Ice Wolves Read online

  It was a life Anders would never have, though—he’d never belong to anything as important as Ulfar, and he’d never have a family lineage he could recite like that. Rayna was all he had—and she was more than enough, he reminded himself.

  But sometimes, especially on the hungry days, he wished he too had a mother or father, aunts or uncles, or grandparents.

  The boy reached for the Staff of Hadda, then hesitated. So many hands had gripped it over the years that the pale wood was worn smooth, a long strip of engraved metal wrapping around it in a spiral. The staff was one of the most important artifacts in Vallen. Only the most powerful were named for their creators, and for the wolves the Staff of Hadda transformed, it was a ticket to a new life.

  Bracing himself, Natan grasped the staff, and the whole square held its breath—even Anders and Rayna paused, standing side by side.

  Nothing happened.

  Several heartbeats later, Sigrid reached out to rest her hand on Natan’s shoulder, slowly guiding him back and away from the staff. “Vallen thanks you for your willingness to serve,” she said, but as she released him, and he stumbled to the edge of the dais to walk slowly down the stairs, she was already looking hungrily at the next girl in line. Anders bit his lip, watching the other boy’s shoulders slump.

  The next girl didn’t transform either. Rayna grabbed Anders’s hand, giving him a squeeze as reminder that they had work to do. They picked their way through the crowd, scoring a copper here, another two coppers there, Rayna doing the bold work of distraction, Anders carefully taking hold of the money and trying not to alert his marks or mess it up.

  The familiar ceremony wore on in the background as candidate after candidate recited their lineage as proof of their right to undertake the Trial, and trembling, grasped the staff. The mood in the square grew darker as every single one of them stubbornly stayed in human shape.

  Now, more than ever, Vallen needed more wolves, more members of the guard, more defenders. But this month yielded up none at all. Anders couldn’t remember there ever being none before.

  He slid his hand into a tall man’s fancy coat pocket as a frail-looking girl made her way down the steps, head low. The twins were a little closer to the dais—and a little farther from an escape route—than Anders liked to be. Rayna was completely confident as she tossed her braid again and accidentally bumped into a pair of merchers, but Anders didn’t have her courage, and his hand was shaking as he tried for one final coin.

  He couldn’t help watching the girl making her way down from the stage, feeling bad for her. Her shirt and trousers were neat but plain, a little old-fashioned. She’d come in from the countryside with her parents, most likely, and it would be a long trip home with nothing to show for it.

  He curled his fingers around a coin that felt heavy—silver, perhaps. And maybe because his mind was on the girl, imagining the creak of the cart as they drove home in silence, he caught his wrist on the seam at the edge of the pocket, and for an instant his hand was stuck. He cursed inwardly, easing it free, lifting onto the balls of his feet so he could step back the moment it was clear—but it was too late. The mercher turned his head almost in slow-motion, eyes widening, mouth opening to shout.

  “Thief!” he bellowed, one hand clamping down on Anders’s wrist with an iron grip. Anders only had time to drop the coin back into his pocket before he was yanked off balance, hauled forward so the man could get a better look at him. No, no! Why did he always mess things up? “This boy was picking my pocket,” the man announced, glaring down at Anders, his thick blond brows crowding together in disapproval.

  “I wasn’t!” Anders protested automatically. “I don’t have anything in my hand!” Because I just dropped it back into your pocket. But he knew that wasn’t going to be enough. When he lifted his head, he could already see a member of the guard jumping down from the dais to push through the crowd toward him, and the people around them were drawing back, like they wanted to distance themselves from the crime.

  “You’re a thief,” the man insisted, as Anders tried in vain to stop himself shaking, forcing himself not to look at Rayna—he couldn’t afford for her to be caught too. “And if you have nothing, it’s only because you’re a bad one. In a minute, my child, you’re going to wish you’d been good.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ONE MOMENT ANDERS WAS STARING UP AT the mercher holding his wrist, trying not to whimper at the pain of his wrist bones practically grinding together, breath stuck in his throat as terror crept through him. And the next moment, Rayna was at his side.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, barging through a pair of women to reach Anders. “Get your hands off him, you bully! He was just trying to get past.”

