Chapter 14: Rule One

Nessa's POV

The bell on the south wall rang three times, and the drill sergeant stopped mid-word.

We were forty early-arrival cadets in a line on the training ground, running footwork in the grey afternoon.

Then the outer gate blew inward.

Rogues poured through the gap, filthy and starved, and they were not looking at the sergeant.

They were looking at me.

"Silver!" one of them shouted. "The silver one!"

Every cadet in the line turned their head and stared.

I did not have time to be ashamed.

The first rogue was on me before I had finished my breath.

I let the wolf out.

It tore through me, bone and skin and fur, and I came down on four feet taller than the sergeant's shoulder.

The rogue hit my chest and I threw him thirty feet.

Two more came, and I broke the first one's leg and put the second into the wall.

My fur was bright silver, and I could feel every cadet behind me, afraid and not running.

Someone shouted my name for the first time that was not a sneer.

I looked up once, because I felt eyes on me.

Poppy stood at the balcony rail above the yard, in her pink dress, with both hands on the stone.

She was not hiding.

She was watching the rogues come for me, and her face was perfectly still.

Then a black wolf the size of a horse came over the wall.

Torin hit the nearest rogue so hard that it did not get up.

He landed beside me, grey eyes on mine, and for one second we stood shoulder to shoulder with the blood flying.

Then the rogue leader came out of the tree line.

He was huge and scarred, with one ear torn off, and he went straight for my throat.

I saw him leap.

I did not see Torin move.

The black wolf took the leader's whole weight across his own side, and I heard the leader open him.

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