Chapter 10
Fern
The Ashpaw is not spoken to.
Fern walked down the steps in a dazed stupor.
No one greeted her.
No one looked at her.
She had known it could always get worse, she just hadn’t realized it could so quickly. Simply one mark Darion had made upon her forehead, and that was it. Her fate was sealed.
The Ashpaw is not touched.
Someone rammed into her shoulder so hard when they passed that she fell, the pain barely registering as she stood back up, making her way to the sleeping quarters.
Others bent their bodies at unnatural angles to keep as much space between them as possible.
She held herself, already feeling deprived of gentle contact.
The Ashpaw stands apart.
The day after a shift was one of partial rest for the Solvekh, and many were in their cots when she arrived.
Hers was occupied now, the brown hair on the head sticking out of the blanket familiar.
Slowly, she turned towards a low clicking sound, Marin calling to her quietly so as not to wake the other women.
“You sleep there, Ashpaw.”
Her eyes followed the direction she pointed, but she knew what she was looking for—the dark, cold corner with the threadbare blanket that belonged to the last Ashpaw, her dress and boots lined up beside it.
Her bare feet whispered over stone she could no longer feel.
Someone kicked her and she lurched forward, just catching herself before landing on her knees.
The Ashpaw does not belong.
With a wet sniffle, she dressed and lowered herself to her new assigned space, wincing at the dirt. And with just the one blanket, she’d have to choose between laying on top of it or using it to cover her.
Instead, she rejected it altogether, stuffing it out of the way as she curled up as tightly as she could, wishing to fall asleep and find this had all been a terrible nightmare.
But no such mercy would come, and perhaps this was the peace Darion had promised.
If Fern had nothing left to strive for, then she had nothing left to lose.
* * *
“Breakfast in ten!”
Fern had gone numb to the cold, and the dull throb of her body protested the stone beneath her. But the moment she moved, white-hot pain lanced through her hips and she bit back a gasp.
She could not bite back the scream when a heel came down on her hand, though.
She looked up, cradling it to her chest, at the woman who walked away, not even bothering to glance back.
A woman who just two days ago had split her bread with her.
She stood, leaning against the wall for support, and then shuffled off quickly to the bathing room. Conversation continued around her as though she were nothing more than an inconvenient column interrupting the flow of the room.
Crouching down on the slick floor, she scooped up some water to wash her face as she did every morning.
And someone pushed her in.
Her lungs seized from the cold, skirts weighing her down despite the depths being shallow enough to stand in. Her feet slipped along the algae-coated bottom until finally she rose, gasping for breath, violent quaking overtaking her limbs.
“Smells so much better now, doesn’t it?” someone asked as they exited, laughs echoing behind them.
One woman remained in the room. The previous Ashpaw.
She looked different now, her posture slightly straighter, her brown hair more smoothed back.
For a moment she watched Fern, considering her carefully.
“Are you coming, Rosen?”
The woman gave Fern one more furtive glance, a mixture of pity and relief, and then hurried out to follow the group.
Teeth chattering so hard she was afraid she’d chip one, she managed to finally pull herself up the ledge, peeling off the wet clothes that stuck to her like a second skin not yet ready to be shed.
Finding someone’s discarded linen wrap, she fastened it with a couple of quick tucks around her chest, and made her way to the shelves of dresses.
There were none left.
A wracked sob sounded from her chest, and Marin stepped back in to inspect the noise, her expression hardening as she found the source.
“You only get the one.”
“B-b-but it’s—”
Her mouth flattened, and she looked away, blinking quickly. Then she turned around, speaking as though Fern wasn’t there. “Someone needs to clean the bathing room and sleeping quarters today.”
Fern sniffed, water dripping from her hair onto the floor, and gave a shaking nod.
Once Marin left, she tightened the cloth around her, and found her dress. Since it was soaked already, she scrubbed it with soap and laid it in the small square of sunlight spilling from the distant windows.
Then she found a large brush, and began scrubbing the floor.
She moved her dress with the sun, turning it over halfway through the day, and ignored the hunger gnawing at her insides.
The sun had almost disappeared completely when heavy footsteps echoed down the stairs, a familiar scent preceding them.
Too late to grab her still damp dress, Fern lunged for her blanket, just managing to get it around her shoulders when Eidan entered the room.
He looked around, a scowl on his face, until he found her in her corner.
His scowl deepened.
“You weren’t at breakfast or lunch.”
Her heart lurched so hard she felt its pounding in her cheeks. He must have been planning some humiliation for her, and was angry she hadn’t been there for him to enact it.
To make sure everyone in the clan knew she was a failure.
“Well?” he snapped.
She looked up. He held a small, lumpy bundle in one hand, the contents wrapped tight in a handkerchief.
“I… I don’t know if I can respond.”
His sigh turned into a low growl, and he walked slowly towards her, causing her to shrink further into herself.
He dropped the bundle at her feet. “The Ashpaw stands apart, the Ashpaw does not belong…” he said, his tone mocking as he read out the rules Darion had given her the night before.
Then Eidan spat on the newly washed floors.
“Nowhere does it say the Ashpaw must starve herself.”
All she could do was stare at the spit glistening against the clean stone, blinking slowly.
He nudged the bundle with his foot. “You’re allowed to eat. So eat.”
He turned around, leaving just as quickly as he’d entered, and she now stared at what he’d left behind.
She waited a few more minutes, weighing the odds of whether this was some sort of trick or not. If it was poison. If Darion might jump out at any moment to punish her for thinking she could receive any kindness from a wolfkin, especially an alpha.
When no one appeared, she untied it, her fingers shaking, to discover a sausage, chunk of bread, and a small wedge of cheese.
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.