I moved to fetch it but stalled near the bells. I still had ambushes and booby traps on the mind.
“What are the bells for?” I hovered my hand over the log setup.
Ethan snorted and turned away.
“The shifters are offering us a way out,” Wally said. “They’re taunting us.”
“How so?” I asked, my mouth settling into a frown. “They’re just a bunch of bells.”
Wally tilted her head at me, and Orin turned to stare.
“It was in your contract,” Wally said. “Didn’t you read it before you signed it? Because you should always read contracts before you sign them.”
“Or have your lawyer do it,” Ethan said.
It was my turn to snort. “They forced me to sign the contract after I’d been tagged and bagged.” The blank looks indicated they didn’t have fathers who watched a lot of military flicks. I elaborated. “After they zap-strapped my hands behind my back and shoved a bag over my head, someone pushed the contract to my pricked thumb.”
Orin’s brows lowered over his eyes, something I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t like him to show a reaction.
“That’s…not right,” Wally said. “They can’t make you—”
“I had the Sandman,” I said quickly, remembering Pete’s reaction to him. He was currently at the edge of the clearing, sniffing a tree. “He’s not very good at convincing. He’s very good at threatening, though.”
Wally still looked troubled, but Orin looked excited. Like I had more value to him than I’d had a few minutes before. The latter I really wasn’t digging.
“Who cares about contracts and the Sandman,” Ethan said, impatient. “There is a big bell at the front of the mansion grounds. When you ring the bell, you are removing yourself from the Culling Trials. You’re quitting. The same goes for the elite who live at the academy. Ring the bell, and you’re out. These bells are probably just for show. The shifters want to intimidate us. They think our submission will be funny.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of an animal’s thing,” I muttered, fetching the paper without disturbing the bells. “Dominance. Submission. Alphas and betas.”
I read the type-written note.
Follow your nose and see with your eyes. Get to the end, and you’ll be nearer the prize.
“Submission they’ve got—riddles, not so much.” I shoved the paper into my pocket as Pete’s fur and claws morphed into skin and a whole lotta Pete.
“I’ve got five smells around this clearing,” he said without preamble.
“Cover your junk, man. We don’t want to see it,” I called out, turning away.
“The cold affects more than the harvest,” Wally said, looking upward at the pale blue sky.
“Whoa, can’t call the man out like that,” Ethan said. “It isn’t cool.”
“You call out women for their breast size,” Wally retorted. “I fail to see the difference.”
“That’s because you are socially awkward,” Orin supplied. “There is a time and place. This is neither.”
“Right. Okay. Pete, what’d you find?” I said too loudly, still staring out into the trees.
“Five smells, like I said.” He pointed at five sections within the clearing. “Most of them are older scents, a day, maybe two since they were laid. One newer. A wolf, I think.”
“Great. And their trails?”
“The wolf is all over this place but doesn’t move past this clearing. Two of the other scents stay as well—a rabbit, I think, and something I can’t quite place. Of the last two, the bear goes off that way”—he pointed to the left side of the clearing, which was mostly flat land—“and something else went that way.” He pointed behind him, a graceful incline that might get treacherous later.
I snorted. A bunch of shifters intent on submission would not create a path through easy terrain. They’d say, “Follow this trail, I dare you.”
“Clearly shifters think with their teeth, claws, and balls,” I said to myself. “They don’t put as much effort into the finer strokes of a challenge.”
“Astute, and rather accurate,” Orin said.
“Yes, thank you, peanut gallery.” I shook my head, thinking back to the half-assed riddle. “So that’s the nose portion. Now. I expect we’ll see some or all of the tracks.”
“Here. A rabbit.” Wally pointed at a patch of cleared vegetation. “I’ve always loved rabbits. I used to stalk them through the fields behind our house, looking for their burrows. I wanted to trap one and take it home for a pet.”
“We’re looking at a future black widow here, folks,” Ethan said softly, his eyes pointed downward.
