I sat on the edge of the bed with my feet firmly planted on the floor. Every fiber of my being was focused on listening for noises outside that thick door. The minutes ticked by and I began to get tired from my constant vigil.

  My efforts paid off when I heard footsteps in the echoing hall. I perked up and grasped the edge of the bed with both hands as the people stopped at the entrance to my prison. The heavy lock was unbolted and the heavy door swung inward.

  I caught a glimpse of Wearg standing just outside the doorway. “She’s in there. We leave in ten minutes.”

  My heart both leaped and sank as Arian hurried inside. She rushed over to me and I had only enough time to stand before I was enveloped in one of her legendarily tight hugs.

  “I am so glad to see you!” she cried as she gave me an extra hard squeeze.

  “Me. . .too,” I wheezed. I winced when I felt a few bones pop under my friend’s eagerness. “Need. . .air.”

  “Oh!” Arian stepped back to arm’s length but kept a tight grip on my arms. She looked me up and down with all the fussing of a mother hen. “Are you unhurt? How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling fine. He only used something on me to make me fall asleep.”

  Her eyebrows crashed down and a furious storm settled on her brow. “That fiend!”

  A laugh made us both turn to the door. Wearg leaned his side against the frame and folded his arms over his chest. “A fiend, am I?”

  Arian spun around to completely face him and she tucked me behind her. I could feel the muscles in her sleeves ripple as fur threatened to break out. “I will not let you harm her!”

  Wearg cocked his head to one side and studied her. “You would do anything for your friend?”

  “Anything,” Arian promised.

  “Wait a second here,” I spoke up as I grasped her shoulders. “What’s going on? Don’t make promises I don’t want you to make!”

  “Then you can understand my actions,” Wearg mused as he nodded at me while simultaneously ignoring my comment. “I took your friend to help my people. If I had another chance, I would do it again.”

  “What does Anna have to do with your people?” Arian questioned him.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so you do know her real name, and probably her real identity. I wasn’t sure until just now.” His sharp eyes examined me from top to bottom. “How long does this disguise last? I’m eager to see the fair silver hair I glimpsed in the Tianfeld.”

  “It would keep going if you’d give me back that bottle,” I countered.

  But there are only four pills left in it I reminded myself.

  But that’s four more than you have right now!

  Wearg reached into his pocket and drew out the bottle containing my pills. He raised the container to his face and studied the contents. “I wonder how long these last if you need so many.”

  I held out my hand. “How about we find out when they’re all gone?”

  His eyes twinkled before he tossed the glass into the air. My heart likewise did a leap upward and settled only when he caught the container in his hand. “I think I’ll keep hold of this, at least for the time being.”

  “Please return the pills at once!” Arian pleaded even as he tucked the container back into his pocket.

  He pushed off the door frame and faced us. “I’m afraid there isn’t time to bicker, my dear guests. We have a ceremony to attend and we wouldn’t want to keep the others waiting.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “A what?” I repeated, but the only response was for Wearg to snap his fingers.

  Four of his men scooted into the room and ushered us out with the wolf king in the lead. I had my first good look at the hall and I realized it was carved from the same stone as my room. A few other chambers occupied both sides of the hall but there were no windows. A wide set of stairs at the end of the hall took up the entire passage and led up to a pair of wooden doors. A guard stood on either side.

  Wearg stopped us at the top of the stairs and turned to his men. “Blindfold them.”

  “There is no need for that,” Arian argued.

  “I suppose if this truce ever comes to fruition such precautions will become obsolete,” he mused as two of his men drew out handkerchiefs.

  Arian frowned at him. “The truce would have done so if you had not broken your responsibilities as my father’s guest.”

  “Perhaps,” he commented as the clothes were bound around our heads and over our eyes, blinding us. “But until that time comes I will have you blindfolded.

  I heard the heavy groan of the doors as the guards each opened their respective gates. We were marched out into the waning sun which warmed my skin. The ground beneath our feet was flat and tall grasses brushed against my legs.

  One of the men took my arm and guided me forward, and I could only assume the same was done for Arian. Her arm continuously brushed against mine so that I knew where she walked.

  I leaned toward my friend and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Could you tell me what’s been going on since I was kidnapped?”

  I didn’t like the grim and tense tone in her words. “My father and Wearg are to meet in single combat at the Sanctuary, a sacred place to both our clans.”

  My heart sank. “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

  “For more than that, my dear friend. My father’s honor was impugned by King Wearg. According to our oldest traditions, there must be retribution.”

  “But this all started because of Wearg kidnapping me. . .”

  “Why did he kidnap you?”

  “Haven’t you guessed that your friend holds the power to heal?” Wearg spoke up, and his voice was filled with amusement. “Surely you don’t think the Tianfeld purified itself after fifty thousand years of laying barren and haunted.”

  “Whatever you believe, you should not have kidnapped her!” Arian protested.

  His tone grew more serious. “I kidnapped her for the good of my people.”

  “That they would know war again with mine?” she countered.

  “That they would be safe from the nameless foe that attacked one of the villages under my protection,” Wearg snapped back at her. “I failed one village but I would not see another fall! But what would as you dined in those sky mansions while the clans down here suffered!”

  “The king cares very much for those in both the heavens and the land!”

  My sharp voice interrupted their cutting accusations. “What will happen in this battle against King Pangberan? If you lose, what then?”

  Wearg scoffed. “I won’t lose, but should that unlikely scenario happen then you and your friend will be freed.”

  “And if you win?”

  “Then you won’t be freed, but your friend will be returned in exchange for the boy I asked you to heal.”

  “Heal?” Arian spoke up as she pressed herself closer to me. “But she does not know healing magic!”

  “Then you don’t know your friend as much as you think you do, but that’s enough talking,” Wearg ordered us. “Separate them and if they insist on talking then tie a cloth around their mouths.”

  The threat was enough to silence us. We trudged over unseen grounds and after a while the scent of water tickled my nose. The sound of a strong river soon followed and its chilly air wrapped around us.

  A shout came out of the darkness. “You there!”

  “Let us cross!” Wearg shouted back.

  The earthy ground was replaced by the heavy wooden planks of a bridge and I heard the flow of fast water beneath our feet. We crossed over the bowed span and onto solid, although much harder, ground. Faint murmurs echoed all around us and water dripped from above, reminding me of Grandmother’s cave.

  We were marched a few steps farther before stopped. “Remove their clothes,” Wearg commanded his men.

  I was relieved when the handkerchief was taken off and the world was revealed to me. My mouth fell open at the sight of us standing in a huge grotto cut out from solid stone. The waters had gnawed at the rocks of the mountains in the shape of an oxbow and created a Pacman-like cave. Those same waters had receded and left an empty patch of rocky ground two hundred feet long and nearly that wide, where the girth brushed against the current location of the river. A single wide bridge spanned the waters and the plains and forests stretched out beyond that.

  Our group was positioned about thirty feet from the bridge and faced the far end of the grotto. King Pangberan and the rest of our friends stood a hundred feet away glaring at the wolves. My heart leaped when I saw Dadan among them, his sharp red eyes one of the most terrible to behold.

  Wearg stretched himself to his full height. “We’ll begin as soon as the judge has arrived.”