Chapter 3
Bound by the Savage Moon
Chapter Three
Elara
I throw the commander a salute and slump back toward the barracks.
I expect the mood inside the dormitory to be somber, depressed and silent. After all, we lost four of our own tonight. But I should know better by now. It isn’t.
Everyone’s fired up from the battle – just like I usually would be – the adrenaline pumping through their veins, sparking their magic. They’re all talking at once. Bouncing on their toes. Full of energy.
It’s how I would usually feel. Except tonight, my legs are shaking and they won’t stop.
“Elara!” Selene screams with excitement as I enter our dormitory. And then, before I know it, I’m surrounded by ten of my fellow cadets, most of them in a state of undress.
“How many did you kill this time?” Selene asks, her dark blue eyes glinting with excitement.
“None,” I say, shaking my head. “None tonight.”
“Oh,” Selene says, a little taken aback. “Only … I’m sorry. I assumed the commander wanted to pin another star to your belt.”
She points to the row of stars lined up along my belt and wrapped around my waist. She’s still wearing her pants and her own belt, although she’s lost her jacket and her undershirt and stands in just her breast band. Only eleven stars mark her belt.
“Not tonight,” I say, shaking my head and attempting to push through the crowd of girls.
“Are you okay?” Selene asks with mock concern.
I know she’d stab the dagger hanging on her belt deep into my back the first chance she ever got. To be fair, I’d do the same to her if it came to it.
“I’m fine,” I mutter. I’m not in the mood to talk. Usually I’d happily stand in the middle of this gaggle of girls and relive every detail of the battle. I’d wow them with my stories, amaze them with my kills, stun them with my triumphs. Not tonight.
“Where’s Immy?” Selene asks, and I can tell from her voice that she already knows. I bet they all do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been giggling about it.
Immy has been the butt of their jokes for the last six months.
Not that they’d ever dare share those jokes in front of me.
I’ve been the only thing standing between Immy and daily torture.
But I’m not stupid either. I’ve heard snatches of it when they didn’t know I was there, and there were bits and pieces I’d managed to pull from Immy too – although it was always something she’d been reluctant to share with me, knowing I would hunt down the perpetrators and make them suffer.
I don’t answer Selene’s question. I stride straight to my bunk and tumble down onto the mattress, closing my eyes.
“Immy’s dead, Selene,” one of the other girls, Helena whispers. “She was killed tonight in the battle.”
“Oh my goodness,” Selene drawls. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Elara. How awful! I know you were like best friends or something.”
I ignore her and scrunch my eyes up.
Helena gets the message. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go use the showers.”
And soon, all the rest of the girls pick up their wash kits and their towels and head that way. I’m left alone in the dormitory.
I scurry out of my bed, stand up and peer at Immy’s empty bunk.
It’s unmade, the covers yanked back, her book still propped open on the cushion.
She’d been reading a passage out to me and giggling right before the bell had clanged and signaled a shifter attack.
There’d been no time to close her book or pull back her covers.
She’d slid straight into her boots and followed me, much more reluctantly, out into the yard.
My arm’s still throbbing, but I try not to think of that as I close her book, pull the cover up and lean my head on her mattress.
I stay like that for several moments, wondering when one of the clerical members of staff will come into the dormitory and clear away her stuff.
They always do it when we’re out in the training yard or in our classes.
One moment, there’s a trunk, belongings scattered across the bedside table and the mattress, and the next they are gone.
I glance down at the bedside table Immy and I have shared for a year and pick up the little pink crystal that Immy had found in one of our training expeditions.
She slid it into her pocket and told me it would bring good luck.
I rub my thumb across its smooth, clear surface and then I reach under the bed for my own trunk and drop it inside. I don’t take anything else.
Once the other girls have returned to the dormitory, I make my own way to the shared bathroom with its line of shower cubicles. The water is barely warm, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the cold baths we were forced to endure at the orphanage.
I slide inside one of the cubicles, lock the door, and double-check that it’s secure. Then I strip out of my dirty uniform and stand there, naked, my feet cold against the stone floor, and stare down at the bandage on my forearm. A dark, bloody stain has begun to seep through the material.
With a steadying breath, I undo the knot and unwind the bandage. I can see under the flickering candlelightsof the bathroom just how deep the bite is, how clear it is too. I can see the shape and the size of the wolf’s teeth in the marks of my flesh. Blood has pooled and congealed on my skin.
I twist on the shower and rinse my arm under the cold, tepid water, watching the liquid turn a rusty brown color as it swims down the plughole.
When the wound is clean, I attempt to hover my hand above it and heal the damage. I know this won’t work, but I try anyway, trying to force my skin to heal with my magic. Maybe if I can, then this will all be okay. No one will have to know.
But deep down, I know it’s pointless. I know the consequences of this bite, even before my magic fails to close the wounds.
It’s useless. Hopeless. The shifter’s bite is permanent. There’s nothing I can do.
For the first time in nearly a year, I don’t feel so sure of myself anymore. My legs shake and the world spins. Unfamiliar tears snake down my face, and I sink to the floor of the shower, letting the ever colder water splatter down onto my head and slide over my face and my body.
I hug my knees tight to my chest as my whole body shivers violently and my teeth chatter together.
I think of the shifter, his silver eyes boring into my vision, like the twin moons of Kaelos.
Why did he do it? Why the hell did he save me?
Was it some kind of revenge? Did he hope to make me suffer?
He must know his mark will lead to my death, to my destruction, to my end.
And yet, deep down inside me, I can't convince myself that that was his motivation at all.
The story continues in Bound by the Savage Moon, the first book in the Bonds of Silver and Spell series.