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

How far could she have gone in thirty minutes?

I stop when I reach the far wall and our exit. She’s not there. Did she leave? Maybe she drowned and sank to the bottom? I was searching for something moving. If she’s dead, I might never find her.

Distracted by thoughts of losing Kainda, my reach pulls back quickly, sifting through the water already explored. Two miles. One mile. Three hundred feet. Two. One. Twenty five. My eyes twitch, about to open.

That’s when I see her, just two feet away. Her face is carved into my mind by the strange sense, glowing luminous blue in the water. She must have been inside my twenty-five foot radius when I began my search. Was she watching me?

I imagine Kainda, the mighty warrior, watching me like a love-sick schoolgirl. The thought brings a smile to my face and I “see” her do the same without opening my eyes.

She slips through the water, and gently places her lips against my own.

My connection with Antarctica is severed like an amputated limb, though the sensation is far more pleasant.

When I open my eyes, she’s right there, lips pressed against mine. Her brown eyes look almost black in the gloom. I’m transfixed, frozen by the touch of her lips. She pulls away slowly, letting no other part of her body touch mine. Then she turns her head up, and swims.

I stay there, hovering in the void, still feeling her lips on mine. My stomach is in knots. My chest feels ready to burst. Is this what love feels like? I wonder, but then I realize that it’s actually what asphyxiation feels like. I need to breathe.

I kick to the surface, careful not to rush and smash my face on the ceiling. I slip out of the water’s grasp, find my handhold and turn to the others. “What did you find?” I ask Kainda—all business—knowing that any hint of a romantic gaze would be unwelcome, both by Kainda because she’s, well, Kainda, and by Kat, who just lost her husband.

“We can’t swim out,” she says. “I nearly didn’t make it back.”

“We don’t need to swim out,” I say. “The exit is just a few miles away. I can get us there.”

“You’re sure?” Em asks.

“I’ll be tired after,” I admit. “But you can help me if I need it. Even if I do pass out again, we don’t have much of a choice. We need to push forward. We’re deep underground now. We’re losing surface time.”

To my surprise, it’s Kat who replies. “He’s right. Let’s go.”

There is no emotion in her words, just cold calculation. She swims in front of me, glaring at me. I feel like a mouse staring into the eyes of a lion. Then she turns around and waits. I remove Whipsnap from my belt and bend the staff around her. She holds on with both hands. Em and Kainda duck beneath the water and rise inside the loop of my arms and Whipsnap. They hold on with both hands.

I focus on the air trapped against the ceiling, pulling it toward us from all the neighboring bubbles, which makes the effort easier. The swirling air whips our hair and quickly dries our bodies, pushing the water away. When I’ve gathered enough air around us, I push us down into the water. As the red glow fades above us, I turn toward the exit, accelerate and race through the depths.





17



Reaching the tunnel that exits the New Jericho chamber proves simple enough. Of course, most things are when you’re not being pursued by half-demon monsters and trained killers, or being head-butted in the stomach by someone you’re trying to rescue. I’m exhausted when we finally reach a side tunnel that’s not flooded, but I don’t pass out.

When I take my first furtive step out of the water and discover my legs have been transformed into Jell-O, I wonder if we’d be better off letting me sleep. But I decide against it. I need to build up a tolerance.

Kainda braces me. “Do you need—”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“That’s great, kid,” Kat says. She places a hand against the plain stone wall and stands motionless. “But in case you three haven’t noticed, I’m blind down here.”

“Did you lose the flashlight?” Em asks.

“I might have put it down when I was trying to save my husband,” she says.

Though I cannot feel the cold, I shiver. Her anger is palpable. But is it dangerous? Will she turn on us? Her relationship with Wright reminded me of my Solomon/Ull split—gentleness and intellect matched with passion and energy. But now that balance has been disrupted by the removal of Wright, Kat’s counterbalance. If I’d remained all Ull and no Solomon, I would have become a monster. I was a monster. Will the same thing happen to Kat?