The Hero: Hunter Circles Series Book Four

by Jessica Gunn

I grinned, watching as the pyramid grew larger the closer we got. By the time Areus had stopped his cart at the entrance to the pyramid, I could no longer see past the middle and into the sky. The structure looked like a leviathan or an enemy alien ship from all those cheesy sci-fi movies when we were this close, overtaking the sky in my current view.

  “Hurry,” Areus said as soon as his sandal-covered feet hit the marble beneath us. “The High Council of Alzan, which resides inside this building, will want to see you, I’m sure. But I’d hoped to have you for a bit before then. Come along.”

  We followed, but my walk slowed the second we stepped inside. Sweeping arches made from rose quartz ran beneath stairways leading upward. The ceiling in this atrium rose three, maybe four stories above us, becoming glass that seemed to stretch on much farther up the center of the pyramid. As if someone had created one giant, long window to the stars. Potted plants with huge green and orange leaves dotted the walls on which ornate bronze and silver lanterns hung.

  Where the city settlement had been impressive in its marble structures, this pyramid was unlike anything I’d even seen before or likely would ever come across. It was otherworldly, strange, but beautiful. And the gemstones it’d been made out of, their energy flowed into me, through me, inducing a constant state of calm and focus, strength and stability. Of power.

  “Shawn,” I said as Areus led us through the atrium and into a corridor to the right.

  He nodded. “I know. I feel it, too.” His brow furrowed. “But not the cianza. It’s like its effects dissipated as soon as we stepped inside the pyramid.”

  My eyes narrowed and I looked down at my arms. “You’re right. I don’t feel the cianza either. Just the gemstones.” I picked up my pace until I walked beside Areus. “Why don’t we feel Cianza Alzan anymore?”

  He smiled. “The Pyramid Building has magiks that nullify its effects. It is a temporarily, fluctuating measure. When the cianza shifts or slightly tilts, as it is prone to do from time to time, we do still feel it here.”

  “Well, did you expect it not to shift when you have people living that close to it?”

  “Krystin,” Shawn warned.

  “What? That’s a fair question.”

  Areus stopped outside of a door and pulled a key out of the pocket of his tunic. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and ushered us inside.

  “Please, take a seat and I will explain everything,” Areus said, gesturing at the room.

  Library, more like it. The octagonal room, at least fifty feet wide at the middle, was home to more bookcases and books than I could count with one glance. The marble floor that continued from the hallway into this room was covered in ornate carpets. A desk with a small torch lamp sat in the middle part of the room, where all the bookcases met. And ten feet from where we stood was a set of six white ottomans, a few of which had arms to make them into proper chairs.

  I swallowed hard as I took it all in and followed Shawn over to the seats. He took the first one he came upon, but I crossed the area to one of the seats that had an arm. Something told me I’d need the support.

  Shawn’s gaze lingered on me, as if he were worried either about me or something I’d say. “Thank you for helping us back there.”

  I shook my head. I’m fine. We’d been waiting for this for months now, right? I didn’t think either of us expected to come to Alzan before Lady Azar marched on the city, but if we were already here, maybe we’d have a better chance of stopping her. Assuming we unlocked our magik. If it was even still there after Shawn’s stone was broken and his magik cleaved from his body.

  Areus sat on a chair between the two of us and clapped excitedly. “It was my pleasure. As I said, I’ve been waiting a long time for you two.”

  “Exactly how long is ‘a long time’?” I asked.

  “Several thousands of years.”

  What the actual— I looked at him, deadpan. “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh, but I am.”

  Shawn’s surprised gaze met mine. “But that means you’re…”

  “Two thousand years old, give or take a decade,” Areus said, still smiling. Where Shawn seemed to rely on shrugs to get his point across, Areus similarly adored his smiles. Fantastic. “I was here when the city fell.”

  “Are you immortal?” Shawn asked. “We’re Hunters. We know that demons from Darkness have the potential to live forever as well.”

