Page 14 of Feralheart

seven, if you do it right.

I wrote my name on the wind

and it answered with the scent of flowers and herbs.

If the road is short, I’ll walk it loud,

boots like drums, heart like dragon fire.

And when the dark creeps in, I’ll lean back

and borrow your hum for my light.

To hide my tears, I fussed with a wrinkle in his bedding, smoothing it flat.

“It’s good,” I said.

“You’re not looking at me.”

“I’m looking at your terrible bedding arrangement.”

He snorted and held the poem out to me. “Keep it.”

“It’s yours.”

“I’m giving it to you.”

I took it and folded it carefully, tucking it on the narrow ledge above the stove where we kept things that mattered.

The front door opened, and Father entered, hunched under the weight of the day. The iron stink of the mines rode along with him, and even though he would’ve washed in the village square, gray dust still lingered on his face, hands, and clothing.

His pass token clinked as he hung it on a peg.

His gaze shot to Tolross and the tight lines by his mouth loosened. “How’s my boy?”

“Still breathing,” Tolross said. “Still annoying Eradin.”

Father’s mouth pulled into a smile, and he crossed to the basin. I’d set the water to warm earlier, and he scrubbed his hands and face in silence. Clean skin showed in pale stripes where his goggles had sat until he washed the dirt away.

Entering his bedroom, he tucked the curtain closed and changed into a clean shirt and pants. After shaking his work clothes outside, he hung them on the hook by the door to wear again tomorrow.

His gaze flicked to the herb shelf and then quickly away.

I continued preparing our meal. After adding some herbs, I tossed in a pinch of salt. The smell filled the room and made it feel like we had more than we did.

Father asked me about work, and I gave him the safe version. Heartsbrim was fussy. Lady Severine wanted shine. I didn’t mention the hunt or the trap or the wild dragon whose blood I’d scrubbed from underneath my nails.

I didn’t mention the prince either, or the way he’d taken the hunt in a different direction and stepped in when Overseer Nuant would’ve disciplined me.

Protection from people like the prince always came with strings. My mother had taught me that the same way she’d taught me to use herbs. An elite didn’t intervene without reason.

But his jaw had been tight when Nuant called me “this one.”

And the look on his face when I’d challenged him about the hatchling, when he’d caught himself, kept surfacing in my mind when I didn’t want it to.

He’d looked lost.

I couldn’t let it matter.