LITMIR.BIZ

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his hand, twisted it outward, and before he could stop her, she had pulled the young Hunter’s blade from him. But Hanson Knell wasn’t some half-trained Aren; he was a well-seasoned Hunter. In an instant he had removed his own weapon and directed it at her, prepared for a fight. She stepped to the side and slowly lowered the sword, showing she meant no harm. She had not come so far to fight Hanson Knell.

      “Bane trained you,” Hanson hissed with disgust, following her slow steps with his sword. “I knew Falco Bane, I helped train him, I would know his style anywhere, and I saw it in the tavern as clearly as I see it now.”

      She continued to make slow steps to the side, keeping the old Hunter moving. “There is nothing you have seen that I could not explain.” She watched him study her, looking over her face with a keen eye, as if he were searching for signs of Falco.

      He shook his head at her slowly. “Earlier, in the bar, you used Sentio. But no woman has ever been taught the ways.”

      She thought back to the bar, when one of the Aren had her by the neck and was ready to kill her. She had pained him to free herself from his grasp. Sentio, the ancient training of the Infinity Hunters that combined telepathy and telekinesis, was, like the role itself, reserved only for men. It had been decided long ago by the Hunters’ Assembly Council that females did not possess the necessary strength to wield Sentio to any great extreme.

      She shook her head at him. “I can communicate the odd thought, push if I need to—if my life depended on it, like today—but no, I cannot wield Sentio.”

      The old Hunter shook his head. “He taught you—a woman—our greatest gift.”

      “No—after thirteen years of having him rifle around my mind and watching him move objects as though they were connected to strings on his hands, I finally learnt just enough to say ‘stop’ or force a door closed when he came after me,” she explained, her voice low and serious.

      He continued to shake his head, his blade still at the ready. “A woman who fights as well as you has had formal training.”

      “A woman who fights as well as me has been forced to learn. Falco Bane taught me—he taught me by savaging my body for half my life,” she hissed at the old man. The words felt like oil in her mouth, disgusting and dark.

      Finally, he lowered his blade. She could see his imagination working; she watched him envision the life of horrors she must have suffered. While he maintained his dispassionate glower, she knew she had subdued him with her words.

      “I need to take you to the Assembly Council.”

      She stepped away from him. Although Jessop had anticipated being taken to the Council, she knew it best to show fear at his words. It had been soon after she had first realized that she no longer felt true fear that she had learnt it was best to let others think she still did. “And what will they do with me?”

      “Ask you as many questions as I have… more.”

      She nodded slowly, unsurprised by his vague answer. “You should see something then, before the rest of them do. So you can know I’m not trying to keep secrets.”

      Jessop knew that the more she volunteered, the less they would forcefully take from her.

      Hanson nodded, waiting. She reached to her throat and gingerly undid her cloak, lowering it as she slowly turned her back to him. Jessop pulled her dark braid over her shoulder and revealed the nape of her neck to the Hunter—revealed her burn to him. She could feel his eyes boring into her, staring at the image of the intricate sword centered in a perfect circle, burnt into her flesh many years ago. It had been done with the smallest of wires, slowly and repeatedly, until the scar accurately depicted a beautiful encircled blade.

      It had been hell.

      The old Hunter cleared his throat before speaking. “Bane did this?”

      Jessop nodded, slowly readjusting her cloak back into place. She turned around to face him. He was touching the back of his neck, as though checking that his own burn was still fixed in place.

      “Did he tell you why? Why would he burn you with our mark—with the Hunter’s sigil?” As he spoke, he lowered his hand from his neck to his chest, where the identical sigil was engraved into his leather.

      She could see the disgust in his eyes. He stared at her as though she had permanently captured a part of his identity and he couldn’t figure out how to take it back. “Of course he told me why.”

      He waited on her answer, his silver brow furrowed.

      She shrugged, as though the answer were obvious. “He told me it was his mark.”

      * * * *

      The Glass Blade appeared to be made of almost entirely diaphanous materials, translucent chutes and glass floors and walls, with clear tubes connecting rooms; see-through bullets that zipped upward and downward through transparent shafts that weaved through crystal glass walls and floors. Every few paces a refracted ray of red light struck across the floor, but for the most part, the building seemed near impenetrable to the outside elements. Jessop thought of Aranthol—the Shadow City where she had come from—and all of its blackened corners and darkened halls. It was a place where secrets hid well. Yet, something about the intentional transparency of the Azguli fortress where the Hunters lived made Jessop think that it was perhaps even a better hiding place for secrets to dwell.

      Jessop followed Hanson Knell through a glass corridor, looking underfoot into labs and offices and training centers. She saw men writing scripts and forging weapons, young boys fighting with staffs, and even a room where a group bowed down in prayer towards a glass mantle holding an effigy of a Hunter’s sword, their sigil proudly displayed on a banner behind it. The Glass Blade was more than Jessop had ever imagined it to be. It was a city within a city.

      She had asked Hanson Knell if she could wait to see the young Hunter recover before being taken to the Assembly Council, but the old Hunter had refused. He had reminded her in no uncertain terms that her presence was entirely unwelcome. The Glass Blade was a sanctuary for Hunters—and Hunters were male.

      “You have a light step.” His voice startled her. He hadn’t said a word to her since leaving the medical floor.

      “As do you,” she said. Jessop had spent more than half her life with Falco Bane, and she was finally in the Glass Blade with the renowned Hunter, Hanson Knell, who dragged her to the Assembly Council… the Council that would undoubtedly want to know every small detail about Falco. She didn’t have time for chitchat with the old Hunter—she needed to concentrate on what was to come.

      “Bane taught you that quietness?”

      Jessop stopped walking at his question, only a few feet away from the room she was certain the Council resided in. The old Hunter came to a stop and turned to her.

      She eyed him up slowly. “Survival taught me that skill—and a great deal more. I saved your life today, Hunter, because of such skills.” She kept her voice low, her green eyes locked on to him.

      “Well, they are skills you need to explain knowing. They are not meant—” he began, flustered.

      Jessop shook her head, interrupting him. “If you want to hear stories about how I came to be the way I am, it’s not going to happen. I will walk out of here right now and I’m fairly certain you know I’m capable of it.”

      He narrowed his gaze, but remained silent.

      “But, if you want to hear about Falco Bane and Aranthol, if you want to possibly learn something that could help your hunt, then stop wasting time demanding answers I won’t give and lead me to your Council.”

      His blue eyes held her stare with contempt. “There are no questions that will go unanswered if asked by the Council—your truth will be forced from you and it will not be pleasant.”

      Jessop slowly shrugged her shoulders. “There are no horrors your Council could present me with that I haven’t survived before.”

      “If

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