My bones started to snap and transform as the pain ripped through me. Being a shapeshifter and changing forms often didn’t make it hurt any less. It was excruciating every time, which naturally had given our kind a high pain tolerance. I was halfway through the shift when Dorian grabbed my leg and pulled.
My upper body hit the ground and then I was being hauled into the air as I completed my shift. I growled and snarled at him but he held me up like a pup as I wiggled and squirmed before him. The pain of shifting made my skin feel raw, but I stayed calm. Dorian landed blow after blow against my stomach, treating me like a punching bag. He wasn’t going full steam as this was a sparring match, so my ribs weren’t breaking, but I would be bruised pretty good.
In that moment, I remembered everything I’d learned while training with my brother over the years and in the past two weeks.
I suddenly went completely limp, my wolf’s head lolling to the side as if I’d passed out.
“Nice try,” Dorian snapped and sucker-punched me in the gut again while still holding me up in the air by the leg.
It took every ounce of control I had not to react to the punch. I knew Dorian was a respected fighter who valued honor: he wouldn’t ever beat on an unconscious person. It meant he’d already won. It was the one weakness he had, that he was a man of honor and never wanted the easy way out.
With a sigh, he laid me on the ground and addressed the pack. “I guess she—”
I sprang up in my wolf form and went right for his throat, nipping it lightly so that he would know I could have ripped it out had this not been a sparring match. When I landed back on the ground, I looked up to see the red teeth marks I’d grazed across his skin.
I held his gaze as the pack cheered and hollered, knowing I’d won the second I’d nipped his throat. In a real fight, he’d be dead.
Dorian grasped my wolf form by the armpits and hauled me up to stare into his yellow glowing eyes.
“Well done. You’re a force to be reckoned with, Zara Swiftwater, you always have been. Don’t forget that.”
It was the Dorian equivalent of I love you and I am proud of you, kid. Don’t die.
I nodded and he set me down.
With the pack slamming the ground and howling around me, I felt ready to go to the city with my brother.
I made quick work of saying goodbye to Oslo and everyone else. I didn’t want to get emotional right before our trip.
“Mind Amara until I’ve won, and then I’ll send for you,” I informed my baby bro. She’d already promised to keep an eye on him but twelve was the age of responsibility in our pack. He needed to learn to be on his own. No more babying him.
He gave me a curt nod, his eyes welling with tears and my heart squeezed.
“What if you … die?” he said as we stood in the doorway of our home.
Cyrus was outside waiting for me, so it was just the two of us.
If he were ten, I’d lie to him and tell him I wasn’t going to die. But he needed the truth.
I pulled him into a tight hug. “Then I will miss you the most because you are my favorite,” I told him and his arms wrapped around me in a death squeeze. “And you will be fine without me. Be tough and work your way up in the pack until you find a place that feels right.”
He nodded against my shoulder and I heard him swallow a sob.
I pulled back from him, not wanting to mother him too much. He was going to have to toughen up if he wanted to survive here without me. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I wanted to take him with me, to hold him close until he was older and less sensitive.
We were babies when we lost our mother and father. Oslo and I had grown up together. Me and him against the world.
“Get inside and make some lunch for yourself, okay?” I said.
He nodded and wiped at his eyes and that was that. I couldn’t linger any longer.
Spinning, I walked over to meet my older brother. He was standing on the wolf sled with half a dozen pack members harnessed and ready to pull it.
If I didn’t need to take anything with me, I could have just shifted to my wolf form and walked to Death Mountain, but as a trial candidate with a coach, I needed clothing and weapons and more than my brother and I could carry alone.
“You baby him,” Cyrus scolded as I approached.
I rolled my eyes, tired of the same old argument. “Will Mena be okay with the twins while you’re gone?” I climbed up beside him on the wolf sled.
His wife Mena had just given birth to twin boys six months ago; I was sure she wasn’t keen on him leaving so soon.
“She’ll be fine. She’s strong and she’s got the pack.” He looked around at our small village and I followed his gaze. I loved Mud Flat village. Under the light dusting of snow we had now was an endless sea of cracked mud and there was not a soul for miles and miles. It wasn’t for everyone, living out in the middle of nowhere, but I loved the solitude and the company of just our pack. Other packs had to fight for territory but out here, in a place not a lot of people wanted to live, we had hundreds of miles to ourselves. There was nothing more freeing than running at lightning speed across the Mud Flats with no landscape to stop you. We were experts at survival in the elements and I didn’t need much to make me happy or comfortable, something I thought would serve me well at the Queen Trials. Rumor had it that in one of the Queen Trials challenges they tested your willpower and tried to wear you down by less than charming living accommodations. The people would not accept a weak queen in any aspect.
Our fellow pack wolves that were tethered to the sled took off then, and I gripped the bars at the sides to hold on. I was weary, covered in dirt and snow and my lip was bleeding but my brother was right. It would be an advantage to show up to the capital looking like this against those posh city wolves.
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The ride took all day and part of the evening: we had to stick to the communal trails so that we didn’t encroach on any other packs’ land. We only arrived at the gates of Death Mountain well after supper time and my stomach was growling. Cyrus had been informed there would be some kind of welcome dinner and then all competitors would be given accommodations for themselves and their coach. I’d never been to Death Mountain. The city held no appeal for me. In the summer I slept outside in a hammock with Oslo so that we could look up at the stars. And even in the winter I went on long daily walks to keep my muscles lean and to stay tolerant against the cold. People in the city didn’t do that. They were too good for it, the softest of our kind. Their bodies were plumper and had less muscle definition. Food was brought to them on a platter. Fires were made and stoked for them by servants. Yeah, they could afford all the fancy training coaches but how they thought a strong queen would be chosen from this place was beyond me.
I glanced around as we entered the gates to the city. Death Mountain had been half carved out in an effort to mine for gold by early settlers. So when the wolven took over, they built the palace right on the plateau, halfway up the mountain. There was no army that could reach it without us knowing and throwing them to their deaths before they even got close to us.
We passed a small village of homes that were skinny but tall, some only ten feet wide but four stories high. Space was in short supply when building on a mountainside.