Hunter: Faction 10: The Isa Fae Collection

by Angela Fristoe

  Thora spun around to see Odessa standing behind her, partially concealed by a boulder. She stepped back, putting more space between them, not that it would do any good. She didn’t have the experience or knowledge to defeat Odessa in battle. The best she could hope for was that the distance between them would give her time to form some sort of defense spell.

  “Why would I go south?” she asked, continuing to move back.

  “The path to The Coven couldn’t have been laid more clear. I’m not sure I appreciate wasting my time or atern trying to locate you.”

  Realizing Anton had been involved with some scheme with Odessa, and the map had been a tool to get her out of The Sanctuary, Thora shoved it in to her pocket.

  She started to pull her hand back out when her fingers grazed something small and hard.

  The loúra pebble.

  Ever since going to meet Lorelle, she'd taken to carrying it just in case the other woman ever sent word to her. She gripped the pebble in her hand as an idea came to her. Resting a hand on her chest, she rubbed her collarbone.

  “Garrett is just behind me,” she said. “I lost my necklace about a mile or so ago, and he went back for it.”

  The loúra spell was easier to produce that time, and she focused on keeping the magic concealed.

  Odessa laughed. “You lie pathetically.”

  When the gentle pull of it eased, she pointed over Odessa’s shoulder.

  “Look behind you if you don’t believe me.”

  The witch glanced over her shoulder.

  “I don’t see…” Odessa’s words trailed away as she forgot who she was speaking to and that Thora was even there. She wandered a few feet away, then looked back at Thora. She started to speak, but said nothing before she went back to watching the entrance Thora has passed through, waiting for her to arrive.

  Thora ran towards the trees. The loúra spell worked well enough at The Sanctuary where no one was expecting her and hadn’t warded against such concealment, but with Odessa, she didn’t doubt that her luck would be vastly different.

  Only yards from the tree line, sparks flew past her as Odessa desperately tried to stop her. Whether magic or nature, something tripped Thora, sending her careening forward with a surprised cry. She fell, skidding through the grass on her stomach.

  Scrambling to her feet, she turned to watch Odessa advance.

  “Such a cute little trick, but a loúra spell has much shorter effects on witches. Where are you going to go?” Odessa’s lips twisted in a hideous smirk. “You should know it’s not safe for someone like you in there.”

  Thora retreated with each of the witch’s advancing steps.

  “And a life with you would serve me better?”

  “The darkness of the woods will tear your soul apart.”

  Thora looked down and saw she had passed in to the shadow of the woods. She glanced back at Odessa.

  “Perhaps, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  Another step and the trees closed in around her, swallowing her in to their depths as Odessa’s furious yells faded.

  Around her, the forest awakened to her presence, the trees groaning as they stretched their limbs and the faint sounds of the pixies chattering among themselves carried on the breeze.

  Odessa was gone, and Thora stared at where the woman had been. Rather than carrying her away, the trees enclosed her, separating her from the witch.

  The fear she felt when she realized she'd been led in to a trap was nothing compared to the paralyzing terror she felt from being at the mercy of the woods. The tree branches shifted, intertwining to create a tight canopy that cut off the light, turning mid-morning into the blackest of nights.

  Sitting on the ground, she wrapped her arms around her knees and burrowed her head in her arms, blocking out the fact that the darkness wasn’t her choice. Rocking back and forth, Thora let the voice of her father wash over her.

  Only the brave will find within

  the beauty of the wood.

  Bravery had never been a trait she claimed. Impulsive, and she had come to accept even reckless, but never brave. She left Freddie to die alone. She left behind her mother and sister. Even entering the woods the first time had been a decision based on everything except bravery. She'd been unwilling to accept that there were dangers in the world that couldn’t be entirely explained, but she'd been too afraid to admit that her father was dead. Now she was back because she feared she'd be willing to accept anything less than the love she wanted from Garrett.

  Maybe now she could place her fear to rest. Lifting her head, she stared in to the black nothingness. A gentle buzzing filled the air, and then pixie light flashed around her.

  In the bursts of light, she rose to her feet and started walking. She needed to find her way through.

  The little things possessed an evil streak and, remembering their role in Freddie’s death, she took care to avoid agitating them, gingerly making her way through the bushes and on to a beaten trail.

  The path wound through the trees until it reached a small creek. Could that be the same one Garrett and she crossed while roaming the forest together?

  The memory of him carrying her across brought an ache to her chest.

  She waded through the chilly water and continued on but, eventually, the pixies scattered taking their light with them, and she found herself stumbling every step. Then the tiniest bit of moonlight peeked through the canopy of leaves. She lifted her hand and focused on pulling the light toward her.

  A pale rainbow drifted from the sky to her fingers, illuminating the space around her in a kaleidoscope of colors. With her path lit, she carried on until she grew tired and hungry.

  She sat on a fallen log and ate a small piece of the sandwich she'd taken from The Sanctuary kitchen. Her stomach grumbled as she placed the rest back in her bag, but she didn’t know how long it would take to find the village, and she would need to conserve her atern for protection.

