Chapter 7 · Rookie Meat Grind

The hound had three heads and Evira had about ten seconds before it figured out which one should eat her first.

She rolled left. Jaws snapped through the space where her neck had been. The trial pit stank like wet dog and iron, and the sand under her boots was already dark with someone else's blood. Rookie hazing. Standard guild procedure. Survive fifteen minutes, earn your sigil pass, get assigned real jobs.

Except nobody mentioned the hound would be this big, or that the veteran hunters ringing the pit would place bets on how fast the rookies died.

Evira scrambled behind a splintered post. Her binder dug into her ribs. Sweat soaked through the binding cloth. She couldn't breathe deep, couldn't move fast enough. The guy next to her—some farmer's kid from the northern hills—had already gone down. He wasn't moving. The medic hadn't even climbed into the pit yet.

"Kern!" Marcus stood at the pit edge, arms crossed. His voice cut through the shouting. "You planning to hide or fight?"

She didn't answer. The hound circled the post. All three heads tracked her. Strings of drool hit the sand.

Her knife was standard issue.