Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

M y drive mounts with every step I take back through the anteroom and toward the dorms. I’m not staying here a day longer. An hour, even. I’m only in this position because it was forced unwillingly on me, but I’ve got places to be. A sister to save. The love of my life to return to.

I know what it’s like to have to do everything myself, to be on my own. It’s been that way my entire life, really, and I’ve never let it stop me before.

When I reach my bunk, I catch a lucky break; nobody is here. They must all be making their way back from orientation still.

Without wasting any time, I race to the store closet and grab a spare bag, then hastily start packing, shoving necessities into it—a water skin, a clean set of clothes. I wish I’d had time to pocket some food from breakfast. When I have everything, I glance around briefly and then sling the bag over my shoulder. I slip from the dorms silently, a plan already forming in my head.

The servant passages I noticed during our convenient tour of the castle grounds will work. They’re way too small for wolves, so it’s unlikely the Bonded ever use them. Even without their wolves, they’re probably too worried about getting cobwebs on their fancy uniforms.

I pause briefly at the door to the Rawbond common lounge. Some people have started to trickle in here. Most are clustered in groups of three or four, chatting or sitting on each other’s laps flirtatiously or else perched at a table, playing a spirited game that seems to involve stones and dice.

Nobody is paying much attention to the exit. I eventually slip into the room, keeping my pace casual and concealing my bag with my body as best as I can. No one stops me.

Out in the halls, I do my best to silence my footsteps, putting most of my weight on my toes. Getting caught isn’t an option, so I pause at corners to listen for anyone coming from the other direction. As I move strategically, I call up the landmarks I noted on our tour and picture the path I need to take to get out of this mazelike castle, where that entrance to the servant’s corridors began and what direction to go from there.

The service passages are exactly as I imagined them—narrow, dusty, and clearly not used by anyone important. Everywhere in this place that a Bonded could touch has been polished and elaborately decorated. But the servants’ tunnels are dark and sparse, practically empty.

Every once in a while a servant bustles past, carrying a tray or a bundle of laundry or a broom. We nod at each other in the gloomy light, but nobody stops me. I’m not sure if they mistake me for one of them, or if they prefer not to question a Rawbond’s movements, no matter how strange.

I don’t stick around to find out.

I check off the list of landmarks that I should be passing by as I move, occasionally ducking out into a main corridor to check my progress and make sure I know where I am. The training yards. A kitchen storage area. A drafty corridor with a cracked stone wall, the fissures messily filled with a mortar patchwork that’s already struggling under the weight of the ceiling, pointed out as a back way to get to some of the classrooms.

The farther I get from the heart of the Bonded castle, the steadier I become. I’m doing something. I’m acting when no one else will. I can almost picture my sister standing at the end of the dimly lit hallway, reaching for me.

Eventually, I no longer bother to quiet my steps because I’m close enough to the castle walls now that I haven’t seen any servants for ages.

I finally find the courtyard I entered through, the gate where Egith waved me inside and I walked right in like an idiot. The cold air cools my sweaty skin. I reach for the heavy metal gate, briefly terrified that it’s going to be locked. But it opens with a screech, the wolves carved into the metal parting before me.

My surprised exhale drifts into the air, and I step through. The moment I do, a heady mixture of relief and elation surges through me.

I made it. No one stopped me. No one could. No one even knows I’m gone.

But three steps past the gate, pain slices through my skull.

I try to ignore it and push onward. At first, it’s nothing but a splitting headache. I can handle pain. I know how to endure it, if only because I never had any other choice. Maybe I didn’t eat enough, or maybe it’s just the stress of the past few days finally getting to me.

Too quickly, the pain escalates. My bones are turning to ice. Radiating outward, shards of blade-like agony rupture forth, cutting my insides, pushing outward towards my skin until my entire body is freezing over, ready to crack. My limbs go stiff, nausea spills through me, and I stagger.

What is this? Some sort of dark wolf-sorcery they’ve cast on the gates? Gritting my teeth, I push forward.

I barely make it ten more paces before my legs give way and I collapse face-first into the snow. I don’t even realize I’ve fallen, at first. One second, I’m on my feet and walking clumsily, using the castle walls for support.

The next, I’m staring at snowflakes gathered two inches from my nose, pain ravaging my nerves and muscles seizing slightly.

I don’t know how long I lie there.

A hand lands on my shoulder, and I’m still able to feel it through the cold. The world spins around me, but through it all, I can make out two familiar faces.

Izabel and Venna hover over me. Venna is closer. Hers is the hand on my shoulder, her tight grip and the twisting of her features expressing both frustration and concern. Izabel’s expression is one of pure sympathy. Her eyes are glassy, like she’s on the verge of tears solely because someone she barely knows is shivering pathetically in the snow.

Venna says something I can’t quite make out, then the two of them take my arms and haul me upright. I grunt and clench my chattering teeth. I hate this. I hate the twins seeing me like this, as if I’m some trembling weakling.