  Areus’s smile became a sad one. “Unfortunately, no. I’m still alive because my duties are not complete. When they are, I will begin to age as we all do. Alzanians do not have expanded lifetimes like demons. Magik like that is unnatural. Evil.”

  “Duties?” I asked.

  “Waiting for the two of you, to train and guide you before the final conflict. To assist you in preparing to save Alzan.”

  I grimaced. “Unfortunately, that might be a lot sooner than you think. Lady Azar will be making her way here in a week. That’s not enough time to fix Shawn’s magik and unlock the power we’re supposed to have, much less learn it in time to stop her.”

  Areus frowned at Shawn. “What does she mean, ‘fix your magik’?”

  “There was an attack on Fire Circle Headquarters in Boston. Krystin and I think that one of the stones mentioned in the prophecy was being housed there. It was broken by the demon who attacked Headquarters. I was also hit with an ether-shaper asanak move. I haven’t had my magik in six months, and with that stone broken…” He shook his head. “Unless you have a way to bypass that loss, I’m probably not going to be able to help Krystin defend Alzan.”

  Areus froze, his stare becoming blank. “There was an Alzanian stone in the Fire Circle?”

  “The Leader had it, a man named Jaffrin,” I said.

  Areus didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he stood and began pacing. “I wonder…”

  “Wonder what?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind. But Son—”

  “Shawn. My name’s Shawn.”

  I held in a laugh and bit my lip. “I’m Krystin, before you go trying to call me Daughter.”

  “But those are your titles,” Areus said as if we’d affronted him somehow.

  “And Shawn and Krystin are our names. Please use them,” Shawn said.

  Areus nodded. “As you wish, Shawn. Your magik was not contained in that stone, that much I can assure you. I’m not sure where your Fire Circle Leader got that stone or why he thought it belonged to you, but… No.” Areus shook his head again and began pacing. “There’s a small possibility, a minute chance… but that’s impossible.”

  “What is?” Shawn asked.

  Areus stopped pacing and turned to him. “Never you mind.”

  “Then how do we get this magik we’re supposed to have?” I asked. “We’ve felt its presence. Shawn’s used it to heal me before. That’s all we’ve been able to do, even when one of us is almost dead.”

  Areus’s eyes darkened. “There was an incident in the First War.”

  “When this city was moved from the origin plane?” Shawn asked.

  “Darkness attacked us as their first strike. And when the tides of battle turned in their favor, when the cianza began tilting and threatening to explode, we were forced to move the city to safety. Or rather, the Daughter of Alzan was.”

  Silence reigned as Areus let the weight of his words sink in.

  My mind whirred around what he’d said. “The Daughter moved Alzan? I am the Daughter and I’m pretty sure I’ve never been here before.”

  Areus sat with such weight, it was as if his clothes and body had suddenly been made out of stone. “You have not. But… a mistake was made. My own, I’m afraid. When Darkness attacked Alzan in the First War, we thought it was the final conflict.”

  “It was that bad?” I asked.

  Areus nodded. “Most of the First War was fought on the higher planes of existence between Aloysius and his top demons and the Powers themselves, including us. When Alzan fell and Aloysius was forced into the much more
physical form he holds now, the conflict ended. The cianza at Alzan’s center has been with us for as long as the prophecy, if not longer.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned against the arm of the chair as I realized what Areus was saying. “Oh, no.”

  Shawn looked to me. “What?”

  I turned to Areus. “Are you telling me a Son and Daughter already fought for Alzan? Is that why we never figured out how to access the magik we’re supposed to have?”

  “It’s all a lie?” Shawn asked him.

  Areus shook his head. “No, you misunderstand. You two are the rightful Son and Daughter, but when the First War happened, when we thought the final conflict was upon us, we prematurely called forth a set of protectors, a set of Son and Daughter, using the stones named in the prophecy. That’s where your magik was to be stored originally. However, the Son never received his stone or his power. He was fighting in the war efforts and I never met him. I think his stone, the one your Circle Leader had, was stolen from Alzan by an emissary for another civilization.”

