Ice Wolves Read online

  But first, he had to find a way to become human again, so he could speak. Though he was unquestionably still himself inside this new body, the influx of extra information his suddenly sharp senses insisted on providing was tugging his thoughts in a different direction every moment. His nose and ears kept reporting on new sounds and scents, trying to steer his thoughts in new and different directions, to pay attention to everything happening around him.

  He closed his eyes and looked inside himself, trying to remember what it felt like to be human, noticing the differences and separating them out.

  He pushed his mind deeper into those human feelings and memories, and suddenly he felt the change surging toward him like a sneeze. With a rush, he was human once more.

  He could feel the cold cobblestones against the soles of his feet, and the tips of his fingers, and he could—but wait. If his feet were bare, where were his boots?

  Forget his boots, where were his clothes?

  Anders made a sound very like the whimper he’d made as a wolf, dropping his head. Of course he was naked. Of course he was. The Wolf Guard might have absorbed their uniforms into their fur somehow, but he’d felt his shirt rip. And to think he’d been stupid enough to assume just for one moment that his day couldn’t get any worse.

  Clearly he’d been wrong about that.

  He heard a roar from the sky overhead, and tipped his head back just in time to see the dragon—Rayna—the dragon that was Rayna—soar past, winging her way toward the farmland outside the city. Suddenly he became aware of the screams out in the streets of Holbard once more.

  “Rayna!” he shouted as she vanished. “Rayna, come back, I’m here! You can change back, you can . . .”

  But Rayna was gone, and Anders had never been more alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ANDERS LEANED AGAINST THE STACKED crates, despondent, then stopped leaning against them when he got a splinter in his side. His ribs were already aching where Rayna’s tail had smacked into them. But that wasn’t his biggest problem.

  There was nothing here he could use for clothing—and even if he somehow dressed himself, he had no idea how to find Rayna. He could still hear the distant roar of the crowd, though he was several minutes’ run from the port. He didn’t understand any of what had just happened, didn’t know what to do next, had no idea—

  But just as he began to spiral into panic, he heard a growl at the mouth of the alleyway, and then a soft whine. His heart picked up speed as he crouched, peeking through a crack between two crates. Perhaps he could hide. Perhaps he could . . . Oh no. There were three wolves at the mouth of the alleyway, noses to the ground. Tracking him.

  The largest of the three growled again, and they each blurred, then seemed to stretch, fur fading into gray uniforms as they rose up on their hind legs and suddenly became human once more. And naturally, they were still wearing their clothes. There must be some trick to it he didn’t know.

  There were two adults—a man and a woman—each in the neat gray uniform of the Wolf Guard, their heavy cloaks open over their shirts and trousers and neatly polished boots, their hair clipped short. The third was a girl his own age, her gray cloak edged in white, marking her as an Ulfar Academy student. She must have been there to watch the Trial.

  “Are you all right?” It was the leader of the trio speaking, a big, broad-shouldered man with a neatly trimmed beard and square, black, thick-rimmed glasses. He had been silver-gray as a wolf, but as a human his hair was black, his skin a medium brown.

  “Um.” Anders was dying inside, but there was only one answer he could give, because he knew they’d want him to come out from behind the crates next. “I ripped my way out of my clothes. I don’t have . . .”

  There was laughter from the other side of the crates, and even though it wasn’t unkind, Anders squeezed his eyes tight shut in embarrassment.

  “Hold on,” the man said, and there was a rustling sound. Then footsteps approached, and when Anders forced himself to look, a hand was reaching around the crates, holding an assortment of clothes. The girl’s white-edged cloak was there, along with a far-too-big gray shirt, a pair of someone’s long johns, and a belt. He was in no position to argue, grabbing the clothes and getting to work covering up.

  “Did the dragon hurt you?” the woman asked.

  “No, I—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “It’s all right, she’s gone.”

