1 - Battered Egos

I sprawl in the dirt, land hard on my wrist, and feel a resounding, sharp click.

With a hiss, and as agony lances white-hot fire up my arm, I curl in on myself. "Fucking shit," I gasp out, equal parts startled and disappointed. It's been a while since I've caught a fall wrong. A testing roll of my wrist drags another pained noise from my throat. "You bitch!"

I'm not in the mood for graceful semantics, right now. I have a bet to win. And, it seems, a broken wrist to deal with.

"Again!" Esme barks, unfazed as always. "River, get up."

Frustrated, exhausted, and feeling particularly sorry for myself, I uncurl enough to offer my twin a glare. "My wrist just snapped," I tell her harshly.

"Snap it back, then," she says with a careless shrug, twirling a wooden pole — the same one that's landed me flat on my ass countless times and flat on my arm just now — as though it's weightless. "Come on, we have work to do."

Scowling and cursing the universe, I snatch up the knife with my left hand — our family is taught ambidexterity, and the potentially broken wrist only reduces my fighting capabilities by half — and rise to meet her ceaseless challenge. Pain blurs into the background, unimportant.

The aim is to get at her with the knife before she can bat the weapon out of my hands, or else render me useless via breaking every bone in both my arms.

Knowing Esme, bearing down on me like a firecracker let off from hell, she's leaning towards the latter. As usual. She's got a flair for the dramatic, that one.

My world descends into a flurry of thuds and slashes; a maelstrom of instinct and impact. Offence and defence. Dancing out of Esme's twirling range. Jabbing, feigning, falling back.

Breaths come hot and sharp. Thoughts slide away without sticking. The blade slices skin — superficial cuts, only due to Esme's fast reflexes to dodge a more fatal end — and the pole connects solidly. Blow after blow. Narrowly avoiding cracked ribs and kneecaps, I dart and weave between her incessant strikes.

Until at last, like an angelic melody falling from the heavens, a piercing whistle cuts through our chaos.

The fight is over. My bones are safe.

At once, our guards are down. Our hackles fall soft. Our minds clear as though the whistle is a gust of wind sending off angry, black clouds.

Esme releases a sharp, breathless laugh and tosses her pole aside. It sprawls in the dirt with a fraction more dignity than me, sending a cloud of dust up in its wake; an explosion in miniature.

I huff out a frustrated sigh, aim the knife for one of the tree stumps stationed around our training arena (the site of many hours of wood-chopping, but thankfully the humid summer air renders the remaining trees free of that fate) and send it flying.

The blade nestles into the wood with a satisfying thud, and the stump bleeds sap. All around the arena trodden flat beneath many feet, trees shudder and murmur and pray for a better fate.

They're safe for now. Collectively, we've chopped enough wood to last us six winters and still leave enough for decoration, and we've planted so many replacements it's a wonder every garden centre in the area hasn't banned us.

"Feel better?" Esme taunts, tugging my arm towards her.

I bite back a gasp at the harsh treatment; my sister is heavy-handed at the best of times, and nothing about her in the midst of training is remotely gentle.

She prods and messes with my wrist, deftly ignoring my hisses and winces. I give myself over to her attention; it's either submit to her will or fight and have her will win out, anyway. The pain is sharp and thrumming in time with my racing heartbeat, but I breathe through it, as I've been taught.

"Sprained. You'll live," she delivers her verdict, releasing me. "I'd say neither of us won that one."

I step back and massage my wrist a little more carefully, as though in apology for the rough handling. "Oh, joy," I grumble. The bet is simple enough — force the other to yield — and yet it has lasted for months of training. We know one another so well, it's nearly impossible to break past layers upon layers of offence and defence.

"Watch your footing, next time," she taunts, giving me a lighthearted shove that almost sends me sprawling once more.

I shove her back and she retaliates until we're scrabbling like children, laughing breathlessly as we try and trip one another up.

Another whistle pierces through our fight — this one sharp and heavy with frustration — and we break apart once more.

Myles stands glowering at the edge of the clearing, crossing his arms and leaning against a tree trunk if only to make a display of his lithe physique. Ever the show-off, my cousin.

"If you're both done making fools of yourselves, we have a job to do. Get washed up and dressed— we meet in fifteen minutes." With that, and with a stoic little nod, he turns and stalks back through the woods, following the trail back home. He may not have the capabilities of his parents, but he's got the arrogance down.

Esme and I share a look — all raised brows and mocking smiles — and jog to catch up to him. We leave our weapons like corpses. After all, the arena is never empty; second cousins or grandparents or little children will flock soon enough, eager to practice, and practice, and practice.

The woods are alive with the hum of crickets and the whistle of birdsong and the thuds and grunts of sharp impacts— another arena in use. Dappled, golden sunlight filters through emerald leaves, casting the trail in sparkling rays. After the thunderstorm, last night, the ground squelches beneath our boots and the air is humid and close with the sharp, pleasant scent of rain-soaked grass and moss.