They know I was trying to leave, and my failure to do so is embarrassing. Humiliating, really.

Trying to maintain some pride, I attempt to walk on my own, but my legs won’t listen to me. I end up wriggling in their grip like a drunkard until we draw closer to the castle and the pain begins to abate.

Venna’s right hand clamps even harder on my arm as I begin to stand straighter. “What were you thinking?”

I want to spit something venomous back at them, but my mouth doesn’t want to listen to my brain quite yet. I might immediately vomit if I try it.

Izabel chimes in. “She’s right. You could’ve died.”

Scoffing, I finally get my feet under me. I shove the twins off and stagger towards the closest wall because I’m not entirely certain I’ll be able to remain upright otherwise. Yet the agony is very quickly leaving me. It’s shocking how normal I feel so soon after being wracked by the sensation of my insides shattering.

When I turn to look at them, Venna’s hands are on her hips and Izabel is hugging herself. “What were you doing?” Izabel asks.

“Leaving,” I rasp out.

She rolls her eyes. “I know that, but?—”

“I have to get to my sister,” I snap. No one in this entire fucking castle seems to give a shit, but I do. “I can’t stay here. I have to reach her. I don’t know what just happened, but it can’t keep me from going after her. I can’t be stuck here for four months , while Saela…” I can’t even finish the thought.

Venna’s eyes are downcast, face pale. Izabel’s face crumples. “I get it, but?—”

“You don’t,” I growl and slide down the wall. I rest my elbows on my knees and sink my hands into my silver hair. “You don’t,” I murmur under my breath.

Venna steps closer and sits beside me with her back against the wall. She holds out a hand, which Izabel takes as she, too, settles in front of me.

“Look,” Venna says slowly, “you need to understand that the bond between wolf and rider is fragile at first. I think yours might be especially fragile. Distance creates physical strain, which I’m guessing you felt? And that strain can snap it entirely, killing both wolf and rider.”

The enormity of that statement doesn’t entirely sink in, at first.

Izabel picks up where her sister left off. “It isn’t just something you can overcome through sheer determination. Only time and trust can strengthen the bond enough to allow distance. So unless you can convince your direwolf to take off to the front with you…”

Her voice trails off, and I realize the reality of the situation. It hits me like a hammer over the head. That pain…

I’m not going anywhere. I’m trapped. Truly, utterly fucking trapped.

If I try to go, it’ll just happen again the same way, and maybe next time, I won’t have Izabel and Venna there to drag my limp body from the snow.

Something akin to horror boils in my chest. I try everything I can to hold it together. These two women have just seen me struggling to stay alive in the snow, drunk on pain, helpless. I don’t need to let them see my despair, too.

But it’s just too much. The soaring hope of stepping out of the castle followed by that crippling pain. And now this. This claustrophobic, wretched truth that makes my skin crawl.

The sob rips from me. All the emotion I’ve been holding back since my arrival in this awful place, since the Ascent started, really, pushes to the surface. My eyes burn as I double over and start to shiver. My fingers dig into my knees as I try to pull myself from this spiral of grief, but I can’t stop it. Anger and fear and shame swirl in my mind, but the twins don’t react the way I expected.

I figured they would find my crying pathetic. I’d be weak, right? A common Rawbond unworthy of the bond she forged, already fracturing under the pressure.

But they don’t mock me. They don’t leave me there to fall apart. Venna reaches out and slides a warm hand down my back. Izabel reaches into her pocket and pulls out a silk handkerchief, holding it out to me. I stare at it for a moment, nearly shocked out of my tears.

Hesitantly, I take it and press it to my cheeks. The pain won’t stop, but it’s easing slightly with the constant gentle strokes of Venna’s hand on my back and the understanding glint in Izabel’s eyes.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask and quickly wipe at another tear before it falls.

Venna and Izabel sign to each other quickly, and I internally vow to learn this language fast, so that they can’t leave me out. “We’re confused,” Venna finally says aloud.

I sniff and clutch the silk in my hand, crumpling it. “I’m obviously a weak link. I’m a commoner, and I don’t even want to be here. What are you getting out of this?”

Izabel scoffs and shakes her head. She settles back on one hand, propping herself up. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what?”

She watches me for a long moment. I think she’s deciding whether to be honest with me. Her eyes dart to her sister and back to me. Then finally, she takes a deep breath and says, “No one believed the two of us could survive a Bonding Trial.”

“What?” I blurt. “Why?”

Venna sighs. “Because of my disability. My hearing… I’ve been hard of hearing since childhood. I’m usually okay in one-on-one or small groups, but when groups get bigger and noisier…”

“And because of my commitment to her,” Izabel adds. “I’d never leave her behind, and everyone thought…” She shakes her head. “They thought Venna would drag us down. When that’s the opposite of the truth, obviously.”

