Lucy
The air at the edge of the Shadowwood is thick with the scent of damp earth and fear. A hundred contenders stand in a line, breathing it in. I watch them, the Alphas with their chests puffed out, the Betas shifting nervously from foot to foot. Their nostrils flare. Their wolves are tasting the air, searching for threats, for advantages. My wolf is silent. She has always been silent.
“Just… try to stay away from the others,” Leo whispers beside me, his knuckles white where he grips a small satchel. “Especially Marin.”
“That’s the plan,” I murmur back. “You too. Trust your eyes, not your nose today.”
He gives me a confused look, but there is no time to explain. A loud, jarring gong echoes across the clearing, the signal to begin. Pandemonium erupts. With howls and snarls, the contenders surge forward, a wave of muscle and ambition crashing into the dark maw of the forest.
I do not run with them. I wait. I let the thunder of their boots fade, let the chaos recede into the woods. I am in no hurry. This is not a race of speed. It is a race of survival.
When the clearing is empty, I step over the starting line and into the shadows. The magic of the wood is immediate. It’s a low hum in the air, a pressure against my skin. It feels like walking underwater. I see the light bend in strange ways at the corner of my vision. I hear phantom whispers that sound like my name, like Lyra’s name.
I ignore them. They are lies for wolves. I am not a wolf.
I close my eyes for a moment, letting my other senses take over. I feel the slight vibration in the ground, the direction the main pack traveled. I smell the crushed leaves, the tang of pine, the underlying scent of decay that is the forest’s true breath. These are real. These are things the magic does not bother to hide.
Instead of following the main path, I turn west, toward a rocky outcrop I noted from the starting line. The terrain will be more difficult. Most will avoid it. Good.
An hour passes. The woods are a symphony of deception. I see a flicker of movement, a large, hulking shape that looks like a bear, but when I freeze, it dissolves into a trick of the light on a mossy boulder. I hear the snap of a twig nearby, but the sound is wrong, too loud, designed to create panic. The forest is screaming at my nonexistent wolf, and I am the only one who can hear the silence underneath.
I find my first relic by following a trail of silence. A small section of the woods where the birds are not singing. Birds are smarter than wolves. They know true danger from magical illusion. In the center of the quiet patch, tucked into the hollow of a lightning scarred tree, is a small, glowing stone. I slip it into my satchel. The weight is reassuring.
I continue on, my movements slow and deliberate. I read the signs they all ignore. The path of a beetle on a leaf. The pattern of dew on a spider’s web. The forest speaks a language older than wolves, and I have spent my whole life learning it.
Then I hear something real. A heavy, dragging sound. It is accompanied by a low, guttural breathing that seems to make the very air tremble. This is not an illusion. I drop into a crouch behind a thicket of ferns, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs.
Through the leaves, I see it. A Gravemaw. It’s a horrifying creature, a mass of muscle and matted fur with a head that is mostly a cavernous mouth lined with teeth like broken shards of rock. It is almost blind, hunting by sound and scent. And it is moving in my direction.
This is no accident. The path it takes is too deliberate. I risk a peek over the ferns, scanning the woods beyond the creature. A flash of silver catches my eye. Marin. She stands on a ridge a hundred yards away, one of her cronies beside her. I can’t hear her, but I can see the triumphant smirk on her face. She isn’t just hunting for relics. She is hunting me. She baited the beast, drew it with some scent or sound, and is now herding it toward me.
My blood runs cold. There is no outrunning a Gravemaw in a straight line. It is relentless. Panic licks at the edges of my mind, a familiar, useless fire. I shove it down. Panicking is what she wants. Panicking is how I die.
I scan my surroundings, my eyes darting from tree to rock to root. My mind races, searching for a weapon, an escape. Then I see it. A small cluster of pale, ugly looking fungi growing at the base of a dead tree. Screechroot. My father taught me about it. He called it the forest’s alarm bell. Harmless to the touch, but if the bulb at its base is ruptured, it releases a gas that creates a sound so high pitched, so piercing, it mimics the death scream of a large animal.
A plan forms, desperate and dangerous. I need a diversion. I need to make the Gravemaw change course. I look back toward the ridge. Marin is gone, but her friend is still there. Marcus. The one who bet I would be eaten by a badger.