  Looking at the map proved useless in determining her location in relation to the village. Mainly because it didn’t even show that there was anything but trees.

  Erecting a shield around herself, she lay on the moss covered ground and fell asleep, hoping she’d be greeted by the morning sun when she woke.

  Instead, darkness continued its reign. The moonlight accumulated in Thora’s hand faded, leaving her dependent on the pixies who spent their times dashing about, their flickering light creating an almost dizzying effect.

  Thora lost track of how long she wandered. With no break in the cover of the trees, the constant night meant she no longer knew if it was night or day; only that she was no closer to being home. Whenever she tired, she surrounded herself with a small, fragile dome and slept on the ground. The thin barrier did little to keep the cold from seeping through, and most times, she lay shivering until exhaustion lulled her into a restless sleep.

  When she stumbled upon the creek yet again, she fell to her knees, unable to take it any longer. She was lost. Not just in the sense that she didn’t know where she was physically going, but she didn’t know what the future would hold or even if she wanted to go home or back to Garrett.

  That wasn’t true. Thora wanted to go back, but she couldn’t.

  Garrett told her that until she was found—until she knew where she was going and her purpose—the woods would let her go. So maybe she needed to change why she was going there.

  Home had always been where her parents and Britta had been. When they were gone, home became Garrett and The Sanctuary. The village wasn’t home anymore, yet neither was Garrett. So how could she get to somewhere she wasn’t sure would ever exist?

  She wanted to give her mother and sister a final goodbye. To release their souls.

  Thora took a shuddering breath, got to her feet, and reached out her hands in front of her as she took slow shuffling steps forward. She refused to sit and let the trees consume her. She was going to get to the village. She was going to give her mother and sister peace.
>
  Something hard and flat hit her leg and she fell forward, half flipping over whatever she had run in to. She gathered herself and turned over to sit, rubbing a hand along her shin. Her fall left a small hole in the knee of her pants, and she stuck her fingers through to check for blood, but didn’t sense any wetness. She moved her hand close to her face, and saw no blood either. She gave a sigh of relief, then sat up sharply as she realized she could see. Glancing around, she realized everything was starting to come in to focus, thanks to a distant light. She looked to see what she'd fallen over.

  The Fence. Somehow or other, Thora had found the fence, or at least what was left of it. The trees had pushed through. Already failing, the railings had crumbled under the pressure of moving trees.

  Thora stared at the hill, and as the darkness retreated, she saw the trees had crept all the way up. On the other side would be the village. Would there be anything or anyone left? The trees had taken Freddie. Could they have done the same to the village?

  She ran until she reached the top of the hill where the trees thinned then collapsed to the ground in despair.

  It was gone. Everything had been swallowed by the dense woods that blanketed the entire area.

  Closing her eyes, Thora tipped her head back and let the heat of the sun melt the iciness shrouding her heart.

  There was a loud whining sound, and she opened her eyes to the sight of a soul star rising to the sky. The brilliant white light vanished in to the clouds and a sense of recognition passed over her. She'd known that soul. She couldn’t place a name to it, but she had known them, and someone down there had released their soul. Someone who cared enough to give them peace. Maybe the village wasn’t gone.

  Thora struggled to her feet, and then carefully made her way down the other side of the hill. Another whine sounded and a second soul star rose, followed almost immediately by a third. She quickened her pace, moving toward the spot where the soul stars had risen from.

  Between the trees, she glimpsed of houses still standing, though the trees pushed against them as if trying to absorb the wood. She neared the center of the village, and yet another soul star lifted from behind the town hall which.

  She slowly moved along the side of the building and peeked around the corner. Bodies covered with sheets lay in a row at the base of the unity alter. At the far end, a figure knelt, shoulders bowed in grief. Darrian.

  Thora stepped forward. “Are they all gone?”

  Startled, Darrian glanced up and got to his feet.

  “Thora, what are you doing here? How…? Is Garrett here?”

  She tried to think of how to explain everything that had happened since she last saw Darrian, but it had somehow become so complicated.

  “He’s gone hunting for a breed.” She went around the bodies to stand at his side, and they gazed at the empty vessels who had been like family. “Are they all dead?”

  He shook his head. “All of the witches and Fae. Only a handful of breeds are here.”

  Tears pricked at Thora’s eyes. Death was never welcomed in the village, though it happened on occasion, yet she couldn’t say she didn’t wish it for those taken by the Bascadors. Those taken would be… She swallowed around the thick lump in her throat. There was nothing she could do. Whatever fate they were enduring would end when The Council and Amadeus were exposed.

  “I arrived not long ago,” Darrian said. “They were all here, waiting for someone to come back.”

  “Do you think someone survived?”

  It was a silly thought, made more so by the hope it had been Britta, but despite the impossibility of it, the spark was there.

  “No. They would have released their soul stars.”

  “Did you find your mother?”

  “I released her first.”

  For the first time, Thora noticed his red-rimmed eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “She was always kind to me.”

  An awkward silence fell until Darrian gestured to the end of the row, answering the question she'd been too reluctant to ask.

