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

He’s no longer threatening me, but still deserves answers. “Put out your hand.”


He furrows his brow in confusion, but complies. I focus on the small amount of moisture in the air, mostly from our breath, and bring it together. It’s still imperceptible until I use the cold to bind the water together as ice crystals, forming a perfect snowflake. He catches sight of the flake as it falls and is guided down by small gusts of wind. The snowflake drifts back and forth, and it gently settles down in the palm of his hand.

“You did this?” he asks, watching the flake melt into a small bead of water.

“I don’t understand it fully,” I say. “But at the moment of my birth, I was bound to the continent, and the continent to me. We are one and the same. I can control the air, earth and water, though the effort leaves me severely weakened.”

“Then my arrows—”

“Deflected by the wind. Which is how I killed Ull. Fueled by the recent bonding with Nephil, I turned Ull’s own arrow against him. The same effort now would leave me exhausted.”

As this last bit of truth exits my mouth, I suddenly remember that I have just as many questions for Tobias, as he does for me, and I am entitled to some answers. “Luca,” I say, snapping his attention back up to me. “He’s…me?”

A slow nod.

“How is that possible?”

“For thousands of years, the Nephilim have perfected the dark art of manipulating life. The thinkers conjure ideas for new creations. The gatherers collect the raw materials. And the breeders are used to give life to new monsters by altering the feeders before they are born.”

I remember the copy of my mother and a sudden fear clutches my throat. “Raw materials?”

“Samples of living things. Flesh. Blood. Hair.”

“Do they…kill the…”

“You have encountered a creation you recognized?” he asks.

“Ninnis trapped me in a feeder pit. I escaped it not long before you found me. But the first feeder that hatched. It was—” Tears brew in my eyes. “—my mother.”

Tobias approaches and kneels before me. He’s looking at my eyes, but not into them. His attention is drawn to my tears. “You were telling the truth,” he says. “Hunters cannot shed tears. The creature you met was not your mother.”

“I know,” I say. “But to create it they had to—”

“Ahh,” he says, understanding my concern. “The Nephilim are paranoid about being discovered. They prefer to strike like the tiger—with overwhelming force and only when the target is unaware. They leave as little evidence of their presence as possible. If a person is taken, they are returned with little memory of the event. It’s only on rare occasion that someone is killed or taken, and that only happens when there is a logical explanation for how it could have happened.”

“Like me wandering off into a storm at night.”

“Exactly,” he says.

“Do they visit the outside world often?”

Tobias frowns. “Gatherers do all the time. They are sometimes seen as flashes of light, or remembered as owls, but in general, their passing goes unseen, or at most misunderstood. But the gathered materials are brought here to be used in Nephilim experiments.”

“Like Luca?”

“When news of your strange birth reached the warriors, I was ordered to take you. But by that time, the station had been abandoned and you had been taken away.” He opens a desk drawer and takes out a small wooden box. “I searched the station, discovered your room and found this.” He opens the box and reveals a comb. A few strands of short white hair are caught between the teeth.

My hair.

My baby hair.

“I took several strands back to them. Years later, they presented Luca to me. I was to raise him as my son in preparation for bonding with Nephil. It was an honor beyond comparison, one for which Ninnis believed himself deserving. But as Luca grew older, their tests revealed that whatever made your birth special had not been duplicated in Luca. They ordered him destroyed. By my hand. I took him to Behemoth, intending him to be a sacrifice to the guardian of Tartarus.”

He pauses. I cannot take the silence. “And?”

“And I intended to kill him. I was a loyal servant.” He meets my gaze. “Em stopped me.”

“How?”

“I had not noticed she and Luca spending time together. Hunters don’t pay attention to such things. She wasn’t just playing the part of a sister. In her mind, she was his sister. And since hunters are only allowed one child, the way it changed her could not be predicted, nor could her passionate defense of his life. She nearly killed me.”

“Why didn’t she?”