Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T ime passes strangely. It somehow manages to fly by while also grinding along slowly, kneading salt into my wounded soul as it goes. Everything’s a blur of sitting through boring classes and trying to stay awake, desperately clinging to life in training sessions, and trying not to think about Killian.
In the moments between, I’m training on my own. Izabel and Venna have not stopped trying to get me to join their nightly activities, but I’ve been too busy with the strength routine Tomison gave me. When I’ve improved my ability with the sword, I also ask for help with a bow and arrow.
Stark hasn’t lashed out at me again in the same deeply humiliating way, which I’ve taken to mean that I’m actually improving. He also hasn’t repaid me for the spit in the face, so I continue to keep my guard up around him.
Finally, it’s the night before the Voice Trial, the first major test we have to pass. I went to my room early to try to get a good night’s sleep, but I’ve been tossing and turning for hours.
When I eventually doze off, I plummet into a nightmare.
I’m at the medic’s office with my mom, except the medic is treating me . He stands in front of me, raising his hands to my face, tightening his fingers into my hair until my head is locked in his grip.
“The delusions will start soon,” he says calmly, staring straight into my eyes. “Are you ready?”
Suddenly he’s gone, and I’m looking at my mother. She looks lucid, nothing like the fuzzy, clouded version of the past decade. She’s wearing her nicest clothing, and standing in a dark, viscous pool of blood. On her head is a twisting crown, and it’s bloody too. Streaks of blood run down from its peaks and into her fine, wavy hair.
“Meryn,” she calls. “Meryn! It’s time for you to join me.”
I take an unwilling step toward her, unable to look away.
The light changes until mother is shrouded in darkness, and the whites of her eyes turn a deep black. When she next opens her mouth, the voice that comes out is nothing like my mother’s.
It’s deep and otherworldly, resonant in a way that sets my teeth on edge, makes my bones ache.
“MERYN. Come, now. Nocturn commands it!”
I’m walking closer and closer. I can’t control my own body, as if I’m paralyzed inside my skull, watching someone else move my limbs. I draw closer and closer, my eyes locked on hers until I’m drowning in the dark pools of her irises.
With a gasp, I wake up, sitting straight up in bed. My layered blankets fall off my chest, letting in the cold air, soothing against my flushed and sweaty limbs. I breathe heavily, trying to center myself.
Just a dream.
But I can’t fall back asleep the rest of the night.
In the morning, I stride into the arena, heart pounding so hard that it pulses in my fingertips and trying to not feel bleary-eyed after last night. The other Rawbonds look just as tense as we move together deeper into the arena.
Leader Aldrich gave us some menacing statistics to prepare us for what’s coming during the Voice Trial. Apparently, this first test is specifically designed to challenge our communication skills, and it’s estimated that an eighth of us won’t survive this.
I’m not optimistic about my chances. My communication with Anassa hasn’t improved. We keep shoving each other out of the way.
I can ride her without falling off. Generally. But not falling off isn’t really good enough when there’s an elaborate, terrifying obstacle course laid out before you complete with fiery braziers strategically arranged to force precise navigation.
It’s… a lot . The arena’s been transformed overnight into this nightmarish maze.
And as with the Presentation, the stands are filled with nobles who have come in to watch us succeed—or die. The king sits on his dais, cold amusement clear on his face. Once again, our misery is their entertainment.
Killian is at his side and I ignore the way my stomach flips when I catch sight of him. I need to stay fully focused on Anassa if I’m going to make it through.
Standing next to her, I study the course before us, trying to figure out which part of it my corpse is going to end up draped over.
The series of ascending platforms at the start? Probably not. If I hold on tight enough, I should be able to stay mounted as Anassa leaps across them.
That narrow bridge suspended over a sea of flames, though? Yeah, that one’s not looking so promising.
For a sickening moment, I can already smell my flesh and hair cooking.
My eyes catch on a flash of dark. Stark is standing near the other instructors by the king’s dais, his huge arms crossed over his wide chest. I catch his malevolent gaze and I swear I almost see a malicious smile flicker across his stupid lips.
This is it, then. The payback for the spit.
I know the obstacle course is meant to be a general test of coordination between the rider and their wolf, but it feels like a deliberate attack against me. Like Stark snuck into the arena in the night, laughing to himself as he set up the targets, probably imagining my crispy corpse just like I am right now.
At least the targets are set up somewhat close to the obstacles. We were allowed to choose our weapons for this portion, and I picked daggers, confident in my aim from my training with Igor. It shouldn’t be too hard to hit the targets, assuming they don’t spontaneously shrink or one of the braziers doesn’t flash brightly in my eyes right as I ready my throw.
