You Just Kissed Her

Meirys actually made the oath.

Yes, she twisted the wording and created herself a couple loopholes. But Gunnar would keep his part of the bargain and 'teach' her, closing the first. Time would close the other. Three's people only lived for about a century and a half. Gunnar had chased Meirys for centuries. He could wait a few more decades to bring her to justice.

'I don't think Six's Traveler is Meirys,' Three announced from his mental cage.

Gunnar was going to have to let him out soon, and he wasn't looking forward to it. The monk was a seething mass of fury, resentment, and smug superiority. As soon as he wasn't pinned any more, he'd use everything he had to shove Gunnar out of his body. He could probably do it too. The young man was arrogant and spoiled, but he wasn't lazy and he wasn't lacking in mental discipline.

Time to try and mend fences.

'You might be right,' Gunnar acknowledged, reluctantly allowing some of his own doubt to color his words.

Meirys was playing the role of 'Sera Conroy' with uncomfortable thoroughness. The pretense that she hadn't known what it meant to make a bonded oath, demanding that he teach her to move between bodies, the show of refusing to leave while Six was at risk--her delivery was perfect. Just enough hesitation to make someone who didn't know better believe that she was telling the truth. That Gunnar had made a mistake and was chasing the wrong woman.

Three had obviously bought the act.

But Gunnar knew Meirys had slipped free with exactly this ploy before. Multiple times. There were five reports from hunters who'd become convinced they'd caught the wrong person and let their prey go, only to find out later that they'd turned Meirys loose. Gunnar knew of more than two dozen other reports from hunters who'd caught the wrong immortal in their pursuit of Meirys. He'd studied the reports of every hunter's encounter with Meirys and tracked down the hunters who were still alive to ask them about the incidents. Some of them had clearly been mistaken in their captures. But not all of them. At least half of those 'mistaken' captures who'd been released might have been Meirys.

One of the hunters Gunnar had spoken to had said Meirys was so good at playing a role she herself believed it. But Gunnar suspected it was more than just playing a role.

When Gunnar had been young and first learning to move from one body to another, his teachers had warned that if he didn't have a clear sense of self, he could become so intertwined with the soul of his host that he would be unable to cleanly separate himself. He might leave bits of himself behind, or take on parts of that other soul. Or worse, he and the host soul might merge entirely.

The oldest of immortals, among which Meirys numbered, had deliberately sought such a joining, Gunnar's teachers had told him. They'd merged with their hosts until the two souls became a single being. Now that was regarded as murder. But the oldest immortals hadn't considered it such. They'd considered it growth, the creating of a whole greater than the lesser parts. Claimed that both souls continued to exist, just in a new form.

Like pouring together two glasses of water.

They weren't entirely wrong, either. The soul that remained had all the knowledge and skills and memories of the originals. What the ancients glossed over was that the host soul was ntirely subjugated by the immortal soul. Such a complete merging wasn't the harmonious blending of two souls. The immortal soul consumed the lesser host soul.

An immortal was only supposed to connect with the host closely enough to access the host's memories and knowledge. That much connection was necessary, since nothing got a host killed faster than an immortal breaking an unspoken taboo. Immortals were encouraged merely to observe the lives of their hosts. Gunnar could not count the number of times he'd been instructed, "Your host should never know you are there. If your host knows you are there, you have failed."

Many immortals would ride along in the back of their hosts' consciousness, experiencing the host's life without ever taking action. For those who chose to act, there were strict rules about what could be done. Nothing to the detriment of the host. Nothing that was completely counter to the host's character. It was acceptable to help a shy host speak up in public. Or to encourage a busy one to take a few moments to enjoy a garden they might otherwise ignore. Prompting one's host to try a new hobby was allowed. Encouraging a reckless host to think twice about something dangerous was acceptable.

But forcing one's host to rush into battle? Not allowed. Encouraging one's host to pursue a lover the host was not actually interested in? Not allowed. Moving half way around the world? Not allowed.

Most of Gunnar's work was collecting immortals who'd broken those rules and delivering them to the council for judgement. Most often it was accidental, or the immortal genuinely believed it was in his host's best interest to face their fear of heights or pursue their lifelong dream of becoming a musician. Or perhaps they simply confused their own attraction to a being for the feelings of the host. Those immortals were generally penalized with remedial education.

