Shapes shift in my peripheral vision. Trees rushing past, maybe. Snow falling. Ghosts against the endless white oblivion.
There are more bodies as I run. I see them in bizarre sharpness despite the painful blur of the world around me. The first is a man lying in a snowdrift. A wolf stands over him, black as night against the snow. I veer left to avoid them. The image of blood on shining white teeth and the terrifying red gash where the recruit’s throat should have been flashes over and over behind my eyes as I run.
The wolf glares at me as I run past it and I try to blink the image away, snow whipping at my cheeks. But I blink and blink and it won’t leave. It gets worse, and I start to see Anassa’s eyes instead, yellow and furious and unforgiving.
The next body is a woman lying face-down at the bottom of a chasm. I skid to a stop, gripping a tree branch with a numb hand and barely managing to use it to slow my momentum before I skid over the same sudden, sheer drop that killed her.
Her corpse is utterly still against the dark rock below me, white bones jutting up through her skin at her elbow and her thigh. Her skull is caved in, blood splattered over the snow and stone. Her wolf is beside her, massive and unmoving.
It’s dead too, I realize, its massive muzzle slack and its eyes unseeing. Died on impact, probably. Its fur still rustles in the breeze.
Doesn’t matter. I turn and sprint around the edge of the drop, descending over a smoother bit of snow and ice. And I keep going.
I run and run until I’m not even present in my body, until my mind starts to dissociate back to a warm bed, a little nose buried in a book, a story about a goddess who saves herself. I don’t even notice when I hit the base of the mountain. The forest we hiked through yesterday passes in a blur. I see none of it.
The light’s changed by the time my legs give out and I tumble to a slow, painful stop. I’m breathless and dizzy. Delirious, really. The sky is darkening. It will be night soon, and I’ll be too late.
I let out another strangled, hoarse scream as I fight to my feet. It sounds more like a cry, like a desperate sob. But I’m almost there.
As I pull myself to my feet, entire body one riotous frisson of agony, I realize I’ve almost made it. There are tracks in thesnow. Massive paw prints leading onward. I stoke the anger in my chest and summon the energy for one final push.
Speeding past the Bonded City, I follow the tracks towards the castle. The leisurely walk past these neighborhoods feels ages away. There’s no time to stop and gawk at the disgusting wealth. There’s not even any room in my brain to hate the castle for what it is and all it represents any longer.
I only look at its hulking stone mass and thinkget there. Get to Saela. Survive.
The sky changes color, deepening to a lazy gray. The sun is low in the sky, dipping down to touch the dark horizon.
I reach the gate with barely any light left, every inch of my body screaming at me.
There’s a woman with dark skin and a glaringly obvious silver streak in her close-cropped dark hair. She’s one of the high-ranking Bonded that was leading the Ascent. Beta Egith, I think Stark said.
She turns when she hears me crunching closer, gait uneven because I’m limping badly. Her eyes narrow when she sees me.
I try to summon words.I’m here. I made it. Please. But nothing will come.
It hardly matters, though. She takes one look at me and says, “No direwolf, no entry.”
The scream gathers in my chest again. There’s a sudden, vicious urge to take hold of this woman’s head and plunge my thumbs into her eye sockets. I take a step closer, hands clenching into fists, endless expletives about to pour out of me.
But then a growl rumbles from behind me.
I tense and whirl around, eyes wide.
She’s there. She’s justright there. The fuckingbitch.
Anassa stalks towards me, heavy paws crunching on snow, puffs of vapor huffing from her nose. She walks with her headlow beneath her shoulders, her ears forward, her gaze steady on me. Coat silvery white against the snow… A ghost.
She was following me. She was right there the entire time, watching me descend.
Fury pummels my heart as the woman manning the gate perks up.
“Well, then,” the woman says, voice brighter and gaze keener. “Welcome to training, Strategos Rawbond.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The gate behind the woman, I realize now, is an elaborate wrought iron depiction of two direwolves howling. The woman turns to push it and the direwolves part and swing away.
I stare at it so that I don’t have to venture a look at Anassa, who I already know will be intentionally avoiding my gaze. I can somehowfeelthe tension in her massive muscles.
