Chapter 19 #2
I shuffled over nervously with about ten other students.
There was a stark contrast between how many of each type of hunter there were.
Arcanists and slayers seemed the rarest, then strikers.
The sentinels and trackers were plentiful.
It meant some people wouldn’t be in a complete unit.
I wasn’t sure what that meant for their future.
“Step forward until the pillar lights up and you’ve been assigned to your unit,” Celia said.
Jax was first, a sentinel. He didn’t hesitate, his boots striking the stone as he stood in front of the pale luminous pillar, which responded immediately.
Light poured through its core before extending outward in a broad band that wrapped around his torso and shoulders. The stone hummed low and steady.
Jax peered around in excitement.
“Let’s try arcanists and see if there is a match for Jax.” Celia nodded to Winnie, a small girl with mousy brown hair. Winnie stepped up to the onyx and gold pillar and stood there, but nothing happened.
She stepped off.
Luna was next and the second she got close, the gold-veined pillar ignited.
Layered light spiraled outward in complex patterns, runes forming and dissolving faster than I could track.
Threads of gold wrapped her wrists, her throat, her temples, weaving into intricate sigils before settling into her skin.
The entire cave seemed to brighten and stayed that way.
Jax was grinning ear to ear. He liked her, and they were a match to be in the same unit.
Lucky.
Derek nodded once to the line of trackers as if indicating that they should go next.
Over ten trackers walked before the pillar, but it was just dead stone, no reaction. I could see Harper’s leg begin to twitch, her foot bopping as she waited her turn. I knew without even asking that she’d be dying to be in a unit with Luna.
Harper’s turn finally came, and she barely reached the center before the dark pink pillar stirred.
A soft tonal hum filled the space as silver lines shot across the floor beneath her boots, seemingly mapping invisible corridors and exits.
The lines converged at her feet, then wrapped around her and settled there.
I didn’t know what kind of magic these stones and runes carried, but it was incredible to witness, other worldly.
Harper grinned.
Then it was the strikers’ turn. Two people tried before Asher stepped forward.
When he did, the black mirror pillar roared to life. Heat slammed through the chamber as the stone ignited with violent light. A sharp, angular rune tore itself into the air, blazing red and white before snapping into Asher’s chest like a brand.
He barely flinched.
Holy crap.
Then it was my turn, and I suddenly felt like an imposter. If this pillar didn’t light up, something was wrong with me, because it was clearly picking people with close bonds, and I was friends with every single person standing before these pillars.
Well, I was before last night. I wasn’t sure what I was with Asher.
The moment I stepped onto the dais, the chamber went unnaturally still, as if the fractured Veil Stone itself seemed to pause. Every pillar dimmed for a fraction of a second and then flared almost like the electricity was being tested.
Then the fractured pillar awakened. Light bent strangely around its core, wrapping around me as well in a dark blue hue.
The other pillars flickered in response and then glowed so brightly, we had to hide our faces before it went dark.
Derek raised his hand. “The conclave has formed a unit,” he announced. “Perfectly balanced, bound by loyalty and friendship.”
Runes ignited beneath our feet, five patterns, five paths, all linked.
“From this moment forward,” he said, “you do not fight alone.”
My gaze flicked across the room to Asher, hoping to see compassion there, maybe proof he was going to forgive me and give me a chance to explain, a flicker of hope that we were going to be okay. But the second I peered at him, he looked away.
“It’s well known that friends with close bonds and deep trust make the best hunting unit.” Celia began clapping, and everyone followed suit as we stepped away from the pillars and moved to the back of the room to wait for the others.
Harper and Luna grinned at me, and I tried to smile back, but it was flat.
Trust? I hadn’t told them anything. I was a fraud. I suddenly wanted to blurt everything out for everyone to hear, but it was too late for that. I had to focus.
I glanced at Asher to see him stone-faced. I wished he’d have let me explain more, but I understood his running off.
We waited patiently as the new units were assigned. Whoops and cheers rang out through the crowd except for Asher and I. We stood sullen, the other night going unsaid between us.
