by Amie Kaufman
Better than believing she wasn’t being shown a bedroom, but a cell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LISABET HELPED HIM PUT AWAY HIS CLOTHES, and he was just hanging up his new cloak in the wardrobe beside the others when a deafening bell suddenly started up overhead.
Rrrrrrrrrring-rrrrrrrrring-rrrrrrrrrring!
Anders clapped his hands over his ears, dropping the cloak and shoving himself in against the wall, though he barely knew what he was hiding from. Ten seconds later the bell abruptly felt silent, and he lowered his hands slowly, his heart thumping, breath coming quickly.
Lisabet hurried over to him. “It’s all right, it’s the bell I showed you, it’s for the change of sessions,” she said, picking up his cloak and reaching for a hanger. “It goes every hour. I’m sorry, I should have explained more. It’s an artifact system—the duty professor or a senior student rings the one bell we saw, and all the others ring to match it, wherever they are in the Academy.”
Anders stepped away from the wall, cheeks hot, feeling foolish. At least Lisabet wasn’t laughing at him. “Do we have a class now?” he asked, exhausted at the very idea.
“No, dinner,” Lisabet said. “Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
They closed the wardrobe door, and she led him down the hallways of the Academy, where they joined groups of other students filing toward what his nose told him must be the dining hall.
“Thank you for showing me the way,” he made himself say, and Lisabet smiled, pleased. Good. If he could make friends with her, perhaps she wouldn’t be suspicious when he crept away to try and steal an amulet for Rayna. He was already wondering how, between guides and classes and mealtimes, he was going to manage it.
They joined the queue and shuffled into the dining hall through a large archway. It was a huge room with a low ceiling and long tables seating about two hundred people, most of whom seemed to be making as much noise as possible. They were as varied as any Holbard crowd, and the youngest seemed to be Anders’s age, the oldest about eighteen or so, along with a healthy smattering of adults.
At the end of a nearby table, a boy and a girl their own age waved for their attention, and Lisabet waved back.
“They’ve saved us seats,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat.”
She led Anders over to the side of the room, where large serving dishes waited, and handed him a plate. His stomach knotted with sudden hunger as the smells rose to meet him, his mouth watering as he followed her along the bowls and dishes.
He piled his plate high with smoked lamb and roasted potatoes, adding dark-brown rye bread along the edges, and filling all the gaps with fried mushrooms and piles of green peas. It was more than he’d usually eat in several days, and he knew his stomach was going to protest when it was all on the inside, but there was no way he was missing a meal like this.
I wonder what Rayna’s eating, said a small voice in his head. If she’s eating at all.
He followed Lisabet over to the table where her friends were waving, slipping onto the end of the bench opposite her. “This is Anders,” she said as they took their places. “Anders, these are our roomies, Sakarias and Viktoria.”
Sakarias was a boy with an easy grin that showed off his dimples, and reddish-blond hair cut close to his head in the usual wolf style. “Welcome to the Academy,” he said cheerfully. “Hope you don’t snore.” As he spoke, he was leaning over to pour Anders and Lisabet glasses of milk from the big jug in the middle of the table.
“And this is Viktoria,” Lisabet said with a laugh, indicating the girl beside her.
Viktoria didn’t look nearly as welcoming, her dark-brown eyes flicking up and down Anders as though measuring his worth, and finding him wanting. She had sleek, silky black hair longer than the rest of the wolves, a delicate nose and mouth, and light-brown skin. “Welcome to Ulfar,” she said, and Anders knew immediately he had been right. Her voice was so polished you could just about see your face in it. This was a girl who had grown up with servants, and she probably thought her transformation was one big inconvenience, now she had to make her own bed and serve her own meals.
The four of them dug into their food, and around mouthfuls, Lisabet and Sakarias told him more about the Academy. Viktoria wielded her cutlery meticulously, and Anders watched her out of the corner of his eye, painfully aware he was holding both his knife and his fork wrong.
