by Ryan Wieser
“Jessop? It’s… it’s the middle of the night,” he complained.
She knew what she was doing; she just didn’t know if she knew why. “I… I know. I’m sorry.”
He let his hands fall from his tired eyes, from his flaxen hair. She let her gaze travel over his star-shaped scar—but she couldn’t look at that. She looked at his body, his strong, broad, scarred body. She looked at the silver lines that disappeared between his muscles. She looked at the hook-shaped marks, the thin whip lines, and the thick, raised scars, longer than her hand. His scars were horrifying, just like hers. But his body was beautiful. She thought about what she was going to achieve, about the decision she was making.
“I… I needed to talk to you,” she whispered. She saw a small silver line cutting into the bow of his lip. More scars.
She thought about him, and her, and why she was standing in his doorway at such an hour. And then her eyes fell on his newest scar—the one he got the day she had saved him.
He looked her over, concerned. “Jessop, are you—”
Her hands tucked easily around his face, her fingers messing into his soft tendrils. Her lips found his and he took her in his arms without hesitation or surprise—he had wanted her from the moment he met her.
His hands traveled down her back, rolling over her hips, tucking around her, and with an easy turn, he lifted her into his bedroom. He lowered her feet softly to the ground as the door slid shut behind him. Jessop pushed his strong body back against it. She knew she should leave. She knew this could solve only as many issues as it could create. But for whatever reasons she was there, or should have been there for, even in the darkened room of his quarters she could see the hunger glowing in his amber eyes.
And she wanted him to want her.
She ran her hand over his chest. She could feel his heart in her fingertips.
His lips pulled softly at hers as he tore at her tunic, the material ripping mercilessly under his grip, turning the top into a thin vest. She leaned against the wall and watched him watch her. His fingers ran softly over her lips, her chin, down her neck. He drew his hand across her bare chest pulling her torn tunic to the side. He ran a line down her with his hot fingers, moving from the base of her neck, between her bare breasts, down to her navel, stopping at her waistband.
She had expected him to be… different. He leaned his face back and watched her with dark, confident, eyes. He was hungry for her, but experience had taught him his measured, controlled, movements. She hadn’t needed to teach him that satisfaction, like a punishment, was best when drawn out.
He turned her, one arm softly holding her body near him, her back tucked against his chest. With his spare hand, he pulled her long braid out from between their bodies, draping it over her shoulder. He kissed the back of her neck, her sigil, and ran his hand over her tunic-covered back. She rested her hand against the wall. She could feel his fingers at the back of her collar.
She froze under his touch, concerned. “Kohl…”
He immediately stopped. “What is it?”
She thought of her back.
He began to retract. “You don’t want…”
She ran a hand over her face. “No, I do. It’s just…” She took a deep breath, leaning her body back against his hot chest, running a hand over his strong arm, wondering for the first time how much of her he had seen that first night. She looked over her shoulder, finding his soft golden eyes. “I have scars.”
She felt his heavy breath against her shoulder. And then he kissed her neck.
“Who here doesn’t?”
* * * *
Jessop had begun to roll away when his strong arm pulled her back, locking her in his grasp. “Where are you going?” His breath was hot against her cheek and she could tell he was smiling.
She turned in his arm, resting her hand against his chest. “I thought you were asleep.”
He rested his forehead against hers, shaking his head slightly. His warm hand rested on the curve of her hip, her breast softly tucked against his sternum, his legs wrapped up around hers. “I thought you didn’t want this… me.” He spoke, and Jessop realized it was the first time she had ever heard him sound insecure.
She shrugged against his body. “I thought I didn’t either…”
She thought about her night. She held her breath and fixed her stare on one particularly grueling scar on Kohl’s chest. And she began to cry. She bolted upright but it took Kohl less than two seconds before he had pulled her into his lap, locking his arms around her, as though he was protecting her from something unknown.
“Jessop, what is it?”
She sobbed heavily, rocking against his chest. “H—Hy—Hydo’s back,” she cried. The tears came much easier than she had thought.
She felt his stare on her; she could hear his thoughts, trying to understand how she knew that and why it would upset her this much.
“He—they—hurt me. I don’t want him to hurt me again. Him, Hanson, they hate me.”
And, under the grip of realization, his hold tightened around her. He brushed her hair out of her face, pulling it away from her wet cheeks. He rocked her back and forth softly in his arms. “You’re with me now. I won’t let them hurt you again.”
“Hanson hates me… he’s going to tell Hydo to send me away,” she cried, holding on to Kohl tightly. “I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered against his warm skin.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he answered sternly.
She wiped her face on the back of her hand. “Kohl… they’re your mentors, I can’t have you involved.”
“I’m already involved,” he answered softly.
She crawled out of his lap, searching for her clothes as she stepped off the bed. Kohl was in front of her in an instant, his broad, naked body blocking her path. His hands locked around her arms. “Where are you going?”
She blinked away her tears, staring up into his amber eyes. “I should just leave now… before they put me back in that pool. They don’t want me here, they’ll never let me hunt with you, they’ll just rake through my mind until they find a way into Aranthol,” she explained.
His grip on her tightened, “I would never let them do that to you. Not again.”