Greyson, Jasmine, Daphne, Clay, and Kurt were matched into a unit, and Asher’s gaze met mine. Did he want to be in a unit with her instead? Probably. I frowned, mentally pleading with him to forgive me, to trust me, but maybe I shouldn’t be trusted.
When we were all gathered into units, some having to pair up two trackers with two sentinels, we made our way back outside.
Harper and Luna squealed in excitement and linked arms with me, dragging me over to stand with Celia and her hunters along with Derek.
“Unit besties,” Luna said as she tugged on my arm.
“You nervous?” Harper asked, looking at my face.
I was having a hard time acting normal, and she knew me well enough now to read me.
“A little.” I smiled and she nodded. Nervous that Asher would never forgive me.
“Okay,” Celia called out to everyone as we grouped in front of the portal room. “Now you have to prove to yourself. To the conclave and to us that this is a good pairing. Go out there tonight and kick vampire butt, and then when you get home, you can take your oath and be sealed forever.”
Forever.
“Not really forever, just until death,” Luna stated, and Harper kicked her leg.
Luna vacillated between morbid and bottle of sunshine at any given moment. I loved that about her.
Celia walked over and handed us a hunting duffel bag.
It had an emergency phone, a tracker of some sort that everyone had been trained on in high school and I had no idea how to work, a wafer tin, a med kit, and a map of all the portals in our city and the scheduled times for pickup tonight.
Our unit and Daphne’s unit were going to Spokane tonight, which made me feel good.
I knew my city well and at least felt confident in that.
I overheard some of the other students were going to Boise, Idaho, Gilbert, Arizona, and other small to medium cities.
Nothing big like Los Angeles or New York City.
They were trying to train us, not kill us.
“Jax, how do you turn this one on again?” Harper called him over, and he clicked a button on the side to turn on the tracker.
It looked like a smartphone but with an accompanying drone.
Harper’s hands shook a little, and I knew she was probably nervous to have to be our tracker and find some vampires to kill.
Jax tossed the drone into the air while Harper practiced flying it around our group with the phone being the remote control.
“Is that heat-seeking?” I asked, peering at the phone-control module. It had arrows for up and down and left and right in the corner but otherwise was showing a bunch of red heat bodies. Our bodies.
“Yep. Ninety-eight point six degrees. Vampires show as blue. They run a temp of about sixty degrees.”
Fascinating.
Asher was talking strategy with Jax while Luna began to rifle through the wafer kit and take inventory. “Holy crap, they gave us everything.” She grinned, looking like a kid in a candy store.
I felt a little lost. Everyone had a part to play, and I was just standing here, ready to kill the bastards. There was no way I was a slayer. Just because I had the runes on my arms didn’t mean I was ready to lead a team and be the one with the highest kill count. But then I looked at Celia.
She stood tall and confident, hands loosely at her sides while she barked orders at her hunters to break up into groups. She was my idol, and I just needed to be more like her.
We then headed for the train portal in waves, five minutes apart. As our two units were walking to the train portal, I lagged back so that I could catch Asher alone for a minute.
“Hey, I have everything I can show you. My mom’s bank accounts. Her letter to me. I even have a picture of the day I was born in a storage unit here in Veil Haven,” I whispered.
He gave me a side glance, swallowing hard. “Let’s just focus on tonight,” he said and then sped up to catch up with Jax, completely shutting me down.
Pain sliced through my chest at his response, sharp and immediate, but I understood it.
Or at least I told myself I did. I realized then what a two-faced liar I must have looked like.
Hiding all this from people who were supposed to be my friends, people who were trusting me with their lives tonight.
A depressive funk settled over me like a heavy blanket, thick and suffocating, because I had no idea how to fix any of this.
And worse, I knew whatever fragile thing might have been starting between Asher and me was dead now.
Our unit and Daphne’s took the portal to Spokane and stepped out into Riverfront Park near the SkyRide. The city lights glowed against the river, deceptively peaceful, like nothing bad could possibly be lurking beneath them.
We clustered together automatically as a few skateboarders passed us, one of them slowing long enough to squint at our black leather gear.
I overheard him ask his friend if there was a Comic-Con in town, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
They couldn’t see the weapons due to concealment runes, but over a dozen people wearing leather armor was odd.