“Oh no. I could never love people that much,” Wally replied.
In a moment, we’d identified all five sets of prints, but none of the information matched. The rabbit’s tracks told us it had left the clearing, but its scent didn’t, and the bear’s tracks indicated it had stayed, but its scent said it had left. Only the wolf had neither its scent nor its tracks leading out.
I rolled my eyes and headed up the steep incline leading straight up the mountain. It didn’t take long to find a set of wolf tracks, clear as day.
“Here we go. This will be the trail we’re meant to follow.” I gestured everyone on. “If I’m wrong, I’ll give you my portion of the winnings.”
“If you’re wrong, we won’t get any winnings,” Ethan replied.
“Look at you, finally using your brain. How does it feel? Rusty?” My double thumbs up earned me a scowl. “Pete, back into shifter form if you can handle another change so quickly. The note said eyes and nose, so we might need both to finish out the trail.”
“Smaller animal forms can change faster and more frequently than the larger, deadlier forms,” Pete explained proudly.
“Awesome, buddy. Keep up the good work.” He did appreciate my thumbs up.
“Shifters are clearly no match for the House of Shade when it comes to mind teasers,” Orin said as Pete led the way, sniffing out the trail that I followed by sight. Tracking an animal was pretty easy once you picked up the footprints. Rocky terrain and water posed different challenges, of course, but more often than not, wolves didn’t spend too much time on those.
Then again, my experience was only with real wolves. Human wolves would change it up to confuse things, no doubt. I could only hope Pete’s nose could plug up the holes in my experience.
“The House of Shade is no match for the House of Claw when it comes to brawn and power,” Orin continued. “Shades hone their skills so as to become predators. Those of the claw are born predators, and they learn to hone their nature with their intellect.”
“In other words, we are really hoping that Ethan won’t crap himself in fear and freeze up when the wolves surround us later and try to tear us apart,” I said, watching the subtle differences in the tracks as they made a straight shot up a gradually more horrible incline. The shifters were challenging our stamina right now. Four-legged animals would have an easier time of this than bi-pedal kids. I already wanted to give up.
“Rabbits aren’t predators,” Wally said, out of breath.
“Correct,” Orin said, not out of breath.
“How do we even know we’re going the right way?” Ethan asked, pulling off his sweatshirt and tying it around his waist. A whiff of masculine musk and Old Spice blasted me. If we had to run and hide, it wouldn’t be hard to sniff us out. “We’re probably doing all this for nothing.”
“Are you always this much of a whiner when you’re not cheating?” I asked through my gasps of progressively thinning air.
“‘The cat’s in the cradle and the—’”
“Knock it off with that weird-ass voice,” Ethan said to Wally. “What is up with that?”
“Everyone needs a little charm in their lives,” Wally retorted.
“Not that kind of charm,” he bit back.
“Climbing a tower wasn’t easy,” I said as Pete slowed, and then stopped. “The fact that this is a similar level of di
fficulty should prove that we are going the right way. What is it, Pete?”
The scent is lost, I heard echo around my head. Disappeared.
I bent closer to the ground and waved my finger at the tracks, toes and claws indenting the dirt around pebbles and leaves. They’d become lighter as we climbed, more difficult to follow, but we hadn’t lost the trail. “We’re still good. See? It keeps on in the same direction, although no real wolf would weave this much. Someone had a little too much moonshine before they tackled this trail…”
“Moonshine, really?” Ethan tramped forward, leaning forward against the incline. “Country bumpkin much?”
“Moonshine, really,” I said, pushing him to the side and taking the lead. “Hard core, always. It would knock you flat on your ass just from sniffing it.”
“Like you would know.”
“Wow, you really are dumb.” I veered with the tracks, which became even lighter. In fairness, I’d only tried moonshine a few times, as all curious kids might, and only once, at the urging of my brother and Rory, did I push past the breathing fire stage and have enough to swirl my thoughts. We’d all thrown up quite a lot that time, and as far as I knew, none of us had touched it again.