She nodded slowly, brushing her damp cheek against her shoulder. “I’m afraid.” She noted the tremor in her voice.
He nodded down at her, lowering his hands until they fell loosely around her exposed back. “Haven’t you heard me, Jessop? I’ve got this. I’ve got you.”
She smiled softly at him, and tilted her head back, offering him her lips. He kissed her deeply, and, eyes closed, she blindly guided him back to the bed.
* * * *
Jessop watched Kohl’s back expand and contract under quick breaths. He didn’t sleep peacefully and she respected him too much to learn whatever it was he dreamed of that he so feared. She ran her finger slowly over one of the thousand silver lines on his body. She traced the scar up his spine, into his hairline, where she felt the faint ridges of another. She brushed his hair to the side and saw the scar of the Hunter’s sigil—identical to her own.
“Hunters need to know pain… they’re just scars…”
Bane’s voice filled her mind with such ease that it startled her. She pulled her hand back from Kohl’s sleeping body and sat upright.
“Hunter Hanson Knell is here.” The automated voice from the door just about gave Jessop a heart attack.
She scanned the floor of Kohl’s bedroom and grabbed his tunic, pulling it over her head quickly. She didn’t have time to dress further as the sliding metal door began to open. She leapt back onto the bed and covered her body with the blanket, roughly hitting Kohl on the arm to wake him.
“Ow—what the—” he began, but quickly turned his tired gaze from her to the doorway, hearing Hanson’s entrance.
As Hanson fu
lly entered the bedroom, Kohl pulled at the blankets, covering Jessop’s body as much as possible. “Hanson, get out of here!”
Jessop looked from Kohl’s desperate attempts to shield her, to the old Hunter who stared at the scene of the room with disdain.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He shook his head, kicking at Jessop’s torn tunic from its spot on the floor.
“Hanson, get out!” Kohl ordered, crawling off the bed and grabbing his trousers.
The old Hunter crossed his arms, his critical stare travelling over Jessop. “I didn’t come here to question your poor decisions, Kohl.”
“Hanson—”
“I have plenty of time for that later.”
“Hanson, that’s—”
“Lord Jesuin was attacked last night.”
Kohl froze in the process of getting dressed, a fresh tunic half-tucked into his breeches. Jessop held the old Hunter’s severe stare, remaining still.
Kohl looked to Jessop, staring at her with a perplexed gaze, before turning his attention to his mentor. “Hydo? Is he alright?”
Hanson let his arms fall to the side, finally turning his stare from Jessop to Kohl. “He’s unconscious, in some sort of sleep from which he cannot wake. There is nothing the medics can do at this stage…”
Jessop shifted in the bed, her long dark mane falling over her shoulder. “Surely you can wake him with Sentio?”
Both men turned to her, the younger with a hopeful look in his amber eyes. But Hanson shook his head slowly. “Not this time. It appears whatever injury our Lord Hunter has endured has trapped him in his own mind, and we are locked out. The Council has yet to find a way in.”
Jessop nodded, somewhat surprised by the old Hunter’s admission. The great Assembly Council wasn’t quite omnipotent after all. She pushed the cruel thought from her mind—she still felt anger from her time in their pool.
“Get dressed and meet in the Assembly room in fifteen minutes,” Hanson ordered.
Kohl nodded, “Of course.”
Hanson turned for the door but froze, looking over his shoulder. “And bring the girl.”
* * * *
Jessop stared at her hands, unmoved from her position in the bed. She played Hanson’s words over and over in her mind and wondered why the Assembly Council would want her present. Surely they believed she wouldn’t be of any help…
“Jessop…”
She needed to bathe, to clear her mind, and then this would all be easier to address. She pushed the blankets off of her legs and rolled off the bed. She looked for the rest of her clothes.
“Jessop.”
She thought of Hydo and wondered if he was with the medic team still, or if he had been moved to his private quarters. She wondered if the Assembly Council had tried to correct his mind as a collective, or one by one. They would have better luck if they tried collectively.
Cold hands around her arms startled her, and she looked up into Kohl’s amber eyes. “What?”
“I was talking to you,” he explained, letting go of her.
“Sorry.”
“I need to ask you something,” he continued, his stern voice tight with concern.
She waited. And then she knew what he was about to ask.
“Earlier, you said you knew Hydo was back… How did you know he was back?”
Jessop took a deep breath. She thought of their night together, of his mouth on hers, his hands, the way he had given himself over to her.
“I saw him. He was in one of the glass bullets, when I was coming over here,” she explained, studying his face for any indication of concern.
He nodded slowly, and then his expression relaxed. “Did you see anything else? Anything suspicious?”
She held his gaze, wondering the depths to his inquiry. His wide eyes gave him away—he was asking her in the same manner he would have asked anyone. He had no insights; he did not push into her mind. She shook her head. “I saw nothing.”
“Alright, I wouldn’t normally advise this, but I don’t think we should tell the Council. I don’t want them to have any more reason to persecute you,” he explained. Slowly, she nodded, knowing this loyalty was a result of their shared night.