  Areus stood without another word and disappeared into a row of bookshelves. Shawn and I exchanged confused glances while we waited for him to return. A minute or so later he did with a wooden, undecorated box between his hands. He placed it on the chair in front of us and opened it. Inside sat a single quartz stone so much like the one Kinder had found in Jaffrin’s safe. The same one she’d smashed.

  “Did the stone your Leader have look like this one?” Areus asked.

  “Exactly like it,” Shawn said.

  “Interesting.”

  “I wouldn’t call it interesting,” I said. “I’d call it suspicious as hell.”

  Areus frowned. “I’m inclined to agree.”

  “Kinder said the stone was made from raw magik. That’s why she wanted it,” I said. “But when she held it nothing happened. Kinder has the Power. If the stone had contained magik, she’d have stolen it.”

  “The Power,” Areus echoed. “Now there’s a magik almost as old as the Son and Daughter’s, and just as rarely spoken about in Alzan.”

  “Well, you might want to change that,” I said. “Because the Power is exactly how Lady Azar plans to get through the magik walls protecting and hiding Alzan. One of our teammates—his son has the Power and he’s been kidnapped by Lady Azar.”

  “Then we have much work to do.” Areus gestured for us to stand. “Come. We have a ritual in Alzan for unlocking powers. Since your magik will be ours, the same type that is, it should work. I regret that our calling forth of a first set of Son and Daughter named has interfered with you two receiving the magik.”

  “That’s not the only problem,” I said as we stood and again followed Areus, this time amongst his collection of bookshelves. “My magik isn’t ether-based anymore. I know that has to be a problem because the witch lines are the next most direct connection to the Powers, and their magik is all ether-based. I can only assume the magik meant to be wielded by Shawn and I must be too.”

  Areus nodded but otherwise ignored us as he searched for something on a shelf filled with vials, powders, and other knickknacks. Spell items and ingredients, I realized. “It is meant to be ether-based magik, so that might prove difficult. However, I’m convinced we can work around it.”

  Shawn stepped forward, a hand cupping his mouth and chin. He pulled it away and said, “But if we get our magik back, won’t that tilt Cianza Alzan? That’s what everyone’s worried about, right? Once Lady Azar lands here, the cianza will explode. Our magik nearly took out the one in Boston.”

  “We weren’t the only high-powered people there, Shawn,” I said.

  “Maybe not, but it was enough.”

  Areus paused for a brief moment to look both of us in the eye. “Going back to your original question of why we don’t worry about the balance tipping on a normal occasion: Alzanian magik is neutral to cianzas. Now, that power can be corrupted, as we’ve discovered with both of your magiks. Even the first Daughter alone could barely manage to keep her magik neutral without the balance of the Son.”

  How was our magik neutral to cianzas once we unlocked the Alzan side of things? By nature, cianzas always reacted to magik. Which meant that… Oh, god. “Giyano was right,” I said, glancing over at Shawn. “Kinder too. The Hunter Circles knew that when we found the magik of Alzan within ourselves we’d become neutral to cianzas. They were going to make us into the weapons Kinder feared.”

  “They wanted to use us in their war on Darkness,” Shawn said. “To possibly destroy them by having us blow up one of their cianzas.”

  Areus’s eyes narrowed. “Darkness controls cianzas?”

  “Not the points themselves,” I said. “The spaces around them. Not many, but enough. And they have throughout our history. That’s why the Great Pyramid of Giza is so damn big. It’s sitting on one.”

  Shawn’s eyes lit up. “Wait—seriously?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “No. Damn. Even more reason to go there now.”

  “You aren’t getting enough pyramid time inside this thing?”

  Shawn leveled me with a look. “Ha ha.”

  Whatever. I turned back to Areus. “So our magik will be neutral against cianzas. We had someone try to balance out my magik, like how Shawn’s an Ember witch with both witch and demonic blood in him. That explains why he did that.”

  Areus eyed us carefully. “He must know, then. Same as your Fire Circle Leader.”

