Page 21 of The Last Hunt

“Chrissah,” she murmured. “You healed my heart.”

Life on Freehail was calm, and Aethon grew up knowing he was loved. But he struggled in school while Devan succeeded. Aethon couldn’t concentrate on any of his classes unless he was interested in the subject, and he was interested in very little of what school had to offer. While he had a quick mind, he preferred sports and building things rather than math and history. Still, Aethon didn’t begrudge his brother for his academic prowess.

“Someone will have to pay the bills around here,” he always said to Devan. “I’ll probably end up on a fishing boat or something while you’ll be inventing new, clean forms of renewable energy.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Devan said. He hated it when Aethon underestimated himself. “If you could just figure out how to focus, you’d be earning high grades in your classes. You’re smarter than most of the other students here.” He grinned. “Except for me.”

Aethon and Devan were eighteen and seventeen when Brimstone Industries came to Freehail.

Brimstone always claimed to only mine on unoccupied worlds, but Freehail had a large deposit of valuable minerals near one of the poles that attracted the corp. Without consulting the government, Brimstone began mining in the southern hemisphere of the planet. It disturbed the oceans, which created a cascade of negative consequences ranging from aquatic animal deaths and tide changes, to air pollution, and devastating flooding. Freehail survived mostly on sustainable fishing and logging, and Brimstone was ruining the planet.

Watching their planet fall to Brimstone was too much for Nikair and Liadan Trell. They began to speak out against the company. They organized rallies, pursued legal avenues, and staged huge protests against Brimstone. Nikair’s charisma and Liadan’s ferocity were an unbeatable combination. They began to gain traction off planet, and more and more media outlets were drawn to Freehail due to their work. They were making real headway toward forcing Brimstone off Freehail and making them pay reparations, when the unthinkable happened.

Aethon came home one night from a late workout session to find his parents sobbing, both sitting on their kitchen floor.

Aethon’s heart had fallen into his stomach and he dropped his bag, and rushed up to them, his hands vibrating with fear at his sides.

“What happened?” he demanded. “What?”

His mother looked up, her eyes red with tears. “It’s your brother,” she whispered. “My baby.”

In that moment, everything felt surreal to Aethon. Like he was about to learn something that would change his life forever. An icy stillness came over his body. “Where is he?” Aethon asked. His own voice echoed in his ears.

“Gone,” his mother replied. “Dead.”

Aethon doesn’t remember the rest of that night.

Devan’s body had been found at school. He’d stayed after classes to work on an engineering project. He was supposed to meet some friends in the evening and when he didn’t show up, they went looking for him. He’d been shot straight through the head by a precision bullet. There was a tiny hole in the glass where the bullet had gone through the window of the classroom. The local law officers had determined that the killer must have been on the roof of the building next door when they made the shot.

“It was a professional,” they told the Trell family. The officers stood awkwardly in the living room while Nikair and Liadan sat on the couch and Aethon stood off to the side. “This wasn’t a random attack. This was targeted.”

Aethon had turned to his parents then. Both Nikair and Liadan were silent, their faces rigid with grief.

“Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt your family?” one of the officers asked.

Aethon clenched his fists at his sides.

“Brimstone,” Liadan finally whispered. “It had to be.”

“This was because of us,” Nikair added, his voice choked. “They want us to stop the protests. To stop trying to force them off Freehail.”

The two law officers had looked at each other, their gazes guarded. “We don’t know that for sure,” one of them said. “But we’ll pursue all avenues to make sure your son’s killer is brought to justice.”

But Aethon knew they would do no such thing. To strike at Brimstone would be fruitless. They were one of the biggest corporations in all of colonized space. It didn’t matter that they were mining on Freehail - an occupied planet. No one cared about Freehail, and everyone knew about Brimstone. They were faceless, endless. Powerful and rich beyond measure. Everything inside Aethon was screaming for justice - for someone to pay for the death of his brother. But how could he do anything against a corp like Brimstone? Aethon had never felt more useless than he did in that moment. He wished his brother were here. He would know what to do.

Pain lanced through Aethon’s gut. Why had it been Devan who was killed instead of him? Devan was the smart one. The one with ideas and plans and dreams. Aethon was nothing compared to his brother. Just a meathead nothing. It should have been him. He would have traded places with Devan in a heartbeat.

Aethon felt a cold rage deep in his chest. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. Devan was the better of the two Trell boys in many ways, but Aethon had inherited more of his mother’s steel. He had a ruthless streak that he could never quite quell. It usually only came out when he played sports with his friends, but he knew he could harness it for something more deadly. He had never wanted to until this moment. Maybe he couldn’t do anything to Brimstone, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get some kind of revenge.

Aethon raised his chin and stared at his mother. Despite living on Freehail for over twenty years, Liadan Trell hadn’t lost the edge she developed from growing up on Tellamar. Aethon knew that she understood what he was going to do. What he needed to do. Her brows knitted together, her green eyes severe. She nodded once at Aethon. He turned away from the officers and his parents and walked out of their home. He ignored his father’s calls asking where he was going.

And so Aethon Trell began his first hunt.

Three months later, Aethon dragged the man who murdered his brother into the law office of his hometown, and dropped his unconscious body in the lobby.

“Lock him up,” he snarled.

Despite the press going wild with speculation, Brimstone was able to disavow themselves from the actions of the man who had killed Devan Trell. They eventually withdrew from Freehail, but not before causing decades worth of damage to the planet’s ecosystems.