“There are about twenty-five of us in each year level,” Sakarias was saying. “After you’ve done twelve months, you’ll go up to the next year level. So we all move at different times, depending on what month we passed the Trial of the Staff and made our first transformation. There’s about a hundred and fifty students in total most of the time. After you’re done with your final year, you go train full time as a soldier, or whatever else you’re going to do.”
“Mostly soldiers,” Lisabet said. “Viktoria wants to be a medic, though.”
Viktoria looked up with an irritated wrinkle of her nose, as though this was some great secret that had been spilled. Beside her, Sakarias rolled his eyes, then stopped quickly, just before she looked his way. “Pack and paws, I’d stop being sick if you told me,” he promised. “Scared not to. You’d be a great medic.”
That seemed to please her, and she nodded, returning to her meal, and deigning to join the conversation. “Some of the adults here aren’t wolves at all, they’re our medical staff, or our cooks, things like that. But we still need wolves with those skills. Can’t take a human doctor out on patrol with you, after all.”
There was that word again—human. Anders nodded and tried to absorb each new name and face, each new job and piece of information. Anything could be a piece of the puzzle he needed to solve. Anyone could be the one to help him.
Sakarias’s voice jerked him back to the present a few moments later. “So where are you from, anyway?”
“From?” Anders took a few moments to echo him, and he realized with a pang that he’d been waiting for Rayna to reply, as he always did. But he had to do it himself this time.
“From,” Viktoria clarified, with a toss of her sleek, black hair. “I’m from the west side of Holbard. What about you?”
Well, that piece of information certainly clarified Anders’s suspicions—the west side was where Dama Sancheo’s fancy soup shop was, where Anders and Rayna had stopped pickpocketing because they’d stuck out too much in their patched clothes.
“Her mother’s a doctor,” Sakarias supplied cheerfully, around a mouthful of lamb and gravy. “Fancy, right? But when Viktoria’s a medic, she’ll treat wolves and humans, so she’ll be double fancy.” He reached past her for another slice of bread. “Assuming she survives sharing a room with us, of course. That’s gonna be a close thing.”
“Shut up, Sakarias,” Viktoria said, lifting one hand to rest the inside of her wrist on top of her head, and flick her fingers toward the back of her head.
For a moment Anders was puzzled by the gesture, but then understanding clicked into place. She was casually imitating the way an irritated wolf would lay back its ears, using wolf body language even as a human. How had he understood that? He’d only just transformed.
“I’m from a village near the west coast called Little Dalven,” Sakarias said, not shutting up even a little bit, but at least turning his attention away from Viktoria. “Farmers, my family. Poor as can be. At night, we used to roast a single potato, and gather around it for heat, then divide it up between the nine of us.”
Viktoria snorted, and Sakarias sighed. “All right,” he admitted. “There were two potatoes.”
Anders’s mouth quirked, and he found himself on the verge of laughing. Sakarias reminded him of Rayna in some ways—always ready to talk, always ready with a quick answer, though he was a little sillier.
It would have been a nice thing to make a friend, but he had to keep himself separate. No matter what he thought of the wolves, they were Rayna’s enemies.
“I grew up here at Ulfar,” Lisabet said. “My mother’s a wolf,
and if the child of a wolf doesn’t have any other family, they’re allowed to stay here until it’s clear whether they’re going to transform or not.”
“What happens if you don’t?” Anders asked, realizing a moment too late he had his mouth full. Viktoria definitely noticed, but Sakarias just winked at him.
“The Academy arranges an apprenticeship in the city,” Lisabet replied.
“And you have to leave your family?”
“I think my mother would have coped,” she said, wry.
Sakarias opened his mouth to comment on that, but Lisabet continued, speaking over him. “You grew up in Holbard too, Anders, is that right?”
“Yes,” he said, looking down at his plate, searching for the right words. “I was in an orphanage.”
