Qualification For The Trial

POV: Brill Cox

There was an Alpha's scent on me.

Over those days, that sentence kept circling back through my head.

The black stone walls of Blackridge Academy had finally risen before my eyes, and I still didn't know whose scent it was.

Several times I nearly asked Tessa whether she could tell one scent from another, and each time I held back, afraid that opening my mouth would show how much it mattered to me. She didn't bring it up again either, as though she were waiting for me to ask first.

Tessa, walking ahead of me, came to a sudden stop and tugged at the torn hem of my clothes, her voice unsteady. "Brill, look ahead!"

I braced my hands on my knees and straightened up, then followed the direction of her pointing finger.

On the mountainside stood rows of black stone buildings, their walls seeming to grow straight out of the rock face, stretching further than the eye could follow, and flags hung from the peaks of the tallest towers.

It was Blackridge Academy. We had finally arrived.

My heart began to pound violently.

I let out a breath, and the corners of my mouth lifted before I knew it, and a great weight seemed to come off my whole body.

"Let's go," I said.

When we reached the Academy gates, the werewolf on guard suddenly raised his head, his nostrils flaring slightly, and glanced at my collar.

I pulled my collar up without thinking, but he didn't ask anything and only looked me over from head to foot.

Could the scent Tessa had spoken of have been noticed by other werewolves already?

I pushed the unease down and followed the line toward the registration table.

When our turn came, the registrar asked without lifting his head, "Pack?"

"None," I said.

His pen stopped. "What do you mean?"

"I don't belong to any Pack," I said. "I'm a Rogue."

The registrar asked my age, then confirmed that I had never shifted, and his brows drew together harder. "The first trial is a hunt in open country. Everyone else runs it in wolf form. You don't even have a wolf. Are you going out there to die?"

Tessa rushed to argue for me. "Doesn't the open trial say it doesn't ask about your background?"

The registrar said coldly, "It doesn't ask about your background. That's a different matter from her having no wolf."

I had come this far with such difficulty. I didn't want to give it up just like that.

Several cadets were standing beside the registration table.

The woman in the middle was half a head taller than me, wearing sharply cut dark grey training clothes with a silver wolf's-head clasp pinned at her collar.

"Serena," someone behind her murmured, and the people around her made room.

"The Academy's open slots are limited. What makes you think you can compete with us for one?" Serena looked me over and laughed softly. "In your place, I'd have tucked my tail between my legs and crawled back to the waste long ago. A pity you don't even have a tail."

As she spoke, the people around her laughed along.

No one spoke up for me. Some even took half a step back, as though afraid that a Rogue with no Pack would bring them trouble.

Serena's presence pressed down on me.

My body remembered the fear that the strong inspired, but I couldn't step back in front of her.

The moment I lowered my head first, she would decide that I didn't even have the courage to take the trial.

She turned her eyes to Tessa's injured leg. "You don't have a Pack either. What's the difference between a wolf without a Pack and a stray dog? The two of you are well matched."

Tessa lifted her chin a little. "I have a wolf."

Serena turned to the registrar. "She can't even shift. Who's responsible if something happens? Are the other candidates supposed to stop and wait for her?"

The registrar didn't answer at once. He only glanced down at the register, plainly not intending to argue on my behalf or hers.

No one around us stepped forward either. I could only clench my hands and wait to see whether he would simply drive me off.

I had come here to get into the Academy, not to quarrel with her.

But her power pressed on me until my body shrank from it on instinct, and I could only clench my hands and force myself not to retreat.

Seeing that I said nothing, Serena patted my shoulder lightly. "Hurry up and get lost. Don't hold up the others."

I didn't knock her hand away, and I didn't bow my head obediently either.

The token hadn't been verified yet. She could seize the chance to have me thrown out at any moment.

I didn't dare strike first, but I couldn't show any sign of retreating in front of her either.

She saw that I was holding myself together by force, and her palm pressed down a little harder, as though waiting for me to give in first.

"She hasn't done anything wrong. What gives you the right to tell her to get lost?" Tessa stepped in front of me, her leg still trembling, and didn't move aside.

"I don't know what I count as, but I know you're bullying someone who has no wolf. If you're really so capable, go find someone with a wolf to compete against."

I caught hold of Tessa and drew her a little to one side.

This was aimed at me, and I couldn't keep hiding behind her.

Serena's pupils narrowed abruptly into slits, and the smile at the corner of her mouth vanished.

I saw her shoulder shift slightly, as though she meant to shift in front of everyone the very next moment.

Tessa noticed it too, and still she stood where she was.

I couldn't let her bear all of this for me.

I looked at Serena, and though my voice was still a little tight, I didn't lower my head again. "Say whatever you like, but you don't get to decide for the Academy whether I'm qualified." I took out the wooden token and set it on the registration table. "This is my proof of entry for the open trial."

The registrar turned the token over several times, then pulled an old ledger from a cabinet and checked the mark on the back against it, item by item.

People behind us in the line had begun to mutter impatiently, but I didn't dare hurry him.

That token was what Elias had given me, and apart from it I had no other way into the Academy.

"Number forty-seven." When he had finished the entry, he pushed a small wooden slip carved with the number across to me. "Assembly at eight tomorrow morning. Latecomers are counted as withdrawn. The Academy accepts no responsibility for accidents during the trial."

I closed my hand around the slip carved with forty-seven, and only when the edge had dug into my palm enough to hurt did I realize that I truly had the right to take the trial.

"Number forty-seven. See you tomorrow." Serena's smile didn't reach her eyes. "The open-country hunt doesn't recognize wooden tokens."

Her gaze dropped to my collar, and her nostrils moved slightly.

I pulled my collar up without thinking, and her smile deepened.

She had smelled it too.