Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
I barely slept, and when Sunday came and everyone else was getting together to practice drills and be at their best for the test tomorrow, my nerves were already shredded.
I told Luna and Harper I was sick and didn’t even bother pretending to leave my bed.
I lay there all day, staring at the ceiling, my mind racing in circles I couldn’t control.
My real estate agent had written me back with three different properties.
I read the emails over and over like they were a lifeline.
The one that looked the most peaceful was in Montana.
It was a little two-bedroom cabin on the river with solar panels and a well, the kind of place that felt cut off from the world in the best way.
It even came with a Jeep and a snowplow.
I didn’t hesitate. I told her to buy it and e-signed all the papers necessary, my fingers shaking as I committed to an escape route I hoped I wouldn’t need.
But I could see now how I might end up at a place like that, alone, quiet, hidden.
Why my mother had told me to buy it. It felt like the way Asher had looked at me last night, I’d be in Montana in no time.
I forced myself to focus on the task ahead. Passing the hunter unit trial. Getting my unit placement. Surviving the next twenty-four hours.
When the day of the test arrived, I was a ball of nerves, my stomach tight and hollow all at once. Had Asher told anyone? Would they even let me compete? Would Celia already know everything?
“Hey, feeling better? We were worried about you.” Luna appeared in the hallway just as I was stepping out of my room. It was Monday evening, and I’d been holed up for two days, living off meal bars I’d stashed in the back of a drawer like a doomsday prepper.
“Oh yeah. I think it was food poisoning,” I lied, hating how easily it slipped out.
Harper frowned. “You locked your door. I tried to check on you.”
I nodded, keeping my expression neutral. “I was sleeping. Are you guys ready for this?”
Guilt twisted low in my chest. I hated hiding things from them, but it felt like there was no going back now.
I was paying a vampire monthly, I thought my mom might still be alive, I had a bugout house in Montana, and I carried the shadow mark.
They’d never want to be friends with me if they knew all that.
The only one who knew my secrets was Asher. My fate was in his hands, and I was about to find out if he’d told anyone.
We stepped outside with the rest of our class, and there was Celia, standing in front of over two dozen hunters.
She was armed to the teeth, wearing black hunting leathers like all of us, her presence commanding without her saying a word.
To the left and right of her were open crates filled with weapons, steel catching the moonlight.
“All right, students! The time-honored tradition of your unit assignment is upon us!” Celia said.
Nervous cheers rippled through the crowd, and I peered over at Asher. He glanced back at me, and for one awful heartbeat, I thought he might say something, but the second our eyes met, he looked away. The moon was high in the sky, and the night shift was about to begin.
Shame flooded me, and I swallowed hard.
Derek stepped up beside his wife. “Now as you know, this test is different from any other you’ve ever done.
You will track, hunt, and kill one or more vampires tonight, and it will test out the unit placement you will be given by the Veil Stone Conclave.
But nothing is permanent until you get back and take your oath. ”
Luna had told me that the oath was a formal swearing to protect your fellow unit hunters to the death.
Celia stepped up next to her husband. “That’s right. Tonight is when your powers shine.”
I’d been on a bit of information overload since I got here, but according to Harper and Luna, the conclave was held in a special cave filled with five Veil Stone–infused pillars that were attuned to each hunter who presented themselves to be matched in a unit.
The conclave was started by the legacy families centuries ago and matched hunters in near-perfect fighting units.
“Pick your weapons!” Celia called out and gestured to the crates.
“As you know, for this test, you will also be allowed to bring a wafer tin. Your arcanist, if you have one, will be given the wafers. If you don’t have one, they can go to any member of your team.
Don’t get cocky. If you take too powerful of a rune wafer, I might be dragging you out in a body bag. ”
Nervous murmurs ripped through the crowd at that, the reality of what we were about to do settling in. Everyone broke apart to look through the weapons, metal clanking, voices overlapping. I thought I was in the clear and that Asher hadn’t told anyone. My chest loosened just a fraction.
“Stella, come see me,” Celia called.