Everyone was silent, and it seemed like even their neighbors had been listening, because Anders saw heads turning farther up the table. One wolf leaned in to whisper to another. He could feel their confusion like an extra guest at the table. The idea that he couldn’t say how he connected to the pack was strange—their faces told him that.
Eventually Viktoria spoke. “But what about your family? How did they know to test you?”
Anders exchanged a glance with Lisabet, who had been there. He couldn’t say it had been an accident. She’d seen Rayna saying they were there for the Trial. That meant he couldn’t outright admit that he didn’t know who his wolf ancestors were, but since he couldn’t say, he was stuck pretending he didn’t want to say. It was such a tangle.
Sakarias came to his rescue, perhaps accidentally. “He said he was an orphan, not that he never had any parents. Kind of rude to ask about them when they’re . . .”
He trailed off awkwardly, rather than say dead out loud, but it did the job.
Viktoria clearly did not like anyone suggesting she had bad manners. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked in a very polite tone of voice, ignoring Sakarias.
“Just me.” It felt like a betrayal, pretending Rayna didn’t exist, but he had to hide her. “No other family.”
“Well, you have a family now,” Lisabet replied.
Those were the same words Hayn had spoken, and Sigrid. Family. Pack. The wolves were so sure he was one of them, but if they knew about Rayna, if they knew what he wanted to do . . .
He didn’t reply, and after a moment, the conversation moved on without him.
The four of them made their way to their room together after dinner was over. They chatted cheerfully as they got ready for bed, Sakarias keeping up a steady stream, barely requiring anyone else to join in. His wiry frame seemed full of endless energy, always on the move.
Anders made all the right noises, or hoped he did, and eventually they all settled in to bed. It felt strange to put on his crisp new pajamas and climb into his own bed alongside the other three. His ribs still ached. He felt crowded in by the others, and at the same time, completely isolated.
It took Anders a very long time to fall asleep, and not just because the big bed in his corner of the room was too lonely, and too soft.
* * *
The next morning Sakarias took him to breakfast, a thick porridge with berries, though Anders was still full from his meal the night before. His roommate kept up a barrage of introductions, though the names and faces soon started to blur, and Anders was pretty sure some of the wolves he met were the ones who’d been whispering the night before. He was grateful when Lisabet and Viktoria joined their breakfast table.
“Today we have Combat in the morning,” Lisabet told him. “Usually it’s three classes before lunch and three after, but some run long. Combat’s a triple, and Military History this afternoon is a double, because Sigrid can’t come back twice in the week to teach us. Once is easier for her.”
Anders’s heart sank. Combat he could use—if he had to brave the mountains to find the dragons, combat could be useful. But Military History? Unless they were going to tell him exactly where the dragons had fled after the last great battle, what use was that?
“Do we study—” He paused, searching for a way to ask what he wanted. “I mean, the dragons were right here in the city, and everyone says they might come back any day. Do we study them? I know we’re only students, but if something happens, it seems like they’ll need everyone.”
“Oh, we study dragons,” Lisabet replied, as Sakarias laughed.
“We only study dragons,” Sakarias told him. “Every class is about dragons, dragons, dragons. Especially right now.”
“It’s not if something happens,” Viktoria said, grimmer than the others. “It’s when. They must have a reason to be back in the city after all this time.”
That was enough to silence their laughter and chase away even Sakarias’s dimples, and they were quiet as they made their way to the combat hall to wait for their class. Along with the others, Anders changed from his uniform into leggings and a tunic, comfortable clothes he could move in, his feet bare.
The group formed a long row along the edge of the big hall, every small sound echoing off the wooden floors and the rafters. Anders stood between Lisabet and Mateo, a quiet boy who seemed unfairly tall and strong.
“Professor Ennar teaches this class,” Lisabet murmured as she leaned down to press both her palms to the ground in one easy movement, arching her back to a stretch. Looking up and down the row, Anders realized everyone was warming up, and he leaned down to imitate her, though the best he could manage was pressing his knuckles to the ground.