  “Past?” the man repeated, blinking. His grip on Anders didn’t slacken, but like most people confronted with Rayna, he already looked a little overwhelmed.

  “Past,” she repeated, rolling her eyes, as if he needed the word spoken a little slower so he’d understand. “You don’t look like you’re twelve to me, so unless you’re here for the Trial, you need to get out of the way of those of us trying to get in the line. You’re standing right here in front of it, blocking the way, so what did you expect? It’s not this boy’s fault he’s too polite to shove through.”

  “And who are you?” he asked, drawing himself up to his full height, pulling Anders a stumbling step closer. Anders winced. Rayna was as nimble with her words as she was with her feet, but Anders didn’t like the way this was heading.

  Rayna didn’t miss a beat. “I’m the girl who was trying to get behind him in the line,” she replied, as though it was obvious. That was the first rule of defending each other—never admit you were twins. People believed you more easily if they didn’t think you had anything to do with the other one. “Now, can we get to the dais or not?”

  The dais? Anders froze.

  By now a member of the Wolf Guard had arrived—a tall woman with a flawless gray uniform, her cloak hanging open to reveal the crisp shirt and trousers below, black boots shining. The crest of Ulfar—a fierce wolf guarding the city of Holbard itself—snarled down at Anders from where it was fixed on her chest. “You’re here for the Trial?” she asked, gaze falling on Rayna.

  “We both are,” Rayna said, at the same time as the man still holding Anders tried to protest they were here for nothing of the sort. But his grip slackened, and Anders yanked his wrist free, rubbing it with his other hand.

  “Then you should be on the dais,” the woman said, turning to lead the way back toward it without another word. Before the man had a chance to protest, Rayna grabbed Anders’s hand and hauled him toward the dais in the woman’s wake.

  People were turning toward them from every direction, and Anders kept his head down, face hot. Rayna had got them out of the frying pan and into the fire, as always, and he was left trying to catch up, wishing that for once he’d been quick enough on his feet to know the right thing to say, the right thing to do.

  But instead, he was climbing the wooden stairs to the dais, only a few feet from the Fyrstulf herself, every face in the crowd turned toward him. He glanced out at them, knowing what they saw—a gangly boy in patched and battered clothes, blinking awkwardly at all the attention, with hair in need of a cut and face in need of a wash.

  He knew as well that he was thinking about his appearance to avoid thinking of the hundreds of pairs of eyes on him, all waiting for him to do or say something that would reveal he had no right to be on the dais at all. He and Rayna had no idea who their parents, let alone ancestors, were, but he was sure there was nothing special about them.

  What happened if you touched the Staff of Hadda without a single drop of wolf blood in your veins? Perhaps they’d get out of this yet—just fail the Trial and manage to slip away before the angry mercher caught up with them. The crowd was still nervous after that huge gust of wind, which might make it easier to disappear.

  Rayna was standing ahead of him—after all, she’d physically h
auled him up the stairs—and she shot the Fyrstulf her most winning smile, stepping up front and center to present her family history. This should be interesting.

  “My name is Estrid Larsen,” she announced, which was news to Anders along with everyone else, though he wasn’t surprised. If the first rule of staying safe together was never admitting you were connected, the second was never giving your real names. “And my family is strong in ice wolf blood. My grandmother was Ida Larsen, who was a member of the Wolf Guard, and—”

  “What was that name?” Sigrid Turnsen, the Fyrstulf, was frowning.

  “Ida Larsen,” Rayna—uh, Estrid—supplied helpfully.

  “I don’t recall her,” Sigrid said, still frowning.

  “Oh, she was from out of town,” Rayna assured her glibly.

  “But to be a member of the Wolf Guard, she must have lived in Holbard,” Sigrid pointed out. The crowd was looking far too interested in this turn of events. Including the mercher, who had made his way to the front to wait for his turn with Anders.