The moment we're close enough, Myles throws his arms around my and Esme's shoulders. "It's a big night for you two," he says, as though I need the reminder. As though this big night has not haunted my dreams for the past few months.

But he's grinning, and Esme is grinning, because this big night is the magnum opus of all these years of training. The night my sister and I lead the hunt on a pack of werewolves we've been trailing for just shy of a year; the night our family judges our success and determines whether we are ready for the ritual.

The eve of our twenty-fifth birthday. The eve before we shoulder the burden of our legacy for the rest of our lives. Our names will be scrawled in the history books. Our power becomes celestial. We will rise through the ranks and become a force to be reckoned with.

It's a little bit daunting, I have to say. But I smile and I nod, because every waking moment of my entire life has led to this night. I would be lost without it.

The Ferreus estate is a medley of woodland trails and little cottages and children screaming and chasing one another with sticks and blunt knives as adults try and teach them control. At the centre of it all is a grand cabin complete with floor-to-ceiling windows reflecting the woodland crowding close and balconies adorned with ivy and dormers peering over the treetops— the hub of all our operations, the site of many, many hours of study and practice, the epicentre of our very lives.

But we like to think we're hilarious, and to us it's simply known as the den. A little jibe at our less-than-human enemies.

Myles releases us to bark orders at some children racing past, steering them towards an arena and muttering darkly about a severe lack of skill that's going to get them killed before they reach double digits.

Esme offers me an encouraging smile and jogs inside— eager, as always, to study our meticulous plans for the raid, as she has every day for the past three months. Fine-tuning our approach and ensuring everything goes to plan.

She and I are identical— the mirror image of one another's pale complexion, eyes shot through with silver, forms corded with tight muscle, and dark hair cut close to the scalp.

Even our markings — interwoven symbols and runes and lichtenberg figures carved across our skin, the manifestation of our progress — echo one another. Though, in all fairness, that's because every mission we have, we face it together. We watch one another's backs in the heat of a fight, and we share our burdens; scars and symbols alike.

The Ferreus Clan is not human. Well, not entirely. Our blood is laced with silver, or so the others claim; our skin is marred with the evidence of our kills. It is a map of blood and victory, and one we chart with every waking moment.

Myles claims we're half-angel, blessed with unnatural abilities to rid the world of the stain of werewolves. Our blood is sovereign, our duty is righteous, he says, when his parents are within earshot and he wants to impress them.

I think that's bullshit. We do what we must because it is right, and nothing more. He enjoys the hunt; I tolerate it.

But something coats our veins. Heals injuries faster than usual. Turns sprained wrists into mild inconveniences instead of warranting trips to the ER and suffering through weeks in a brace.

And when we fight... Well, it's as though we become one with the air. Furious, unyielding, a force to be reckoned with.

Which is just as well, given our sworn enemies aren't human, either.

I often find myself wondering, during the quiet hours of study where we revise the legacy of our family, whether the line between good and evil has always been so blurred, or if it started to fade long ago, bit by bit, until we couldn't distinguish the blood on our hands from the blood in our veins.

With that particularly morbid thought, I head for my room, making a conscious effort to avoid the rest of my family if only so I don't have to pretend to be overly excited to risk my life. Tonight is a test — the hardest one Esme and I will ever have to take — and it's exhausting to force myself into looking forward to it. I'm dreading it, in all fairness. I'm dreading making a mistake in the heat of a fight. I'm dreading having to look my mother in the eye and know I've disappointed her— disappointed the whole family, and lost my chance to join their esteemed ranks.

My room is my safe haven; bookcases stocked full, plants on every available surface, vinyl sleeves decorating the walls, windows overlooking a glittering lake and a view of the woodland uninterrupted by arenas. It's my idea of peace made manifest, and when the door clicks shut behind me, I feel as though I'm not a puzzle piece in the Ferreus Clan. I'm not another silver knife in their belts. I'm just River.

But this evening, as the sun sinks towards the trees swaying in an idle breeze, I don't have time to decompress. I've got to change and be down in the map room in eleven minutes, or else Myles is going to come up here and drag me down himself.

Our battle attire is made up of a dark, tough material and plated with what feels like boulders to protect us from bites. Leather would be lighter, but leather would also be louder, and sneaking up on those with unnatural hearing capabilities lends us towards silence. There's straps across my chest to secure a bow to my back, belts around my waist for throwing blades — silver, of course — and compartments at my ankles and thighs for a collection of razor-edged knives should things get particularly dire.

In short, as I gaze at my reflection in the mirror, I look prepared — if not entirely willing — for a fight with a pack of werewolves. I wrap my wrist and attempt another couple of testing rotations. Already, the once sharp pain has become dull and heavy— losing its bite. It'll be fine in a couple of hours.

Rolling my shoulders in an attempt to ease the weight bearing down on them, I venture out to find the others with seven minutes to spare.

As usual, in the eve before a fight, they're all gathered in the map room— an adorned trophy display with pelts and sword collections on the walls (these, though dramatic, are too showy and inconvenient for our night-to-night brawls, and serve as a reminder of bygone days) and a huge oaken table full of maps and plans and research on our next target.

