Hunter: Faction 10: The Isa Fae Collection

by Angela Fristoe

  * * *

  When sunlight poured through her open window, bringing her from her slumber, she flung an arm over her eyes. While her arm shielded the light, it did little to block out the humiliation of her memories.

  The feeling lingered long after she'd risen and dressed for the day. The overly cheerful Rossa only made it worse. Thora would have preferred to be alone, but she was expected in Trilby’s office, and wasn’t sure she would find her way off the floor without help, so she gritted her teeth and smiled as Rossa carried on.

  Inside the office, Thora found Trilby flipping through a stack of papers, pausing intermittently to give the occasional sheet a more thorough look.

  “Good morning,” Thora said, stepping in to the room.

  Trilby glanced up, then back to her papers. Finally, she grunted, pulled out a sheet, and slid it across her desk. Seeing it was a schedule, Thora picked it up to read over.

  “This is the division of your day. Until you possess sufficient control of your magic, your lessons will take up most of your time,” Trilby said. “The duty rotation is the same for everyone. I placed you in group four. The cycles are posted on the board in the kitchen.”

  “I saw that last evening,” Thora said.

  “Meals are at eight, noon, and six,” Trilby continued as if Thora hadn’t spoken. “All duties and lessons begin at nine, and continue until your job is done. The day is yours after. Do not enter the second floor without an official escort of The Council, nor the service wing unless explicitly given permission from Amadeus or The Council. Your lesson started five minutes ago. Take a right and follow the hall to the library. The hunter will meet you there.”

  “Would it be possible to get some clothing?” Thora asked.

  Trilby took in her outfit, the same ill-fitting men’s clothes she wore the night before, and grunted again. “I’ll put in a request for laundry to send up some alternative clothes.”

  Thora nodded, but the other woman had returned to examining the paper in front of her. Apparently dismissed, she turned and went back to the foyer.

  The Sanctuary’s library was as far from what Thora had imagined as possible. There was no cozy feel, nothing to say the place possessed ancient knowledge. Everything was white and stark. The shelves were built in to the marble walls, and there were only a small grouping of hardback chairs in a semi-circle facing the window. Cold and sterile, Thora couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to curl up with a book in there.

  “Hello?” she called out, her voice echoing around her.

  She noticed a partition at the far end of the room and walked over to push open the sliding door, revealing another room. She went down the three steps and let herself draw in the flood of sensations surrounding her. The space was dark, suffocating with the strength of something she couldn’t quite name.

  “Magic is in the heart of both Fae and witch.”

  Thora spun around to find Garrett standing in the entryway. Suddenly, Trilby’s words became clear. A hunter was training her. Not just any hunter. Garrett.

  “Thora.” He sighed as he came down the steps and closed the distance between them. She moved back, refusing to get too close. “We should talk about what happened.”

  “No. We shouldn’t.” The last thing she needed was to relive a single moment of what transpired the night before. She just wanted to forget about it and move on.

  “We have to,” he insisted. “If I’m going to be teaching you, we need to be clear about—”

  “A mistake,” she threw his description back at him. “We’re clear. Now can we start?”

  Her refusal to talk seemed to frustrate him, but she didn’t care. He might have been frustrated, but she was dying inside, and she refused to let him know.

  “Alright. We’ll train.”

  He flicked his hand through the air, and the partition closed, taking with it what little light had been in the room.

  She had no idea if she could trust herself alone with him. Though she wasn’t sure if is was because she wanted to strip him naked or beat him senseless.

  “I'd rather have the door open,” she said. “It’s dark and stuffy in here.”

  “It’s not a choice. Practice is conducted in private. Magic is a very personal process for Fae and breeds. Witches follow spells and rituals. Any witch can reproduce the same magic with practice and the right ingredients and words,” he said, and moved through the darkness. “For the Fae, it’s different for everyone. The magic is within us, and we dictate how we use it. Figuring out how to access it can be a complicated process, bringing us to the edge of our being.”

  Thora had no idea what he was talking about, but the sound of his voice in the dark was comforting, and she wanted him to continue speaking.

  “Except I’m both Fae and witch.”

  “True, but breeds have the basic witch magic combined with that of their Fae blood.”

  “The charms you’ve shown me have been easy enough,” she said.

  “That’s why I showed them to you. A child could do them.”

  There was a soft click, and light filled the room. In the middle of the space stood a pedestal with a large bowl similar to the one outside the wall.

  “Alítheia water is good for more than discerning the truth of someone,” he said.

  Garrett walked a wide circle around the bowl. When he stopped, he raised his arms, crossing them in front of his face. Twisting them around, he faced them toward the bowl. His lips moved, but there was no sound from him.

  The alítheia water swirled in the bowl, gathering against the sides and lifting in a glowing blue tube that curved up through the air. It stopped before Thora in a horizontal line. The water stretched down to a thin film. Across the surface, images flashed.

  At first, they came so quickly, she struggled to catch even a glimpse. Gradually, they slowed and she realized she was watching her life flash before her eyes.