  Anders opened his mouth and then closed it again. He already knew it was all right—Rayna would never hurt him.

  Except she very nearly had.

  Instead of answering, he cinched the belt tight to keep the long johns up, and pulled on the cloak over the shirt, puzzling for a few moments over how to fasten it. Now the shock was starting to wear off, he was getting properly cold, and he could feel his toes starting to turn numb.

  The three wolves were still tense as he walked out from behind the crates, but their concern wasn’t directed at him—the leader was staring up at the sky, while the woman watched the mouth of the alleyway. They were keeping watch for Rayna, or some other new threat, he realized.

  Only the girl was looking at him, and she offered him a polite nod, reserved but friendly. She was about Rayna’s height, but as wiry as Anders was. She had short-cropped, curling black hair, a serious expression, and white skin nearly hidden under more freckles than anyone Anders had ever seen. She looked none the colder for having given him her cloak, though she now stood there in her shirtsleeves.

  Then the moment was over, as the leader of the group tilted his head to study Anders, a hint of wolf in the gesture. “Congratulations on your transformation,” he said wryly. “The circumstances might be less than ideal, but we welcome every new member of our pack.”

  Anders sucked in a quick breath. Wait, what? He didn’t want to join a pack! He wasn’t going to Ulfar, he had to find Rayna.

  Behind him, the woman lifted her hand to grasp the amulet at her throat. “And we’ll get you one of these,” she said. “It helps your shirt stay where it belongs when you change. Helps you control when you change at all. At first it’s like sneezing, you can’t help it; it happens about every time you get excited, or scared, or feel anything overwhelming. But if you’re wearing an amulet, it only happens when you want it to.”

  His cheeks were burning. But behind the embarrassment and the fear and the confusion, the gravity of what had happened was kicking in.

  Anders had transformed.

  He had become an ice wolf—one of the few, one of the chosen.

  His brain wrestled with the idea, trying to shake it off on the basis that Anders hadn’t been special a single day of his life, but it was impossible to deny.

  “I’m Hayn Mekkinsen,” the leader said, pushing his square glasses up his nose. “Did you have parents back in the square that we need to find?”

  Years of practice came together instinctively, and Anders opened his mouth to lie. The rules were simple. Never admit you were connected. Never give your real names. Never admit you didn’t have any parents. But how was he going to produce parents if he said yes? “I, uh . . .”

  Then he realized that Hayn had made the words a question. Whether it was the ragged clothes he’d been wearing before his transformation—he realized with a pang he’d lost the whole morning’s loot when his jacket was ripped away from his body—or his too-skinny frame, or his slightly too-long hair that had turned messy and needed cutting, they suspected. There were enough children in Holbard on their own that Hayn was obviously familiar with the existence of street orphans.

  “If not, you have family now,” Hayn continued. “We take care of our pack. You’ll be fed and clothed, housed and trained at Ulfar Academy.”

  Anders breathed out slowly, though suddenly his lungs felt shallow. He could barely imagine one of those things—knowing where all his meals would come from, knowing he had a safe place to sleep, going to school—let alone all of them. “No parents, Herro Mekkinsen,” he admitted, feeling the thi
ck wool of the cloak between his fingertips, absorbing its warmth, its luxury. The girl who owned it offered him a shy smile.

  He couldn’t have smiled back if he wanted to. He drew a shaky breath, trying to think what he could say to get away from them.

  “Don’t worry,” said Hayn, apparently recognizing his fear but misunderstanding the source. “If another dragon spy makes it into the city, we won’t miss our chance again. We were sent to find you, but others are still tracking her.”

  Ice slid down Anders’s spine, like one of the spears the wolves had thrown at Rayna as she fled the square. These people might sound friendly, but they weren’t safe, not for him.

  These people were hunting his sister, which meant they were hunting him too. They just didn’t know it yet. They’d thrown their ice spears at her, tried to kill her, and they might as well have thrown them at him.

