.

“Ryen?” Micah asked.

“Sshhh.” Ryen’s body warmth lapped at the shape. Magic followed, gently tracing over the bone.

The skull trembled . . . and then images lapped at Ryen’s mind: the fires sputtering out. Moaning. Turning to see--

A line of dark shapes coming up over the hill, stumbling toward them. Cold, dead fingers tearing at him. Pain.

Ryen blinked. He was lying on the ground, surrounding by Micah and his men. “Are you all right?” Micah asked.

“Yes.” Ryen sat up. “We need to warn--”

The world shifted around him. When it cleared, Micah knelt beside him, holding him steady.

“Ryen?”

“I’m all right.” Ryen leaned into him.

Theirs was an odd friendship, chieftain’s son and witch. Over the last few years, tales of hungry dead had grown, and many tribes had begun to fear magic. Their tribe had always been hesitant around Ryen, but Micah hadn’t. Ryen enchanted the weapons and he brought back meat. It was a good life. Recently, Micah’s hunters had begun to warm to Ryen.

All that was going to change, though. The dead were drawing closer.

Ryen forced himself up. “We need to approach the other tribes. None of us can face this alone.”

Micah rose. He was taller than Ryen but, surrounded by death, his height seemed like a vulnerability. There was more of Micah to hurt. “What is it?”

There were many ways to answer that. A monster. The dead. A creature that served a dark force. Two words, sadly, meant all that. “My father.”

“You want us to fight your battle for you,” the girl said. She was young, perhaps twelve, but she was the strongest witch among her group.

“No,” Ryen said. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Micah clench his fighting staff. Hers was the fifth tribe they had approached, and the first to respond that way.

Despite their fears, all of the others had decided to join him. He hoped he could convince her.

“He has overrun all of the other tribes he has encountered,” Ryen said. “Alone, we are dead.”

Thoughts shadowed her eyes. “Fire has always offered us some shelter,” she said. “A circle of it might hold them back.”

“Not forever.” Though he remembered his mother trying to keep the flames burning. Eventually she’d had to fight.

“How did she face him?”

Sharp surprise pulsed in Ryen’s stomach, sending threads of pain through him. “She?”

“Your mother.”

Outside of his group, no one else knew. After his mother’s death, it was considered bad luck to even say her name. It was believed that a whisper of it would draw the deads’ attention, and that their master would come to feast upon the offending tongue.

“I don’t know,” Ryen said.

He knew the myths, though. Girl met boy. Boy met dark thing out beyond the fire’s touch. Girl and boy killed one another.

A dark thing interrupted the simple arc. Moments after his death, the boy rose. Sometimes, Ryen heard the wind calling his name.

The wind crept over him, stealing his warmth.

“Nnnecrowolf.”

The girl paled. “He’s coming for my tribe first.”

Ryen glanced at Micah. The man frowned thoughtfully, and then nodded.

“We’ll stay with you,” Ryen said.

The girl shook her head. “I would not have fought for you.”

She was too young to be so darkly practical. Then again, he was older and he felt differently. Perhaps age meant nothing.

“We fight together,” he said, watching as Micah’s hunters fanned out among her tribe. “Or we die apart.”

She tilted her head to one side. The wind ghosted over them.

“Nnnecrowolf.”

“He doesn’t know you exist right now,” she said. “If he sees you . . . he will not kill you. He will never ever kill you.”

Ryen had been afraid of that.

Necrowolf licked blood off of his fingertips. There was something different about tonight’s feast. His prey resisted. More oddly, witches fought alongside humans, fires consumed his dead, and--

There.

In the center of the humans was a boy. He was an interesting thing, with wide eyes, trembling hands, and hair the color of fresh blood.

Dead surrounded him. Magic pulsed around his fingers, and then he cast it out, sending an arc of fire around him.

The dead it burned; the humans it surged over, healing them.

Necrowolf watched him. Such precision. Simpler to burn all and not waste the time to spare anyone.

His kindness moved the others, though. They fought harder, took more chances, and watched over one another.

Necrowolf snarled. The boy’s grace was contagious.

A chill wind brushed over Necrowolf. A sense of awe, of disbelief and hunger, swept over him. The Dark had always known it got its strength from fear and hate. Tonight, it was learning of another type of power.

“Himm.”

Yes. He was a dream.

It was a nightmare.

No, worse: nightmares did not have smells. The scent of blood lapped at Ryen. It was followed by fire, and cooking meat, as Ryen and the other mages set the dead ablaze.

Someone screamed.

Ryen turned, and five thin trails of flame ebbed across his fingertips. Where-- There. To the left.

One of the dead had been set on fire, and when the mage had turned, it had gotten up and grabbed her.

The two bodies stilled and dropped. Too late.

Grief threaded into his magic and surged, creating a dual dance of healing and destruction. He had not known the mage; he did not care. She had chosen to fight by Ryen, and he wished he could have done more for her.

The sickly-savory scent of rotting flesh crept over him. Ryen turned.

And found a handsome, pale gray-skinned man studying him.

Blood covered his flesh and the thin animal pelts he wore. Around his right arm, a hundred incisors formed an arm band. Around his neck, a hundred small bones made a necklace.