  “She had terrible eyesight,” Rayna said, confident as ever, as Anders tried to hide his wince. “She couldn’t actually serve, it turned out. She lived a quiet life up in the mountains.”

  “In dragon territory?” Sigrid’s frown was now a permanent furrow between her brows. “But all members of the Wolf Guard live at the Ulfar Barracks. You’re about my daughter’s age; I’m sure I’d remember your grandmother.”

  “Did I say in the mountains?” Even Rayna was faltering now. “Lower down than dragon territory, obviously. More like foothills, really. Still! The most important thing isn’t who else successfully transformed, it’s whether I can, so I’ll just reach across here if you don’t mind, and—”

  Sigrid clearly did mind, but Rayna was already reaching past her, fingers outstretched toward the Staff of Hadda. Anders silently urged her on. The sooner she touched it and turned into nothing at all, the sooner they could make their escape. Even if he was going to have to recite his own imaginary lineage first.

  Rayna bit her lip, and wrapped her hand around the smooth wooden staff, gripping it tightly. As she did, Anders realized he was holding his breath, even though as far as he knew she was about as likely to transform into a cabbage as a wolf. He and Rayna had started out in an orphanage, then raised themselves after that on the streets of Holbard. They weren’t wolves waiting to happen.

  Abruptly, Rayna screamed, her eyes popping wide open, back arching as she flung out her free arm, drawing gasps from the crowd. She staggered back a step, swinging the Staff of Hadda so the two members of the Wolf Guard behind her were forced to jump out of the way.

  Stop, Anders urged her silently, wanting to sink down through the dais and into the ground, the hot flame of embarrassment taking over his body. This was Rayna, always selling the story, always so dramatic. But right now, the last thing they needed was more people looking at them.

  Rayna screamed again, dropping the staff and doubling over to brace her hands against her knees. She turned her head to cast a desperate glance at Anders, and like a crashing wave of ice-cold water had hit him, the embarrassment was gone.

  This was real—his sister was terrified. And this was nothing like any transformation he’d ever seen.

  He stepped forward, reaching for her, but she screamed again, raw and hoarse, staggering forward to fall from the dais, crashing to the flagstones below.

  The crowd jumped away as Rayna rolled onto her back, arms outflung. Her face darkened to a deep, unnatural burgundy, then shifted to shades of bright crimson, as if all her skin were bleeding at once. Hints of gold, bronze, and copper snaked in, glinting in the sun, racing down her neck to disappear beneath her clothes.

  As Anders watched in horror, frozen to the spot, her arms and legs seemed to stretch impossibly long, and the arms of her coat stretched and split, the tearing noise of the fabric lost beneath the screams of the crowd.

  The fabric shredded and vanished in seconds as Rayna’s body grew, doubling in size, then tripling, her neck lengthening, her mouth open in a hoarse, unending scream. Crimson, bronze, and copper wove together into glittering scales as they snaked across her skin, and a heartbeat later, Rayna was gone.

  In her place lay a scorch dragon fifteen feet long, sprawled on its back, claws raking through the air as it roared over the sound of the crowd. It scrambled, rolling onto its side and clambering to its feet, wings spreading wide, tail lashing in a long arc.

  This was impossible! Waves of heat washed over Anders, as if he were far too close to a fire—his skin stung, the lining of his throat burning as he dragged down air.

  “Attack!” the Fyrstulf screamed beside him, jolting Anders from his horror.

  The dragon’s tail swept toward him, catching him in the ribs and knocking him clean off his feet. Pain rippled through his body, and he couldn’t tell whether the heat—it was coming from the dragon, for certain—was burning him, or just blasting him. All he knew was that there was a dragon right above him, roaring so loudly the sound itself was like a living thing.

  He scrambled desperately off the dais and fell backward just as the long snake of a tail smashed through the supports on the stage, reducing it to so much firewood.

  He grabbed at a plank where it lay across his body, trying to shove it off him. Gasping for breath he sat up, pain shooting along his ribs. The Fyrstulf, Sigrid, lay beside him, dazed, a cut on her forehead bleeding.