  “You were near her,” said the woman, frowning. “Did you know her?”

  Anders shook his head stiffly. Rule number one. “No, Dama. We were both trying to get up to the dais, but the crowd was thick,” he said, his mouth dry, the words coming slowly. “I’ve seen her on the streets before, but I don’t know her.”

  “We’ll find out who she is,” Hayn said. “And we’ll find out where she is.”

  Anders couldn’t stay with them a second longer than he had to. If he did, he’d surely give away their connection by saying something stupid. He had to find a way to get away from them, and soon.

  Rayna had a long head start on the wolves—she had been flying, after all. If she managed to sneak back into the city, he had to be waiting for her, not locked behind the towering gates of Ulfar.

  The Academy itself was a huge building, housing all the children who successfully made their transformation at twelve. It was half school, half military barracks, because if you could transform, there was only one job in your future.

  You’d be a part of the Wolf Guard, patrolling the streets to enforce the law, protecting Vallen against dragons, or helping raise the next generation. The barracks for the adult wolves was next door to the Academy, joined to it and surrounded by the same high walls. The students were small guards-in-waiting.

  The Academy students only ever seemed to come out into the city in groups of four, or with adult members of the guard. He’d be trapped in their midst when he needed to move independently to either meet Rayna or figure out how to find her.

  If their positions were reversed, he knew Rayna would walk straight through anything in her path to get to him. Now it was up to him to do the same.

  The wolves left him to his thoughts as the four of them made their way out onto the streets once more. Hayn and the woman reached down toward the ground, figures growing leaner in a way that was hard for Anders’s eyes to follow. It was as if his brain was telling him that what he was seeing was impossible, and therefore refusing to let him see it properly.

  By the time he’d finished that thought, they were wolves once more, lifting their noses to scent any approaching threats. The change had felt to him like his body was on fire, but they’d made it look so easy. The pair trotted ahead of the two remaining humans, and the townspeople were quick to move out of their way.

  The aftermath of Rayna’s flight was visible all around them. The streets were crowded with people, everyone abuzz with their own version of the story, but they stayed close to their doorways, ready to duck back inside if the dragon returned to attack once more. The middle of the cobblestone street was clear, and the wolves and humans made their way down it with every pair of eyes tracking their movement. With the girl’s cloak on over his makeshift clothes, Anders knew he looked like one of the guard.

  Except he knew he walked differently from the rest of them, just as he was different from them. There was a grace to their movements, something wolfish, even when they were human. A confidence. They walked as if they knew people were watching.

  He glanced sidelong at the girl and found her looking at him. “I’m Lisabet,” she said quietly. Then, her lips quirking: “Don’t worry about this. There’s a reason they tell new students to stay in wolf form all the way back to the Academy. There’s always one that gets caught out every few years, and they don’t have a dragon for an excuse. Just think, at least you didn’t change back up on the dais.”

  Anders felt himself go cold just thinking about that. She was right, he could have ended up naked in the middle of the docks. He’d literally had nightmares about that sort of thing. He knew she was trying to be nice, so he made himself try to smile back.

  Lisabet was the only Ulfar student Anders had ever seen without a group of four, and he wondered if there was something special about her. He felt like he should introduce himself, but he couldn’t remember a single made-up name to give her. “Thanks for the cloak,” he whispered back instead. She smiled again.

  He’d never seen a wolf smile before, or at least not in human form. Sometimes when they trotted through the streets of Holbard in pairs on patrol, tongues lolling out, they seemed almost to be smiling at the fun of weaving through the crowd. But there was something gentle about this girl that didn’t fit with the idea he had in his head of the Academy students.

  Anders had never wondered before what happened to the children who made their transformation, but didn’t want to fight, or train, or learn to salute and patrol as the guard members. But now he did.

  He wasn’t sure if these new questions were about Lisabet or himself.

