Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

T his can’t be happening.

I stare blankly at the empty bed, mind turning in circles as my body floods with ice.

Saela. Saela .

I squeeze my eyes shut, counting to ten, and then open them again, but the empty bed remains, along with the cold draft coming from the open window.

There must be an explanation. How could they have come in here with me just outside on the street? How could I have missed someone entering?

And Saela. She would have defended herself, just like I taught her. She wouldn’t have gone quietly.

Not my sister. My Saela .

Maybe she’s in my mother’s room. My frozen muscles jerk to life, and I race out of the room, down the short hallway to my mother’s room. Yanking open the door, I scan the dark room frantically, but there’s no sign of her.

My mother sits up sleepily, blinking at me, but I can’t speak the words, can’t explain.

I search the bathroom.

The living space and kitchen.

She’s not here. Her coat and boots are, though, neatly tucked next to the front door. I stare at them numbly, then turn back toward our bedroom.

My breath comes in little gasps as I stick my head out the window. Tiny swirls of snow have started, and my breath puffs white in the frigid air. I look back and forth, scanning every inch of the view, willing my eyes to find a clue out in the cold darkness, but there’s no sign of what happened, nothing moving in the alleyway beside our house.

Something else catches my eye that I didn’t see before, though, as I pull myself back inside the room. In the corner of the window frame, snagged on a long, jagged splinter of wood: a tiny piece of white cloth.

A perfect match for Saela’s nightgown.

Sinking down to the floor, I hear a keening sound, and register after a few moments that it’s coming from my lips. I shudder and knock my head back against the wall, relishing the jarring pain.

Either Saela snuck out into the snow in her nightgown in the middle of the night… or someone took her.

While I was out in the snow, making plans for a better future with Lee, my sister was stolen in the night.

Even as my mind rejects the words, my body is reacting. I slam the window shut, then tug on boots and throw on a coat as I race out into the darkness.

Lee has to be nearby still, he just departed. I turn left toward his path to the Northern Quarter and run . Within a few minutes, I spot his large frame walking purposefully down the quiet street.

“Lee!” I scream. He turns, his face alighting with a smile at the sight of me, which quickly drops at my obvious panic.

He jogs toward me, worry creasing his brow, and grabs me by the arm. “Meryn, what’s?—”

“Saela,” I pant, my breathing ragged from the run. It hurts to say her name. “She was missing when I went back inside.” My mind spirals again. No, no, no, no…

Lee’s hand tightens on my forearm, grounding me, bringing me back into the present. “We’ll search for her,” he tells me, radiating calm and authority. I sag against him. “Let’s get back to your neighborhood and start there. We’ll wake your neighbors. We’ll find her, Mer. She can’t have gone far.”

He doesn’t put a voice to my fears. To the only logical conclusion: she’s been kidnapped.

Time seems to yawn and jump, skipping ahead in starts.

I snap back to focus in front of Igor’s door and pound my fist against it. “Igor!” my voice comes out halfway as a sob. I shout his name again and again, slamming my hands into the wood. Lee’s hand on my shoulder quells me.

Doors crack to either side of us, cautious faces looking out to see what’s causing the commotion. One of my sister’s former teachers recognizes me, comes out the door wearing nothing but her nightclothes, a thick shawl, and boots. “Meryn? Is that you?”

Igor’s door swings open and he and his wife Prina stand in the doorway, worry etched on their faces. A pit opens up in my belly, and my insides churn, as if caught in a storm.

“It’s Saela,” I manage. “She’s gone. She’s—they took her.”

“We need to look for her,” Lee interjects. “Can you come help us? If you take the northern end of the neighborhood, we can head west, then check Central Market.”

Igor’s taken two big steps forward, and I start when he wraps his big arms around me. “Meryn,” he says, and there’s a whole paragraph in those two short syllables. “Of course we’ll help you.” But I hear in his voice the words he doesn’t say.

I break away. “No! No . She’s not gone. We can’t give up on her?—”

Igor’s already grabbed his coat, pulled on his boots. Saela’s teacher joins us, having hastily pulled on some trousers over her nightclothes. “We aren’t giving up, Meryn. We’re here with you.”

The back of my throat burns, and I gaze around me wildly, my mind blank. “We should…”

“Meryn and I will take the blocks west of here,” Lee repeats when I drift off. “Can you two start checking north?” He takes me by the arm, tugs.

The icy kiss of snowflakes against my cheeks brings me back into focus. It’s coming down harder now, I think absently.

Lee and I are jogging, then running, peeling down each street and alley, shouting Saela’s name. The streets are deserted at this hour, apart from a few ragged-looking rats, and one miserable street hound that watches us pass from his modest shelter under a stoop. Broken glass and icy drifts crunch under my boots, the sound muffled by the falling of the surrounding snow. The drifts of white make the streets appear ghostly and barren.

We stop to catch our breath after maybe an hour of searching.

“Maybe we should?—”

“Split up?” Lee says. He steps closer, hands coming up to frame my face. “We’d cover more ground that way. But Meryn… are you…”

The concern in his eyes makes me wild, and I spin away out of reach. “I’m fine. Just go. You should head toward Central. She might have gone there… Meet me back at my house in the morning to tell me if you’ve found anything?” I don’t look back to see if he follows my instructions before taking off again down the next alley.

I push faster and faster, zigzagging down each street, eyes darting to every corner, every shadow, every place that she could be. Inside, I block out the voice telling me that the children are never found. That there’s nothing anyone can do.

I refuse to do nothing. I refuse.