  She gasped as an image of her sister flickered past. Pressing her hand to her mouth, she took a step closer. She was vaguely aware of Garrett moving again as Britta’s face came back and froze on the water.

  Thora reached out, her fingers skimming through the water. It wavered, and then collapsed, splashing to the floor. She jumped back, and the water gathered in a pool, retracting into a long stream that was suctioned back along the floor, up the smooth lines of the pedestal, and in to the bowl.

  “How…?” Her eyes flew up to Garrett.

  “It’s a memory wall. It pulls forth your memories, showing you what I want you to see.”

  “How do you know what my memories are?”

  “I don’t,” he says. “But I wanted you to see what would make you happy. I could have easily shown you the memories that would destroy you.”

  “Why? What purpose would that type of magic have?”

  “There is no purpose to the magic, only the intentions behind it.”

  “Then why would I learn it?”

  “You’re not. At least, not yet. The level of complexity would be too much for you to control right now.”

  “So what will I be learning?”

  “We’ll focus on lower-level magic first, allowing you to move nature to nature, though the more physical effort that would be exerted to move it means more atern used,” he said, and flicked his fingers at his boots. A thin layer of dirt gathered around the edges was swept away and disappeared in to a small crack in the floor.

  “This will prepare me for life in the faction?” She didn’t understand how using magic for such a simple task would help protect her outside of The Sanctuary.

  “These are the stepping stones to higher-level magic. If you know how to return nature to nature, you can call it to you.”

  Garrett held out his hand, and sparks of silver and blue floated up in a rotating column of light. Palm out, he thrust his hand forward and sent the ray of dusty light at a small potted plant in the corner of the room. The delicate vines of the fern grew, sagging to the floor under the weight of its new foliage.


  “It’s a great way to grow food.”

  “Show me,” she said, eager to learn more about what had always been forbidden.

  * * *

  For the next two hours, Garrett worked with her to find how her Fae and witch magic could be combined to cast spells, produce charms, and manipulate the world around her. When she grew bored with the mundane tasks they accomplished, he would demonstrate how adjusting certain movements and thoughts generated a much more powerful reaction.

  As their lesson came to an end, he knelt in front of the fern, lifting its long vines in his hand. With a faint green glow, the plant began to shrink back to its original length. He dropped his hand and smiled up at her.

  His dark brown eyes twinkled with exhilaration, and it was like a giant fist grabbed her heart and squeezed. The pain of it reminded her that was all she had with him. He was a hunter, bound to protect the breeds. And that was all she was to him. A breed.

  She turned away and straightened up the already tidy stack of papers on a table in the corner of the room. The darker area of the room illuminated the flashing of her atern cuff. Twisting her arm around, she stared in horror at the cuff.

  “I’m blinking,” she said, her eyes flying to Garrett.

  “Relax. It’s still green. It’s registering the use of your atern. It should stop in a few minutes.”

  She'd never been below a full charge. Even the magic Garrett had taught her to use in the woods hadn’t been strong enough to change that.

  “What do I do? How can I practice every day?” Panic churned her stomach. She'd thought if she didn’t like it there, she would have the option of leaving once she knew enough to survive, but with low atern, she'd never be safe.

  “Relax, Thora. You’ve barely used a quarter of your atern. At the end of each day, you’ll be given a recharge in return for the duties performed.”

  “Is that what you do?” Her eyes flickered to his cuff with its yellow light.

  “No.”

  Of course not. All Garrett had to do was share a few kisses with Sophie, and his atern would be full again.

  “As a hunter, I can recharge at any time in case of a call. It also helps that I am a board member and major shareholder in The Atern Depository. As long as there is a charging station nearby, I have unlimited withdrawal capabilities.”

  “Oh.”

  There was a loud chime from the main hall, and Thora released a sigh of relief. She pulled her schedule from her pocket and gave it a quick glance.

  “I better go. I’m due in the kitchen.”

  She moved to the exit, but Garrett stepped between her and the partition.

  “We need to talk, Thora.”

  She shut her eyes and drew in a deep breath. It would have been easier to keep pretending. She looked at Garrett.

  “No. We don’t. You made everything clear last night. I’m not going to say I’m happy for you, or that I agree with your choice, but it’s your choice to make.”

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he said.

  “Well, you did.”

  She pushed past him and walked slowly through the library, down the hall, and in to the kitchen.

  The organized chaos of the kitchen took over her thoughts, and she spent the rest of the morning learning how she fit in to her group and their duties.

  When her afternoon training session came around, she had prepared herself for dealing with Garrett again. As much as she didn’t want to be near him, she wanted to learn to use her magic.

  But it wasn’t Garrett waiting for her in the library. Instead, a slender Fae woman stood there, a stern expression on her face. Canaria was as bitchy as Rossa had described her. When Thora asked her where Garrett was, Canaria replied that sometimes hunters had more important things to do than train the future service staff parlor tricks. Thora had been left wishing it were Garrett teaching her.