  They turned a corner, and he caught a glimpse of the dockside square where the Trial of the Staff had been held. He forgot about his speculation, his worries flooding back. The streets were more peopled now, merchers and townspeople making their way out to gossip and gawk at the wreckage of the dais, though everybody kept one careful eye on the sky.

  In a minute they’d be in the square, where there would be even more wolves, and then past it to the Academy. How would he ever get away then?

  Anders cast his gaze around desperately for a diversion. He needed something to give him a moment’s head start, if he was going to run. If this had been any other day, if he’d been in any other scrape, Rayna would have been out there keeping pace with him, ready to cause chaos at just the right moment.

  Now, with the seconds ticking away, Anders was stuck on his own, and this kind of thing never went right for him.

  He scanned the crowd, hunting for an ally.

  Plenty of the children who ran wild on Vallen’s streets like Anders and Rayna spent their time around the docks, for exactly the same reason he and his twin did—the crowds were thick, the pickings were good, and there were always a labyrinth of alleyways and rooftops over which you could escape if things went wrong. Now, Anders needed just one of them to show up.

  He didn’t exactly have what he’d call friends—when you were competing for scraps, temporary alliances were usually the best you could expect, and anyway, he’d always had Rayna. Right now he just needed someone—anyone.

  They were only a dozen steps away from the square when he spotted Jerro, the pickpocket he’d seen with Rayna on the rooftops of Trellig Square. They’d never known each other well, but they’d met plenty of times. Jerro’s gaze nearly skipped straight past him—he was in a gray wolf’s cloak, and nobody was stupid enough to pickpocket a wolf.

  Jerro’s eyes popped wide when he realized it was Anders in the white-trimmed, gray wolf uniform, and he stumbled a step, ricocheting off a woman who was busy muscling a huge barrel of silver fish into place, bringing her wares back out now that the danger was past.

  Anders didn’t waste a moment. He lifted his right hand to make a fist and extended his thumb to touch it to his right ear. Help me, that signal said. It’s urgent.

  According to the rules of the street, this was the most important signal there was. You had to help someone who gave it, and everybody did, because you never knew when it might be you giving the signal.

  Still, Jerro hesitated for an excruciating moment, his gaze flicking over
the guards, weighing the risks. Then he nodded, and barged forward into the woman with the barrel, bending at the waist to drive his shoulder in against her for maximum impact.

  She fell against the barrel, and with a clatter it tipped over sideways, a cascade of gleaming fish pouring out onto the street. A wave of salt-and-fish smell assaulted Anders’s nose, and hundreds of slimy silver fish slid under everyone’s feet. The nearby townsfolk and his wolfish escort went skating across the cobblestones with cries of alarm.

  Anders was the only one ready for the onslaught, and he jumped back and away from the scaly mess, pushing his way between a couple of onlookers. He peeled off the gray cloak as Jerro silently appeared next to him, hand extended. Anders shoved the cloak at him, and Jerro took off up the street, pulling it on over his ragged shirt.

  Anders ducked behind a pair of men as a silver-gray wolf he knew must be Hayn took off after Jerro, the others close behind him. Hoping the smell of the fish would block his scent, Anders clambered up onto a stack of wooden crates outside the next shop along. He glanced back to make sure the wolves hadn’t spotted him, then reached for the window frame on the second floor.

  His bare feet were almost numb, and for a dizzying moment Anders swung from one arm, trying to make his leg lift and his toes grip. Then his foot connected, and he was reaching for the gutters, pulling himself up to the safety of the rooftop meadow. He rolled onto his back, arms spread wide, ignoring the snowy sludge that was slowly soaking through his borrowed clothes.

  If Jerro could get away from the wolves—and he probably could, since he was fast, and he could climb where they couldn’t—then the cloak would be a reward for his help. It was warmer than anything Anders had ever known. A quick dunk in a vat of dye and it would be unrecognizable. In the meantime, Anders would stay up on the rooftops until he was well clear of the square.