Page 52 of On Broken Bonds

“You’re good, you’re good!” Thorian says, and I realize with a start that we’ve reached the bottom of the cliff. My hands are bloodied and raw, the tips of my fingers and toes numb from hanging on, but I flush with satisfaction.

There… I’ve gone through the first trial, and I’m not dead yet. So there must be a chance for me.

“Come on!” Thorian shouts, and his hand wraps around my bicep as he pulls me away from the cliff and toward the mass of competitors in the center of the clearing. He veers away from them, and I realize what he’s heading for. A leather bag on the outskirts of the clearing, perhaps thrown or dropped by someone else.

Just near it is a sword, which glints in the light, the sun reflecting off the iridescent stone in the hilt. It’s nestled in the grass like a flower, something sweet to be plucked up.

We’re going to get these things and avoid the fighting altogether.

To our right, cries of anger raise up, growling mixing in, the clash of metal-on-metal grating to my ears. I realize that, other than my practice sessions with Thorian, I have never really been around fighting.

I’ve certainly never witnessed a fight that resulted in death.

We reach the stuff. I grab the bag and throw it over my back, trying and failing to suppress the oof that bursts out of me at the weight of it, while Thorian picks up the sword, taking only a split second to admire it before he slides the strap of its sheath around his waist and trousers.

“Let’s go,” he says, turning to me, but his eyes widen at something over my shoulder.

My senses open, and I realize I can smell the distinct scent of dog, and feel warm breath on my shoulder, hot and moist with the stink of a saliva-filled mouth, fangs coated in the blood of a recent kill.

One of the shifters must have come for me. I let out a panicked noise and try to roll to the side, but the pack on my back hinders me, and Thorian has to scoop me up before the massive shifter can snap its jaws shut on my head.

My partner yanks me to my feet.

“Run!”

I don't need to be told twice.

My feet are already moving before my brain catches up, legs burning as I sprint away from the thing that just tried to take a bite out of me.

“I didn't—” I gasp, risking a glance over my shoulder.

At first glance, it looks like a wolf. Then my eyes catch up with reality. It's far too large.

Its shoulders rise nearly to Thorian's chest, and every movement ripples with thick muscle beneath silver-gray fur. Its paws are the size of dinner plates, each claw digging trenches into the earth as it charges after us. Yellow eyes lock onto me with terrifying intelligence, and when it opens its mouth, rows of teeth flash in the sunlight, each one longer than my finger.

The beast shakes out its massive head, lets out a snarl that rattles through my ribs, and fixes an even angrier gaze on us.

“Can shifters really get this big?”

“They aren't shifters,” Thorian says, not breathing hard at all despite the fact that we've just raced across the clearing.

Still running, he reaches over, takes the pack from my back, and slings it over his own shoulder.

“That’s a dire wolf.”

Without the weight of the pack, I can move slightly faster, but my earlier realization sticks with me. I have no place here. The tiny amount of training I did with Thorian before feels like a joke. It’s laughable in the face of the strength and skill I’ll need to make it out of this alive.

Luckily, my life being in danger is enough of a distraction that I can’t ruminate on that for too long.

We round the pile of materials, most of which are ruined, trampled under foot, apples crushed, bread squashed, vials of what must be potions leaking, luminescent, out into the grass.

I force myself to raise my gaze from my feet and out into the wider area, and I realize the deeper meaning behind what Thorian was saying. That thing that attacked me wasn’t a shifter. It was a monster. And there are even more of them pouring in now. The other teams have stopped fighting each other and are all engaged in battle with the various beasts and entities, swords swinging and axes arcing through the air.

It’s overwhelming.

As kids, Lyra and I would flip through my father’s books on the gods, on their specific abilities and monsters. According to those books, major and even minor gods liked to play with life, to create beings that more often than not turned out to hate humans and all humanoid creatures.

The gods’ abominations were never as compelling as people. Their souls could never quite flicker as bright as ours. And now, staring out at them, I realize the fiends I always assumed to be nothing more than fairytale fodder are very, very real.