Time slips right through my fingers, and then somehow, the Purge is upon us.
The night before the Trial, the common lounge may as well be hosting a wake. All the Rawbonds, myself included, sense tomorrow’s Purge like a threatening blizzard on the horizon.
We can look away from it, but that won’t stop it coming. Tomorrow, some of us will die.
No one is drinking. No one would, too worried that a hangover might compromise their performance. A drink to take the edge off tonight isn’t worth risking your life tomorrow.
The sobriety in the air after so many jovial nights here is, frankly, depressing. Instead of drinking, people are trying to distract themselves in other ways—card games, or reading. Small groups gather and chat, Tomison at the center of one of the most boisterous circles.
He’s cracking incessant jokes, as is his signature, but he’s even louder than usual. I’m sitting with Venna and Izabel on a couch, all of us with books open in our laps. Izabel keeps looking up from hers and sighing loudly, shooting Tomison irritated looks. He doesn’t notice, or if he does, he doesn’t care.
Venna slams her book shut. “I can’t read with you so tightly wound next to me,” she huffs at Izabel.
“Well, I can’t read with all thenoisein here,” Izabel snaps, glowering at Tomison again. She turns to me. “Distract me, Meryn. What are you going to do with your mother on your day off?”
The day after the Purge Trial, the Rawbonds have the day off and everyone will be going home to visit their families in the Bonded City… so of course, I’ll head home, too.
“Assuming I’m still here,” I mutter.
Venna didn’t catch that and Izabel interprets for her. Her eyes widen and she smacks me in the arm. “Positive attitude!”
I shoot her a guilty grin. She’s right. Normally, my problem isover-confidence and stubbornness. But there are so many unknowns about tomorrow that even I’m finding myself shaken to the core. And I keep glancing around at all the other Strategos Rawbonds, weighing their strengths against my own.
And wondering if it will be enough.
“It will be enough,”Anassa growls in my head.
Of course she’d think that; she doesn’t want to die, either.
I ignore my direwolf and finally respond to Izabel. “We probably will just stay at home and catch up. I have a little farther to go than you all, so I won’t have a ton of time. When do we have to be back at the castle, again?”
“Sundown,” Izabel says.
Our day off is followed that evening by the Forging Ball, a big celebration to mark the halfway point of the Trials. The king and nobles from all the other fiefdoms will be in attendance.
My gaze drifts across the room again, wondering who will be missing from our pack that evening, if not me.
Nevah’s sitting alone, as usual, obsessively sharpening her blade with slow, grinding shrieks of metal on whetstone. She won’t take her eyes off of it. She’s a possibility; she’s continued to resist making friends in the pack, still clearly in mourning.
Perielle is subdued, curled up next to Jonah and watching Nevah’s repetitive motions. Probably not her; she’s divisive, but she inspires fear and the pack members may be too afraid to go against her.
Neither Jonah nor Perielle has their usual outgoing viciousness about them tonight. They’ve retreated into each other, hiding like the rest of us. Preparing.
Her eyes meet mine, and I tense instinctively. I’m too on edge. The other Rawbonds are assessing me the same way I am them. Unspoken questions hiss in the air.
Who’s stronger? Who’s faster? Who’s smarter? Who will be dead this time tomorrow?
Roddert’s cards slip from his grip and scatter in a messy flutter to the floor, and three different Rawbonds instantly reach for their weapons; everyone is so tense. He awkwardly bends to gather them up again.
It hits me. Hard. I could die tomorrow without having told Killian that I love him again, that my heart’s found a way back.
Weeks have passed, and I haven’t summoned the courage. The words just get stuck in my throat. I’m afraid, I think.
But right now, the fear of death is even louder, thundering in my ears like a direwolf’s howl.
What’s a little emotional honesty next to blood in the sand?
“I need to breathe,” I tell the twins, thudding my book shut, standing, and tossing it into my seat behind me.