But other times sharing in the experiences and desires of the host was no longer enough. The pursuit of new sensations and new experiences led them to suppressing the will of the host so taking over the body. Those immortals were generally forbidden to seek out further hosts until the council was convinced they would not transgress again.

And then there were immortals like Meirys, who pursued own goals, for their own ends. The host was a tool, not an opportunity for learning and growth, or an experience to enjoy. They most often killed or consumed their hosts.

Gunnar suspected that 'Sera Conroy' was a soul Meirys had consumed. One she was allowing free reign to better sell her deception. Why she hadn't done the same to Six was somewhat puzzling, but in the end Gunnar didn't care enough to bother figuring it out. All he was concerned with was bringing Meirys to justice, and her bonded oath would ensure that.

But he was bothered that she'd made the oath.

It left him with a tiny, unshakeable bit of doubt. Maybe this really wasn't the immortal he'd pursued for centuries.

Or--and this was far more likely--Meirys wanted to be captured was merely stalling for time until the pieces of a plan he couldn't see were in place. She'd threatened to destroy the entire council more than once. Was she strong enough to do it now, if Gunnar took her to them?

Gods, what if she could?

What if, instead of bringing Meirys to justice, delivering her to the council led to their slaughter? What if the only way to truly punish Meirys for her crimes was to kill her himself? Was Gunnar strong enough to do that? Did he have the power and the skill to kill her? And if he did, would he have the moral strength to turn himself over to the council for judgement afterwards?

Even with all the crimes Meirys had committed, the council was unlikely to sentence her to death. Immortals were few in number, and the council regarded the lives of immortals as too precious to be ended. Particularly one as old as Meirys. They wouldn't want to let so many millenia of knowledge and experience be lost.

But Gunnar was a hunter, and hunters were not permitted to deliver judgement or punishment. They were not allowed to kill.

That hadn't always been the case. When Gunnar had trained to be a hunter, it had still be acceptable for a hunter to execute an immortal who'd gone too far. But a righteous hunter named Mal had taken things too far and executed over half the immortal population over the course of a couple centuries. Kam had seen no difference between those like Meirys, who'd murdered thousands, and a newly-fledged immortal who'd slipped up and encouraged his host to take a risky vacation.

Kam had been Gunnar's first prominent capture. All his other targets had been minor offenders. That Gunnar had captured Kam--without killing him--had created a stir and marked him out as one of the best of the hunters. It was the capture of Gunnar that had convinced Gunnar's superiors he could be allowed to pursue Meirys.

The council had debated over what to do with Kam for almost two decades. Which was a mistake, since it gave a group of sympathetic hunters who felt, as Kam did, that errant immortals should be put to death, time to plan and execute Kam's escape. The hunters had split into two camps after that, those believed hunters should be executioners, and those who felt the hunter's place was solely to seek and capture, not to deliver judgement.

Gunnar wasn't entirely unsympathetic to the idea that some immortal lives needed to be ended. Meirys's in particular. But he also didn't think every misstep called for termination. So he'd sided against Kam's followers and joined the hunt for them. In the end, nearly a dozen hunters had been taken before the Council for judgement. The council had learned from the prior mistake, and Kam and their followers had been executed. In the centuries since then, any hunter who killed their prey had been sentenced to death, lest another Kam manifest.

If Gunnar killed Meirys, it would mean the end of his own life. And Gunnar wasn't ready to die.

'Facing your own death isn't the worse part, though, is it?' Three observed smugly. Gunnar started, and then mentally cursed himself. If he'd slipped up so badly that Three had been able to follow all of Gunnar's concern, then he'd been inexcusably sloppy.

That Three knew he was here was forgivable. Hunters were not meant to be merely observers. Pursuit of an errant immortal meant eventually they would need control, which meant revealing their presence to the host. Forthright explanation and working together was preferred, but as often as not the end result was the current situation--the host locked down while the hunter did their job.

But the host was not supposed to sense the hunter's thoughts emotions. Grimly, Gunnar resolved to guard himself more closely.

Three wasn't done though, and he was right. The realization that bringing Meirys to justice might mean his own death wasn't the worst thing Gunnar was forced to acknowledge tonight.

'The worst part is that you think this woman is the Embodiment of All Evil. And you just kissed her like she's your mate.'

Yes, THAT was definitely worse.