  The dragon’s tail thrashed about again, and he ducked, rolling onto his hands and knees. Where had it come from? What had happened to Rayna?

  It was Rayna.

  The people in the crowd were screaming, and the dragon was roaring again, but somehow that realization cut through Anders’s thoughts, stopping him in his tracks. However it had happened, that dragon was his sister.

  All around him, the members of the Wolf Guard were transforming, their uniforms seeming to melt into their skin as they dropped to all fours, shaggy coats appearing where gray wool had been a moment before, teeth bared as they lifted their muzzles and snarled. Anders had never seen a wolf transform so close before, and their deep-throated growls were terrifying.

  The ice wolf beside him reared onto its hind legs, then crashed back down to earth. As its front paws hit the cobblestones, two long spears of ice burst from the ground, sharp and jagged, flying straight at the dragon’s gleaming side. They were like huge, deadly icicles with razor-sharp points—Anders had never seen them outside a puppet show or a play, but he knew immediately what was happening.

  Where they struck Rayna, her scales instantly turned gray with cold. She screamed, spreading her wings, and more wolves brought down their front paws on the ground, launching ice spears at her as Anders was forced to drop to his belly. He sensed them slicing through the air more than he saw them, like clean, cold arrows through the confusion of the heat.

  The dragon brought her wings down in a great sweep, and with her tail thrashing and her claws grabbing at the air as though to lift herself, she somehow took off. The downdraught flattened Anders, and he scrambled for the shelter of the wreckage behind him as the ice spears flew, and the crowd screamed, and the wolves howled.

  Then, beside him, he saw it—the Staff of Hadda. It was half buried in the wreckage of the dais, along with Anders. That smooth, worn pole had somehow triggered this dreadful transformation. He had to find a way to use it to transform Rayna back, but as he tried to make himself reach for it, he found himself yanking back his hand instead.

  What would happen to him if he touched it?

  Above him, the dragon—Rayna—screamed again, and he made himself grab for the staff.

  Pain rushed through him, setting his arms and legs on fire, and the screams of the crowd grew unbearably loud, his ears filling with the high-pitched wall of noise, his nose suddenly filled with the scent of sweat, of wet woolen clothing, and the musk of wolf fur. He felt his shirt tearing, and as his senses overwhelmed him, he could only think of one thing—run!


  He dug his fingertips—his claws (his what?!)—into the flagstones, scrambling free of the wreckage and pushing through the crowds, shoving a pair of knees aside and hurtling through a forest of legs. He suddenly broke free, tearing up a street, past the stationary wheels of a wagon and the legs of two rearing horses, past the houses and the wooden doorways that still showed their singe marks.

  Finally he turned a corner to find an alleyway, a stack of crates at one end offering a place to hide. He scampered in behind them, his breath coming in quick, short pants, his tongue lolling out as he tried to slow his thoughts, force himself to calm.

  All around him was the scent of the moss and mildew that grew in the shady alleyways the sun never reached, the muddy mush of melting snow, the wet wood of the crates.

  The lines of the alleyway were perfectly crisp, but the colors of the world had faded, subdued, as if night were falling—as if he’d run so fast he’d left all the bright shades of Holbard behind. But he was free of the crowd.

  Shaking, he looked down, and saw two gray paws stretched out in front of him. He tried to shout, but all that came out was a yelp.

  Suddenly seized by panic, he spun in a circle, stretching out his tail to catch his balance, and he—his tail!

  Understanding caught up to him in a rush, and he heard himself softly whimper. Rayna was a scorch dragon, and he was an ice wolf.

  He forced himself to stay silent, to stop panting, and again tried desperately to collect his thoughts. He had to find her.

  He had to explain to somebody that she was no dragon, she wasn’t the enemy—she was his twin, and it was impossible for the same family to transform into both wolf and dragon. The wolves defended Vallen against the dragons. It was forbidden to even befriend one, let alone share a family.

  Somehow this had been done to her—he was positive she was his twin, so there must be trickery involved—and he had to make the Wolf Guard understand that she wasn’t on the side of the dragons before they hurt her.