Chapter 8: Her Own Fight

The River circle was a ring of packed sand in the middle of the hall, and two hundred wolves stood around it.

The captain walked into it with a short sword in each hand.

She did not look at me.

She looked at Garrick.

"You'll fight for her, Rook?" she said. "I've heard you're good."

"I would," Garrick said.

"No," I said.

He turned.

"I've thought about it," he said quietly. "She is faster than you with those blades. You're hurt, and you've fought once today."

"I know."

"Let me take her."

"If I let you take it, I haven't sat the Test. I've watched a man sit it for me."

His hands closed and opened at his sides.

He hated it, and I could see him hate it.

Then he took the knife from his belt and put it hilt first into my hand.

"It's sharper than yours," he said. "Cut her wrist first."

"Why her wrist?"

"The swords are in the wrists."

I nodded, and walked into the sand.

The captain waited with a small, hard smile.

"Alpha's daughter," she said. "I'm sorry."

"No you aren't," I said.

"No," she said. "But it sounds polite."

She came at me all at once.

I had never seen a person move that fast.

The first sword went past my ear and cut a lock of my hair.

The second slashed across my ribs and opened my borrowed shirt.

I slid back on the sand, and blood ran warm down my side.

The hall roared.

I could not match her in my own skin, and I knew it before the third cut.

She was stronger and quicker, and she had trained with blades for twenty years.

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