Chapter 66: They Came Back

The training grounds looked completely different when the Advanced Training students arrived the next morning. The ordinary obstacle equipment had been cleared away and replaced with tracking stations strung with scent lines, endurance routes marked in chalk, roped-off combat zones, and a row of low domes built for controlled shifting. Roxanne stopped at the edge of the field and took it all in, more curious than nervous. Elias appeared beside her and studied the domes with the same sharp interest, and neither of them said anything for a moment.

The instructor waited until everyone had gathered before he spoke. He announced that Lunar Trial preparation had officially begun, and that this phase would work differently from anything before it. Students would no longer be graded only on individual results, because they would be tested on how well they functioned under pressure, exhaustion, and conditions that changed without warning.

Before he could go on, a ripple of attention moved through the group. Several students had turned toward the entrance, and Roxanne noticed Liam staring the same way with his whole body gone still. Then his face lit up. A boy in a rumpled jacket had walked through the gate with a travel bag over one shoulder, and Liam crossed the grass at a run and nearly knocked him over.

Liam dragged the boy back by the sleeve, both of them laughing. "Who is that?" Roxanne asked, and Liam looked genuinely offended. "That’s Jace," he said. "And?" she asked, and he put a hand over his heart and said, "My best friend."

Jace Rowan grinned at her and shook her hand with more enthusiasm than she was ready for. Before she could say anything, a girl approached from the gate at a much calmer pace, her dark hair pinned neatly back and her coat without a single crease. Serena Ashford greeted the brothers one at a time, and Lucien took her bag while Roshan smiled and Kai gave her a real hug, which Roxanne had rarely seen him do with anyone. These two clearly knew the Moonstones very well, and the ease between them was the kind that only came from years of shared meals, bad weather, and long nights.

As the reunion carried on around her, Roxanne pieced together where they had been. Serena and Jace had spent the past several months on the Royal Field Research Program, visiting other territories to study advanced wolf control, combat styles, tracking, survival training, and pack strategy. It was part research and part elite training, and Liam explained that the brothers had done two rotations with them before Roxanne ever arrived.

"So you’ve been gone this entire time?" Roxanne asked.

Jace laughed. "You should’ve seen this place before we left," he said, and Liam immediately launched into a story about Jace losing a bet and wearing a borrowed dress uniform to dinner. Jace threatened revenge in vivid detail, and Roxanne realized the brothers had an entire social life before she showed up.

Serena turned to her then and introduced herself properly. She had clearly heard of Roxanne, but she didn’t stare at her like something to be examined. "So you’re the one who keeps beating Liam?" she asked.

Roxanne smiled. "Apparently."

"That is not a fair record," Liam protested, and Jace threw an arm around Roxanne’s shoulders. "I like her already," he said. Serena watched the exchange with quiet interest, noting that Roxanne stood among four royal brothers and looked amused by them rather than intimidated, and Roxanne could see her filing that away for later.

The instructor cut the reunion short by blowing a whistle. The first exercise was a three-stage endurance course, and each student would track a moving scent, cross unfamiliar terrain, and then fight a combat section while exhausted. This time he deliberately paired students who already knew each other, then rearranged the Moonstones so that no two of them ended up on the same team. Roxanne was paired with Elias again, and Serena and Jace were sent to separate groups.

The course was brutal, but Roxanne kept noticing the other teams whenever their routes crossed. Serena and Jace moved with the brothers as though they had never been apart. Jace understood Liam’s reckless movement without needing a word of instruction, and Serena anticipated Lucien’s strategy before he finished forming it. Roshan adjusted the instant Serena changed direction, and during the combat section Kai and Jace communicated almost entirely through gestures.

These people had trained together for years. Roxanne wasn’t jealous, exactly, but she found herself curious about the versions of the brothers that had existed before she arrived.

When the course ended, she and Elias were catching their breath near the water barrels, and she was still watching the others across the field. Jace wandered over, wiping his face with his sleeve. "You’re trying to figure us out," he said, and Roxanne shrugged. "I’m trying to figure out how you survived four of them."

He laughed. "We ask ourselves that every day." Then he lowered his voice as if sharing a secret and told her about the time Liam spent an entire night in a tree because he was too proud to admit he couldn’t climb down. Liam, who had somehow heard from thirty feet away, yelled that Jace was a dead man, and Roxanne laughed harder than she had all week. It was the first time she had seen the brothers through someone else’s memories.

At the end of training, the instructor gathered everyone once more. The actual Lunar Trials would begin in several weeks, he told them, and this year’s trials would include students from multiple packs. Moonstone Academy would not be competing against itself, and they would be representing the academy against outsiders. Then he gave them their first assignment, which was to select three people they trusted enough to work with during the preliminary trial.

Roxanne looked at Isla across the field, then thought of Tessa, then let her eyes drift toward the Moonstones. She didn’t choose yet.

As everyone began to leave, Serena fell into step beside her. "You know, they’re different around you," she said, in the same easy voice she might have used to mention the weather.

"Who?" Roxanne asked.

Serena glanced toward the four brothers. "All of them," she said, and she walked away before Roxanne could ask what she meant.

Across the courtyard, Liam and Jace were already arguing over something ridiculous while Kai and Lucien tried to pull them apart. Roxanne watched for a moment, then looked back at the notice on the board. It read SELECT YOUR THREE, and she understood that she would soon have to decide who she really trusted when the academy stopped being a game.