  Thora moved down to the end, and when she found her sister’s dark brown boots, she knelt. Images of her sister flashed through her mind, from the days Thora helped change her nappies until that last day when she'd reminded Britta to soak the potatoes for dinner. Until Thora left, there'd never been a day when they'd been apart.

  More than she regretted leaving, though, she regretted not taking Britta with her. Each tear that fell was another regret, an angry word spoken too quickly, a hug she didn’t return, a kind word she should have said.

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat there as Darrian released the other soul stars, but, eventually, he reached her side. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she covered it with her own.

  “Is she ready?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I am.”

  She had thought that she had dealt with her grief in the months since the Bascadors attacked, but she hadn’t really. At first, Garrett helped numb it and then she allowed herself to become wrapped up in a new life where the reminders of her family were few and far between. The tears she'd shed in the days between had been only a fraction of the sorrow that left a gaping hole in her heart.

  She couldn’t hold Britta to the world any longer. Her sister deserved that final freedom.

  Thora leaned forward to place her hand on Britta’s foot and bowed her head. She whispered her last words to her sister, and waited as the remnants of Britta’s soul gathered in her center then burst free.

  Britta’s body turned to ash, and Thora’s hand fell to the ground with it. She took a deep breath, drawing in the air as if it were giving her the strength to go on.

  She reached for her mother’s foot and repeated the process then sat back on her heels, shaking from the effort of holding in her sobs as the last soul star rose to the sky.

  “Why?” she cried. “This wasn’t fair or natural. They didn’t deserve this death. None of them did.”

  Darrian stood there, letting her vent her frustration and grief in harsh words to the soul stars of their ancestors. When she had expelled the worst from her heart, she looked up at him.

  “I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I was, but I was wrong.”

  “I don’t think we’re ever ready to let love go,” Darrian said, lowering himself to sit beside her. “So we hold on to it for as long as possible, clinging to hopes and dreams that have long since forfeited their chance at existence simply so we don’t have to face the reality of the loneliness that is left in its wake.”

  “You sound like my father,” she said.

  He chuckled. “I should because it’s what he told me before I decided to go to The Capitol.”

  “Why would he say that to you?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

  “Because he knew I was waiting and hoping for a dream that would never come true. I wanted you to love me like I loved you. Even after I accepted you never would, I stayed, and every day, it got harder to hold on to until finally, it was the comforting familiarity of waiting on you that kept me here.”

  “I’m so sorry, Darrian. I wish I could have loved you like you deserved.”

  “For a long time, I wished it too,” he said, and nudged her with his shoulder as he grinned at her. “But once I left, I discovered that my love for you wasn’t as strong as I'd thought.”

  She'd never imagined that hearing someone wasn’t in love with her would bring such relief.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Because I never once questioned my decision. I never felt the urge to come back for you.”

  Which was precisely what she'd been doing since leaving The Sanctuary, but the depth of her love for Garrett did little to change her mind. She hadn’t wanted him trapped in a unification with Sophie, and she wasn’t going to trap him in one with her.

  Darrian stood and held out a hand to help her up then they made their way in to the town hall. Everything was so quiet, and Thora hadn’t realized how much she would miss the
sound of other peoples’ voices.

  She moved to the fireplace and started arranging the kindling and logs. Within minutes, the fire roared, driving away the chill that lingered in the empty hall.

  “Why did you come back here, Thora?” Darrian asked from where he sat at the head of the long table that spanned the length of the room.

  She sat beside him, then stared at her hands as she rubbed her fingers over the worn wooden surface of the table.

  “I wanted to set Britta and my mother free.”

  “That may be why the woods released you, but why did you leave The Sanctuary?”

  She sighed and dropped her head on to her hands.

  “It was a disaster.”

  “What was?”

  “Anton Galani reported Garrett to The Council for breaking his unity pledge to Sophie.”

  “Shit. So they gave Sophie the choice of retribution. Did she ask them to banish you?”

  “No, but Anton did. Then Garrett’s sister intervened. So they gave me a choice—ervice, banishment, or unification.”

  “And you chose banishment.”

  “Not exactly,” she groaned.

  “Thora,” Darrian said at her delay in responding, and the exasperated tone was reminiscent of the times she'd steered him and Freddie in to trouble when they were younger.

  “Garrett and I were united. I was going to take banishment, but Garrett… it doesn’t matter.” She lifted her head and gazed out one of the windows, avoiding looking at Darrian. “We united, and I thought it would be okay. And it was for about an hour. Then all of a sudden he was leaving to chase after Sophie.”

  “He’s a hunter, Thora. Rescuing breeds is what he does.”

  “I realize that and if that had been it… He said duty was the most important thing to him. Maybe it’s selfish, but I want our love to be more important than duty.” She finally looked at her friend, and the sympathy she saw in his face sliced at her already aching heart. “I couldn’t keep him trapped by a unity bond he didn’t really want.”

  “Are you sure he doesn’t want it?”

  “I haven’t a single doubt.”

  “Then why is he here?”