The tracks cut right, went a ways, then stopped. Ahead, the mountain dropped away to a cliff face, that we’d have to navigate via a little tiny ledge that led to a thatch of trees and another upward slope on the other side.
Pete didn’t move in front of me, which meant the scent trail didn’t pick back up.
I braced my hands on my hips, looking back the way we’d come, thinking. Had we gone straight instead of cutting right at the last juncture, we would have hit a nearly solid patch of pines. The trees reached out to the path almost threateningly, as if daring someone to push their way into the shadows of their branches.
I pointed back that way. “Turn around and get going up. This is a test of our courage.”
Ethan stared at me, his brows set low over his eyes. Orin stared as well, his eyes sparkling harder in a way that clenched my stomach, though I couldn’t have said why.
“Don’t magical people teach their kids that it’s rude to stare?” I asked, stopping in front of them. “Move.”
“How the hell do you know all this?” Ethan said accusingly. “You said you didn’t know this world.”
“I don’t have your stupid notes, you turd.” I shoved him out of the way. “Which should be clear since I am not stopping to read anything. It’s common sense.” I pointed back at the ledge. “No wolf is going to run across that. Give me a break. And again, these aren’t real wolves. They are people, and this is a challenge. They’re testing our mettle in the same way they would test one of their shifters. Strength, stamina, courage, fighting prowess…”
“If it were common sense, everyone would be able to do it,” Orin said, his gaze boring into me as though he wanted to peel back my skull and have a look under the hood.
I shrugged and continued on, sensing the rightness of this decision. It felt…natural. Logical.
“If everyone would stay in their assigned groups, they probably would be able to do it.” I hunted for more tracks as we continued up the mountain.
“You are wrong about that. No one gets assigned a group,” Orin said. “Like choosing which trial to go to first, those you end up with in a group are randomly selected. We are very lucky to have one trial goer from every house.”
“Says you,” Ethan grumbled.
“It is a wonder they don’t better mix the groups, instead of allowing us to choose for ourselves,” Orin mused as Pete wobbled up in front of me and picked up the scent. Regardless of their rage, honey badgers were freaking cute. I wouldn’t tell Pete that though.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I really hadn’t wanted to be wrong.
“What do you mean?” I asked Orin as an impression in the soft dirt caught my eye. I found another paw mark, the nail indentations not as prominent as they’d be on a real wolf. That had to be because the shifter trimmed their fingernails.
“A mix of women and men, and not just houses. Often times, the different sexes bring something different to the table. Like a lion versus a lioness, for example. Same magical type, extremely different attributes.”
“Less mixing in the social classes would be a nice change,” Ethan said.
“For us, yeah,” I replied.
“I’m happy to bring a bit of feminine energy to the group,” Wally said, beaming. “And traditionally, the groups going through are not this well mixed. The school tried to enforce group selection a number of years ago, but the trial goers ended up fighting each other instead of completing the trials,” she paused and then nodded, as if to herself, “like Orin, I am beginning to believe that our odds are better together.”
Silence descended, everyone remembering she was the only one who didn’t know I was also a girl. Although, she wasn’t entirely wrong. I was hardly brimming with femininity.
The trees pressed in on us until we were forced into single file. Light filtered through the canopy in thin streams before diffusing into a soft glow. Shadows pooled in crevices and at the bases of trees, nearly thick enough to have substance. Cool air slid across my exposed skin and a warning skittered up my spine.
Here we go.
“Don’t stop to put on a sweatshirt,” I said in a hush. “That’ll give you a moment of weakness, and a moment will be all they need.” I reached down to flick Pete so he’d look back. Given his anatomy, he had to wiggle around so he could see. “You’re the lead,” I whispered, before falling back. “I’ll take the rear.”
“What’s happening?” Ethan asked, putting his hand over his wand like Doc Holliday in the Wild West.
