The Trial By Howl

Dahlia's POV

“Welcome to Northmont High.” The Lunar Bond Studies teacher addressed the first-year students while I stood somewhere near the back, watching. Rumors about the Trial by Howl had been spreading across campus for days, and this had made me curious about what a human like me would do with such a test.

Before my seventeenth birthday, I'd been firmly convinced that I was human, and I never understood why I'd been admitted to a school for the supernatural. After everything that had happened to me since then, I no longer had that certainty. I was something, and I wanted to find out what.

“Standing here tonight only means one thing, you have survived your first term,” the teacher said. “Today, a great test shall be carried out on the wolf you are becoming.” He continued.

“Tonight, you face the Trial by Howl.

“This is not a performance, and it is not a test you can study for. It is certainly not a contest of volume or bravado. Anyone who tries to impress the moon will embarrass themselves, and may well fail. Now listen to how this is done. As I've taught you in class, you will step into the clearing one at a time and call out your wolf. The wolf you call tonight must come because it wants to, not because you forced it out.

“When you are told to begin, lift your head and answer the moon. Don't force the sound, and don't mimic the howls you've heard in training, because the moon knows the difference.

“Your howl will carry more than your voice. It will carry your bloodline, your fear, your restraint, and your truth. Some howls will break, some will shake, and some will surprise even the elders. All of that is normal. This is your first trial, so don't push it.

“Listen carefully to what comes next. If your bond is true, the howl will not die alone. The upper classes, your seniors, course prefects, and pack leaders, are stationed beyond the treeline. They've already passed this trial, and they are here to help you. Their only duty tonight is to answer you.

“When they howl back, it means you've been heard. It means your wolf has been recognized. It means you are becoming.

“If there is silence, you will stand still until instructed otherwise. Silence is not always failure, and it is not meaningless.

“Once the response ends, you will return to the line without any celebration or explanation. The verdict will come later.

“Remember this: the moon does not care how badly you want it. It only cares whether you are ready. Lift your head when your name is called.”

My heart stopped at his last words. I didn't even know who I was, yet I was expected to lift my head when my name was called? I'd been avoiding the lecturers ever since the black glow began under my skin, especially Ms. Hale, who behaved as though she were the Moon Goddess everyone prayed to, as if she were all-knowing. Something like this couldn't pass her by.

Every one of them was there to witness the occasion. How was I supposed to go unnoticed?

“Everyone, maintain a straight line,” Mr. Vincent instructed, and all the first-years formed a nervous line, me included, though I was last in it. The students who were already sure of who they were stiffened their shoulders and lifted their eyes to the moon, as if it might judge them early. The Academy Elders stood in a half circle. Then Mr. Vincent began calling names, and one by one each student stepped into the circle to test their howl.

I watched closely. When a name was called and its owner stepped forward, the howl would rise, trembling at first, then steady. A silver light rippled through the clearing, and from the trees the seniors answered, strong, clean, and reassuring, and the student exhaled in relief.

Another name. Another howl. Another answer. It went on like that for hours. Most students passed, and a few didn't. No one celebrated, as the teacher had instructed, but the joy of passing showed plainly on the faces of the ones who'd made it.

My chest tightened when the student before me was called and passed. Now it was my turn, and only two things could happen. Either I passed, which would mean I'd been a wolf all along while believing I was human, or I failed and was mocked by the whole school even more than before.

“Dahlia.” The teacher's voice cut through the silence, and my name sounded strange in his mouth, as though it belonged to someone else.

The clearing went still.

Every head turned toward me, and whispers rippled outward, loudest from the corner where Lunara and her partners in crime stood.

I stepped into the circle.

The moonlight touched my skin, and something inside me shifted, restless and awake. This is a mistake, I thought the moment I lifted my chin, but my feet kept moving until I reached the spot where the others had stood.

Alone.

“Answer the moon,” Mr. Vincent said.

I closed my eyes and opened myself the way we'd been taught in class, and the howl rose from my chest on its own. As soon as it left my mouth, the air changed. The moonlight bent and then darkened.

The glow around my howl was supposed to be silver, like everyone else's, and it wasn't. It wasn't white either. It swallowed the light, thick and shadowed, spreading outward like ink in water. It was black. I had howled black, the same black that had clung to my skin since I turned seventeen. The ground hummed under my feet, and the sound felt heavy and wrong, pressing against my ribs instead of lifting free.

The seniors in the trees didn't answer when everyone expected them to. Just when I was ready to give up, they howled back, but the sound fractured and stumbled and broke off in the middle of an echo.

Why was everything about me always different? At that moment I began to see why I'd been sent to Northmont High. I must have shown some strangeness I didn't know about, something that frightened my stepmother enough to send me away. Because what in the goddess's name was this?

Gasps broke across the clearing, and I heard Soraya scream my name. My knees gave out.

The black glow tightened and pulled inward, and the world tilted sharply to one side. I hit the ground hard, and the breath tore out of my lungs. The moonlight snapped back into place as if it were afraid of me, and voices rose all at once.

“Contain the circle!”

“What was that?”

“Get her up, now!”

Too many hands reached for me. The ground spun, my ears rang, and the echo of my howl crawled under my skin.

The last thing I saw before everything went dark was the moon above me, whole, bright, and silent.

I had broken a record.