SHADOW FANG

CHAPTER ONE

SHADOW FANG

—And here I am, an anomaly—

OCTAVIA

“I can make it. I have to—”

The night swallows me whole as I tear through the forest, branches raking across my skin. My wrists are bound behind my back, the rough twine biting into my flesh. The blindfold smothers any hope of seeing where I am headed. I run only on instinct, trusting my body to move north—straight, each breath a jagged edge cutting through my chest. But the crunch of leaves behind me, the whisper of fabric brushing too close, warns me he is gaining.

Suddenly, a vine snags my ankle, and before I can stop myself, I pitch forward, plummeting over the edge of a small drop. The ground rushes up to meet me, knocking the air from my lungs.

I lie there, dazed, my body aching from the fall. But the repercussions won’t let me stay down. Not when the face of my grandfather haunts me through every dark corner of my mind.

I scramble to my feet, legs trembling like newborn fawn's. One step. Two. A flicker of hope—

It dies as quickly as it’s born.

A strangled cry tears from my throat as something latches onto my ankle, yanking me off the ground. I dangle, helpless as a caught fish, my long ash-toned hair brushing the forest floor.

“Haa... haa..."

My pulse roars in my ears as I sway precariously.

“Are you alright?!” Lance’s voice slices through the dark, closer now.

I manage a broken sound, frustration clawing at my chest. "Caught," I rasp, my voice dry, strained. "I have been caught!”

I listen to his approach, and then the slide of a blade through a taut rope sends me plummeting back to the ground. I land with a muffled thump, a grunt of irritation forcing its way through my clenched teeth.

“Hey, Avi. Are you alright?” Rough hands work quickly at the bindings on my wrists, freeing me from the ropes.

I tear the blindfold away, blinking up at Lance’s face hovering above mine. His blond hair sticks to his brows with sweat. We've been going at this training regimen for hours on end. My gaze drifts past him, up to the treetops against the inky night sky, and disappointment wells up in me once more.

"I'm fine, Lance," I rasp, flexing my free hand as he pulls me to my feet. "I won't break.”

But deep down, I know the truth.

No matter how much I train, no matter how much I bleed and sweat and cry, I’ll never have that spark. And no amount of moonlit training sessions will change that immutable fact.

I grunt as I crest the small ridge, my lungs burning, sweat trickling down my temple, mixing with mud.

“I’m going again.”

“You need to rest, Avi,” Lance says tightly. “It’s almost morning. The Gauntlet starts at nightfall.”

The Gauntlet.

The only path to Naxthir Brigade College. The singular chance to become one of the elite. Or, as I've grimly come to think of it, the place where dreams, and sometimes lives, go to die. A deadly trial no one speaks of lightly, as if uttering its name could summon the ghost of those who didn't make it.

Lance has, as always, snuck me into the forest every night for months, helping me train in secret. It's more than my grandfather's handpicked trainers ever did, for all his talk of upholding some twisted family legacy. Lance believes in me when others refuse to. People like my mother.

He never had to say it aloud. I could see it in his eyes, in the subtle way he’d hesitate before offering advice. There was always that unspoken understanding between us—I’m not like others. No wolf. No shifting bloodline like the rest of them. And yet here I am. Expected to uphold the family legacy, to conquer this trail as if blood alone would see me through.

But it hadn't saved Levi.

Failure was not an option, and success was never guaranteed.

Every nineteen-year-old in the Republic of Midra, whether chosen by the school or not, must pass this trail to get into Naxthir. Demanding more from us than any sane person should ever give. For over three hundred years, this has been the way, generation after generation, we’ve been sharpened into weapons, trained to protect our republic.

Most of us don’t believe the threat will ever come again.

The war. The one that tore our world apart centuries ago, instigated by a scientist, a non-shifter, a Nethra whose name no one speaks. The Five Hands saved the Republic from total destruction, but the cost was division—shifters and non-shifters, Calyvorns and Nethra. I know the story—everyone does. The Nethra, the devils of our republic, dangerous descendants of non-shifters and halfbreeds that could reignite the war if not suppressed.

No Nethra crosses the wall; it's forbidden. To see one on this side is a crime, a threat to everything we’ve built.

And here I am, an anomaly. A shifter bloodline with no spark, no claw. An abomination in the eyes of many.

The days of magic are over.

And this, I’ve come to realize, is no longer about survival. It’s about tradition. A legacy, upheld and guarded by the Five Hands Of Midra, a tradition with roots so deep, they’ve strangled reason.

“How many traps have I hit tonight?” I ask, my fingers brushing the blindfold at my waist, ready to pull it back on.

