Direbound

During Meryn’s training with Igor the next day, they discuss the kidnappings. They’ve been happening for longer than Meryn can remember, and the Nabbers are most likely Siphons, ancient monsters from the neighboring country of Astreona who consume human blood as their life force. Meryn considers training the local children to defend themselves. Later, she picks up Saela from school. On their way home, they witness one of the Bonded (the king’s elite forces who are bonded with a direwolf) dragging the man who hassled Meryn through the town because of treason. The Bonded man, known as Stark Therion, frightens and intimidates Meryn, and as she watches him kill the man, she thinks he must be evil.

Meryn and Igor train the children, and one of them fights back against the Nabbers. Meryn thinks that teaching people to defend themselves might be a way out of poverty. Later that week, Lee visits Meryn for a date, and she warns him that her mother’s mental illness has been getting worse. When they enter her home, however, her mother is lucid, and as they share a pleasant meal, Lee talks about his job as a messenger in Sturmfrost Castle. However, Meryn’s mother then curses Lee as a traitor and accuses Meryn of being where she isn’t meant to be. Meryn gives her medicine to make her sleep. Later, when Saela is in bed, Meryn and Lee go for a walk to share an intimate moment, and he implores her to come live with him. When she returns home, she finds that Saela was kidnapped.

Meryn desperately searches for Saela. She enlists Lee, Igor, and her neighborhood to help, but to no avail. She blames herself, and for days, she’s unresponsive to her friends’ worries and remembers how her father, before he died in the ongoing war against the Siphons, was equally unresponsive when he returned from the front. The memory, however, stirs Meryn because, unlike her father, she keeps her promises. She enlists in the army the next day, despite her exemption as a caregiver. She plans to make it to the front of the war to search for Saela in enemy territory.

After leaving the recruitment center, she finds Lee at his apartment. He’s relieved to see her motivated. She tells him about her enlistment, and he’s worried though understanding. He says that her timing is awful because the Bonding Trials, the only opportunity to become one of the Bonded, were announced. Though Meryn doesn’t want to become Bonded, she knows that surviving the trial guarantees deployment to the front, so she resolves to participate. She and Lee have sex, and he takes her shopping for clothes and gear that she could never afford herself. When she returns home, she bids farewell to Igor, who promises to look after her mother. Before she leaves, her mother tries to give her an expensive opal necklace for protection, but Meryn gently refuses it, promising to bring Saela back.

Meryn arrives at the castle’s outer walls with all the recruits from across Nocturna. As Lee predicted, an officer announces that all recruits will take part in the Bonding Trials. He informs them that they must attempt the Ascent, a climb to the top of Mount Wolfsbane, where they’ll meet with direwolves who will either bond with them, ignore them, or kill them. He implies that the climb is perilous, but recruits are allowed to kill one another to better their chances. Those who survive but aren’t chosen by direwolves will be sent to the front. On the way to the base of the mountain, Meryn sees the famous Bonded City, which is for direwolves and their human bonded partners. The difference in wealth enrages her. When they arrive, she recognizes the children of the Bonded, who appear wealthier and better prepared than the other recruits. She meets the other commoner recruits, Alessandra and Henrey, and they discuss the different paths to the top of the mountain. Meryn plans to go up the slow and safer path.

The next morning, Meryn and the others ready themselves for the Ascent. She notices twin sisters from the Bonded children’s group, and Stark Therion introduces himself as the Alpha of the Daemos pack and one of the instructors for the year’s Bonding Trials. He explains the modalities of the climb and emphasizes that if anyone quits, he and the other Bonded officer will catch them. When the climb starts, Meryn tries to partner with Alessandra, but she refuses to trust Meryn. As she ponders how to proceed, Meryn hears one of the Bonded children, Jonah, attacking one of the twins. Meryn quickly defends her, saving her life. The twins identify themselves as Izabel and Venna, and they entreat Meryn to join them in the Ascent. With Stark at her back, Meryn agrees, and the three women begin the difficult climb. The twins teach Meryn how to scale a mountain. As they climb, others begin to fall from above.

Meryn is disturbed by the violence of the Ascent and the Bonded families’ willingness to send their children to the Trials. Along the way, Izabel and Venna explain how the Bonded families teach their children the best way to climb the mountain. Izabel nearly falls when a foothold collapses, but Meryn saves her. They avoid icy trails, and the twins teach Meryn how to use an ice pick and tie knots properly. Meryn also nearly falls to her death, but the twins help her overcome the ledge. When they stop to take a breath, others try to attack them for their gear. Meryn and the twins defend themselves, and, by accident, the others fall off the ledge to their deaths. Unnerved at how easily she could have been the one to die, Meryn takes one of the dead recruits’ ice picks.

Meryn and the twins find the mental strain of witnessing so many deaths difficult to deal with. As they continue to climb, Meryn explains how she’s only undertaking the Trials to reach Saela. A storm hits, but despite the cold and low visibility, they continue toward the top, signaling each other about possible dangers. Jonah attacks them, and though they dispose of him, Venna is injured.

Venna struggles to keep up with Meryn and Izabel, who adjust to support more of her weight in the climb. They make it to the summit, where other recruits and the direwolves are waiting. As Izabel and Venna go off, hoping to bond with a direwolf, Meryn mentally projects her reticence to bond. She watches as, after bonding, a strand of the recruits’ hair changes color, effectively identifying them as part of one of the four packs. Jonah is among them. Though she avoids the direwolves, a silver wolf, known to everyone as Anassa, finds her and forces Meryn to bond with her.

Unlike the other recruits, all of Meryn’s hair turns silver. Horrified that she’s bonded, Meryn tries to convince Anassa to rescind it, which only angers the direwolf. Stark appears, and Meryn remains wary of him. He instructs the newly bonded recruits that they must reach the training center before sundown. If they fail, their new bond will sever and they’ll die. Desperate to survive and find Saela, Meryn attempts but fails to communicate with Anassa. The direwolf mentally blocks Meryn. As everyone on the summit leaves, Meryn divests herself from her equipment and runs down the mountain on foot, passing dead recruits, direwolves, and what she thinks are ghosts. She arrives at the training center before sundown, only to be told that she can’t enter without her direwolf. As despair is about to grip her, Anassa appears, confirming that the “ghost” she saw on the mountain was Anassa following her the entire time. Though Meryn is enraged, she’s welcomed inside the training center as a Strategos Rawbond.