Page 117 of Slayer

“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.