Cassian ripped his wrist from my hand.

The movement was so sudden that he struck Brantley's shoulder and forced him back a step. A murmur swept the hall, then broke into scattered laughter when Brantley's heel caught my suitcase.

The broken latch gave way again.

My clothes spilled across the marble at Cassian's feet.

"Static," Seraphina said loudly. "The stray shocked him with static."

Brantley laughed because she had, though unease pinched the corners of his mouth.

Cassian did not laugh.

He rubbed the inside of his wrist. No burn marked his skin, but the tendons stood out in his hand. He looked from the place I had touched him to my right palm.

The red crescent was gone.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I told you to let go."

"That was not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

The hall went quiet again.

Cassian turned toward the students. His face had settled into a calm mask, but I had seen the shock beneath it. That mattered. Men like him built power on the belief that nothing could surprise them.

"For the next seven days," he said, "Violet Hale is under my authority. No one else disciplines her. No one else lays a hand on her."

A few highborn students looked disappointed.

"She is mine to correct. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Alpha," the hall answered.

"I belong to no one," I said.

Cassian glanced over his shoulder. "Report to the abandoned training ground beyond the eastern ridge. The thorn pits are to be cleared before sunset. Barehanded."

"And if I refuse?"

His voice lowered. "Then the council will review Elena Hale's debt contract tonight. I doubt she can afford another penalty visit."

Cold spread through my chest.

He knew Elena's name. He knew exactly where to cut.

"Leave her out of this."

"Clear the pits."

I wanted to drive my fist into his mouth. Instead, I knelt and shoved my clothes back into the suitcase.

"Fine," I said. "But one day, Cassian, you're going to threaten the wrong person."

"I already have," he replied softly.

I looked up.

He had turned away.

An hour later, I stood at the edge of the eastern ridge with the academy rising behind me like a black castle.

The abandoned training ground had once been a series of obstacle courses. Now thorn vines strangled the iron frames and swallowed entire lanes beneath walls of black bramble. Some thorns were as long as my fingers. Others curved like hooks.

Jace Ward sat on a stump near the empty tool shed, eating an apple.

"The eastern pit by dusk," he said. "Those were the orders."

"There are no gloves."

"Barehanded means barehanded."

"Helpful."

He bit into the apple. "I'm not here to help."

I stepped into the first wall of vines and grabbed a branch.

The thorns tore through my sleeve and buried themselves in my palm.

Pain flared. I pulled anyway.

The vine resisted, then ripped free with a sound like cloth tearing. I threw it onto the dirt and reached for another.

By noon, blood slicked both hands.

By midafternoon, my right hand had locked twice. Each time I forced the fingers open against my thigh and kept working. The old fractures ground beneath the skin, sending sharp pain into my wrist.

Jace moved into the shade.

"You could ask for mercy," he called.

"From Cassian?"

"From anyone."

"Is that how you got the badge?"

He stopped chewing.

I turned back to the vines.

The sky darkened toward evening. Sweat stung the scar on my cheek. My uniform hung in torn strips at the sleeves, and the eastern pit still looked endless.

I wrapped both hands around a dead root and pulled.

Something scraped beneath the soil.

I paused.

The sound came again when I shifted the root, stone dragging against metal.

I dropped to my knees and dug with my bleeding fingers. The packed earth loosened around the edge of a black granite slab. I cleared more dirt, revealing a carved wolf with its jaws open beneath a crescent moon.

The design did not match any academy crest.

It looked older than Lunaris itself.

Jace had disappeared from the stump. I could not see him through the brambles.

I brushed mud from the carving.

The stone was warm.

"What are you doing out here?" I whispered.

Blood ran from my palm into the wolf's carved eye.

The world stopped.

Heat speared up my right arm.

I tried to pull away, but an invisible force pinned my hand to the granite. A crimson line ignited beneath my fingers, traced the wolf's head, and curved into a crescent moon.

The same symbol that had flashed against Cassian's wrist.

Only this time it did not vanish.

Light poured through the grooves, bright enough to stain the brambles red. Fire raced through my veins, not burning but rebuilding. The ache in my hand disappeared. The twisted joints loosened. For the first time in three years, I could feel each finger without pain.

A force like a second heartbeat woke beneath my ribs.

I gasped and tore my hand free.

The hold released.

I fell backward into the dirt.

The cuts across my palms closed as I watched. Torn skin drew together. Blood dried, flaked, and fell away. Even the scar tissue along my knuckles softened until my hand looked almost normal.

I flexed my fingers.

They obeyed.

"What did you do to me?"

The red crescent on the tablet pulsed once, then sank into darkness.

A twig snapped behind me.

I turned.

A boy with dark red hair leaned against an oak tree at the edge of the clearing. He tossed a silver lighter into the air, caught it, and smiled without warmth.