Tonight, the maps and sheets detail a rising pack in the north.

Standing with his hands braced on the table, his hair shot through with grey and the lines creasing his features evidence of his years upon years of experience, my uncle, Orion, lifts his clinical silver gaze to regard me. He is the appointed leader of the Ferreus family, and all decisions we make must pass through him.

In which case, he must count his lucky stars that his wife, my aunt, Liliana, is swift-minded and a buffer to his usual brash decision-making. She's on the phone, at the moment, using her connections in the police to close off the woods to humans and turn what is supposed to be a nature reserve into a battleground with minimal eye-witnesses. If Orion is the swift, furious torrent of this family, then Liliana is the sturdy bank either side keeping everything in check.

That makes Myles a particularly weighty stone, tossed into the water and hoping to catch the current of his family's legacy and ride it to victory, only to end up sinking. He's messing with the silver tip of an arrow — razor-sharp and not for the faint of heart — but I catch some echo of a grimace flicker across his features before he's hastily shoving it into the quiver on his back.

I wonder what that makes me. A fish that can't swim, perhaps. Or one that doesn't particularly feel like swimming.

Esme, of course, can swim just fine. She studies the maps beside our mother, Charlotte— a stern, iron-fisted woman. A shadow in the water that makes people scatter and panic lest they meet their untimely end.

The rest of the family won't be accompanying us for this fight. Too many hands only leads to mistakes, and their time will come another night. Besides, they're all busy with their own hunts, for now. Training and scouting and edging further across the landscape in an endless effort to rid the world of werewolves faster than they can bite unsuspecting, innocent people and turn them into monsters.

For now, it is my and Esme's turn to prove our worth. Joy. It's not our first time hunting, and not our first time leading a hunt, but it holds a lot more significance and weight now we're old enough to undergo the ritual. With its burden on our shoulders, we cannot ask for help, or be open to suggestion. Our approach has to be water-tight, to prove we can handle ourselves, and to prove we can handle the weight of the ritual and what it makes us. As such, I feel as though it's my first hunt.

A quick glance around the room reveals Ivar, my grandfather, reclined leisurely on an armchair stuffed into the corner of the room. His focus is sharp as a knife edge as he regards us all. Wrinkles and lichtenberg figures weave ribbons across his skin, telling the story of decades upon decades of experience. A particularly close call with a pack of werewolves took his arm from him, but he continued to be a force to be reckoned with for years afterwards. Now, he has passed the beacon of leadership to his son, but even still he is a cog in the ever-turning machine of the Ferreus Clan. Usually, he's in charge of organising raids and planning approaches. Every mission passes by him, and tonight it seems he's here to oversee my and Esme's work.

All too soon, Liliana cuts off the call and joins us, and the meeting is swiftly underway.

Job interview, I should amend.

"Are you ready?" Orion asks, appraising me with a raised brow and a scowl permanently etched into his expression as he crosses his arms bulging with muscles. The uniform looks like it was crafted around him; a perfect fit. His gaze slides down to my wrist, and a flicker of disappointment passes like the blur of a ghost behind his eyes.

The injury isn't dire enough to warrant letting me sit this one out, and besides, with the guillotine of the ritual looming above me, I'm fairly confident my family would still force me into battle if Esme had struck me so hard she'd taken the whole arm with her. Ivar is proof enough we don't need all of our limbs to fight.

"He's ready," Esme cuts in, sending me a subtle warning look. After years and years of practice, we know one another too well and can read cues that others would simply gloss over.

In other words, her look is roughly translating to 'get your shit together because I am not carrying both of us'.

I am ready— mostly. In the early days of our hunts, the prospect of leading would have rendered me borderline hysterical, the prospect of killing kept me up at night and keeled over the toilet fighting nausea and unpleasant memories, but I have since lead and killed and lead and killed so often, it has become second nature.

It is a job, and a job I do well. Not necessarily a job I enjoy, though. And if tonight goes well, I'll be promoted into the silver-lined legacy of my family forever. It will get easier. It must.

"They should be relaxing close to their den by the time we arrive. They'll be finished with training and their guards will be down. Esme and I will take the east and force them into running," I begin, my gaze sliding down to the map laid before us. Absently, I study the potential entry points and compare them to the skill-sets of the people around me. As I speak, I point out areas on the map. "Orion, Myles— take the west, with the sunset. Mother, you and Liliana can take the north and south, and cut off any trying to escape. We'll push them to their borders, where they're at their weakest, and split them up. Separate the pups from the wolves, get them panicking and distracted. Our priority is the alpha pair— once they're dead, the rest will fall easily."

Orion inclines his head, his lips twitching and eyes sparkling with something close to pride— a foreign expression, and one that struggles to settle on features so used to vague disappointment. "Very well," he says as Ivar makes a noise of assent. My uncle swipes a knife from his belt and twirls it into the air with viper-quick reflexes. "Let's go kill some werewolves."