The Glass Blade. Ryan Wieser
on her hip, with complete astonishment. They pushed their thoughts amongst one another, whispered bewilderments and questions, all of them wielding Sentio, certain she could never follow the telepathy of men.
And then Hanson told them.
“Fellow Hunters, I believe I witnessed the woman use Sentio this morning, mind your thoughts,” he warned.
The room went silent.
Jessop readjusted her cloak tightly around herself. She waited until Hydo Jesuin’s voice once again filled the darkness. “Is this true?”
“As I already told Hunter Knell—many years with Falco Bane taught me how to understand the smallest aspects of Sentio, I could close a door, hear a trace thought—but no, I cannot do what any one of you could do,” she repeated her explanation.
“You understand we can—and we will—verify these claims, girl? We can enter your mind and check the stories you tell,” Hydo Jesuin threatened.
Jessop forced her gaze downward to stop herself from staring him in the eye.
“Of course I understand.” Jessop couldn’t help but wonder if the Council had even been listening—of course she would understand having her mind brutally ransacked. Falco had spent years pushing through her thoughts, bringing forth recollections, disappearing certain memories, and speaking to her without ever making a sound.
“And, apparently you wear our sigil—who is your true kind?” Hydo Jesuin carried on, his voice travelling around her. Jessop understood his tactic, he overwhelmed his subject with the darkness, the quick voice, the never ending line of questions that he asked so swiftly—certain he would be able to catch someone out in a lie. Every living being in Daharia received a mark of their heritage on their ten and third birthdays—except for Jessop. She had lived many years with no such brand.
“Bane gave me the mark—he said it was his brand and I was…” she struggled over the words that she had practiced, knowing one day she would need to say them.
She took a deep breath, staring at her leather boots in the white light. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest.
“He said the brand was his and that I too, was his.” She took a slow breath before continuing. “I knew his Hunter past, as everyone knows, and that the Glass Blade had become impenetrable to anyone except an Infinity Hunter after what happened with Falco Bane, so I knew if there was one place I would be safe from him, it would be here.” She pictured the mystical mark on Hanson Knell’s hand, the mark that acted like a key to the Glass Blade; the mark that Falco did not have for it had been made to keep him out of the Hunters’ fortress.
She felt the lone tear travel over her cheek.
“How old were you when he took you, girl?” The soft voice was that of another Hunter, neither Hydo nor Hanson. Jessop kept her gaze down to avoid finding the man’s face in the shadows.
“Twelve,” she whispered, wiping the tear away. She could hear the man breathe disgust.
“While what she has endured is most regretful, there simply is no place in the Glass Blade for a woman,” another Councilman began, but another quickly interrupted him.
“We cannot release her into Azgul, Hanson has told us how dangerous she is.”
“Hunters, please.” The voice, which silenced them all, belonged to Hydo Jesuin. “She is an ally to us here.”
The room remained silent, waiting for him to explain. Jessop held her breath, as anxious as the Councilmen.
“Girl, you understand that we do not train women to be Hunters, and yet, here you are, already trained, according to Hunter Knell, and while we have no tolerance for this, we might have use for it. We have hunted Falco Bane for over a decade. After his dissent, we made the Glass Blade an impenetrable fortress, but Falco followed suit, didn’t he? He forged the Shadow City, and through rare and dark magics, he made it as impenetrable as our Blade. So, girl, if you wish to stay here, under our protection, then you must agree to help us. Help us find entrance into Aranthol,” he offered.
Jessop suppressed a smile. “Of course.”
“Don’t sound so eager—we will need to verify your story, and you will need to be here for some time, to have your loyalties confirmed, before any venture back to Aranthol occurs. Your pains did not end, unfortunately, when you escaped the Shadow City,” he cautioned.
“I can handle it,” she insisted.
“Expect the worst, girl, and know not everyone has survived,” he warned.
She glanced up through the darkness, “I’ve already faced your worst,” she reminded them, resting her hand on her hilt and turning the sheathed blade in the light, “And I took this from him.”
* * * *
The enormous mirrored room offered never-ending repetitions of Jessop’s reflection. She could see her own appearance, and that of the Councilmen’s, reflected all around, dozens of the moving black uniformed figures angled down the long room until they obscured into darkness. She moved and fifty reflections of the same movement occurred. It pained her eyes greatly, so she focused instead on the vat of shining crystal fluid before her. The focal point of the nauseating mirrored room was a single drop-in pool. A rectangle, barely longer than her own height, half that in width, carved into the glass floor, with the Hunter’s sigil etched into the ground beneath. Were one walking without paying much regard, they could fall straight off the edge of the floor and into the crystalline liquid.
“You will need to change and step into the pool, girl,” Hydo ordered. Jessop eyed the glass tub before her, confused by its liquid contents. At first look, it appeared as water, but upon closer inspection she found it to be thicker and containing small shining specks of… glass? The sludgy matter was so reflective she could see, once again, her own face staring back at her.
She held in her hand the white linen robe one of the Councilmen had handed her upon entering the room. She ran the thin material between her fingers and took a deep breath. She may have not known what substance the pool was filled with, but she understood the purpose of it. Once she was within the liquid, the Council members would all be able to simultaneously use their Sentio to explore the depths of her mind, searching as a unit; the fluid would bind their powers together and lead to a more efficient search. Were they to all rifle through her mind as individuals it would take days, and were they to try to do it at the same time without syncing their abilities through the liquid, one of them could push at a memory whilst the other pulled and they could refract her mind. They could accidentally kill her, or drive her insane. And having seen someone with a mind corrupted by Sentio, she would have preferred death.
Jessop knew it would hurt. She knew it would take all the power she had to control the pain, to control her mind, to hold on while they twisted and racked and sifted through her. She was not afraid of what they would find, for she had everything in order, and she was not afraid of the pain. She was only concerned because she did not know the extent of her own resistance—how long she could suffer without fighting back.
Jessop knew what she wore in the vat of crystalline fluids did not matter—stripping was simply another tactic formulated by Hydo to break his subjects. She rolled her shoulders, loosening up the tension she felt building between her thick muscles, and then she undid her cloak. It fell to the floor and billowed about her boots, which she stepped out of. She would never let them think she cared. She had learnt that no matter who saw or maimed her form, her body would always be hers.
She hooked her fingers around her tunic and pulled it up over her head. She ignored their shadowy forms and uncomfortable gazes, knowing they stared at the intricate scar between her breasts, if not just at her breasts. For a second, she thought she caught a pair of glowing eyes watching her—but she couldn’t bring herself to look back through the group. She released her belt and slowly lowered her blade to the floor, keeping it near the pool edge. Finally, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her breeches and shimmied out of them. She stood and with her shoulders back, she took a slow breath. She stared