Page 64 of In Her Own Rite

On the bad days, where I can practicallyfeelmy body tearing in half:It’s only three weeks.

And on the days where I have enough energy to push myself harder:I only have three weeks.

We fall into a sort of routine. Gabe calls his mom in the morning, asking for news about the search party. Still nothing, but they’ve cleared the caves on the southern shore and are now starting on the forest around Moon Lake. Kier and Gabe make breakfast, with Gabe calling out instructions and Kieran doing the work. The whole gang eats together, and afterwards, Seb and Maren do some work—the salt scrubswerea huge success, and now they’re coordinating a restock—and I study up on my healer’s training. And then, once the food has settled, we train.

Every day of training is different. Boxing is getting a little easier, so Seb’s introduced some self-defense: how to get out from under someone, how to get someone off of your back once they’ve grabbed you. For that, I can only practice with Quinn, who’s the closest in the group to my build even if she is a head taller than me.

I’m starting to like Quinn, I realize. She intimidated me when we were growing up, so I used to avoid her. But ever since our first day of training, she doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile. When I don’t block a punch, or she pins me down and I panic, she’s the only one in the group who doesn’t react to the tears in my eyes. And the first time I get out from under her and slam her body into the mat, her whole face lights up.

“Good,” she says, catching her breath. “Really good, Em. Again.”

Slowly,soslowly, I’m getting better. I can do one and a half pull-ups now, and I’m lifting almost twice the weight I was before—though starting at eight pounds, that’s not much. But still, the training is brutal. FMA is the hardest; if Seb isn’t constantly yelling out corrections, it’s Quinn,showingme how I need to correct by taking advantage of my weaknesses. We train for hours, until everyone’s exhausted and I’m the only one trying to hide it. When we get back—usually around one or two in the afternoon—I have an hour to rest before shift practice with Seb. And that’s where it all goes wrong.

Today we’re outside, on the shore. I couldn’t get myself to shift in the gym, and Seb thought bringing me somewhere where there’s no one to see would help. But that’s not the issue.I’mthe issue.

“Pool your energy,” he says, putting a hand on his stomach. “Close your eyes.”

I try, following his lead.

“Now bring your attention to your gut. Try to connect with that part of your body. Breathe towards it.”

“Okay,” I say, and I do so, although I don’t really know where the breath should be going. The soft roar of the ocean, and the bite of the wind, distracts me. I can barely feel anything in my body.

“Do you feel your inner wolf?”

I shake my head. “I don’t feel anything.”

I hear a hitch in his breathing, which I take to be frustration. “Okay. We’re trying to find the part of you that reacts first to tension. Maren doesn’t feel her wolf in her stomach but in her pelvic floor. Does that work?”

I open my eyes and bring my hands up to my face. “Seb, no offense, but I don’t really wanna talk to you about my pelvic floor.”

“Your rite is infive weeksand as far as I know, you haven’t shifted in a decade. I’m trying to help you. If you don’t let me, I’m going to tell the council I don’t think you can do this.”

I grit my teeth and try again, closing my eyes and putting a hand on my stomach. After a minute, I look up again.

“I really don’t feel anything.”

“Do you ever feel your wolf in you?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“When?”

“When I get scared. When I think about my dad.”

He nods. “I think that’s part of the problem.”

“Hm?” I cross my arms, bracing myself against the cold sea air.

“For you, shifting is about being scared. A lot of kids have that, because they can’t control their shift yet, so it just happens whenever they have a strong feeling. But if you haven’t let yourself shift since you were a kid, and if your childhood was mostly…” His voice trails off.

“My childhood was mostly feeling scared, yeah,” I say flatly.

“Okay.” His voice is gentle—less judgmental than I expect. “Do you ever feel your wolf other times?”

“Um. Yeah, I guess.”

“When?”

---