My saliva turns to paste. My throat closes up as a swell of nausea takes me. Sweat prickles over the back of my neck.
Oh, no…
I bolt up from my seat and hurry across the room, hand over my mouth. I stumble out into the next hall and fumble with the window latch, barely getting it open before bending over and spilling everything I just ate right back up.
I pant, wiping my mouth, bizarrely thinking,I just suffered through breakfast for nothing. And then, harsher,Get it together, Meryn.
“Cooper,” barks a familiar voice.
Ugh.
Wiping my mouth, I turn to face Beta Egith, who’s staring me down with a stern, unreadable look.
“My office. Now.”
Stiff and achingfrom yesterday’s Voice Trial—not to mention blindingly hungover—I stand at attention in Egith’s office.
I’ve seen her private quarters but haven’t actually been into her office before. It’s just as large as Leader Aldrich’s, but instead of three stories of books, Egith has maps. Everywhere. It’s like a cartographer’s private storehouse exploded in here.
Most of the maps seem to be of the border between Nocturna and Astreona, where the front is situated. There’s one huge onebehind her, though, that’s a detailed atlas of Nocturna itself. It catalogs every feature of the country, from the mountains here in the north to the river that slices down through the south of our country, and all the fiefdoms in between. I find myself wanting to get close, to study all of these places in our country that I’ve never been to or even dreamed about.
Egith sits at a small, scuffed table across from an empty chair, not looking at me as she pours herself tea from a delicate ceramic pot. She hasn’t said two words to me since cornering me in the hallway, and I cannot read her body language for the life of me.
I’m surprised when Egith pours me a cup. She hasn’t given me permission to sit, though, so I don’t dare touch it.
Finally, she sets down the pot and looks me in the eye.
“You fucked up.”
And there it is.
“I shouldn’t have puked out of the window,” I say quickly. “Sorry…”
Egith sighs deeply. “This is not about your… illness, Cooper. Do you want to survive this? Do you want to become one of the Bonded?”
Do I have a choice?I think bitterly.
I grit my teeth. “Yes.” It’s not a lie, exactly—I do want to survive and become officially Bonded so I can get to the front already.
Egith stares me down for so long that I have the urge to fidget like a nervous child.
“I don’t believe you,” she grates. “And neither would anyone who saw your performance yesterday.”
That gives me a start. “But I thought?—”
“What?” she snaps, eyes flashing. “You thought because you completed the exercises your performance was a success?”
“I did everything that was asked of me,” I say, bewildered.
Egith groans. “I didn’t take you for stupid, Cooper. Arrogant, maybe. Bull-headed. But not stupid. Thepurposeof the Trial was to test your ability to communicate with your wolf. To prove your growing bond—your ability to act as one in battle!”
“Didn’t we… do that?”
“No!”she shouts. “All you did was cooperate—and not even well! You looked like enemies who grudgingly chose to work together to survive. Every single moment betrayed your mental and emotional disconnection. Every instance of failed communication was obvious!”
She pauses and takes a sip of tea like she’s waiting for me to speak.
“We got third place, though,” I venture weakly. “Isn’t that?—”
