Page 37 of The Ashpaw: Part One

Her stomach cramped, and she picked up the sausage, wondering when the last time she’d eaten meat was…

Saliva pooled in her mouth as she brought it to her waiting lips.

Then she gathered everything, ran straight across the room, and threw it in the fire.

If she was to die, she would rather see the ax as it flew.

* * *

Fern’s body had become attuned to proximity, warning her when pain was imminent even as some traitorous part of her still longed for touch. Every time someone got close, she instantly recoiled, preparing to move or shield herself.

The Lurvekh ignored her for the most part, but Fern had already grown used to their cooling affections after Darion had announced she wasn’t available for petition.

With any luck, that ban would become permanent—she didn’t think she could survive sharing a bed with a man who would not even speak to her.

It was the Solvekh she needed to look out for the most, for she had become their whipping post for every small bitterness they dared not direct elsewhere.

A Solvekh, berated in front of the table he served for leaning too far over a Lurvekh to collect a dirty plate, backhanded her across the face as he passed her on the way to the kitchen, while another woman, held captive in a man’s lap for far longer than she desired, pulled her braid with a hard tug from behind, yelling at her to move.

It was on the fourth morning since being named the Ashpaw that she realized one large benefit of not being spoken to. No one really told her what they wanted her to do.

That changed her days completely. She could just skirt at the far side of any room, a broom in hand, and she was practically invisible, far away from the frustrated wolfkin that would hurt her were she in arm’s reach.

One late evening, she made her way to sweep under the tables, their benches raised by Solvekh long since retired.

Her broom glided with a comforting swish across the stone, the silence not as suffocating as she once found it.

She could breathe easier. And more importantly, she could hear if someone approached.

Something hard and sharp scraped towards her, and she crouched down, finding a broken shard of bone.

Lamb, she assumed, given the scent of the few sinewy bits of meat that still clung to it.

Still, there was something lovely in its shape that caught her eye in the dying firelight. She put it in her pocket, with plans to clean it off in the kitchen before she went to bed, then picked up her broom again.

She’d found a few small things in recent days—a shard of pottery from a broken plate, a feather that looked like the ones some of the Lurvekh used to decorate their hair, a pebble that might have been carried in on the bottom of someone’s shoe… hardly anything worth keeping. But to Fern, they were practically treasure, and she’d been hiding them in her blanket, taking them out one by one to inspect in the dying firelight while the others slept.

A wave of something akin to nausea rolled through her slowly, causing her to pause for a moment, wincing as it passed.

Her wolf stirred.

Chapter 11

Fern

Three new Solvekh women had arrived in the servants’ quarters, along with around a dozen men, distributed between the castle and grounds.

Norden had apparently been busy the last full moon and had finally finished rounding up and binding his marks.

Fern was in the kitchen when she saw them, left to make a meal with whatever scraps had been made available for her by the cooks. Everyone pretended it hadn’t been done on purpose.

“Why does she eat like that?” one of them whispered.

Fern looked down at the stale crust of bread she’d been gnawing on in the corner, her eyes drifting out towards the shadows along the wall where a rat was eating a small piece of cheese someone must have dropped.

She wondered if it would be willing to trade.

“Don’t look at her—that’s the Ashpaw,” Vedia replied, steering her away.