He pulled on her hand, directing her towards the bathing room. “I just don’t understand how this could happen—to Hydo Jesuin,” Kohl spoke as he prepared the shower. “He’s one of the most powerful men in Daharia—if not the most powerful. What could leave him trapped in such a sleep?”
He pulled his tunic off, turning to face Jessop as he continued. “A sleep so serious that the most experienced of Infinity Hunters can’t pull him back…”
Jessop nodded along. “It will be alright, Kohl. He’ll be fine.”
He stepped into the water. “You don’t know that.”
Jessop followed in suit, closing her eyes as the hot water cascaded down her bare body. “Yes. I do.”
“I really don’t like this,” he complained.
“What?”
“Whatever or whoever did this to Hydo—he’s something the rest of us cannot deal with… something worth being afraid of.”
Jessop turned under the water and stared up into his concerned eyes. She ran her hand over his strong jaw and pushed back the wet tendrils of his golden mane. She shook her head. “You don’t know that.”
He cupped her hand with his, “Yes. I do.”
She said nothing, and slowly, his gaze traveled down her body. With his spare hand, he drew his finger across her collarbone, and down between the valley of her breast, touching the intricate woven lines of her scar. She recoiled immediately, letting his hands fall from her.
He looked at her with confusion. “I’m sorry.”
She pressed her own hand over the scar, and she could feel her heart. “It’s fine. I just don’t like people touching it.”
CHAPTER 6
Jessop had never seen the Assembly Council members so riled and, from the look on Kohl’s face, she wagered he hadn’t either. They were pacing, speaking in hushed tones; some seemed aggressive, and others anxious. They were afraid.
The room was different from the last time she had been in it. There were more lights than just the one they had used to interrogate their persons of interest. It was bigger than she had first believed it to be. It drew out narrowly to a back wall made entirely of windows, letting in the red light of day. It took Jessop a long moment to realize what was different about this room than all the others… It was not entirely made of glass. Behind the heavy curtains, the room had slab walls and gray floors. It seemed transparency was not a requirement for the Assembly Councilmen.
And yet, the Councilmen were entirely visible to her. As they walked around, afraid, whispering their concerns, they paid her no attention. She studied their different faces quickly, recognizing many from her first night in the pool. She was unsure when they would notice her presence or how they would respond to it.
Most of the Councilmen were like Hanson and Hydo—grayed and suspicious. They were the same older generation of Hunters, scarred and distrusting of the world around them. Some she recognized for their accomplishments: Urdo Rendo, who killed Elias Rahut, the founder of the Aren, and Balk Tawn, who saved the Eastern Sand’s emissary from a raider invasion. Others she knew nothing of. Some were younger than Hydo, Hanson, and Urdo. One in particular, a younger man, stood at the back of the long, gray room. He had dark skin, a shaved head, and eyes more yellow than Kohl’s, a kind of golden shade that softly glowed as they traveled slowly across the room. Seeing the glow is what gave those from beyond the Grey away. She forced down a smile, remembering the glowing eyes from her first night. And she immediately knew that he was a man she was meant to know.
She watched him watch the room, and for the second time since she had been in the Glass Blade, the unmistakable feeling of familiarity overcame her. He did not si
mply look like a people she was so familiar with—the dark skin and golden eyes were trademark characteristics of a tribe well known throughout Aranthol—but he personally felt familiar to her.
She softly let her hand fall on Kohl’s arm. “Who’s that man over there? With the yellow eyes.” She did not add what else she saw about him, that his yellow eyes glowed, mystically bright, like lights. The ability to see the eyes of the tribe’s people as they truly were indicated one possessing tribal heritage as well. Somewhere inside her she had Kuroi blood, and she knew enough about Azgul and the Hunters to know that was another secret she would keep close to her chest.
He followed her gaze, quickly looking through the older Hunters. “That’s Trax DeHawn, the youngest on the Council. He’s Kuroi, the tribe from beyond the Grey Mountain.”
Jessop turned at his words, pleased to hear the name and know why he felt familiar to her. Mistaking the source of her surprise, Kohl nodded, shrugging, “I know, who would have thought anyone who lived beyond the Grey Mountain would be on the Council.”
She turned from him, scanning the long room for Trax DeHawn, who had seemingly disappeared into the group of men. “Who would’ve thought…”
Suddenly, Kohl was frozen at her side, his hand tightly wrapped around hers with such affection that it drew her attention immediately and she had to fight the urge to withdraw from him. She stared up to him, but he was looking across the room, where the Councilmen had been huddled in their group, speaking. She followed his gaze and found that on the other side of the worried, whispering men, there was a small silver platform. It stood about four or five feet off the ground and looked about seven feet long. It reminded Jessop of a medical trolley, although somehow more clinical, colder, as though it carried more dangerous cargo than surgical instruments. And it appeared it did. As the gap in the group widened, Jessop laid eyes on the resting body of Hydo Jesuin.
He was laid out on the silver platform, his Hunter’s blade resting over his body as though he were some effigy of a fallen warrior. But he was not dead. She could see the slow rise and fall of his animated breast—Hanson had been right, their Lord was simply trapped in a sleep. As Jessop moved to take a step closer to the crowd, Kohl remained frozen in place.