The sickly twisting in my gut worsens when the other pairs start to traverse the course before me. It’s like I can see the mental connection shimmering between their bodies as they move fluidly through the course.
The wolves leap up over platforms, twisting mid-air to allow their riders clean shots. The riders demonstrate intense focus.
I can tell that they’re ready for every twitch in their wolves’ flanks, every drop and jump and turn.
Of course, there are failures, too. Spectacular, messy failures, just like Aldrich warned.
One wolf miscalculates a jump. I don’t know whether it was the wolf’s fault or whether its rider guided it incorrectly over the challenge before them, but the result is that the two of them tumble together through the air.
They fall, writhing for handholds that aren’t there.
The rider’s scream is piercing but cut short by his impact against the ground. His wolf lands on top of him, killing him instantly. It howls in pain, maybe because its rider has died or maybe because it’s injured itself in the fall.
Another pair visibly argues as they cross the narrow bridge above the flames. The rider shouts something aloud, and her wolf turns around and snaps at her mid-stride. The wolf’s ferocity—or maybe just its stubbornness—causes it to crash headlong into a fire pit, some of its fur catching fire and its rider shrieking with fear.
Izabel navigates the course easily, not that it’s surprising. Henrey makes it through, too, though he’s significantly slower than some of the other riders. Tomison’s time is particularly impressive.
I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it later. If I’m still alive.
Stark probably traversed this obstacle course in less than three seconds in his Trials , I think bitterly. The bastard .
My turn comes too soon. My name is barked out from the dark, and I step towards Anassa, bracing for the usual stab of pain from the wall between us. But it doesn’t come.
I look up at her as I approach and find her already staring at me, silver fur shimmering and gaze steady. She doesn’t look away. When I tentatively reach out mentally, I don’t sense the vicious scrape of claws or the icy cold of her disdain.
The wall has thinned, turned slightly glassy. It’s still cold and unforgiving, but I can almost make out flashes through the barrier. Like a wall of ice, strange distortions of impressions and instincts flickering through in a dance of light over my mind.
I mount her as smoothly as I can, very aware that every eye in the arena is on me right now.
Anassa strides forward, stalking towards the beginning of the course. The first challenge is simpler than the rest, composed of three ascending platforms, each smaller than the previous. It requires careful, precise jumps.
Not a single pair has failed this part yet, and I hope we’re not going to be the first.
I tighten my grip on Anassa’s fur, winding a bit of it around my hand to ensure that even if my body flies off of her back, I’ll still be able to hold on and scramble back up. I prepare myself for the chaos, expecting Anassa to do whatever she wants here, screw the rider she carries on her back.
Then I sense a flash. It’s brief, so quick I’m not sure it wasn’t just a panic-induced hallucination. But as Anassa’s muscles tighten and ready, I know it was real.
It felt like a vision of the future, almost. She’s shown me the exact path she means to take to climb the platforms—where she’s going to land, the rhythm of her jumps, the speed at which she’ll move through it all.
I’m ready for it when she moves, my mind seizing the information she’s given me and calculating how I need to hold myself to keep steady. I change my angle, grinding my foot into place to support my weight. When she starts to move, I lean into it.
One jump, shift my weight to the left. The second, the turnaround for this one is fast. I tense my core and grit my teeth, leaning forward to counter the lurch of motion from her ascent.
The last jump, I know she’s going to land hard. I tighten my legs and push back with my hands to counter the impact.
Anassa doesn’t stop. She hurtles on to the next obstacle, and I can sense her intention. She wants to win, to prove herself the strongest of the pack, to crush anyone who would challenge her.
For the first time since we met, our feelings align.
I want to succeed. I don’t give a shit about being Bonded, or rising through the ranks. But I want to prove myself.
No, even more than that: I want to embarrass the people who’ve dismissed me from the start. I want my victory to sting them as fiercely as my injuries do every night when Anassa refuses to heal them.
I want the power I know I have to carry me through.
The second challenge is the bridge. It’s barely wide enough for a wolf’s paws, but Anassa’s calm, predator’s mind is undaunted. She advances without hesitation, feet pounding, huffing breaths into the cold air.
Fire briefly blinds my eyes, but her mind inspires me to lean into the sting of the smoke. My ambition materializes and runs alongside her, just as vicious and determined.
This is where those predisposed to failure faltered. Their communication gave out under the pressure—the bright flames, the targets popping up at dizzying speed, the narrowness of the bridge.
The rider has to focus on the targets or risk missing, while the direwolf has to focus on their feet or risk falling. That split is what I watched tear rider and wolf apart over and over.
But Anassa barely pays attention to the bridge, so surefooted that her speed is almost too much as the targets fly closer. They’re unpredictable for each run, so I’m not sure where to aim initially.
Fucking moving targets!