Blackness bled across the whites of the man’s eyes, making his gray irises shine silver.

“Youg hahv my eyesss,” Necrowolf said, reaching into a pouch at his side. He withdrew his hand and held it out. Two brown eyes focused on Ryen. “Aug havv a gif forg youg.”

Ryen moved quickly through the woods.

The dead had retreated, and after a quick glimpse at his people, Ryen turned and followed his father’s creatures.

His path had brought him to the foothills beyond the woods. Silence shrouded the area, broken only by his covered feet moving and snapping the bones scattered around the entrance to a cave.

Blackness gathered in the open womb. It was thick. Alive.

Frowning, Ryen stepped over to a tree. He would need a torch.

His hands shook, making him pause to clench and release them. The fight had been terrible, but no one had ever forced the dead to flee before. He wanted to be pleased, but in the aftermath he had not seen Micah.

Ryen pushed the fear away. Right now, he needed to stop Necrowolf. If he did not, the dead would come back, and the three mages they had left would stand no chance against them.

When his hands could be still, Ryen snapped a branch free. He focused his fear, his hope, on one end of the wood. Heat swam around the tip, and then fire rose. “Ryen?”

He turned. It was one of Micah’s hunters.

The man broke a branch free and held it out. “I’ll go with you.”

Unlike him, the man’s hands were steady. Ryen wished . . .

No. If he died, it would be up to the hunter to protect the others.

Ryan cast a pulse of magic out, igniting his torch. “I need you to stay behind.” “You’ll die.”

No. He believed the girl when she said that he wouldn’t. He might simply wish otherwise.

To the hunter, Ryen said, “If I don’t come out by tomorrow night, go back. Gather everyone and flee.”

The man frowned, but nodded.

Ryen headed into the cave.

It was cool there. The further he moved, the colder it got.

“Sshhh,” the wind whispered, killing his fire.

Cold fingers bit into Ryen’s wrists and yanked him back. He drew magic into his fingers and palms. Fire, fire would burn--

He was slammed into a rough surface. Stone scratched his skin, making it ache. “Ssshhh.”

The whisper of air traced over him, and then firelight stabbed Ryen’s eyes. No fire he’d cast had been able to survive for long, and after heightening his senses to move in the dark, the light now hurt.

Despite the pain, it was still blessedly good to see. He was in a small chamber, and sconces in the walls held small blue-white flames. Two undead men held his hands, one a former hunter and the other a man he did not recognize.

Relief threaded through Ryen. They weren’t Micah. His friend might still be alive.

Footsteps murmured over the dirt floor, and then Necrowolf stepped out of an alcove. The blood that had covered him before was gone, and his gray skin gleamed.

Ryen clenched his hands and focusing on the approaching creature. Fire.

Wait.

When he had cast it on Necrowolf earlier, it had done nothing. The man had simply shrugged the magic off and killed a nearby hunter.

Ryen drew in a slow breath. Air. If he could draw the air out of the other’s body--

No. The man did not breathe.

Water?

Besides his spit, there was none down there. Spit would do little more than insult the dead.

He had earth; he was surrounded by the very land itself.

Earth had never wanted to contain Necrowolf, though. When he died, it allowed him to rise.

Or . . . had it allowed him? The Dark had called Necrowolf. Perhaps he had been stolen from the earth--

Cold air whispered over Ryan, ghosting over his skin.

Necrowolf stepped up to him. “Youg were herr lighth.”

He knew. Somehow he knew what his mother’s last words to him were. How-- Necrowolf traced a curved claw down Ryen’s throat, leaving a warm, wet trail in his wake. “Nowg, youg are itss.”

No.

Magic pulsed out, stitching the wound shut.

Necrowolf smiled, flashing wickedly sharp teeth.

Ryen thought of earth. Cool dirt, life giving soil--

“Ssshhh.”

The wind traced over his skin, lapping at the fading traces of blood. Ethereal fingers inched beneath the closing wound, breaking it open.

Pain lanced into Ryen. He convulsed.

“Ssshhh.”

Cool, ethereal fingers snaked into him.

It threaded through his spirit, uncovering secrets, memories, desires. The Dark tasted everything. His blood. His bile. His seed.

It wanted more.

Sighing, it curled around him. They were as entwined as lovers; as intimate as friends; as entangled as enemies. Spirit and Dark had the power to bind them. The Dark held him. The world would be theirs.

No.

No?

Ryan twisted, blasting shards of magic out. The dead that held him were torn to pieces; Necrowolf lost fingers.

The ethereal chill faded inside of Ryen.

“Nnnoo.”

A sense of disbelief, of anger and hunger, touched Ryen. It had not expected him to break away.

Cold fingers bit into his shoulder.

“Do youg want hiss heart?” Necrowolf asked.

“Nnoo. I want him.”

No.

Wait. Yes.

Ryen bled his magic into the earth around them.

The Dark wanted his spirit; it would have it. Ryen pushed his power out, weaving his hopes, his fears, his dreams, into the dirt and stones.

Necrowolf released him and jerked away.

The Dark followed, taking its ethereal chill. Ryen sensed it escape the binding he wove around the earth.