“What’s the professor like?” he whispered back.
“She’s . . .” Lisabet considered the question. “She’s tough. She’s a real soldier, she was a commander in the last battle. She and her wife single-handedly held a whole section of the city wall for an hour, until reinforcements could get through. She has a lot more than ice spears in her arsenal.”
Anders wanted to ask what that meant, what a wolf could do that was more than an ice spear, but the hall fell suddenly silent as a woman with clipped, steel-gray hair strode into the hall. She was short and muscular, and despite her gray hair, she didn’t look that old—her skin was as smooth and pale as the pine wolf puppet that he’d seen . . . had it only been the day before yesterday? Instead, it was as if her hair had decided to change color prematurely so it could match her uniform and be all the more wolfish.
“Good morning,” she said, and everybody—including Anders—stood up a little straighter. “New boy, come talk to me,” she said. “Everyone else, laps of the hall.”
There was some very quiet muttering as the class turned to start running laps, their bare feet quieter on the floor than Anders had expected—even in human form, the wolves were still moving with careful stealth. He swallowed and walked over to present himself to Professor Ennar.
“Good morning, Professor,” he ventured, folding his arms across his chest as he and Rayna both did when they were uncomfortable, then unfolding them in case it looked like he was hiding something.
“Anders Bardasen,” she said, as if reading his name off some invisible list. Like Sigrid, she leaned a little heavier on his surname. It meant something to these wolves, who had fought in the battle he was named for, that it didn’t mean to everyone else. Though he’d only been a baby, he’d lost people in the battle, just as they had.
“Yes, Dama,” he said as politely as he could.
“Just Ennar,” she said absently. “Or Professor, if you must. In this class, over the next six years, you’ll learn all kinds of combat, armed and unarmed. You’ll learn to fight as a human and as a wolf—you never know which you’ll need. You’ll learn to use a staff and a sword as a human, and ice spears as a wolf. Perhaps more, if this turns out to be an area in which you’re particularly gifted.”
Anders had to swallow down a snort—the idea that of all areas he’d be gifted at combat was depressingly funny. If Rayna were here, she’d be at the top of the class, learning secret weapons in no time. Still, it didn’t matter—he would only be here as long as he needed to
be.
Ennar didn’t seem to notice, keeping half an eye on the students running laps of the hall. “Now more than ever, combat classes are of vital importance. The equinox is coming in just five weeks. Do you know what that means, Anders?”
He blinked. “I know it’s when the amount of daylight is the same as the amount of night, but . . .” He trailed off. He didn’t think that was what she was asking. How could that affect the danger from the dragons? He and Rayna had seen a dragon the night of the last equinox celebrations six months before, he remembered that much.
“True,” she said. “It is also an important time of year for the dragons. A powerful time. When day and night are equal, it represents fire and ice being equal too. Both kinds of elementals, ice wolves and scorch dragons, are said to have equal power. We wolves mark tipping points like the equinoxes, but we do so with quiet learning and contemplation. Humans, as you know, celebrate the turning of the seasons.
“No wolf has ever been privy to the dragons’ rituals, but it is said the dragons throw wild celebrations instead. To welcome the longer days, or show they are not afraid of the longer nights. They have a history of kidnapping children in the days and weeks before the equinoxes.”
Anders blinked, his gaze snapping to her. That was exactly what had happened to Rayna. Well, not exactly—the people they’d taken had been in human shape—but still . . . “Do we know why they kidnap them?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
“They take our weak and our sick,” Ennar said. “Always children. Those who cannot defend themselves. They sacrifice them on the day of the equinox. We must be ready, in case they attack again soon.”
Anders felt like he’d swallowed an icicle, his insides going cold, pain stabbing at his gut. Sacrifice?
She wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t a proper dragon. She couldn’t be, she was the sister of a wolf.
Sacrifice. The word beat through his heart like a drum.
Five weeks, his mind whispered, trying to overrule his heart. You have five weeks, she’s safe until then.