"Looks like Cassian's favorite stray found something she wasn't meant to see," he said.

The stranger flicked open the lighter.

A yellow flame shivered between us.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.

"Long enough."

He snapped the lid shut, tossed the lighter, and caught it again. Silver thread edged his collar, marking him as highborn, but there was no family pin at his throat. He wore his privilege carelessly, as if he had grown bored of it.

"Long enough to see a powerless human wake a sealed relic," he continued. "That should be impossible."

I wiped my hands on my torn pants. "Then you saw something else."

"I saw a first-era altar light up like dawn. I saw your wounds close. I saw a mark that has not answered anyone in three centuries."

"You should get your eyes checked."

His mouth curved. "Rhys Calder."

"I didn't ask."

"No, but you'll want to know who keeps your secret."

He pushed away from the tree and came toward me. He was leaner than Cassian, less controlled, but the ease in his stride carried its own warning. Smoke and rain clung to his jacket.

I stepped between him and the stone.

"There is no secret."

"Your palms were shredded ten seconds ago."

I folded my arms. "Fast healer."

"Humans do not heal like wolves. Wolves do not heal like that either."

"Maybe your textbooks are wrong."

"Maybe your records are lies."

The words landed harder than I wanted them to.

Rhys noticed.

"Who were your parents?" he asked.

"Dead, missing, or smart enough not to claim me. Take your pick."

"Where were you found?"

"An alley in Lowtown."

"How old?"

"Old enough to bite the constable who tried to drag me out."

"That explains the personality."

I turned toward the academy path.

Rhys moved before I took a second step.

One moment he stood beside the altar. The next he blocked the trail, one hand braced against a tree.

"We're not finished."

"I am."

"Cassian sent me to see whether his punishment had killed you. Instead, I found you bleeding into a relic no one is supposed to know exists. So forgive me if I need more than sarcasm."

"You can tell Cassian I cleared his pit."

"And the red fire?"

"Tell him whatever helps you sleep."

I tried to pass.

Rhys caught my shoulder and shoved me backward.

My spine struck the granite tablet. The carved wolf pressed between my shoulder blades. Rhys stepped close, planting his palm against the stone beside my head.

"Try again," he said. "What did you do?"

"I touched it."

"With what spell?"

"I don't know any spells."

"What bloodline?"

"None."

"No one has none."

"I do."

He studied my face, looking for something I did not know how to hide.

"Cassian carved that scar," he said.

"Your powers of observation are breathtaking."

"He does not mark people without a reason."

"He wanted me to kneel. I didn't. That's the reason."

Rhys's gaze sharpened. "And today you burned him."

"He grabbed me."

"Cassian Thorne does not let people touch him, much less hurt him. Yet he claimed you in front of the entire academy instead of having you executed."

I remembered the shock in Cassian's eyes.

"Maybe he's losing his edge."

"Maybe he recognized the mark."

The idea tightened something in my stomach.

"Move," I said.

Rhys lifted the lighter again. His thumb rolled over the wheel.

Flame bloomed.

"Tell me what you felt when the altar woke."

"Put that away."

"Heat? A voice? A memory that wasn't yours?"

He brought the flame closer.

"Back off, Rhys."

"One honest answer."

The fire hovered inches from my face.

He was testing me. Maybe threatening me. At Lunaris, the difference was mostly decorative.

"The truth is I don't know," I said. "I touched a stone. It lit up. My hand healed. That's all."

"Wrong answer."

He angled the lighter toward my hair.

The thing beneath my ribs woke.

Heat slammed through my chest and down my right arm. My healed bones vibrated. The carved wolf behind me seemed to pulse against my spine.

Rhys saw the change in my face.

His smile disappeared.

"Violet-"

I struck his wrist.

Crimson light exploded from my palm.

It swallowed the lighter's flame, melted the top of the silver case, and lashed across the side of Rhys's head. The force threw him backward. He hit the mud hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.

The ruined lighter spun across the ground and struck the altar.

The sharp smell of scorched metal filled the clearing.

I stared at my hand.

Soot blackened my palm, but the skin beneath it had not blistered. The power hummed there, eager and alive.

Rhys pushed himself onto one elbow.

A lock of his red hair had burned black at the ends. He touched it, watched ash crumble across his fingers, and looked at me with none of his earlier amusement.

"I warned you," I said.

He did not answer.

For several seconds, the only sound came from our breathing and the distant caw of ravens.

Then Rhys looked past me at the ancient altar.

"That was not wolf magic," he said.

"Good. I'm not a wolf."

"It was not human either."

I curled my fingers into a fist.

Rhys rose slowly, keeping his eyes on the red glow fading beneath my skin.

"Whatever the council told you about who you are," he said, "they lied."

A deep metallic bell rang from the academy.

