She glanced up at her father.
Lord-Smith Vance Graven stood next to his mother, Svetlana, atop the podium with the rest of the trial’s judges. As heir to the House of Bone, he was required to witness certain events—whether his only child participated in them or not.
He gave her the subtlest of nods. Acknowledgment, yes, but also a reminder.
“I’m counting on you today,” he had said to her mere hours before. They’d stood inside the training grounds of Marrow Hall, bone-white pillars arching over them and black sand underfoot. “Make me proud.”
To Wren, it sounded like a challenge. She hadn’t seen him for three months, and she was determined to make him more than proud. She wanted to make him stay, even just for a little while.
She lifted her chin. “Yes, Father.”
He’d surveyed her for several silent moments, then given her a reluctant, indulgent smile. “They tell me you spent half the night sweeping bonedust from the librarian’s bookshelves. Why?”
Wren couldn’t help but smirk back at him. She shrugged. “I was bored.”
Technically true. She’d climbed the bookshelves on a dare because she’d been bored during lessons, and when the librarian caught her three stories high with her dirty boots perched on a first edition of The Gravedigger’s Watch, the cleaning had been the eventual punishment.
Her father’s pale eyes danced, reading between the lines as he often did. Whenever he came home for a visit, however rarely, he asked Wren about her various studies—and accompanying punishments—with a serious air, like he was looking for something. For proof of her abilities? Or lack thereof? The topic was dull, even to her, so it seemed only proper, then, that her antics should entertain him. It was the least she could do.
He sighed, going for stern, but the amusement was still there in his gaze. Wren lived for that spark. Though he’d never own up to it, Wren had heard stories of Vance Graven as a young bonesmith, and he was at least as much of a troublemaker as she was. In fact, given Wren’s problematic origins, he was more so.
“I do hope the lack of sleep won’t affect your performance in the trial,” he said, the smallest amount of censure there.
Wren shook her head resolutely. “Never.”
He nodded, then turned to survey the rest of the novitiates who continued to practice in the training sands. Forgetting her already.
“In fact,” she added, reclaiming his attention. “I’d been planning on staying up anyway—acclimate to the night trial, you know—so the librarian did me a favor.”
His lips quirked. “I suppose that also explains why you slept until noon and missed morning lessons?”
Wren beamed. “Exactly.”
His focus shifted back to the other novitiates, Inara among them, and Wren had the sudden urge to tell him about the things she hadn’t screwed up lately. “I’m undefeated in our sparring class, and—”
He spoke over her as if he hadn’t heard. “Your grandmother is watching you, Wren. You must be careful. She will take any excuse to fail you.” His gaze returned to hers. “Do not give her one. You cannot simply pass tonight… You must pass spectacularly. Do you understand?”
Now, with the Bonewood Trial mere moments away, Wren tilted her head toward Inara. “What did you have in mind?”
Inara smiled, and behind her, Ethen—her reapyr novitiate for the trial—exchanged a look with Wren’s novitiate, Sonya. This was not Wren’s and Inara’s first time going toe-to-toe, and their conflicts rarely ended without some form of collateral damage. Both reapyrs likely feared they might be it.
“A race,” Inara said, darting a glance up into the trees before looking down again. “First one through wins.”
That was already, more or less, the purpose of the trial. It was not timed, but being last to finish would not look good. Everyone wanted to be first, Wren most of all.
“And the second one through?”
Inara turned her head enough to frown, as if the answer were obvious. “Loses.”
Wren smirked. It was sufficient motivation for both of them, but… “That hardly makes things interesting. I plan on winning whether you dare me to or not.”
Inara licked her lips, her gaze fixed on the ground. “If you win, I’ll give you Nightstalker.”
That caught Wren’s attention. Nightstalker was the Fell ancestral dagger, currently sitting in Inara’s open hands and gleaming in the moonlight.
Like Wren’s own blade, it had a long history within the House of Bone and had belonged to dozens of talented valkyrs over the years—most recently, Inara’s mother. She had been Wren’s father’s schoolhouse rival, just as Inara was hers.
How sweet would it be to lay claim to such a weapon? To show her father that she had not only outclassed her greatest competition—and in a lesser way, his—but now possessed two valkyr blades?
They were more than just practical weapons; they were symbols of the valkyr order itself, representative of their place within the House of Bone. They were not given lightly and could only be taken by a worthy opponent during a formal challenge. Or by the head of the house if a blade bearer was deemed unworthy.
Wren couldn’t imagine a more powerful way to prove herself. To be spectacular.
There was, however, a flip side to the arrangement.
“And if I win,” Inara continued, “you give me Ghostbane.”
Wren’s dagger, and her father’s dagger before her. It felt heavy suddenly, sitting in her palms, causing her arms to tremble with the weight.
Once this night was through, Wren would either have two ancestral blades… or none.
But with or without the bet, she had no intention of losing, as Inara put it, and not coming first. Then again…
You cannot simply pass tonight… You must pass spectacularly.
“Oh, one more thing,” Inara added, with the superiority of someone who has set the bait and is ready to release the trap. “We have to take the Spine.”
The Spine. It was the hardest path between the trees, slicing right through the middle of the forest. It was the shortest way, but also the oldest and most severely haunted, traversing the very heart of the Bonewood.
It was the surest way to run into trouble, even if they weren’t traveling together. But they were. They’d be directly in each other’s path the whole way through, which presented its own opportunities and obstacles. Much as Wren flouted the rules on principle, she didn’t intend to sabotage Inara. But if they traveled together, she could.
And, of course, Inara could sabotage her, too. Doubtful, since Inara was a teacher’s pet who loved the rules, but this was the Bonewood Trial. The stakes had never been higher.
It would be risky, and reckless, and make what was already a challenging test twice as dangerous.
You cannot simply pass tonight… You must pass spectacularly.
A horn call sounded, making Wren jump. She looked up at the moon, just now cresting the highest branches. She lurched to a standing position along with the others, her grip on her dagger achingly tight.
She glanced at her father once more; then her gaze shifted to Inara. “You’re on.”
The moon cleared the bonetrees.
All eyes fell on Lady-Smith Svetlana. It was she who had called them to arms in the first place.