“We’re coming up on the next battle,” I said, feeling a strange presence throbbing from within the trees. A threatening presence, one that felt familiar—just like the wolf I’d faced at home. The itch of watching eyes flared between my shoulder blades.
This wasn’t one wolf—it was a pack, and we were in their sights. Their strength was in their pack synchronicity. The pack would work in tandem, seamlessly.
Of all the times not to have a human shield.
Chapter 14
Branches shook and shapes charged toward us from all sides, graceful and deadly. Flashes of fur—gray, brown, black and even a brilliant white—cut between the pine trees on this mountain slope, silent in their attack.
Rocks flew, one hitting a wolf square in the head and making it stagger before falling. Another hit a body, eliciting a yelp. Wally had a great arm and aim.
A jet of magic zipped right past a wolf, followed by another blast, that one hitting home. The wolf yelped—and then yelped again as Orin rushed forward, raking four deep red scores into its furry side.
A large gray and white timber wolf lunged at me, snapping my attention from the others’ battles.
I yanked out my knife as I dodged to the side, fast and agile, fueled by adrenaline and experience. I swung my knife around and dug the business end of my short blade into the soft flank. I yanked it back, pivoting as the wolf fell, and delivered another puncture in its gut.
“I could gut you right now, but that would kill you,” I said as Orin zoomed around me and cut off another wolf running my way. “If you continue in this fight, I will. Bow out, and you’ll live.”
I spun, catching a brown wolf mid-leap, its jaws lined up with my face. A rock hit it square in the face, making it close its eyes and rip its head away at the last moment. Its body was already committed, though, and I ducked, braced, and brought my knife up into its soft underbelly.
It yelped, its own momentum driving my blade lengthwise as it fell. I bent with the butt of my knife, knocking the beast in the chest above the heart and spinning away. Hopefully, it would get the gist, because I couldn’t warn everyone.
Another stream of magic flew out, and a wolf sailed into the trees, blood dripping from a gash in its side. Honey badger snarls and spits toward the top of the line told me Pete
was holding his own.
“Go,” I shoved Wally forward, knowing Orin would run up behind her. “Go! They’ll need to carry out some wounded. Orin, watch our six. Take down anyone that follows. Ethan, back them off our sides. Pete, lead the way!”
We made headway up the path as a unit, stepping over downed wolf bodies that were thankfully still breathing. I was immensely proud of our crew, and in the back of my mind, I took note of who was doing the most damage and how. I cataloged Ethan’s spells and what they did, Orin’s strength, speed, and fighting prowess, noticing how he moved and struck, and Wally’s complete ease with wounds and possible death. Of course, there was Pete’s determination and seeming lack of fear once he was in honey badger form. Most of all, I stored information about how the shifters had designed this trial, and what that said about their house.
I didn’t know if I would ever need this information, but old habits die hard in a country girl. These silent calculations had helped guide me on the farm, telling me how to best wrangle certain animals and how to sweet talk the people into giving me a good deal. It had taken me a few trials in this crazy magical world to get back to basics, but now that I was a little more comfortable, I was there again. “They aren’t following,” Orin said a few minutes later, as calm as a spring day. I really wasn’t looking forward to his house.
Without warning, for the second time, the scene changed dramatically. Trees dissolved and the slope of the mountain flattened out into a springtime field cut through by a sparkling stream. Breathing hard, still holding my now-bloody knife, I looked around and took stock of the new situation.
My stomach flipped in giddiness and a smile pressed up my cheeks.
“Yes!” I said, throwing a fist to the sky. I couldn’t help it. This was what I’d been secretly hoping for all along.
Not far away grazed a herd of actual freaking unicorns, robust and all but shimmering with muscle, built just like normal horses with one important exception. A long horn protruded from each of their foreheads, colored a tarnished gold, just like in the fables. Their brown or black manes seemed pretty standard, but when their tails swished in the sunshine, the light caught a glimmer of gold.
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