“Yousurvived,” she says in a voice that could strip paint. “By the skin of your teeth! You think that’s enough?” She sets down her teacup with a clatter that makes me flinch. “Anassa chose, for whatever reason, toletyou survive. Toletyou finish third! That’s not success—that’s barely avoiding death. Your lack of communication with your direwolf is a failure, Cooper.”
Frustration boils inside me. “I’m doing my best. I’mtryingto?—”
“You arenottrying,” she interrupts, waving her hand to cut me off. “In fact, I don’t believe you’ve fully accepted any of this yet. I know your driving force for being here is to find your sister, butthisis your life now. If you want to make it to the front lines, you need to accept it. You are Bonded. This isn’t temporary. You can’t escape it. You are bound to Anassa for the rest of your life,” her expression turns dour, “however long that may be.”
I’m speechless for a beat.
For the rest of your lifeechoes in my head.
I already knew there was no way out, but part of me refuses to believe it, even now.
“I know this is a hard adjustment for you,” Egith says, her voice softening.
“Oh, yeah?” I snap. “What do you know about it?”
“My father was born a commoner,” she says, and the confession shocks me to my core. I never would’ve expected an exacting, perfect Bonded like Egith to have commoner blood, especially given how rare it is for commoners to succeed in the Trials. “He had to fight his way to survive in this world, and he never let me forget how tough it was.”
I’m genuinely speechless at that.
“You seem married to this idea that you’re an outsider,” Egith continues, a little calmer, “and you’re using it as an excuse to hold yourself apart from the other Rawbonds. But it’s time to face facts, girl. You arenotan outsider.”
She stares me down again like she’s trying to drive the truth into me by sheer force of will.
“You’re one of them, Meryn. One ofus. You’ve survived this long by being clever and tough, but you will continue to fail—and eventuallydie—if you don’t accept that this is your life now.”
I shake my head. “But most of themtreatme like an outsider. They have from the very start.”
“They treat you like an outsider because youactlike one,” she says with a huff. “They sense that you see yourself as one, and they behave accordingly—just as Anassa does. Why she’s chosen to cooperate with you when you keep rejecting her, I don’t know.”
Me, rejectingher?
When Anassa forced me into this bond in the first place and has soundly refused to cooperate with me ever since?
“But you’re damn lucky she does, or you’d already be dead. I saw the way you lunged at her during the Presentation when she came to protect you. You don’t trust her at all, so how can you expect her to trustyou?”
I open my mouth to protest, but Egith holds up one hand in a sharp gesture of refusal.
“Listen to me, Meryn Cooper. I won’t give you this advice again. Accept Anassa. Accept this life—or you won’t make it through the next challenge.”
Egith’s warningis still heavy in my gut like a stone when I arrive at our joint History of War lecture an hour later. And it’s not just her. I recounted the conversation to Izabel after I left Egith’s quarters. She agreed with the Strategos Beta wholeheartedly.
“Look, I know this is hard for you,” Izabel told me gently, “but she has a point. You treat almost everyone but me and Venna like enemies, including Anassa. Half our training is about learning how to be part of a pack. You need to loosen up, hang out with the pack more. Show everyone that youwantto be here.”
I promised Izabel I would make an effort to connect with the rest of the pack. I just don’t knowhow.
While I grapple with that, the Phylax Gamma instructor, Elinor Gardiner, starts class with a question that snaps me right out of my thoughts.
“Alright, everyone,” Gamma Elinor says loudly, drawing attention to the front of the room. She’s older than most of the other instructors, maybe in her early fifties, with long dark hair and olive-toned skin. “What do we know about our enemy, the Siphons?”
A Kryptos Rawbond raises his hand. “They’re blood-sucking vampires who steal life force and energy to extend their own lives and make themselves more powerful.”
The professor nods indulgently. “Well, yes. A little dramatic, but basically correct.”
A brief discussion ensues as other students volunteer basic information about Siphons.
“In the Siphons’ country, there are no humans left—they drained them all for power. That’s why they invade our lands. To find more prey.”
“Correct,” says Gamma Elinor. “There have been no humans living in Astreona for centuries. Anything else?”
