The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

I drop to my knees beside her and lean my head against hers. “I’m sorry, mom. I’m so sorry.”


My face is wet with tears and snot and I remember the last time I felt guilt like this. It was when Ninnis first began stalking me. It was at night. And snowing. And when Aimee snuck up behind me, I thought she was him. One punch. I threw one punch and knocked her out cold. I was consumed by guilt afterwards. But it wasn’t my fault.

It was Ninnis.

This was Ninnis.

Anger begins to replace my sadness as I realize Ninnis’s plan. One by one, I’ll be forced to kill my mother, my father, and who knows who else from my past until I no longer care.

I will kill them.

I will eventually eat them to survive.

And I…

Will…

Break.

I pull back from the body of this mother-shaped feeder. With my face turned to the ceiling, I fill my lungs and scream, “NINNIS!”

As my thunderous voice echoes in the pit, something else happens.

The solid stone floor beneath my feet—it shakes.





15



My fall is broken by my mother’s—the feeder’s—body. The earthquake knocked me off my feet. Several of the glowing yellow crystals in the walls popped free. Bones rattled. And high above, in the dark recess of the ceiling that is beyond my view, Gaia shrieks. It is the first time she has revealed her presence in this place.

The tremor was not part of Ninnis’s plan.

But what was it?

My first inclination is to write it off as a normal earthquake. But nothing here is normal. It felt like the pounding foot falls of Behemoth, but I know there are no caverns large enough to hold that monster anywhere near here. Maybe it was caused by the explosion Ninnis set off? I shake my head. The earthquake didn’t originate from that side of the cavern.

It originated…from me. The timing is the giveaway. At the height of my emotions, when I released my anger, the solid stone shook with my rage.

I never realized how complete my connection with Antarctica had become. I’d manipulated the air, mostly. Sometimes water. And snow. But I had never turned my attention fully to controlling stone. And here I am, believing myself entombed by the very earth to which I am bound, the earth that might well move when I command it.

I push myself away from my faux-mother, intent on escape. The three dimensional mental map I’ve created of the surrounding tunnels plays through my mind. Ninnis no doubt waits outside the destroyed entrance. Gaia lurks above. I turn my focus in the direction opposite of Ninnis, mentally working my way through the underground in search of a tunnel that will take me up, and away from this horrible place.

I find a tunnel leading slowly upward, where it connects to another tunnel, one I know very well. It is the tunnel Ninnis took me through when I was kidnapped. The very same tunnel where I once hid the Polaroid picture I now carry with me at all times. It will not only take me to the surface, it will take me to Clark Station Two, and my past.

The thought of facing that place again frightens me almost as much as facing whatever creature Gaia births next, but I can’t stay here. I can’t face even one more of those things.

The stone at the side of the pit is rough against my hand. I place my other hand against it, not knowing if physical touch is required, but it seems to make sense. I guess. I don’t really know. But it feels right, so I close my eyes, push on the stone and will it to—

—what?

Open?

Disintegrate?

Compress?

Nothing happens, and I think it’s because I really need to decide how this is going to work. It’s not like moving air or water.

Or is it?

Everything is composed of atoms. Some are more loosely packed, like water or air, and others are tightly packed, like stone. Perhaps when I shift the wind, I’m really moving the atoms? But maybe the connection is even deeper than that? When people have strong emotions, it’s reflected in their bodies. Extreme stress can destroy an immune system. Happy people are healthier and live longer. So do people with dogs. And unhappy people, well, they die faster and often on Monday mornings.

And when I have extreme emotions, the environment here reacts. The winds often react to my fear, occasionally saving me from a fall or projectile. Storms brew when I panic. And now, the earth itself shakes at my rage. It’s as though this continent—a land as vast as the United States—is now part of my physical body. Perhaps that’s why I don’t feel temperature changes? I am the temperature. I can’t feel it any more than I can the individual organs in my own body.

I don’t control the environment. I don’t manipulate this external thing. I am it. It is me.

But it is also beyond me. I’m used to controlling my small human body, not an entire continent. I don’t think my brain, or any brain could handle that much sensory input. Thankfully, the continent seems to be on autopilot, much like the human heart or lungs—involuntary muscles that require no actual thinking.