Page 122 of Bound By Fury

I shiver.

“Under the Daughter, with our new magic, our tribe was thriving. At least until the pale people came. Their leader was a man they call the Origin.”

Though I’ve never heard the name before, something deep within me recoils.

“The Origin was, for lack of a better word, obsessed with the Daughter. In the beginning, he took her as a conquest. He desired to worship her as a god, but he was overcome with envy. So much so that he went into the forest that eats and made a deal with the river himself.

“To this day, no one knows what he gave, what he had to sacrifice, but when he came crawling out of the woods, the tides of our power had changed.”

My hands tremble beneath the table as she speaks.

“The deal he made bound him to the Daughter. It intertwined the threads of their fate. Now, he could feel her power, he could taste it. But he would not stop until he could wield it, too.

“Terrified of what this would mean for our people, the Daughter met the Origin at the mouth of the forest, and she finally turned her magic against him. Until this, she’d withheld her wrath, because though we were powerful, we were not equipped to take on an entire army.

“What she didn’t know, was that she was walking right into his trap.”

I gasp, tears springing to my eyes as I listen to the story. I can see it all playing out so vividly in my mind, and it hurts.

“The Origin unsheathed an iron blade crafted from the land on which our people were made, and he plunged it into the Daughter’s stomach. This combination of the iron infused with the power of the land, and the ley lines beneath, and the blood of the bound witch—altered by the influence of the Origin’s bind—spilled upon the ground, and in its place sprouted a strange, starborn fruit dripping with crimson sap.

“Drunk on triumph, the Origin plucked the fruit from its stem and bit into it, desperate to consume her fully. Though he was intending to manifest the Daughter’s power, what was birthed from this tragedy is something far more sinister.”

As Maureen tells me all she knows about these hunters, I imagine horns and claws, eyes of all black and razor-sharp teeth.

“These days, hunters come of age at around fifteen. They develop heightened hearing and sense of smell, unusual strength and speed, and an insatiable hunger for magic. Unlike the Origin, they do not need to make a deal to bind themselves to their target, they need only to make physical contact with an aligned witch with the intention to take her power. This bind, born of the one between the Origin and the Daughter, shackles the witch to the hunter, and allows him to sense her, to feel her, to track her.

“In turn, the hunter develops a mark, a symbol that is only visible to those with the power to see. Other hunters, marked witches, and certain beings with an insidious magic of their own. Each marking is unique, and they are said to depict the threads of fate, intertwining the two lives, for better or worse.

“And once the hunter’s mark appears, they will stop at nothing to wield an iron blade forged from the land on which our people were created, to spill her blood upon the earth and consume the fruit of her power.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “So that’s it? All those women sacrificed their lives to save our people, to give us power of our own, and these men can just… take it? Use it for themselves?” My lips are pulled back against my teeth. So many lives lost, and for what? The greed of man?

“Not exactly,” Maureen sighs. “Our stolen power does not manifest in these monsters the same way. Where we are light and abundance, growth and intuition, born of love and sacrifice, an awakened hunter is something entirely different.

“Some covens call them shadow demons. Desecrators. Light eaters. By whatever name, they are the antithesis of the stars, and through the theft of our power, they wield a necrotizing, complex control over darkness, over shadows, and all the things that hide within them.”

I gulp. How many of these people are there? Where are they? The more she speaks, the more static builds in my core until it’s nearly bubbling over.

“What happens if the witch kills them first?” I ask, because I refuse to suffer this fate. I do not waver as I watch the surprise flit through her eyes.

“Well, as far as I know, though a hunter could bind and kill as many witches as he wants, growing more powerful each time, a witch can only be bound once. So if the witch were to kill the binding hunter, I suppose she could live out the rest of her days knowing she couldn’t be bound again.

“But, if a hunter kills a bound witch that isn’t tied to him, her fruit is a poison that drives him mad until he dies by his own hand.”

“And if he kills a witch that hasn’t been bound at all?” I ask.

“Well, I guess that’s just plain old murder.”

Nausea roils in my stomach.

Silence stretches for eons between us. There is nothing but the rapid swell of my chest, the sweat rolling down the back of my neck, the thunderous beat of my heart.

“That’s… terrifying,” I say, blinking. “But if there are these—these hunters out there, if a war is coming… why would Gigi wait so long to tell me this? Why would she leave me to deal with this alone if she knew how it felt? I’ve spent months drowning in this power, scared for my fucking life, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, and this whole time—my whole life—y’all knew? You knew I would end up like this?”

I slam my chair back, nearly hyperventilating as I jump to my feet.

Maureen clears her throat. “Honey, I promise I will explain everything I can for you, but you’ve got to control yourself.”