ROSALIND

I could not make myself look away, could not tear my eyes away from him, not daring to blink. He was there—solid, terrible, breathing and every grain of me tuned itself to the slow rise and fall of his chest like it was the only thing left that mattered. I didn’t dare blink, as if the moment my lids closed he might be gone, and everything that had kept me alive for the last four years would evaporate with him.

Elsie giggled beside me, nudging Ferna. “See? I knew she would fall in love with him the second she sees him. One look and she’s done.”

Ferna chuckled, but her voice was low, almost wary. “That’s not the look of someone in love, Elsie. That’s the look of someone about to set him on fire.”

I wanted to tell them both to shut up. I wanted to tell them that love had nothing to do with the brittle tightness in my ribs, the way my teeth suddenly felt too loud behind my closed mouth. I wanted to tell them the truth: the heat in my chest was not tenderness. It was a volcanic thing, at once grief and anger and a cold, beautiful hunger for justice.

I didn’t say anything because telling them risked me looking like a lunatic or worse healing something in me that I didn’t want healed, not until I got my deserved revenge. He snuffed out the light in my life four years ago and now he was going to feel my wrath, the full extent of it.

I barely registered the chatter around me, my gaze locked on Aklan as he stood at the front of the training grounds, his presence commanding despite the casual way he leaned against a wooden post. A whistle blew, sharp and piercing, and the chatter around us died instantly as students flowed into formation. Ferna and Elsie hurried off to join their majors, leaving me standing alone on the edge of the training ground like a stone as it fell as silent as a graveyard.

The commander, a grizzled man with a scar across his cheek, stepped forward and began a welcome speech for the new students. His words washed over me, meaningless noise against the roar of my pulse. He mentioned that official training had begun, wished us luck, and then introduced the captain, gesturing to Aklan. The reins were handed over then he bowed and stepped back to place the world in Aklan Draven’s hands. 

Aklan stepped forward, his voice carrying across the field with a confidence that made my stomach churn, the sound of his voice the way someone hears a bell ringing through storm glass... distorted, distant, gut wrenching and terrible all at once. The words washed over me, meaningless and thin. 

My eyes were fixed on him, every detail sharpening the rage that clawed at my chest. I did not listen, I could not listen. I only watched. He stood, a carved thing in uniform, and the memory of my brother’s lifeless body came like a hot sting behind my eyes. Those same gray eyes, that same careless calm, the same merciless gaze.

The hatred I had kept hidden in my heart for years surged higher, threatening to spill over. How could he stand there, so smug, so alive, when my brother lay cold in the dirt?

When I realized the students were running laps and my feet had not moved, a thread of shame prickled at the back of my neck. Everyone around me was already in motion, their footsteps a distant rhythm but I stood rooted to my spot, my eyes never wavering from Aklan, like a tree refusing to be felled, focused entirely on the man who had taken Rivan from me.

 He noticed me then, his brow furrowing as he crossed the field, his strides purposeful. 

He stopped in front of me, bending slightly to meet my gaze and asked, plain as a blade, “Are you all right?”

I looked him dead in the eye, praying for a blade of some sort to manifest in my hands so I could drive it straight into the heart of this smug bastard and save myself the torture of waiting till I was stronger.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, his voice low, almost concerned.

My breath hitched. I tasted iron and old winter and the memory of broken things. He had the audacity to ask if I was okay while my brother lay in the dirt. He got to breathe, to stand here and play the hero while I suffered every single day for the past four years.

My fingers tightened onto the latex gloves I had worn until it bit into my palm.

Aklan tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Join the others,” he said, his tone turning stern when I didn’t move. “Now.”

I did not move.

“What are you standing there for wolfling? I said join your peers’’

Wolfling? Did he just call me a wolfling?

I would show him what a wolfling can do, a Hatchville wolfling who would not bend or break for any man so I stayed, my eyes never leaving his, defiance oozing from my pores, my hands curling into fists at my sides.