“You could just let me be…culled, or whatever it is you do here,” I say.
“Whatever it iswedo, Rawbond. And the answer is simple,” she says, hands on her hips.I care about you, I muse cynically.Not. “We have a bet going.”
I nearly snort. “A bet.”
“There’s a betting pool amongst the instructors on which pack will lose the fewest recruits. I really don’t want to lose to that fucking asshole Stark, so stay alive. Please.” She moves to her table and sits. “I have money riding on it.”
Yeah. Seems about right.
She gives me a look that clearly says,you’re excused, so I take a deep, deep breath through my nose and then turn on my heel, a plan already percolating in my mind.
If she’s not going to help me, I’m going to find my own way out of this mess.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My drive mounts with every step I take back through the anteroom and toward the dorms. I’m not staying here a day longer. An hour, even. I’m only in this position because it was forced unwillingly on me, but I’ve got places to be. A sister to save. The love of my life to return to.
I know what it’s like to have to do everything myself, to be on my own. It’s been that way my entire life, really, and I’ve never let it stop me before.
When I reach my bunk, I catch a lucky break; nobody is here. They must all be making their way back from orientation still.
Without wasting any time, I race to the store closet and grab a spare bag, then hastily start packing, shoving necessities into it—a water skin, a clean set of clothes. I wish I’d had time to pocket some food from breakfast. When I have everything, I glance around briefly and then sling the bag over my shoulder. I slip from the dorms silently, a plan already forming in my head.
The servant passages I noticed during our convenient tour of the castle grounds will work. They’re way too small for wolves, so it’s unlikely the Bonded ever use them. Even without their wolves, they’re probably too worried about getting cobwebs on their fancy uniforms.
I pause briefly at the door to the Rawbond common lounge. Some people have started to trickle in here. Most are clustered in groups of three or four, chatting or sitting on each other’s laps flirtatiously or else perched at a table, playing a spirited game that seems to involve stones and dice.
Nobody is paying much attention to the exit. I eventually slip into the room, keeping my pace casual and concealing my bag with my body as best as I can. No one stops me.
Out in the halls, I do my best to silence my footsteps, putting most of my weight on my toes. Getting caught isn’t an option, so I pause at corners to listen for anyone coming from the other direction. As I move strategically, I call up the landmarks I noted on our tour and picture the path I need to take to get out of this mazelike castle, where that entrance to the servant’s corridors began and what direction to go from there.
The service passages are exactly as I imagined them—narrow, dusty, and clearly not used by anyone important. Everywhere in this place that a Bonded could touch has been polished and elaborately decorated. But the servants’ tunnels are dark and sparse, practically empty.
Every once in a while a servant bustles past, carrying a tray or a bundle of laundry or a broom. We nod at each other in the gloomy light, but nobody stops me. I’m not sure if they mistake me for one of them, or if they prefer not to question a Rawbond’s movements, no matter how strange.
I don’t stick around to find out.
I check off the list of landmarks that I should be passing by as I move, occasionally ducking out into a main corridor to check my progress and make sure I know where I am. The training yards. A kitchen storage area. A drafty corridor with a cracked stone wall, the fissures messily filled with a mortar patchwork that’s already struggling under the weight of the ceiling, pointed out as a back way to get to some of the classrooms.
The farther I get from the heart of the Bonded castle, the steadier I become. I’m doing something. I’m acting when no one else will. I can almost picture my sister standing at the end of the dimly lit hallway, reaching for me.
Eventually, I no longer bother to quiet my steps because I’m close enough to the castle walls now that I haven’t seen any servants for ages.
I finally find the courtyard I entered through, the gate where Egith waved me inside and I walked right in like an idiot. The cold air cools my sweaty skin. I reach for the heavy metal gate, briefly terrified that it’s going to be locked. But it opens with a screech, the wolves carved into the metal parting before me.
My surprised exhale drifts into the air, and I step through. The moment I do, a heady mixture of relief and elation surges through me.
I made it. No one stopped me. No one could. No one even knows I’m gone.
But three steps past the gate, pain slices through my skull.
I try to ignore it and push onward. At first, it’s nothing but a splitting headache. I can handle pain. I know how to endure it, if only because I never had any other choice. Maybe I didn’t eat enough, or maybe it’s just the stress of the past few days finally getting to me.
Too quickly, the pain escalates. My bones are turning to ice. Radiating outward, shards of blade-like agony rupture forth, cutting my insides, pushing outward towards my skin until my entire body is freezing over, ready to crack. My limbs go stiff, nausea spills through me, and I stagger.
What is this? Some sort of dark wolf-sorcery they’ve cast on the gates? Gritting my teeth, I push forward.
I barely make it ten more paces before my legs give way and I collapse face-first into the snow. I don’t even realize I’ve fallen,at first. One second, I’m on my feet and walking clumsily, using the castle walls for support.