  After her lesson, her schedule was done for the day, and she scoured the bookshelves. Unimpressed with the magic instruction manuals, she took the first book she found that promised a read that wouldn’t bore her. Sitting on the bench in the bay window, Thora leaned back against the wall and did her best to focus on the book she held.

  It was a beautiful leather-bound collection of sonnets from the human world. She'd heard them all before, recited nearly word for word by her mother. As a young girl, they had held her enraptured, and even now they sent shivers down her spine at the love and devotion the poet spoke of. Yet, an hour later, she could hardly muster the will to hold the book open.

  Instead, her eyes continually strayed to the garden outside and the sight of Garrett and Sophie working on dethorning the rose bushes. They worked side by side, not a single word passing between them. Perhaps they needed no words. Perhaps being together was enough. But how could Sophie not long to hear the deep timber of Garrett’s voice?

  Thora wanted to tell herself that her inability to look away was simple curiosity or happiness for Garrett that he was content with a life spent with Sophie.

  But she knew better. She watched because the bitter burning in her chest and the wretched aching of her heart refused to let her do anything else. How could he so easily resume his life, his relationship with Sophie, after what they had shared? What was it about Sophie that made his duty to her stronger than what he felt for Thora?

  “Argh,” she groaned, and slammed the book shut. Why couldn’t she accept that what they had shared was a mistake? A momentary, delicious, lapse of judgment on both their parts. So why torment herself by watching him with another woman?

  “Jealousy,” came Darrian’s voice from behind her.

  Thora managed to tear her eyes away from Garrett long enough to watch Darrian sit opposite her on the bench. His long legs took up more than his fair share, and she pulled her knees up to her chest.

  “What’s jealousy?”

  “It’s what you’re feeling. That ache in your chest when you see them together. The sudden urge to go over there and tear Sophie’s hair out.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she lied.

  “Good try, but I know you, Thora, and that is the same expression you wore when you still had a crush on Tobias and found out he and Petra were uniting.”

  “I was thirteen.”

  “True, but that doesn’t change the fact you were jealous then, and you’re jealous now.”

  She gave a tight smile. “Is it wrong to want to find love?”

  “Thora…"

  “I missed you when you left,” she said, desperately wanting to change the subject. Darrian threw his head back and laughed. She glared at him. “You find that funny?”

  “I find your attempt to deflect funny.”

  She sniffed and turned her back to the window just to show him she could look away from Garrett.

  “I did miss you.”

  “And I missed you,” he said. “What happened after I left?”

  “I told you already.” She didn’t want to relive that day.

  “No. You told some stranger a sequence of events. This is me, Thora. We were always able to talk about everything.”

  A lump formed in her throat. That had been what she missed most about Darrian when he left. The kisses and the pleasure he'd given her during sex hadn’t been anywhere close to the same loss as the deep friendship they'd had. He knew all her secrets, just as she'd known his, and as much as that had held them together as friends, it had also been what drove them apart.

  Darrian had wanted more than she could give him, and while she had resigned herself to giving Frederick less than every part of her, she hadn’t been able to do that to Darrian. So he'd left, and she let him. She'd been sad to see him go, but had hoped he would make it through the woods and find a woman who would give him every part of herself.

  Now he wanted to know what happened to his mother. To the people he thought he'd left safely behind. He deserved to know, no matter how difficult it would be for her.

  “The fence was failing. Ther
e were some attempts to reinforce it, but it needed to be replaced. My father volunteered to go to The Capitol for the materials.”

  “He volunteered? Entering the woods is a death sentence.”

  “Yet, here we are,” she said, pointing out the obvious. “You left, and your mother always claimed you were still alive. That she would recognize your soul star if she saw it.”

  “She would think that,” he said, his voice dipping low in sadness.

  “My father had been gone for months, and while everyone else gave up on him, something told me he was just waiting for me to find him.”

  “Thora, the chance of him making it through was small, and if he had, he would have returned.”

  “I realize that, but it hung there in the back of my mind, teasing me every time I looked toward the woods. If he made it through, why couldn’t I?”

  “So you asked Freddie to take you,” he said grimly.

  “I…" A heavy sigh escaped her. “I did.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Garrett and Sophie, avoiding the accusation in Darrian’s eyes. Maybe the hunger for Garrett was her punishment for leading Freddie to his death.

  “You didn’t force him to go with you,” Darrian said, drawing her gaze back to him. “Freddie was infatuated with you. He would have done anything you asked with little hesitation.”

  “But he did hesitate.” Guilt made the words a forceful admission. “I begged him to go. Just a little further.”

  “Despite what his mother believed, Freddie was a grown man. He made up his mind to go with you, so that’s on him.”

  “He didn’t want to leave.”

  “I’m not surprised. Freddie wasn’t like you or me. There was nothing there for me. My mother was but a physical presence, simply waiting for the day when she would join my father’s soul star.”

  “I would have stayed if not for my father’s disappearance.” Thora cringed at how weak her claim sounded.

  Darrian laughed. “In the end, you'd have become a miserable shrew, constantly complaining about the village children wandering too close to the fence, playing at the edge of the woods until, one day, you'd walk in there yourself and vanish.”