A sharp sting of warning impacts my mind, and I turn to the left. Anassa’s predatory instinct flags the sudden movement of one of the targets, and my fighter’s instincts respond to her warning and snap into motion as if a fist is flying towards me.
I spin on her back, tossing a dagger that thuds precisely into the target.
Again, the target flashes. Again, her warning just in time. Anassa’s movements are suddenly predictable and deliberate.
Her pride won’t let her fail in front of the other wolves, and I’m benefitting from it. With her moving steadily beneath me, it’s suddenly so much easier to focus. I lead my daggers like I used to lead my punches in the pits, aiming where the target will be—accounting for Anassa’s startling speed—rather than where it is.
Six targets. Six hits. Unflinching, unafraid, unstoppable.
Then the course narrows into a spiral descent. I know this is the hardest part. Anassa senses my brief faltering and snarls, her confidence overtaking my fear and strangling it silent.
Other wolves have tried to race through the spiral to hasten their times, but it cost them dearly.
Too fast, and they ended up swinging wide on their turns and crashing or tumbling right over the edge of the platforms. Anassa’s cold calculation is ready for the challenge, though.
We take each turn at precisely the same angle, her speed controlled and her movements sharp as a blade. I lean as far as I can into each turn until I’m held to her body by centrifugal force alone, yet I’m ready when she levels out and I need to pull myself back up and reassert my grip.
None of it is beautiful. Of course, it isn’t. Both of us are still too independently angry.
There’s no true communication. I get brief flashes of warning before Anassa hurtles through every turn, and I have to rely on my own strength to respond to her decisions and follow through.
We’re two predators who’ve agreed to hunt together for the sake of the kill, but she doesn’t trust me any more than I do her.
We close in on the leap of faith. It’s the last obstacle standing between me and survival. Once we’ve passed this, the wall will go right back up, I expect.
The platform is going to drop out beneath Anassa’s feet, and we’re expected to twist in mid-air, hit three successive targets during the fall, and land on a small marked area.
Most pairs must rely on their direwolves’ instincts for this part, their keen canine eyes indicating and communicating when precisely to release their weapons during the fall. Anassa shreds that idea apart in her teeth as we land on the platform, her chest heaving.
Instead, she gives me another glimpse of her mind. I know the precise jump she’s going to take. The moment I have the information, I start anticipating the targets, the speed of the fall, the angle of my throws.
I know how bodies move through space. I know how much force I’ll need to reach the targets, with the help of Anassa’s momentum. I know how far my body can twist and just how long I’ll be able to hold on to her—I’ve had plenty of practice crossing that line, so I know precisely when my legs are going to give out.
And most importantly, I know when to hit. I know because in the pit, you have to know.
Hit too early, and you’re leaving yourself wide open. Hit too late, and you’re back against the wall, struggling to fend off an onslaught on the back foot.
Anassa jumps. We fall. Daggers fly. Targets shatter.
We land hard, my jaw clacking and my bones rattling. But we land in the right spot, thanks to Anassa’s strength. Her claws leave deep gouges in the designated circle. My eyes are fixated on those gouges as my breaths rip from my throat and my muscles tremble.
We just… did that?
“Third!” someone shouts coldly.
Third? As in, third fastest time?
I clutch Anassa’s fur as she pads away from the course, her sides still heaving from the exertion. I guess that’s what you get when you put two stubborn assholes up against a challenge and tell them to prove themselves.
Anassa’s disdain still leaks through the barrier between us. She doesn’t like that she had to cooperate with me for this. She also doesn’t think third is good enough, most likely.
But there’s something else there, too. Something like recognition. A brief shimmer of acknowledgement. It’s a little like she’s recognized that I’m not a spindly piece of human meat only good for eating. Like she saw and felt my strength, just now, and she’s begrudgingly admitting that I may actually have something to offer her.
It sparks in me, too. Respect bubbles up through the sea of resentment. She ran that course fast . She didn’t even blink at the obstacles other wolves couldn’t best.
If she’d just listen to me, we might actually?—
The iron slams down between us. Hard. Harder than it ever has. It’s like she’s slammed a cleaver over my neck.
I choke, doubling over, disoriented.
We did it. We did . Third, and I even get to live to see morning. That’s a victory.
But right now, it feels like I’ve lost something, too.
I’m tired of losing. It’s depressing as fuck, and it’s also just not who I am. Or at least not who I thought I was. I’m a fighter. Someone who holds on tight.
Heart still beating fast, I let myself look back up at the stands, where Killian is watching me intently, his eyes piercing even from this far away, his long fingers steepled under his sharp chin.
Have I really lost him, too? Or, unlike with Anassa, is it me who’s shutting him out, when I don’t have to be? Could I find a way to trust him again?