Venna grins and scoots her foot out to nudge Izabel’s leg with her boot. Izabel rests her hand on Venna’s ankle and looks at me. “Our parents were our only champions. They taught us that we had to be twice as good as anyone else in order to survive and prove the rest of them wrong.”

My mind flashes to Igor, his faith in me. The way he helped me survive against the odds, despite having lost my father and essentially lost my mother, too.

I guess I know a little of what they mean.

“We became fighters because we had to. And like recognizes like, I guess,” Venna says with a gesture towards me. My lips part, and I stare at her. She looks amused by my surprise. “Meryn, why do you think we fought through the Ascent with you? You have that strength, too—the same drive to prove everyone else wrong. Maybe you’re a commoner. Maybe you’re stuck. But who cares? Fight harder.”

My breath is uneven. For the first time since arriving at the castle, something in my chest wants to reach out and take hold of the world around me. Venna nudges my elbow gently. She’s smiling at me.

“Plus, if anyone took Ven from me, or me from her…” Izabel adds. Her expression darkens. Venna immediately shuffles closer to her and leans against her side. Izabel sighs and meets my gaze. “We get it, Meryn.”

I lift my chin and wipe my cheeks with my fist. And I look at the two of them and think that maybe they do get it.

It tastes almost bitter, realizing these Bonded-born women and I are so alike. I already respected them, of course, their strength in the face of the horrors of the Ascent, the way they worked together—worked with me —to make it through that hellish climb.

But even so, it’s a strange, new feeling, knowing that I have something in common with them. That I… maybe can understand them.

“For Saela’s sake, I could do anything,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. “Even if that means making this damned bond work, somehow winning over that bitch Anassa so that she carries me to Saela herself.” Something whispers against the bond in my head, as if Anassa’s heard me, but I ignore it.

Venna signs something to Izabel, and Izabel laughs. “Good,” she says. “Then first things first, Venna and I agree that you need to take a bath because you stink. Tonight is Presentation.”

Venna makes a show of pinching her nose and smirking at me. I snort, amused until I register what Izabel just said.

What the fuck is Presentation? Another Trial? And why do I need to smell nice for it?

We make it back to the dorms in much less time than my bid for freedom took, since we don’t have to avoid main hallways or being seen. Venna splits off when we reach the common room, heading toward the Kryptos quarters.

By the time we reach the Strategos bunk room again, the other Rawbonds are all inside, a flurry of motion and clothing. I squint at them as I stride past beds to reach mine and Izabel’s. But I stop dead when I see one of the other Rawbonds wearing a cravat around his neck. And a suit jacket. And shiny shoes.

Wait, they’re all dressing up, unpacking fancy clothing and meticulously arranging their hair.

“Hurry up,” Izabel hisses, gesturing toward the washroom door. “You need to go take a bath, right now, and then get ready.”

“So I’ve been told,” I grumble.

“No, you don’t understand. You have to look nice. It’s like I told you earlier. Appearances matter here. You’ll be expected to look like a Rawbond, not just be one,” she says urgently.

She tries to shove me towards the washrooms, but I resist. “Izabel, what the fuck is going on?”

“Presentation, I told you,” she replies, agitated. Then she double takes and her eyes widen. “ Right . You don’t know what that is. It’s where we’re all put in front of the royals to show off the new class of recruits. Nobles from across the seven fiefdoms come to see it, too.”

“And we dress up?”

“You know how it is…” Actually, I don’t . “We have to worry about the rankings, but that’s not all of it. The royals, the nobles… well, we’re the pride of Nocturna, the best of the best. Not just at fighting. We’re, well, on display.” For the first time, Izabel looks a little uncomfortable about what she’s saying, but then she brightens. “You’re naturally pretty, you’ll do fine. But we need to get you cleaned up.”

“Wait—” I’m not ready to let this go. “Rankings?! Like we’ll be assigned numbers or something based on how fuckable we look tonight?”

Izabel laughs but shakes her head. “Each pack has its own rankings. Obviously, each pack is led by an alpha, then the beta and a couple of gammas. None of us Rawbonds have titles like that yet, but the wolves are always watching what we do and there’s a hierarchy amongst them. The packs will try to pick off the people who fall to the bottom of the ranks.”

But Izabel said we’d be on display . It’s not just about the wolves. We’re entertainment for the nobles and the king.

Everyone is judging us.

Right now, I’m significantly more worried about the wolves, who apparently might just decide to murder one of us if we stand with our shoulders slumped or look a little soft around the middle.

“They might even do that tonight, if one of us fails to impress,” Izabel adds contemplatively.

Panic strikes me like a hammer to the head. I grip the bunk for balance and gesture to myself. “Failing to impress, Izabel? And how exactly do you think I’ll measure up?”

Izabel tenses up. “Right. Shit.” Her eyes move over me, and her jaw tightens. “Okay, I have an idea.”