Page 34 of Traitor Wolf (Bonded by Fate Duet #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

T he train hissed as it pulled into the station, brakes screeching against the track.

I stepped onto the platform, exhaustion clinging to my bones from the Watcher attack, followed by a restless night.

The only saving grace was that I got to lie in Kaelric’s arms for hours.

We hid away in a train car together, keeping watch for another attack, which meant we had to stay alert.

Our clothes still carried the faint scent of smoke from the Dregs.

I felt emotionally and physically spent, but I had to press on.

Ahead, the arena loomed again, cold stone, darker than I remembered.

Kaelric stood in front of me, already in place, his wolf form tense as if he sensed what was coming. Valkaryn pulsed at my side, her presence calm but alert .

The house sponsors were already seated, their robes stiffer, faces tighter than before. I scanned each and every face until I landed on the empty chair of the House of Draven.

Where was Cassian?

My heart hammered in my chest as my gaze flicked to the opening in the mountain where he normally walked out.

Where was he? Was he punished for helping my people after the fire?

I thought back to the conversation where he’d confessed that other house sponsors had been asking him to “get rid of me” before the final competition.

He’d dropped off supplies for us and then…

did I see him leave? Didn’t he say he’d be back? I couldn’t remember.

Magistrate Corvessa stepped onto the dais, her expression unreadable.

“You’ve made it through the gauntlet,” she said. “You’ve proven your bond to the mountain. But a true bonded pair cannot just survive a moment of fire . They must endure it.”

A hush fell over the arena. A moment of fire ? Was she… was that a dig at the Dregs burning? Fury uncoiled within me, and for the first time, a crazy thought came to me.

Did she cause the Dregs fire? Is that why the Elite didn’t help? Because they wanted it to happen? They’d planned it?

“This final trial will take place here within these very walls. You will be separated from your bonded wolves, and only if you are strong enough to free them will they live.”

My gut twisted. Separated .

Only if I were strong enough would Kaelric live? What did that mean?

I heard the rumbling in Kaelric’s chest from where I stood.

“There is one objective,” she continued, “be the first to retrieve your wolf. Then the mountain will find you worthy of its gift.”

Kirk Vexalor cursed under his breath as he scowled at his wolf-bonded.

“Prepare your wolves for departure.” Corvessa’s gaze swept over me, and a tremor of unease prickled down my spine.

Kaelric spun to face me, and I swallowed hard. “Where is Cassian?” I asked him.

His face said the one thing I had been thinking.

“No,” I breathed.

“They may just have him locked up. Punishing him for bringing aid to the Dregs after the fire.” Kaelric’s hand swept out and brushed the hair from my face .

“Punish someone for bringing relief to people without homes? They’re evil. I hate them,” I growled. Valkaryn vibrated at my hip in agreement.

Kaelric nodded. “Which is why you need to win. You have to bring magic to your people and show the Elites that they are not the only ones deserving of it.”

Watchers stepped out of the openings in the mountain and walked towards Kaelric and Kirk’s wolfkin.

I rushed forward, popping up on my tiptoes to whisper in Kaelric’s ear: “I’m in love with you, too,” I said, and when I pulled back, he was grinning from ear to ear.

I hadn’t said it back yet. I wanted to savor him saying it first, but I didn’t want to die without telling the food-obsessed furball that I loved him.

‘We can still communicate mentally. It will be okay. You don’t need me to win this,’ Kaelric told me as the Watcher clamped yellow binding rings around his wrists.

I nodded, trying to believe him.

Once he was taken away, it was just Kirk and me. The House of Vexalor initiate glared at me as the arena quieted in that breathless way right before a storm. Even the sponsors seemed to sense it, their chatter dying as the stone floor of the space shuddered.

What was happening ?

The center of the floor suddenly split with a grinding roar. Both Kirk and I staggered backward as dust plumed up. A circular section sank away to reveal a jagged chasm lit by cold blue light. From its depths, two stone pillars rose like teeth.

Kaelric stood, bound on one, magical chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and a black blindfold over his eyes.

His hands were tied above his head and hooked on a nail that was imbedded into the pillar.

Across the gulf, the second pillar held another prisoner, Kirk’s broad-shouldered wolfkin.

He was similarly bound. A woman’s cry pierced the hush, and it took a second to realize it was mine.

Kirk Vexalor, however, was completely silent, uncaring that his wolfkin was standing over a void, bound and gagged. He stepped forward, his jaw set.

