LOGIN- RAVENA"Hold still, or I'm gonna stitch your nose to your lip," Rayna said, her tiny hands smelling strongly of crushed river-mint and cheap tallow."I am holding still," I rasped, wincing as the bone needle dragged another thread through the split skin above my left eyebrow. I was sitting backward on the infirmary bench, my elbows resting on the wooden backrest, bleeding onto the floorboards. "You just have terrible aim.""I have great aim! Eli’s the one with terrible aim, considering he missed your jaw and hit the post," she shot back, wiping a thick smear of gray salve across my cheekbone.
- RAVENA"If the stray loses, the food crates stay in the eastern block, and he packs his shit by sunrise," Torin spat, crossing his thick arms over his chest. He stood at the edge of the clearing, surrounded by half the elders and a crowd of broad-shouldered ghost-shifters who looked like they hadn't smiled since the last turnip harvest."And when he wins?" Edith asked. She was leaning against a timber post, casually cleaning her fingernails with a small hunting knife. She didn't even look up."He won't," Eli grunted from behind his grandfather, his chest puffed out like a prized rooster. He kept rubbing his knuckles, grinning at me with a look that promised a quick trip to the burial ditches. "Kael was soft. I’m not."I stood in the center of the slushy ring, shivering slightly in my thin linen tunic. I’d left Chief Rod’s heavy grey coat on the bench next to Edith. My hands were wrapped in tight, rough strips of canvas, the cold air biting at the split skin on my fingers. Underneat
- RAVENAI was just running an errand to fetch the supply pack when I heard the shout echoing right through the heavy timber doors of the main hall, shattering the quiet evening slush. "You're making a mistake, Chief Rod. A massive, stupid mistake, and we're the ones who are gonna pay for it in blood." I heard Torin, one of the elders, snap.I paused on the bottom step, my hand freezing on the heavy strap of the supply pack I was dragging back from the smokehouse.Inside, things were getting really loud."I don't remember asking for your permission, Torin," Chief Rod’s voice came through the wood coldly, dropping the temperature in the room despite the heat he always carried."You didn't have to ask when it was just a few broken pups!" Torin roared back. I could hear the heavy thud of a fist slamming onto a table. "But now? You're handing our best resource, the only ticket into the capital's good graces, to a nameless human stray who can't even grow a proper chin? Eli has blood ties
- RAVENA"You're going to freeze your small southern ass off if you keep standing that close to the edge," Chief Rod said.I didn't move. The wind up here on the highest ridge was harsh, like someone throwing handfuls of tiny ice needles straight into my skin. I pulled the collar of his massive grey coat up over my chin, the scent of pine and old iron hitting my nose. "I'm fine, Chief," I rasped, forcing the gravel back into my voice. My throat felt like sandpaper from keeping up the Zavier routine all morning, but I couldn't slack off now. Not with him sitting two feet away. "It’s a nice view. If you like rocks and misery.""It's a tactical position," Chief Rod muttered from beneath his deep hood. The reinforced leather mask covered everything below his eyes, making the words sound dark and heavy. His dead legs were buried under three layers of black wolf furs, but the sheer heat coming off his frame kept the snow around the iron wheels of his chair completely melted. "From here,
- RAVENA (ZAVIER)"A wolf who fights in the light is easily skinned," his voice rumbled from the dark.Chief Rod’s thick dragon-hide glove was still clamped around my wrist like an iron vise, his grip the only anchor on the pitch-black infirmary porch. The unnatural heat radiating off him was making the sweat on the back of my neck turn to warm steam despite the freezing night air."I fight where I have to," I rasped, dropping deep into my boyish Zavier voice, though my heart was hammering frantically against the linen bindings flattening my chest."Then do not mistake the shadow for safety," he murmured. The leather mask covering the lower half of his face muffled the words, but the quiet intensity in his voice made me pause. He didn't release my arm. His dark, hooded head tilted slightly, his dead legs completely hidden beneath the heavy furs draped over his reinforced chair. "The dark only hides you until the fire starts. Remember what you are climbing out of, boy."My heart skipp
- RAVENA (ZAVIER)"If you drop your left shoulder like that again, I’m going to throw you off the eastern ridge," Edith snapped, her wooden staff coming down hard against my thigh."Son of a..." I cut myself off, stumbling back across the slick sand of the hidden training clearing. I shook out my leg, glaring at her through the dirt smeared across my face. "I didn't drop it. The ice shifted.""The ice doesn't give a damn about your excuses, Zave," she said, spinning the staff between her fingers effortlessly like it weighed nothing. She didn't look tired at all. Me? I was sweating through my linen wraps in sub-zero weather, my chest heaving as I tried to keep my gravelly voice from slipping. "The selectors aren't going to look at the ground," she snapped. "They’re going to look at your throat. Again."I gritted my teeth, raising my fists back up into the guard she’d beaten into my muscle memory over the last three weeks. My knuckles were scraped and bleeding, the skin split and froz
- RODERIC"Lucas, get out," I muttered, not bothering to open my eyes. "And stay out.""You need help getting down the rocks, Alpha," Lucas said from somewhere behind me. His boots crunched on the frozen gravel, the sound far too close for comfort. "Don't act like you can just glide down there.""I
- RAVENAThe two goons Elder Marrow picked to dump me at the edge of the world didn't say a word the whole trip. They just gripped my arms, dragging me through the dirt until the dirt turned into frozen slush.We were heading for the Hollowland.Every wolf grew up hearing stories about this desolate
- RAVENAI woke to the feeling of rough hands dragging me across the cold stone floor. All I could sense was gray light and voices yelling around me. They didn't even bother to open the cell door properly, just ripped the hinges from the frame."Time to face your punishment, kinslayer," one of the
- RODERICI was doomed. I began to realize that I was never getting out of this fucking wheelchair. It was like a moving cage. I clenched the metal rim until my fingers blanched as I dragged myself an inch forward, simply to feel the metal against my skin. My legs were like twigs, useless limbs co