No!

A tremor darted through Ryen. It had nearly unwoven him. If given time, it would send its knight--

Ryen still had Necrowolf.

He focused on his father.

The Dark’s touch had left him with a sense of its knight, allowing Ryen to catch an echo of Necrowolf’s spirit. Ryen threaded it into the land, using his own magic to lock it in place.

Necrowolf rushed toward him. He opened his mouth--

And then dropped to the ground.

He glowered at Ryen, his silver eyes shining in the blackness.

Ryen’s magic faded into the stones. This was the very best of him. He hoped Necrowolf enjoyed it for eternity.

Ryen stumbled out of the cave.

Nightmare images chased him. Necrowolf. The dead holding him down. The Dark slipping into his blood and--

He dropped to his knees and retched.

The bile was hot, and when it was gone he was left with an echo of the Dark’s chill. When he had nothing left in his stomach, he forced himself up.

The moon was full, but its light was so weak. The dark circled him, a pale shadow of the thing that had crept into his spirit. It chilled him. He needed light. The longer he stayed in the dark, the better chance it had of finding him.

He took a deep breath and then pushed out--

Dizziness swept over him.

When it faded, he was slumped against a tree. No fire. No magic.

Ryen trembled. His binding spell had been powerful. It had left him without magic . . . and that was fine. Necrowolf was gone.

He pushed away from the tree. The dark still frightened him, but in the distance, fires winked through the trees. A sense of heat, of safety, crept over him.

Ryen latched onto the feeling. It was nothing more than a sensitivity to the otherworldly, a shadow of magic that a few humans had, but it strengthened him. Despite the Dark’s touch, his spirit was still strong. He could return to his tribe, rebuild--

Footsteps crunched out from the cave.

Ryen spun around.

All of the dead he had passed on his way out had been still. He’d thought—hoped--that without Necrowolf’s influence, they would quietly return to the earth’s embrace. What if Ryen’s sacrifice had not been enough? What if he’d only trapped Necrowolf for a moment and--

Micah stumbled out of the cave. He stood still, searched the area . . . and then headed towards him.

“Micah.” Ryen smiled. He had not seen him down there, with all of the bodies Necrowolf kept. Perhaps Micah had been outside looking for him and finally decided to try to find him. Perhaps they had simply missed one another.

Micah stepped into the moonlight.

The pale light painted his features in sharp whites and blacks. He turned, his glassy eyes shining a sickly white in the dark. This close, Ryen could see that the flesh along the left side of his face had been chewed off.

Ryen’s smile bled away. It no longer mattered if Micah had gone in after him, or if Necrowolf had brought him there. Ryen suspected that, as he became trapped, Necrowolf had focused his power into one more warrior.

“Micah.”

“Ryenth.” Micah reached out chewed and clawed fingers.

Ryen stepped back. This was his father’s last strike; if Ryen wanted to live, he would have to destroy Micah’s shell. It was spiteful and petty. Whatever his mother had seen in Necrowolf had died long before.

Micah made a wet chewing sound.

His poor friend. He didn’t deserve this.

“Ryenth.”

“I’m sorry, Micah.” Ryen picked up a rock. Two, maybe three blows to the head should destroy the thing that Micah had become. Then . . .

A collage of sharp feelings blossomed in Ryen’s stomach. Sadness. Regret. Affection. Micah was his friend. His spirit-brother. The one who had stood by him when no one else would.

Grief coiled in Ryen’s body, growing taut. The rock slipped from trembling fingers.

Ryen watched him approach. He remembered afternoons spent by the creek, neither able to catch fish. Late nights whispering tales of the stars. Magic and hunting and neither quite understanding how the other worked, and not caring.

“Ryenth.” Micah grabbed Ryen’s shoulder and yanked him close. A sense of hunger crept over Ryen.

“I love you Micah.”

Micah’s warriors were nearby. When they heard his screams, they would come and put Micah and whatever was left of him into the fire. This would end. Teeth gnashed near Ryen’s ear. The sense of hunger became chaotic. Craving for flesh. Memory of friendship. Flesh. Brother.

He sensed Micah.

Micah sensed him.

“Ryenth.”

“Yes.” My friend, my dear, dear friend.

Micah trembled against him. His flesh grayed, and then the smell of rotting flesh, a pungent and near savory scent, lapped at Ryen.

“Ryenth . . . loth.”

Yes. “I love you, Micah.”

Chunks of meat fell off Micah’s face, his shoulder, followed by an arm. The cold fingers fell away from Ryen’s shoulder, and Micah collapsed.

“Ryenth.”

Ryen knelt beside him.

“Ryenth . . . loth.”

“Yes.” His eyes stung. “I’ll always love you.”

Micah’s flesh turned black, and then crumbled apart.

Ryen sat beside him. His friend had been human. Even in death, the thing that had made him human was there, alive and waiting. Whatever power had allowed Necrowolf to continue existing was not all-powerful. Perhaps . . .

Ryen thought it over. Perhaps Necrowolf could continue to exist because the thing that had made Micah live, the thing that had made him human, was lacking in Necrowolf. Perhaps a person was not really alive if they could not love.