Bond of Shadows

Chapter Two

The barracks stank of damp straw and sweat, the air thick with wolf musk and testosterone. Straw-stuffed cots lined the walls, their shadows long and sharp in the torchlight. Laughter echoed, harsh and cruel, heirs jostling and boasting like pups in a yard.

I claimed a cot in the far corner, back to the wall, eyes on the door. Always the door. My bag made a poor pillow, but I needed the wall at my spine more than I needed comfort.

The bindings cut deeper as I lay flat, every seam pressing like a blade into my ribs. The perfume clung bitterly to my throat, a constant reminder of the lie I wore. Every breath was too shallow. Every shift, a scrape of cloth on skin.

Sleep came fitfully.

And with it - a dream.

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Father’s voice, sharp as a lash: “Again, Sybil. Keep your stance wide. You’ll never win if you lead with your arms. Power comes from the legs.”

His hand corrected my footing, firm, sure, exactly the way he taught my brothers. For a heartbeat, I believed I was his heir.

Then came the shadow in his gaze, the disappointment that always followed. “If only you’d been born a son.”

The sting burned worse than any training bruise.

Mother’s voice, soft and urgent, pressed into the memory next: “You’ll ruin yourself if you keep this up, Sybil. A daughter’s strength doesn’t keep her alive. Submission does.”

She pushed a tray of food into my hands, gentle, insistent. Her wrists were thin, her shoulders rounded from a lifetime of bending.

I looked at her then the way I always had-like she was weak. Like she’d already lost.

Darius, polished and perfect, sparring with Father until sweat glistened his brow. “Good,” Father said, voice warm with approval. A warmth I never got.

Lucian, laughing as he shirked drills, still praised as if he’d worked harder than all of us.

And Merek. Sweet Merek, small hand slipping into mine in the night. “I wish it were you.”

That one broke me every time.

I woke with my jaw clenched, teeth grinding, nails half-mooned into my palms. The barracks were dark but restless, shapes moving in the torchlight, boys muttering in their sleep. Someone snored. Someone whimpered.

Across from me, the green-eyed heir, Soren, though I didn’t know his name yet, lay sprawled like a man with nothing to fear, arms behind his head, smirk lingering even in sleep. There was something about that calm confidence, as if he held secrets that could unravel or shape the paths of those around him. I couldn't yet tell if he was a threat or an ally, but instinct whispered he would play a crucial role in the trials ahead.

The bindings dug, my wolf pressed against its cage, restless, angry, hungry. My whole body throbbed with the memory of rejection and the weight of what came next.

Not yet, I told myself again, the words bitter and sharp in my throat.

But soon.

Dawn would bring the first Trial. And I would not be forgotten.