“Eight,” Lance replies. The soft whisper of his blade sliding home punctuates his words.

I blow out a breath, running a hand through my hair. It’s not enough.

“I won't be there to cut you down tonight," he reminds me, his voice gentle but firm. "And ropes will be the least of your worries in the Gauntlet. One misstep, one lost count... if you misjudge the ground, it can mean death."

I glance up at him, catching the hard glint in his eyes. Tonight, the full moon will hang in the sky, its cold glow lighting the way for every desperate runner.

“I’m going again,” I declare again, already spinning back toward the start of the course.

Lance steps in front of me, his eyes hard. He is taller now, broader after a year inside Naxthir. His vest clings to his frame, damp from sweat, and at the edge of the fabric, I can see a tattoo creeping over his shoulder.

“You don’t get it, do you? Only the first hundred and fifty runners get admitted to Naxthir every year," I seethe, hating how desperate I sound. "I didn't come this far just to fail at the finish line."

“I know.” Worried green eyes look down at me.

My gaze drops to the scar at the corner of his lips. That faint line, a memory etched into his skin. He’d gotten it saving me from a raging river when we were kids. We have been friends ever since. It had been an angry red gash then, but now it's just another part of him. Being a werewolf has its perks, I suppose. But even that isn't as good as the old world – the one where shifters were more than just enhanced humans with a few party tricks.

“Not this year.” His voice drops. “It’s only the first hundred and twenty.”

I freeze, blinking. "What?”

He nods grimly. "I overheard it earlier. They've changed the count this year."

The bottom drops out of my stomach. "But... it's always been a hundred and fifty cadets. Always."

"Not anymore."

“Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I demand, anger flaring.

“I only just found out.”

“My grandfather—" I start, but Lance cuts me off.

"None of them know. Except the higher-ups at Naxthir."

This is why he's looked so worried all night, why his eyes have held that extra edge of concern. My slim chance of making it through has just become microscopically small.

I’m so f****d.

“I’m going again.”

“Avi—”

✠✠✠

I press the door shut, muddy and exhausted, hating every second that drew the Gauntlet near, only for my heart to stutter in my chest when Mom materialized like a ghost in my bedroom, her burgundy robe a s***h of color against the pale dawn light filtering through the curtains.

She rises, clutching papers in her hand. A passport peeks out from the stack.

“Mom?” My voice is a rasp of disbelief.

Her eyes, deep brown, so much like Levi and Grandfather's, yet softer somehow, always softer, now have so much worry and guilt.

She reaches for me, her hand brushing my dirt-caked shoulder. It’s a soft gesture, but I can’t help the instinct to pull away. Exhaustion gnaws at my bones, and something feels wrong—so wrong about seeing her here, in my bedroom, at this hour, looking at me like she’s about to break.

"I can’t let you do this.” Those words stir a fresh wave of unease in me. "The Gauntlet—it's too dangerous, Octavia. I’ve made arrangements for you to leave. It will be safer for you in Centrix.”

“Leave?" I echo, my voice sharp, disbelief crashing over me. "Mom, leave? Outside the Republic?"

I've never set foot beyond these walls, never tasted freedom beyond what I was taught within this wall, within this life.

Her gaze falters, and she turns away as if she can't bear to face the chaos she's unleashing. "Yes," she says, the single syllable heavy, final. “You need to go.”

"To whom?” I snap, fury rising to smother the fear clawing at my throat. "Who am I supposed to go to, exactly?"

"Your aunt.” She turns, and that collected woman is completely gone. “My sister. She lives in Centrix with her husband."

My eyes sprout. "You… you have a sister?” I might be in a horrible dream. “A sister? And now, now, you decide to tell me? You want me to go live with strangers who share nothing but blood?" I falter, voice trembling as I add, “Does she even share blood with you, Mom?”

The Gauntlet was tonight. What happened to such a thought earlier?

“Yes.” Her hand flutters through the air. “Yes, she does, Octavia.”

“Then how am I only hearing about her now?”

"Because she left!" Mom’s shout rings off the walls, and we both stand there, chests heaving, eyes locked. Then, just as quickly, the fire from her face, replaced with something far more painful. Pity. "It's your only chance to live, Octavia. The Gauntlet will kill you." Says the woman who watched me train for months.

My chest tightens and I force myself to look away from her, my gaze landing on the nearby table, to the typical shape of my meds parcel nestled beside a hastily packed bag. The drug that masks my shame, that gives me the illusion of belonging, knowing damn well that it will never grant me the gene I wasn't born with.

It’s all a lie.

And the legacy I've bled for, night after night, dangles before me like a mirage.