Hours later, day breaks cold and wet, the snowflakes turning to slush, gray under my boots. The sooty mix drips from gutters, and puddles in street-side ditches. Early morning workers emerge from their homes, giving me a wide berth, averting their eyes.

The world is a blur, my mind numb with exhaustion. I don’t know what hour it is when I finally admit defeat, turning toward home.

Igor and Lee are there already, sitting outside my front door. I can tell without either of them saying a word that there’s not been any sign of her.

Lee tries to stop me as I go into the house. I just pull away, out of his grip. He’s saying something, but all the sounds of the world around me have been replaced by a dull buzzing. I retreat to my room, shut the door in his face.

This is all my fault.

Time drifts.

I lay mindless in Saela’s bed, wrapped in the sheets and blanket that still smell faintly of her.

Mother has checked on me a few times, lucid enough to know what’s wrong, to realize what’s happened. At the misery in her expression, I turn my face to the wall.

Women from the neighborhood drop by in shifts—workers from the laundry, mothers of Saela’s school friends, old friends of my mothers that I haven’t seen in years. They bring food, bread, cautiously pushing into my room and leaving plates on the floor when I refuse to speak.

Afterward I hear them chatting in hushed tones with my mother, if she’s awake. More times than not, they leave silently, receiving no welcome from either of us.

I can’t bring myself to care. The plates of food sit on the floor, untouched.

“She hasn’t eaten a bite,” comes my mother’s voice, hours or days later. I don’t know how long it’s been.

Mother sounds lucid, sane. As if losing her daughter has shored up what reserves her mind has left.

“It’s just like what happened with her father, after his first year at the front. He didn’t speak for five days after he got back. Wasted half his leave that way.” Mother’s voice cracks, and guilt blooms inside me, hot and red.

Father . He was supposed to protect us. And then he left us, left and never came back.

I was supposed to protect Saela. I promised her.

My fingers twitch toward the dagger I keep near my bed. When my father died, that worked, sometimes—giving myself pain to focus on, something to feel other than this. The sharp slice would chase away the darkness from my brain, removing all sensation other than the dagger meeting my arm or thigh.

But I can’t find the energy to stir, not even for this. I stare at the ceiling, watching the shadows move strangely across the room as the day comes and goes.

The room is dark again when Igor appears in the doorway, stooping to step through the low frame. “Enough, Meryn.” His voice cuts through the room like a knife.

Unlike the others, there’s no pity in his tone, no sympathy.

“This isn’t you. Get up.”

My body is like stone in the bed. I wait, shame and anger roiling in me, squeezing my eyes shut, refusing to look at him. He stands in the doorway for what seems like hours, but eventually, he leaves.

Some time later, Lee quietly lets himself in. I don’t turn to look, but I know it’s him right away. I can tell by the smell of pine, by the confident tread of his step.

He says nothing, just climbs into the bed with me, fitting his chest against my back, his knees into the crook of mine. At the press of warmth, my eyes prickle, and then I’m sobbing, crying for the first time since Saela was taken.

I cry endlessly, and Lee holds me. When I finally stop, neither of us says anything. Lee just clasps my hand in his, his thumb sweeping across the back of my hand, back and forth, back and forth.

I must fall asleep, because when I open my eyes again, it’s bright in the room, the light from the window falling harshly across my face.

Lee has left, but my arms are wrapped tightly around something—Saela’s pillow. As my vision comes into focus, I notice a small strand of her hair still on the fabric, the color brown a shade deeper than my own. The single strand shimmers in the square of sunlight.

I sit up.

Something has broken and resettled in my chest. I promised her. Promised Saela that nothing would hurt her.

I fucking keep my promises.

The army recruitment center in the Eastern Quarter is next to a butcher’s shop. Appropriate, I think grimly as I wait for the recruiter to find my family name on his sheet.

Every quarter has one of these centers, and you can tell the castle cares a bit more about them than anything else—the fire in the hearth is stacked with wood that burns merrily, giving off a dry, seasoned smell unlike the damp peaty aroma of our stove at home. The walls are lined in paper, an indulgence you don’t see anywhere else in Eastern. And the furniture is scuffed and worn, but still obviously a higher quality than most.

My eyes skate across the recruiter’s uniform, the piles of paper on his desk, jumbles of forms and rosters. An oil lamp flickers, making shadows dance across his hands as he shuffles through the papers. It’s like they’re reaching for me.

“Ah, here,” he says finally. “Cooper. But—” he squints up at me doubtfully. “You weren’t summoned to serve. It says you have a caretaker exception.”

Everyone gets summoned at some point, unless they’re caring for an underage or elderly family member or have a health issue. I’ve had an exception next to my name since before I was even old enough to serve.

I swallow the lump in my throat. Father would hate it if he knew that I was following in his footsteps, heading to the brutal war front that haunted his dreams.

Father isn’t here.

“I know,” I say, steel in my voice. “I don’t care. I’m volunteering.”

It’s the only way. If the Nabbers are taking the kids across the borders to the Siphons, this is my only opportunity to get to Saela.

The recruiter and I stare at each other, and he grunts his assent, scribbling something on the sheet in front of him. “Well, in that case?—”

“How quickly can you send me to the front?”

The recruiter cocks his head to the side, considering. “We ask new recruits to report for training every six months, which typically gives them enough time to get their affairs in order. We have a boot camp starting up tomorrow, but I would recommend waiting until?—”

“I’ll be there,” I tell him swiftly. “Give me my orders.”

The man stares at me for a beat, trying to gauge how serious I am. Something in my face must convince him, because he just shakes his head like he disagrees with me, then stamps something on the paper.

“Done. Welcome to the King’s Royal Forces, Recruit Cooper.”