He is moving down the ridge, paralleling the Gravemaw’s path, ensuring it stays on course toward me. He thinks this is a game. He thinks I am trapped prey.
I pull a small, flat rock from the dirt beside me. It fits perfectly in my palm. This has to be perfect. I have one chance.
I wait. The Gravemaw gets closer. The ground shakes with each of its heavy steps. Its rotten scent fills the air. It is fifty feet away. Forty. Thirty. I can see the slobber dripping from its massive jaw.
I rise from my hiding place, just enough to get a clear line of sight to the Screechroot. Marcus sees the movement. I can see his grin from here. He thinks I am making a run for it.
I do not run. I stand my ground. With a flick of my wrist, I throw the stone. It flies true, a perfect arc through the still forest air. It strikes the base of the fungus with a sharp crack.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then, a sound that is not a sound rips through the woods. It is a pressure, a physical spike of noise that bypasses my ears and stabs directly into my brain. It is the sound of pure agony.
The Gravemaw stops dead. Its massive head swings toward the source of the noise. A low growl rumbles in its chest, a sound of predatory glee. It has found better prey. Easier prey. It forgets about me completely. It changes direction, crashing through the undergrowth with renewed purpose, a battering ram of hunger.
Its new path takes it directly toward Marcus’s position.
The grin on his face vanishes, replaced by a mask of pure terror. He finally understands. He turns to run, but he is clumsy, loud. His wolf senses, already scrambled by the forest’s magic, are now completely overloaded by the shriek of the fungus. He stumbles, crashing through a bush.
It is the last mistake he will ever make.
I do not stay to watch. I turn and move away, fast and silent, my feet barely touching the ground. A moment later, a raw, human scream tears through the air. It is cut short abruptly.
Then, a new sound. A cool, magical voice echoes through the entire forest, a proclamation from the Game Masters.
“Contender Marcus Thorne of the Silvermoon alliance has been eliminated.”
The silence that follows is more profound than before. I keep moving, my heart hammering, the ghost of his scream chasing me through the trees.
I find two more relics before the sun begins to dip below the horizon, painting the enchanted canopy in shades of orange and blood. The gong sounds again, signaling the end of the Hunt. I am far from the finish line, but I know the way back. Not by instinct, but by memory. I have been mapping my path all day.
I emerge from the woods as the last light fades. The clearing is filled with the surviving contenders. They are battered, bruised, and muddy. Leo sees me and rushes over, his face a mixture of relief and exhaustion. He has a long scratch on his cheek, but he is smiling. He holds up a single relic.
“I made it,” he breathes. “I just hid in a cave for the last three hours.”
“Smart,” I say, my lips quirking into a smile.
Our attention is drawn to the large scoreboard. The final rankings are appearing as the last of the contenders stumble out of the forest. Marin’s name is near the top, as expected. She has eight relics. Others have five, or six.
Then my name appears. Lucy Clearwater. Three relics. My rank flashes beside it: 24.
Out of fifty contenders who started, just over forty have finished. I am not near the top. But I am not at the bottom. I am squarely in the middle. I survived. I succeeded.
A ripple of shock moves through the crowd. Murmurs and whispers erupt. Heads turn in my direction. They are not looks of pity or contempt anymore. They are looks of confusion. Of disbelief.
Marin storms toward me, her face a thundercloud of fury. Her perfect hair is tangled with leaves, her silver tunic is torn at the sleeve. She gets right in my face, her voice a low, venomous hiss.
“What did you do?”
“I survived,” I say, my voice even.
“Marcus is gone. You did something. You cheated. There is no way a worthless, wolfless dud could have done this. How?”
I look into her furious, silver eyes. For the first time, I do not feel fear. I do not feel anger. I feel a cool, calm clarity. The same clarity I felt in the woods.
“You should have bet on the badger,” I say.
Her face contorts with rage. She opens her mouth to scream, to accuse, to attack. But she stops. She sees something in my eyes. Something that wasn’t there this morning. Something new.
And as I stand there, under the gaze of every contender, under the shocked stare of the academy, I realize what it is.
It’s the first flicker of my own power.