The sound rolled over the ridge and shook the branches above us.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Rhys went still.

"What is that?" I asked.

He closed the ruined lighter in his hand.

"Trouble," he said. "And for once, it may be worse than you."

The third bell was still echoing when Rhys started down the mountain.

"Hide your hand," he called without turning. "If the council sees that fire, they will cut you open to learn where it came from."

"You seem unusually concerned."

"I'm concerned about losing the only interesting thing that has happened here all year."

"There it is."

He glanced back. "Don't die before I get answers."

Then he disappeared between the trees.

I looked at the ancient altar one last time. The carved crescent had gone dark, but warmth still moved beneath my skin. I flexed my right hand. No pain. No stiffness. Every joint worked as if the silver whip had never touched me.

I should have been terrified.

Instead, a grin pulled at my mouth.

For the first time in my life, I had something the highborn did not understand.

Something they feared.

The bell rang again.

I ran.

By the time I reached the academy, mud covered my boots and blood had dried across the torn sleeves of my uniform. The main doors stood open. Students crowded into the grand hall in rigid lines, their earlier arrogance replaced by silence.

I slipped into the back row and shoved my right hand into my pocket.

A thin boy beside me was breathing too fast. He wore the plain gray collar of F-Class and kept rubbing the inside of his wrist as if expecting chains to appear there.

"What happened?" I whispered.

He looked at me. "You don't know?"

"I arrived this morning."

"Blood Moon."

The words barely left his mouth.

A broad man climbed the podium. A gray wolf pelt hung from his shoulders, its head resting over one side of his chest. A scar divided his lower lip, and heavy rings flashed on both hands.

Magnus Blackwood, Alpha of the West.

I recognized him from the council notices posted in Lowtown. The notices described him as a guardian of order. They never mentioned that his smile looked like a wound.

"Heads up," Magnus barked.

Every student lifted their chin.

"Tonight, the moon turns red."

A tremor moved through the F-Class rows.

The boy beside me whispered, "It's too early in the term."

"What is?"

"The Wild Hunt."

His voice cracked.

Magnus spread his hands over the podium.

"Lunaris was founded to produce leaders, not pampered pets. Yet each year, bloodlines soften. Instincts dull. Teeth grow decorative. The Blood Moon gives us one night to remember what we are."

The highborn students in front shifted with anticipation.

"The rules are simple," Magnus continued. "At midnight, every F-Class student will be released into the western grounds. You will receive a ten-minute head start. Then the ranked students hunt."

A cheer rose from the gold-trimmed rows.

Brantley Mercer howled. Seraphina clapped beside him.

The boy next to me went pale.

"They use us for target practice," he whispered. "Last year, seven didn't come back."

I stared at Magnus. "And the council allows this?"

The boy gave a broken laugh. "The council watches."

Magnus raised one hand, and the cheering stopped.

"Survive until sunrise, and you earn immunity for the semester. Get caught, and your fate belongs to your captor. The council will not interfere with instinct."

"Then it isn't a hunt," I called. "It's an execution."

The words cut across the hall.

Hundreds of faces turned.

The boy beside me flinched away.

Magnus found me at the back. His smile widened.

"A rabbit always calls the wolf unfair."

"A wolf that needs a ten-minute handicap should be embarrassed."

Laughter burst from one of the lower-ranked rows before dying under Magnus's stare.

He leaned over the podium. "Name?"

"Violet Hale."

Recognition flickered in his eyes.

Cassian stood near the side wall, arms folded. He had changed jackets, but the hand I had burned rested closed against his chest. His expression revealed nothing.

Rhys occupied the opposite wall. The scorched edge of his hair was hidden beneath a hood, though I could see the shine of the ruined lighter turning between his fingers.

Magnus pulled a rolled parchment from inside his coat.

"Every Hunt has a prime target," he said. "The student who brings that target to the council earns a permanent seat at the Alpha table and the right to name one favor."

The room changed.

The highborn stopped seeing classmates. They saw competitors.

A prefect moved through the F-Class rows, fastening black metal bracelets around our wrists. The boy beside me recoiled when his clicked shut.

"Tracking bands," he whispered. "They light up when the Hunt starts."

The prefect reached me.

I offered my left wrist, keeping my right hand hidden.

The bracelet locked with a cold snap.

Magnus broke the wax seal on the parchment.

"This year's prime target was selected for insolence, instability, and an unusual capacity to attract trouble."

A few students laughed.

I did not look away from him.

"Whoever takes her alive receives the council seat," Magnus said. "Whoever brings only proof of death will receive half the reward."

The thin boy beside me whispered, "I'm Eli Brooks. In case we don't make it past midnight."

"We will," I said.

Magnus unrolled the parchment completely.

"The prime target is Violet Hale."

Every tracking bracelet in the back rows flashed red.

Mine burned like a brand.