Page 25 of Traitor Wolf (Bonded by Fate Duet #1)

Chapter Eighteen

O ver the next few days, I trained harder than ever before. Cassian and I lifted weights in the morning, followed by weapons drills and swordsmanship for three hours, breaking for a large lunch, and then finishing with magical defense tactics.

I was worried sick about Elia. I’d tried to mentally check in with Kaelric a few times, but he never answered back, and I didn’t push. I didn’t want to bother him while he was on a lifesaving mission.

After dinner, I did an obstacle course with rope climbs, wall scaling, and enemy dummies with marked weak spots. My accuracy was getting better, but Cassian did the course in half the time I did.

“Okay, now I want you to try the course again, but I’m going to throw in some magical interference,” Cassian ordered.

I groaned. “Is an obstacle course really what I should be spending my time doing? I think I need to work on my swordsmanship more, or deflecting magic, maybe shielding.”

He shook his head quickly. “No. I spent all morning building this. This is what we’re working on.”

He was very set on this course, and the training room he’d blocked out just for me over the week had now been completely transformed.

I didn’t know if he had magical help or what, but the plain floors and walls were now a full-on obstacle course made of expensive-looking wood.

Monkey bars, rope climbing, a balance beam, and even two walls that smashed together with a hydraulic press.

I hadn’t run fast enough on one round, and it had clipped my elbow.

“Okay,” I sighed, gearing up for another round.

Valkaryn had been quiet all day, but now I felt her stirring.

‘Say you feel sick and go back to your room,’ she commanded in such a forceful tone I winced.

‘What? Why?’

‘Do it.’

I grabbed my stomach. “Actually, I feel sick all of a sudden. I think I need to head back to my room and hit the sack early. ”

Cassian’s brows drew together. “Do you need a healer?”

“Nah, just cramps,” I lied, waving him off and climbing down from the small platform.

His blond brows relaxed, and his expression softened. “Okay. No worries, we will keep the obstacle course set up all week so we can hit it hard at first light.”

I nodded, and he followed me back to the dorm, making sure I got inside safely. He said he’d be back later to take the night shift guard duty. I had no idea when the guy was sleeping, or if he was magically staying awake, but I was grateful for his kindness.

The second I was in my room, alone on the bed, I pulled out Valkaryn and placed her cold steel on my pillow.

‘Okay, what is it?’ I asked.

But there was no response.

‘Are you kidding me? I just left training early. Why?’ I pressed.

Nothing.

I groaned, falling backward onto the bed in frustration.

This weapon was truly one of a kind. She still had yet to show any awesome power beyond the night of the banquet when she killed Mercy Solvaris for trying to take her, and some shielding during the attack on me in the middle of the night.

For a weapon famed as the King Killer, if I were being honest, I expected more.

I expected to pull her out in practice and see lightning fly from the tip of her steel edge and rip through a wall or something.

‘Shh, quiet your mind, child,’ she told me, and I fell silent.

Quiet my mind? For what? She tells me to leave practice early, and now this?

I took in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, trying to focus on nothing. Which was pretty much impossible.

‘Brynn?’ Kaelric’s voice was gruff, distant— weak?

My heart hammered in my chest, aching the slightest bit. I hadn’t realized until now that I’d missed him. I missed that raging furball even when he was bossing me around and trying to control everything.

‘I’m here. How’s Elia?’

There was silence for a full minute. I thought I’d lost connection with him.

‘She’s… we don’t have her back yet. We met some resistance, but I’m working on it. I will be back for the next trial. Keep training.’

‘Ask him where he is,’ Valkaryn told me.

‘Where are you?’ I asked him. ‘Still in Grimreach?’

‘Yes. I’ll see you soon. Work on your bond with Valkaryn. She can be a great teacher if you let her. ’

I sat up, standing from the bed and slipping Valkaryn into her sheath.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ I asked her.

‘Pack a bag. We’re going after Elia,’ she declared, and I grinned.

That’s exactly what I had in mind.

Kaelric Morvain would regret the day he called me weak.

I left a note on the bed so that Cassian wouldn’t worry.

I told him I was meeting up with Kaelric and would be back for the next trial.

Within the hour, I had snuck onto a train headed for Fenmyr.

Grimreach was the first stop, at the very edge of the Fenmyr border touching Aerlyn.

With my luck, I’d reach just before morning.

