The Sage's Vow

8.3 || From the Shadows

At least Cale was pretty sure it was a man. His skin was unnaturally pale and stretched thin along his bony frame. A wild, animalistic hunger filled his near-black eyes. Thin lips pulled back in a snarl, revealing jagged, pointed teeth, almost as if they'd been filed. Greasy, thin hair—almost more grey than black—hung past his shoulders. He wore no shirt, showing a scarred chest that was an unnerving combination of ribs and muscle, and the pants he had were in taters, held up only by a vine.

Cale knew the various monsters from which the vampire myth stemmed, but it was just that—a myth. Staring at this man, though, he couldn't help but wonder if somehow he'd stumbled across one that had been left to the cruelest of nature's wrath.

But his energy felt like a human. Well, almost. His mouth dried as unease became a whirlpool in his gut. All types of energy had a different feel to them, almost like differing sounds that a person could feel spreading through their nerves. The elemental energies were a soothing static, monsters a grating shriek, humans a gentle hum, and dragons a bone-rattling thrum. The Soul-Bound had an interesting mixture of humans and dragons, with the hum overpowering a deep thrum in the background.

This man's energy was wrong. The hum of a human stuttered, abruptly shifting into a thrumming shriek, before returning to the hum. The dissonance rattled everything within Cale, and he realized it wasn't the first time he'd felt it.

He hadn't been able to understand it then like he did now, but this was the same energy he'd felt last night. This man had been following them for longer than he'd thought.

The man bared his teeth at the same time the energy shifted to its more monstrous feel, spat at Cale's feet, then spun and took off.

Cale cursed and started to follow, but before he could, someone appeared beside him. He barely stopped from turning his blades on Mara yet again.

She stared at the man's retreating back. "What is that?"

Cale's eyes narrowed. "I don't know, but I intend to find out." A horrible suspicion had begun whispering in the back of his mind. Ezraim, Cale said, sensing that his dragon had already been observing. Keep watch of the Sages. I want to know if they act any differently.

Ezraim said nothing, but the slight distance in the bond assured Cale that his dragon was turning his attention to what was physically around him. With that, Cale sprinted in the same direction the man had gone, Mara right beside him.

"He looked human. Kind of, at least," Mara said, sounding both perplexed and disturbed. "Shouldn't we report to others?"

"Only if by others you mean Xander." How much longer would it be before Angelo or Brett came back to see Ezraim? Both of the college students had to be careful to avoid suspicion, and they'd last stopped by two days ago. A concern for later. "If this is a human, the Sages would have had to let him in. I don't want my answers from them."

Depending on what the man said, the Sages would have other things to answer for.

The man's direction took them back into the grassier parts of the mountain, making it harder to catch his retreating figure. This man couldn't fully be human. Aside from his unnatural energy, he was too fast. Too strong as well, based on how he leaped over a fallen tree half his height with the ease of a deer. Cale and Mara managed the maneuver, but they were Soul-Bound.

Cale's uneasiness only continued to grow.

A pale blue blur flew past him, and Mara let out a frustrated grunt when it slammed into a tree a full meter away from the man. "I can't aim like this," she grumbled.