Page 110 of Shattered Stars

Except, maybe they have more reason to avoid me than they ever did the pig girl. She was different: skinny, scrawny in her old ill-fitting clothes, with not a clue about one damn thing. Okay, she may have been an unregistered too – certainly some people suspected it, whispered about it – but very few actually knew it to be true.

Me, on the other hand, there’s every reason in the world to avoid me. The werebeast. The cursed boy. The dangerous monster. Do they know? Did my brother let our secret slip?

I think back to the moment the man in black and I were attacked out there in the forest. It had been instinctual. I’d changed before I even knew what I was doing. Had the same happened to Tobias? Did he give himself away in the heat of battle?

I roll onto my side, tucking my hands under my cheek. Fucking bastards. A werebeast in battle is powerful, strong, unstoppable. An ally any of them should have been thankful for.

There’s some big lad snoring on the bunk next to me and somewhere at the other end of the dorm, another dude is muttering in his sleep.

They all look the same. Shorn hair, dazed eyes. I think I’m the only one who volunteered to be here and yet I’m stuck with these losers doing nothing useful but scrubbing floors.

I can’t stand it. Not with the wolf prowling inside me eager to be released. Being here has done nothing to tamper down his restlessness. My mother was probably right all along. But I can’t think about that. Can’t think about what it would have been like to make Pig Girl mine. She’s far away from me and him. Safe.

The monster growls. He disagrees and he’s pissed about it. Really pissed.

I toss back onto my stomach and try to focus on falling asleep but those snores and those booms and the air thick with other people’s breath drives me half mad.

I snap upright, swinging my gaze around. Everyone else in the room is asleep and through the window I can see the tiniest sliver of moon.

I slide off my bunk, my bare feet hitting the cold floor almost soundlessly, then I creep through the room, along the gangway between the rows of bunks and to the door. I peer over my shoulder. All still asleep. I push open the door and step out into the cold night wearing only my boxers and a vest.

The air stinks like it always does out here, of putrid magic, singed flesh, and gunpowder. I stare up at that moon, the beast inside me suddenly silent and alert, waiting to see what I’ll do.

Did the smell bother him too? The confinement? The battle just out of reach?

I thought this place would be an escape. Now I wonder if it’s a prison.

I want to know what happened to him. I want to know so badly. My brother. My big damn brother. He was never as strong as me, never as confident. Always nervous, chewing on his nails, eyes flicking around the room. He hated the affliction, I think, even more than me. It made him jumpy.

But that came later, there was a time before that. When we were younger. When she kept us hidden, away from others. So long ago I hardly remember it. Flipping between our two forms, chasing each other, rolling in the earth, nipping at each other’s fur. I remember how strong the smells were then, how vivid, how close to him I felt. Before we knew. Before we understood. It wasn’t a gift, a game, a prize. It was a god damn burden.

Did it break him?

I stare down at my hands. Find them trembling in the dark. I should have talked to him about it. I should have talked to him full stop. I can’t stand not to know. Not to understand. I can’t stand that he’s no longer here. I want him back.

He’d be the only one to understand. The only one who would tell me the truth. Who’d look in my eyes with no judgment, no disgust.

I’m running, before I know it, running out here in the darkness, away from the barracks, away from the training ground, towards the magic flashing violent colors above the tree line.

And one minute I’m me, one minute I’m him, I hardly notice it happen, a scent on the wind pulling both of us in one direction.

It takes him through the trees. I catch glimpses of it from the abyss, of the crescent moon, the hard earth, the fallen leaves. The scent grows stronger in his nose. It’s not right. Not how it should be. But it’s a scent we both know.

The booms from the magic grow closer, louder, rattling his bones, shaking the ground beneath his paws. That scent grows stronger too and then he’s halting, sniffing the earth, pawing at the ground.

And I come back to myself. On my hands and knees. Naked, covered in cold sweat, shivering against the cold. That scent – my brother’s scent – so clear in my nostrils. I sink to my stomach.

This is where it happened.

In the distance I can hear the shouting of soldiers, the crashing and colliding of magic.

It happened here.

I rest my cheek against the cold mud. His scent has sunk into the earth, becoming one with it.

I close my eyes. It happened here. Was he alone like I am now? Was there someone with him? Holding his hand, promising it would be okay?

My face is wet. I burrow my nose right into the ground. His blood’s in the earth. Our blood.