"What about everything I've trained for?" I rasp, my voice raw, broken. "What about our—our legacy? The nights I spent bleeding and breaking for this? Does that mean nothing?”

She drops the papers onto the table, the passport landing with a soft thud beside the bag. Her robe slips slightly, revealing the faint outline of a tiny tattoo on her chest, another piece of her I never knew.

"The legacy means nothing if you die," she says softly, the same sentiment Grandfather had beaten into me all these years, only twisted in a different way. “You’re not a shifter, Octavia. You know that. You don’t have the instincts, the senses to survive the Gauntlet tonight. And no non-shifter has ever been accepted in Naxthir. You’ll die in those woods.”

Her words sink into me, heavy as stone, and I feel the burn of tears rising behind my eyes, but I swallow them down.

Damn it.

“Then why did you let me train?” I whisper, my voice barely holding together. “Why let me fight for something that was never mine to begin with?”

She doesn't answer. And maybe that's worse.

“Leaving is the best option.”

I want to scream, to rage against the unfairness of it all. Instead, I whisper, "Like Levi did?" The pain that flashes across her face is brief but unmistakable. "He left, Mom. He left and never looked back. No letters, no calls. He’s disappeared. And you want me to do the same? You want me to abandon everything I’ve worked for because you're scared, now?”

Her silence says more than she ever could. Something inside me cracks.

“Where was this concern when Grandfather made his decree? You stood by and watched me spend my life fighting for something,” I hiss, “and now you’re playing the savior?” My jaw clenches. “If death awaits me in the Gauntlet, so be it! But I won't run off to some aunt I've never even heard of.”

“So you’d rather die?” Mom’s voice cuts through the tension, sharp and calm, nothing like mine. "I doubt you’ve trained all this time just to be killed by a spike ripping through your own flesh."

I suck in a breath but keep my mouth shut. Staying in Midra might be the dream, even though shifters sit at the top of the social hierarchy here. At least it’s familiar. At least here, I know my place—even if it’s beneath everyone else.

“What happens when they learn of it?”

I snort, bitter. “Are we just only recalling that?”

But Mom's eyes flick to the door as it creaks open. The air suddenly tightens, as if the room itself is drawing in breath, and I know—

Her jaw tightens, and her eyes threaten retribution as Grandfather glides in. Like a king on his throne in that custom wheelchair with our family insignia carved into the armrests. His presence swallows the room whole, cold and overpowering.

“What is going on here, Helen?” That old tone of his is in no way near pleasant.

Mom turns away, yanking open my luggage. She shoves in the parcel with such force I flinch. Papers follow, crumpled and hasty.

“Mom,” I start quietly, but she doesn't stop. “Mom, stop.”

“Helen?”

I’ve never seen her like this—shaking, frantic. Levi was like that too, just before he left, as if this house, this legacy, was choking the life out of him. Now it’s happening again, and this time, it’s me.

She fears I’ll die and I fear for myself too. Tonight could be the last night of my life, and that thought grips me with icy dread. But even so, I would rather face the Gauntlet and risk death than be sent away to some distant aunt. At least in the Gauntlet, I have a chance to prove myself—to be something more than this hollow shell.

“Mom, please,” I beg, reaching for her.

“Enough!"

Grandfather's voice carries a weight that crushes everything in its path, twisting the air like a fist around my throat.

Mom straightens, turning to face him, her voice a hiss. "I’m not letting you destroy another one of my children with this madness, Father,” she seethes. "I’ve had enough. Enough of this, this obsession with power, this pinnacle you’ve placed us on. She’s not even a shifter. We’ve hidden it for years, but they’ll find out the second she crosses that wall. If she crosses that wall."

“The drugs will keep that from happening," Grandfather counters.

“That is the problem!” Mom shouts, and I cringe. “Have you not done enough?”

“This is our legacy, Helen.” He chews. “This is our pride. This city, this republic—we built it. Our fathers built it. Our bloodline forged it, and our name is not to be erased again. She has trained for this, had been given the best trainers, the best resources, and now she would—"

“Stop!” I shout, my cheeks heating with frustration, desperation, fury—everything. Every word feels like a dam bursting inside me.

If he's going to seal my fate, I want to be the one who makes the final cut. It's Grandfather, after all. There's nothing Mom or I can do to prevent this from happening, not really. This isn’t Grandfather's expectation or Mom’s fear—it’s about me. He’s already decided, and somewhere deep down, so have I.

"I’ll participate in the Gauntlet," I say, voice firm.

"Octavia—” Mom’s voice softens, a plea wrapped in my name.

"I can take care of myself, Mom."