  “Funny,” I said. “That’s what Ben said about Jaffrin, too.”

  “What is it that they must know?” Shawn asked.

  Areus shifted his stance and looked between the both of us. “There’s another civilization, one much older than the Entity. You know of the Split, yes? The creation of Good and Evil when Aloysius broke off from the Entity?” We nodded. “They were called the Neuians. Mostly, they warred amongst themselves, so not much is known about them, especially outside of the Powers. Your Circle Leaders and most of Darkness do not even know they existed. But in their warfare, they created cianzas as weapons, which is why they are located everywhere. They think of the post-Split magik war as below them and those that fight it, like you and me, as vermin. The Son and Daughter of Alzan magik was derived from Cianza Alzan, which is why you’re not affected by it, but you are by other cianzas. I assume your Fire Circle Leader must know all of this as well.”

  Which meant so did Giyano.

  Areus pulled two vials off the shelf of oddities and held them out to Shawn and me. “I will explain more later. But first, before I bring you in front of the Council, let’s begin the process of transforming and regaining your magik. Drink this.”

  Shawn’s gaze met mine, equally filled with questions. “No offense or anything, but this is all happening kind of fast. A lot’s happened in the last couple days, not to mention months.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year,” I said under my breath.

  Areus held Shawn’s stare and lifted the vials in his hand. “You said Lady Azar will be here within days, yes?”

  “Yeah.”

  He pushed the vials closer to us. “Then drink. We are already wasting time.”

  Chapter 20

  Ben

  With Krystin and Shawn missing, patrolling Boston felt like it had before this mess had started. Back when it’d been only Rachel, Nate, and me bumbling our way through demon fights. What difference nine months had made—for better and for worse. Normally, we wouldn’t have done this anymore, go out with only half the team. But the demons of Boston didn’t wait for anyone, and this close to Autumn Fire, they’d be out feeding in droves.

  “Still no word from either of them?” Rachel asked.

  I shook my head and slid my phone back into my pocket. “None.”

  “Hopefully, that means they’re working on the prophecy,” said Nate, walking beside me.

  “To not answer, though?” I’d sent Shawn a text a few hours ago, after Max had finally left. It was unlike him to not
respond at all. And as far as I knew, Krystin no longer had a cell phone. Not one I had the number to, anyway.

  Nate shrugged. “I don’t know, Ben. The most we could do is try a locator spell with Krystin’s mother’s help to see where they are.”

  I shook my head. “No. We don’t need to do that. They’ll come back.”

  “You hope,” Rachel said, staring straight ahead at the city streets. “There’s only a week before Lady Azar goes to Alzan. For all we know, Krystin’s still working with Giyano. Maybe she fed Shawn right to the Lady of Darkness herself.”

  I glanced over at her, my eyes narrowing. “You don’t really believe that.”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

  A scream sounded down an alleyway to the right, our version of a bat signal. Wordlessly, my half-team and I took off in a run toward the attack. I prayed it was only a mugger, someone human the three of us could take down without a problem. But as soon as we rounded the corner and dove into the long alleyway lit by only the city lights above, I realized we wouldn’t be that lucky.

  A pair of demons stood above a man quaking on the ground beneath them. They both had fire lit in their palms, magik like Krystin’s.

  “Stop!” I yelled as lightning formed around my hands.

  The two demons looked up and light from their fires and my lightning bounced off medallions hanging around their necks.

  “Shadow Crest,” Nate said, his eyes narrowing to see better in the dark.

  “Again?” I asked.

  The man on the ground beneath them took advantage of their distraction to leap up and slam a palm against both of them. “Requirem!” he shouted.

  Both demons’ eyes glowed for a moment as their magik faded from their bodies. But not their weapons.

  One demon turned, a blade moving fast in his hand, and stabbed the man in the chest.

  “No!” I shouted and launched lightning at the demons.

  Rachel and Nate followed up, water and ether wrapping around their bodies and bringing them to the ground.

  I ran over to the man, but blood poured out of him too quickly. He was already gone. “We need to call this in.”