Page 128 of Gift from the Stone

I grunt my agreement and pull my hand back.

We’re all going to be distracted now.

“Come on, we got more work to do,” I order, shooting Caspian a dark look as he continues to smile in our faces.

Grabbing the shifter by his collar, I drag him out of the room and down the hall, parading his bloody body in front of all the other awaiting shifters. Whimpers and growls alike echo down the hall, so I know the message I’m sending sounds loud and clear.

Opening the cell he’s staying in, I sling his limp body in and slam the ward back down, leaving him there to suffer for a while before we give him a healing vial. Striding down the hall, I make a point to stare down the grizzlier shifters, those who were angered by my little power play rather than fearful.

“Bring the next one,” I bellow as we enter back into the interrogation room.

Our goal for the day is to start working through the lower-level Mastery members. The ones who don’t have a rune tying their heads and hearts. We’ll focus on the others when we can get Lyker to bring Aria here. Plus, he wants to be here for Kael’s and Eirik’s interrogation.

So far, the small bits I’ve gotten have been useful, confirming some of the assumed locations we made a list of. There’re definitely four main areas we’ll be planning scouting trips for, possibly more.

The next five shifters to come through are lowly recruits and pledges. The information I gather from them doesn’t get us closer to the Summum-Master’s identity or the location of the hostages, but they have the most insight so far into how their recruitment process and training works.

Just like the structure of their society, their training and recruitment is very much like ours, which leads me to believe either someone who was previously a high rating E.F. member or still is a member has fallen into the Mastery’s clutches.

It’ll be a bad day in Elementra if I find out someone amongst us has betrayed us.

One of the ones we interrogated was born into the society, so his training and preparations began long before his gift even emerged. The role was expected of him, and he’d been training for it his whole life. His gift only emerged two years ago. He’s merely eighteen. Unlike the others, he didn’t have to go through the recruitment trials and initiations.

Seeing that kid and listening to him talk was a knife to the gut. He knows no difference. This is the way he’s been raised. His parents and the influential adults that’ve been in his life have buried these beliefs that the Mastery is the only way to go so deeply in him, it’s what he believes to be true.

The other four I interrogated did have to go through the recruitment process. They were sought after, not because they’re particularly skillful or even very powerful, but they’re loners. No family, no Nexus formed yet, just young individuals who have nothing to lose and everything to gain if they truly were rewarded with everything the Mastery promised them. Money, power, a social status, a purpose that sounded like riches from their wildest dreams.

Fucking fools.

A lot like us, the E.F. tries not to recruit fully formed Nexuses who have Primaries because the strain of being away, and the tense situations are rough on the Nexus’s dynamic. The only time we do is if the entire Nexus, Primary included, wants to join, like my parents. Then they stay together at all times as a team. If we accept a loner, they nine times out of ten find their Nexus because they were already in the E.F. and that’s what was keeping them apart.

Unlike them, our recruitment is spent during the years of third year academy, where they’re trained properly. We don’t throw them into situations where they could be hurt until we know for sure they’re ready. Their recruitment process is different.

They’re trained in battle, thrown into deadly situations, and if they make it out, they get to continue on. Grunts. Cannon fonder. They don’t want to acknowledge that’s what they are when they’re first recruited, but that’s exactly what they are. The Enforcers and Masters work with them on their combat and magical skills for years, only after they’ve been thrown into missions where they run in kidnapping people.

It’s so fucked up.

“Last one and we’ll call it a day. Caspian, go tell the others this is the last session, then we’ll head back to the academy,” I gruffly order.

I wish I could blame Draken’s fidgeting and constant pacing on the sole reason I’m calling it a day almost two hours earlier than I planned but really, I’m just as bad. I thought once me and Willow bonded, this constant possessive need to see her and be around her would lessen for me, but it’s only gotten worse.

If it doesn’t calm as she bonds the other two, and we finally become one, we’re literally going to have to stick together at all times or shit isn’t going to get done.

Caspian enters back in, face grim, and I’m about to ask what’s wrong when I see a scrawny kid, can’t be but maybe seventeen or eighteen, even though he looks like he’s twelve, enter behind him. The boy’s shaking so hard, I’m sure at any moment his skin is going to slide right off him.

“Take a seat, kid, none of us are going to hurt you,” Draken commands softly.

“I-I don’t want to be here. I want to go home,” he stutters.

“Well, unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. There’re consequences for joining the Mastery. You only have yourself, probably your parents to blame,” Caspian snarks, although his tone isn’t as harsh as it would be if this was an adult sitting in front of us.

“My parents aren’t in the Mastery. This is my punishment.” The boy sniffles.

“What’s your name kid?” I ask.

“Layton.”

“Explain what you mean by this is your punishment, Layton,” I demand.

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