“But there’s a way to survive this,” he says, clearly comfortable with an audience. “A longer route, but a safer way up. Once upon a time, everyone used to take it, but with direwolf numbers dwindling, the recruits from Bonded families started to find quicker—and more dangerous—routes. If you don’t want to bond, you can take the slow path to the top.”
Alessandra leans forward eagerly. “And you know the way?”
“I do,” he acknowledges. “But I won’t be taking it.”
Pitching my voice to carry to the rest of the circle, I jerk my head toward Henrey. “There’s a safe route, but he prefers danger, risking his life for some dumb wolf ritual that only the recruits from Bonded families can survive?”
“Who wouldn’t, for the chance to change your family’s fortune for generations?” Henrey’s expression loses its showmanship and I see the real hunger there, just beneath the surface. He glances across the clearing toward the area where the Bonded recruits have gathered, keeping entirely to themselves. “Look at them. Don’t you want your siblings, your parents, your children to be able to live like that?”
I press my lips together. Henrey has a point. What kinds of medicines might they have that we don’t have access to? Things that could maybe help my mother?
My sister, though—I need to get to the front, to find her. She won’t be helped by me rolling around in some fancy furs, playing at being an elite soldier.
And she certainly won’t be helped if I die trying to make it through the Ascent tomorrow.
“What if we do get to the top, but none of the direwolves wants to bond with us?” Alessandra looks pensive, then horrified. “Do they… eat us?”
“The wolves only choose riders who want to be chosen,” I pipe in, repeating information that Lee gave me when he was prepping me on how to survive this. If I get up there and there are still unbonded wolves, all I need to do is repeat mentally that I don’t want to bond and they’ll let me go. Or so he says, anyway.
Everyone looks over at me, clearly surprised by my intel.
“I know a royal messenger,” I say, offering some of the truth. Seems useless to have some information and hoard it to myself when I have the potential to save other people’s lives. “He prepped me on what might happen. The wolveswon’teat us. If we’re not picked, they’ll let us go.”
“Well, they won’t be picking me,” says the woman with the braids. “So I’d like to hear about that longer way up, if you don’t mind.”
We all settle into our makeshift seats, holding our hands and feet closer to the fire to thaw them out, gnawing on our rock hard rations as best we can as we listen to Henrey.
I look around the fire again as he talks, studying each face, taking in the ramshackle hiking gear they’re wearing, the exhaustion painting their faces.
Please, let some of these people survive tomorrow’s test. I know I’ll make it through, but this many lives given in sacrifice to some dumb Trial—it’s such a waste.
Far off, somewhere in the mountains, a direwolf howls.
The sound echoes in my ears like a warning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It isn’t hard to wake before dawn the next morning. I’ve been lying awake for at least an hour before I start to hear others rustling in their tents.
Alessandra wasn’t wrong, I’m sure the warmth of us both together was better than apart, but it was still damn cold, and no matter how many times I shifted around, I couldn’t get away from the rocks and roots that stuck into my back at jagged angles.
So much for the tough Alleycat. Defeated by a tree root and some cold air.
I kick off my bedroll and gently shake Alessandra’s shoulder. Somehow, she managed to fall into a deeper sleep at some point in the night, evident in the high-pitched snore she’s been making ever since.
Her eyes snap open right away, and I can tell by the way they dart back and forth that she’s having trouble remembering where we are, what’s coming next.
“It’s time to get ready for the Ascent,” I say. “Rise and shine.”
Outside, everyone is stirring. Henrey breaks down his tent with cool efficiency. He catches my eye and gives me a nod.
Our packs on our backs, we struggle over to the center of the clearing, where a huge group of recruits is massing. It’s hard to tell because I can’t see the full group, but between the commoners and the recruits from Bonded families, it seems like there are hundreds of us, maybe as many as a thousand.
Everyone is shivering as the pale dawn light seeps through the fir needles to light up exhausted faces, but it’s hard to miss how the Bonded recruits are just so obviously better prepared.
Those twin sisters I noticed are pink-cheeked from the cold, but they’re talking fast back and forth with their hands, one laughing at the other’s communication, much more alert and cheerful than anyone near me.
“I’d be laughing too if I had some of those thick furs to keep me warm,” Alessandra says in a low tone that only I can hear.
