Chapter 7 · The Last Hunter

Drake's hand wouldn't stop shaking. The parchment crinkled under his thumb—four hundred years old, his mother's ink still dark as fresh blood, his full name right there in the middle of twelve.

Twelve names. Nine already dead. Three left.

Him. And two he didn't recognize.

"Your mother knew." Ella's voice came from somewhere behind him. He didn't turn. Couldn't. "She knew my bloodline would produce you."

"That's impossible." His voice sounded far away. "No one can predict—"

"She could." Ella moved closer. He heard her boots on stone. "She was half-oracle. That's why the Guild wanted her dead. Why they sent fifty hunters to this monastery and called it a Darkborn purge."

Drake finally looked up. Ella stood three feet away, the silver dagger from the box in her hand. Runes crawled up the blade, glowing faint red in the dim light.

"The other families on this list," he said. "Garrett. Shaw. Mendoza. All declared KIA in the past decade. I knew two of them." His throat tightened. "Garrett trained me. He died in Budapest. They said it was a nest ambush."

"It wasn't." Ella turned the dagger over. "If your mother's list is right, they were all bound.