My heart dropped. I glanced at Asher, betrayal rushing through me so fast it made me dizzy, but his back was to me as he pulled out a sword and tested its weight, focused, unreadable.
I slowly made my way to Celia, every step feeling heavier than the last. She walked off to the side with her hands behind her back, calm as ever.
“Hey.” I braced myself to be court-martialed, burned alive by the Hunters Guild or whatever it was they did with traitors, but instead she beamed at me, pulling a small wooden box from behind her back.
“Derek and I got you a gift. We’re so proud of how far you’ve come and how hard you’ve studied,” she said.
A lump formed in my throat, and I peered over my shoulder to see Asher watching us.
He didn’t tell her.
“A gift?” I tried to fight the urge to spill everything to Celia right there. I was keeping secrets for a dead woman I didn’t even know, and I was starting to wonder why.
“Open it.” Her smile grew wider.
I did, and when I saw the brass knuckles with spikes on the ends, I had to blink rapidly to clear the tears. Small inlaid blue runes glowed at the edges. I recognized them as concealment runes.
“You did so great with them in your last field assignment, I couldn’t resist buying a set for you.”
My heart pinched at the kindness, and in that moment, I felt like such a fraud.
“Thanks,” I croaked.
“It’s engraved too. Sometimes weapons look alike, and it’s hard to tell whose is whose.”
I peered inside the metal and saw my name. Stella Sinclair.
Sinclair. My true name. Something I’d always wondered about, and now it felt like a curse.
“I love it. Thank you.” I slipped them over my knuckles and gave her a small side hug.
Then she encouraged me to go grab more weapons, so I walked over to the weapons crates.
I grabbed three more stakes, stashing them in my thigh holsters and my boot, then slung a harpoon gun over my shoulder for good measure.
There was no limit to weapons or wafers for this test, and I wanted everything at my disposal.
I tried to focus on the task at hand, but my mind kept drifting back to the engraved brass knuckles, the letter my mom wrote, and Celia.
She had been my mother’s best friend, her sister by choice, and yet I couldn’t trust her or any hunter with my mom’s secret?
It didn’t make sense, and I wondered if I’d been going about this all wrong.
If I should have shared the letter with Celia from day one, the bank accounts, everything.
It felt like I was in too deep now, frozen on what to do next.
We all made our way across campus in a single-file line with our weapons strapped to our bodies.
The conclave chamber lay beneath the lower levels of the smaller ballroom, sealed behind three rune-locked doors.
One by one, we made our way inside the cave, the doors closing behind us with a finality that made my chest tighten.
The air changed immediately. It felt heavier, colder, charged in a way that raised the hair on my arms.
The room was circular and vast, its stone walls carved with thousands of faint runes that pulsed in a slow, blue, almost breathing rhythm.
Five massive stone pillars rose from the floor in a wide circular pattern around a central dais, each one distinct enough that even at a glance, I could tell they served different purposes.
One was pale and luminous, its surface smooth and steady, light flowing through it like calm water.
Another was black onyx threaded with gold veins that shifted and layered beneath the stone.
A third was dark pink and jagged, cracked like cooled magma, faint white bleeding from its seams. The fourth was mirror black, flawless and depthless, reflecting nothing at all.
And the last…
The last pillar was fractured, like shards of raw Veil Stone cut right through it. The instant my gaze landed on it, my skin prickled, a strange awareness crawling up my spine that I couldn’t explain.
Derek stepped forward, his voice low but carrying easily through the chamber.
“The conclave does not assign hunting units,” he said. “It reveals them.”
We stood in the outer ring with anticipation.
“The pillars identify courage,” Derek continued. “Temperament, compatibility, and survivability.”
That last word settled heavily in my chest.
“Sentinels line up here.” Celia gestured to the pale pillar. “Arcanists here.” She pointed to the onyx gold-veined pillar. “Trackers.” She gestured to the dark pink and white pillar.
People began to move and shift about the room, and it became clear there were more trackers and sentinels than arcanists. About ten to one.
“Strikers.” She pointed to the black mirror pillar. “And slayers,” she said, finally resting at the fractured raw Veil Stone pillar.