I leaned my back against the rocking car as night fell. Stacks of grain sacks were piled up all around me. I knew we traded regularly with Fenmyr, their lands being more fertile for fruits and vegetables, and ours really only being good for grains and meat production.

‘Can you see the future?’ I asked Val.

The nickname seemed appropriate; she would tell me if she minded.

‘I cannot. ’

Hmm.

‘Then how did you know Kaelric was going to contact me? You told me to go to the room and quiet my mind.’

‘Because, like you and I have a bond, I also have a small bond with Kaelric through you. It’s very faint, but it’s there. I could sense him reaching out to you. He’d been trying a while.’

That made sense.

I couldn’t believe I was on a train destined for Fenmyr. Two weeks ago, I would have balked at such an idea.

I stroked the wolf sculpture on the handle of Val’s blade. ‘Why didn’t you help me in the first trial?’ I asked her.

Her voice was soft, as if she were fading away. ‘I needed you to trust Kaelric. To win the Arcane Trials, you must trust him with your life.’

I reflected on that. I hadn’t trusted him before that trial, but by the end of it I did, so I guess her plan worked. ‘I trust him now. So why not use your power in practice so I can learn how to work with it? I don’t even know yet what I am to wield.’

Would fire shoot out of her blade? Would she strike every man dead I pointed at, or cut? The rumors about her power were so vast that I didn’t know what to expect .

‘There is a cost to using magic. I do not pull on the Creator’s power just for show. When you truly need me to display my power, I will. You can trust that.’

That statement had my mind spinning for the next hour.

Pull on the Creator’s power? What was she implying?

That her power came from the Creator himself?

It was too wild a thought. And yet she was right about there being a cost to magic.

I’d seen that toll taken on the Elites of Aerlyn.

They were weary after using too much magic.

I hadn’t thought it would affect a steel blade, though.

In the darkness of the rocking train car, I fell asleep and dreamed of riding Kaelric’s wolf into battle with a scream on my lips and a fierce love for him in my heart.

I awoke with a jolt as the train stopped in Grimreach. Grabbing my pack, I leapt off before the dock workers could find me and scold me for being a stowaway.

Grimreach was the kind of place that maps forget about, a small, wind-worn village crouched right at the edge of the Fenmyr border.

It was where the Fenmyr Mountains flattened into bleak Aerlyn marshland, and Elite magic users were nowhere to be found.

A crooked wooden sign marked its entrance, letters half-faded by time.

Most of the buildings were timber-framed and moss-covered.

There was a single inn, a lopsided structure with a tilted roof and a red lantern over the door.

A soft mist clung to the crooked rooftops and curled around the base of the water tower.

The streets were unpaved, just packed dirt and stone.

I inhaled. The town smelled like pine, rust, and coal smoke. I slipped between the buildings, my boots crunching over brittle leaves as I scanned for anything or anyone who might have seen a group passing through with a prisoner.

But the town was empty. Or pretending to be.

‘He was here,’ Valkaryn murmured in my mind.

I paused. ‘Kaelric?’

‘His energy lingers like smoke after a fire. Tense. Focused. Tracking . I can feel him through our bond. ’

She could? I wanted to feel him through our bond, but there was nothing but static.

She guided me down a narrow path behind the train station, where rotten freight crates were stacked and long forgotten .

‘He passed through, but so have others,’ Valkaryn said.

My breath caught. ‘Elia?’

‘Yes. And… there was magic. Heavy, cruel magic. They cast a veil to mask her energy. That’s why she hasn’t been able to reach him.’

That’s what the wolfkin had told Kaelric, that Elia hadn’t reached out because she’d been cloaked. Why was an Elite working with the wolfkin? It wasn’t normally done. They kept to themselves, only coming together when it was mutually beneficial, like the Arcane Trials.

I moved closer, pressing a hand to the side of one crate to see that there was a smear of blood.

“Elia,” I whispered, hoping it didn’t belong to her.

‘They are headed southeast, by my guess. Toward the Boneridge Crossing,’ Valkaryn added.

I didn’t know how she knew, but I trusted her.

‘If we move fast, we can intercept them before they cross into the no-man’s lands,’ Val added.

I tightened the strap on my pack and turned towards the fading trail. Every instinct in me was on fire now. This wasn’t just about Elia anymore—this was about Kaelric, too. About proving I wasn’t weak.

And no one was taking that from me.