‘I’m okay,’ Kaelric told me. ‘Focus on the trial.’

Above the chasm, a giant clock unfurled out of thin air. Runes spun inside its glass face. The minute hand snapped to the twelve with an audible click. The hour hand shivered into place. Corvessa lifted her arm, and the dial flared with blue light.

“One hour,” she announced, her voice amplified by woven magic. “Two initiates. Two bonds. One path. The first to free their own wins the Arcane Trials and earns the mountain’s favor.”

Her gaze cut to me. She smiled the kind of smile that promised nothing good.

“Begin.”

With that, a labyrinth sprang up around the chasm, as if rising from thin air, a spiral of glossy ten-foot black walls veined with light. The passages were narrow, barely wide enough for two to pass. It erected too fast for me to see anything or mark a path to the center, where Kaelric was bound.

I did not move. Not yet. I peered up over the top of the walls and found Kaelric in the center. He had lifted his head. The wind caught his hair, and he looked as if I let him loose that he would rip Corvessa’s head from her tiny body.

‘You’ve got this.’ His voice brushed my mind like a palm to the cheek.

‘Hold on,’ I answered, ‘I’m coming.’

Valkaryn was warm in my grip. The sword’s wolf at the hilt gleamed, eyes lit with a hidden ember. The blade hummed, and I knew Valkaryn was ready to help me end this. Kirk was already inside.

‘Do not waste any time,’ she murmured from somewhere behind the metal and the heat. ‘Move, girl.’

I moved, no longer held by fear, or shock, or possible failure.

The first passage bent left, then right, then into a fork where a translucent gate of odd lettering shimmered.

Kirk’s footfalls slapped stone in a parallel corridor to my right.

I couldn’t see him, but I heard his breath as he drew in, sharp and measured.

He moved as if he had trained for this since childhood, which he probably had.

I tried not to think about that, or the way the magical bindings dug into Kaelric’s arms and legs as he hung somewhere above me.

The gate before me bore a triangle etched with a wolf's paw inside it, and beneath that, an old script.

The characters felt familiar in the way a word can feel familiar on your tongue, even when you cannot say it.

It took me a second to realize it was Vaskari, the wolfkin language Kaelric sometimes spoke.

‘It’s a puzzle. Kaelric can solve it,’ Valkaryn told me.

‘I’m standing in front of Vaskari lettering. I don’t know what it says. It looks like three words,’ I told Kaelric.

‘Tell me,’ he urged.

‘Vasketh, korath, sevarn.’ I tried my best to pronounce it properly, but probably failed.

‘Bloodline, burden, vow!’ he said quickly.

“Bloodline, burden, vow,” I whispered to the gate.

The sponsor mark at my collarbone pulsed, and I had the brief sensation of tingling down my spine. The gate dissolved in glittering light, revealing a new corridor beyond.

I sprinted through before the gate could close, which it did behind me, just in time for Kirk to pound on it, growling.

I followed a series of sharp turns, then went up a set of stairs that led nowhere, only to be led back down the way I came.

I passed alcoves that emitted cold air and the stale smell of ancient magic.

After about fifteen minutes of being stuck in the maze, the clock above chimed, and both wolfkins gave a cry of pain.

I skidded to a stop, peering up to see Kaelric standing on the stone column, his hands bound before him. The bindings were glowing a fiery orange, and smoke curled up from the skin on his wrists.

They were burning him? Because I was taking too long? They said we had an hour!

‘Let’s move quickly. Keep going. Don’t focus on him. He’s strong,’ Valkaryn told me.

With a grunt, I ran faster, hugging the inside curves of the walls and counting under my breath to keep the panic from snagging my steps. Was I lost? Nine right turns, three left, a narrow squeeze between two pillars.

Somewhere behind me, stone groaned, and the realization hit me. The labyrinth was moving its bones.

I turned a corner and stepped into what looked like a room, circular and empty except for a shallow bowl at its center. I hesitated, creeping closer to see that the bowl held water clear enough to see the stone beneath it. Words crawled across the surface, letters made from light.

Choose what to keep. Choose what to lose. Fear crept up my spine. Choose what to lose? I didn’t want to lose anything. What did it mean?

A stone creaked behind me, and I spun to see that the entrance I had come through was now sealed. Two new doorways bloomed on the far side, identical except for the symbols burned above them. On the left, a wolf’s eye. On the right, a blade pointed downward.

What in the Hades? It was a test… or a trick.

‘What do I do?’ I asked Valkaryn.