Initiation nights are always a bore.
The great hall of Mercy Ridge floods with runaways, led in from the cold like pigs to a slaughter. They stand in a silent line, backs against the wall and faces downturned. Hungry. Cold. Not a single one of them is impressive. They rarely are. This far north, the valley towns churn out nothing but errant schoolboys and bored pubescents, wayward youths sick of life in the rural hinterlands. Boys, not men, cowering in fear each time a wolf howls.
It isn’t the wolves that scare them.
Not really.
It’s the boy on the hearth, thin as a rail and quiet as a wraith. Oliver Lysander doesn’t need a mirror to know what it is they see when they look at him: heavily inked hands and an unsmiling face, his features uncanny, like a baroque artist’s rendering of a human. A little too pretty. A little too pale.
A little too hungry.
The boy directly before him is the last of tonight’s hopefuls. He isn’t privy to the bloody thoughts that pulse in Lysander’s head, or the way Lysander imagines sinking his teeth into his throat. If he was—if he had any idea at all—the boy would turn and run.
He’d take his chance with the wolves.
Like the previous initiate, there is nothing aboutthisparticular boy that Lysander likes. This one is from Little Hill—a tiny, dull-as-dirt town just south of the mountain. Lysander can tell because he’s dressed in the hideous uniform of Little Hill’s stuffy Hornbeam Hall, the bare oak crest silver against a jacket the color of mud.
His name is Tristan, like fair Iseult’s ill-fated knight. Last name Choi. His face is bloodless, pale. His hands open and close in trembling fists. At Lysander’s back, his own fingers twitch in a subconscious imitation.
He has never been able to help himself from mimicking his prey.
“You’re afraid of me.” He doesn’t pose it as a question, and so maybe that’s why Tristan doesn’t answer. The silence irks him anyway. “Don’t stand there and stare.Saysomething.”
“I’m not,” gasps Tristan, and he sounds nothing at all like a knight. “I’m not afraid.”
Lysander peers down at him, unconvinced. “I don’t need liars in my crew. I need people I can trust.”
Nearby, Lysander’s lieutenant makes a sound that is very nearly a groan. Cyrus Talbot stands propped against the adjacent wall, his face bloodless and his eyes dull. Desiccated, the way Lysander is desiccating. Starved, the way Lysander is starving. Neither of them has fed tonight, and it’s making them both tetchy.
“There’s no need to drag this out,” Cyrus says. “Either he’s in or he’s not.”
The silent implication hangs between them: Either he lives or he dies. Cyrus is clearly hoping for the latter. His mouth is already full of teeth.
In the room’s carpeted quiet, Tristan’s heart beats faster. “I think I’d make a valuable part of the crew,” he says. It comes out in a rush, words bumping one into the other.
Lysander drags his gaze back toward this boy-who-is-not-a-knight, considering him anew. “Valuable.” He mulls it over, pinning Tristan in his stare. “The Spartans were considered to have the strongest army in ancient Greece. Their battles were fought in a phalanx. Have you covered that in school?”
Tristan glances between him and Cyrus. “No.”
“No, of course not,” says Lysander. “God forbid they teach you history. It’s a tactical formation. Heavily armed infantry would stand shoulder to shoulder, several ranks deep. Linked together, they became a single entity. They moved as one. They killed as one. When the enemy pushed, they’d push back. Can you stand?”
Tristan swallows. “Yes.”
“Can youpush?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re valuable. That’s not the question I’m asking. What I want to know is whether you’re loyal.”
“I am,” says Tristan, without missing a beat.
“Maybe to someone,” agrees Lysander. “But will you be loyal to me?”
Cyrus grins, teeth sharp. “He has trust issues.”
Lysander ignores his lieutenant, watching Tristan fidget under his gaze. “Here’s what I think—you’re here tonight because you’re running from something.”
“Who isn’t?” asks Tristan.
