Chapter 15
Fern
She slept with the braids in, and when she removed the linen strips the following morning, her hair fell down her shoulders in loose waves.
Fern allowed herself a moment to admire them before rushing to the bathing room to wash them out—she would not allow vanity to overrule the need for survival.
Maybe in a different life, in different circumstances, it would please her to have Darion notice her. To run his fingers through her hair, and tell her how lovely she looked.
Her wolf certainly liked the idea, and had whined in the back of her mind while she dried her hair with her blanket.
“You’re the one who got us into this mess,” she muttered under her breath. “So I won’t hear a peep out of you.”
Her wolf huffed, then retreated to the darkness.
She headed upstairs to the kitchens, rooting around for a scrap of leftovers while trying to ignore everyone’s excited tales of the previous night.
No, she would not hear how much ale they drank, how many wolfkin they kissed.
How they danced for so long their feet ached.
How lovely Kyntha looked in her beaded gown…
Fern had managed to get her hands on a stale bread roll when Marin entered, clapping her hands for everyone’s attention.
“You’re needed in the gardens today, she-wolves!”
Gardens? As in… the gardens outside?
“It’s the summer harvest, and we’re short of hands. Let’s go, and see if we can’t finish before the afternoon’s heat is upon us.”
The conversations of the previous night turned into groans about working in the sun, but Fern could not be more excited to finally leave the castle, having missed the chance last night.
Were she actually a wolf, her tail would be wagging.
She followed Marin at the back of the group, the yard empty aside from a few guards.
The majority of the wolfkin were likely still sleeping off the night’s festivities.
Sabletail Castle’s gardens were not all that different from those in her village—long rectangular plots stretched in organized rows, separated by packed earth paths wide enough for carts.
Trellises of dark wood formed lattices for climbing beans and vine-grown gourds, and irrigation channels threaded through everything like veins.
Beyond the cultivated beds, the land changed into herb terraces and berry shrubs, then into orchard lines where young trees stood heavy with ripening fruit.
The air outside felt immediately different, a river of heat instead of a stagnant pond, and her lungs fully opened to the scents of greenery she’d almost forgotten living inside stone.
Fern had to slow herself at the edge, just for a breath before someone would notice, daring to close her eyes. The early morning sunlight on her face was cleansing in a way the waters of the bathing room could never hope to achieve.
Marin was already assigning groups. Most of the Solvekh broke into pairs or trios without hesitation, laughing with people they considered friends. At last, once everyone was gone, Marin looked at Fern, snapping her fingers.
“You.”
Fern swallowed, worried she’d already made a mistake.
Disappointment was still a bitter tonic to swallow, no matter how many doses she was forced to take. Marin was probably going to send her back to Kyntha’s room to finish the job she’d been made to abandon last night.
She walked up quickly, shoulders low and gaze averted. Waiting to be spoken to.
“I heard.”
Fern nodded. “Aye, I’ll go back inside…”
“No,” Marin answered quickly. “Just…”
She sighed, looking towards the Solvekh now chatting pleasantly, their baskets already filling.
“Perhaps the young enjoy the solstice for the pleasures of drink and merriment,” she said. “But the older you get, the more it becomes a time for reflection. A reminder that no matter how dark it gets, the light will always return.”
She dug into the pocket of her apron and took out a small bundle wrapped in cloth.
“I’m sorry you were denied the light, Ashpaw.”
Fern’s lips began to tremble as Marin placed the bundle in her hands.
“You’ll take the beds along the eastern row,” she said, her tone flattening as it got louder. “Radish, carrot, and spinach. Potatoes, too. Anything ready comes up today.”
Fern knew not to linger. She nodded quickly and followed the indicated path before she could be noticed.
Once she was sure no one was looking, she took a peek inside the small package in her hands.
Inside lay a small slice of honey cake, the top embossed with a candied violet.
She would have cried if not for the fear someone would discover her, so she shoved it into her mouth, crumbs falling as she chewed and swallowed so quickly she hardly tasted it.
But the hint of sugar and butter remained, and it was enough to take the edge off the grief.
Fern put the small handkerchief in her pocket after wiping her hands.
The eastern beds were slightly lower than the rest of the garden, where the smell of the iron-rich soil leached into the air. Pale green radish tops crowded together with the soft, tangled mats of feathered carrot fronds, while spinach plants spread broad and low, their leaves thick and dark.
A few workers were already there, crouched along the rows with baskets at their sides. They didn’t look up when Fern arrived, and she settled where she could between them.
Her parents had kept a small garden in the space between their house and the tavern, and if she squinted just enough, she could pretend the woman to her left was her mother.
She lowered herself carefully into the soil, skirt gathered to keep it clean—she wouldn’t get a new one ‘til winter, after all—and reached for the base of a radish plant.
When she pulled, the plant resisted at first, then gave with a quiet, wet release.
A pale root came free, round and crisp with dirt clinging to it in broken flecks.
She set it into her basket.
The carrots required a little more skill and patience. If she pulled too sharply, the greens snapped and left the root behind. Instead she worked her fingers down into the soil beside them, loosening the earth before easing them upward.
Spinach was simpler but more repetitive. The leaves stacked quickly, turning into weight in her hands that she knew would be cooked down to less than a mouthful.
As the sun climbed higher and the work settled into a comfortable rhythm, time slipped quicker than it had in weeks, and Fern found, without meaning to, that her shoulders were lowering.
She could never allow herself to feel fully at ease, but they weren’t braced in quite the same way as inside the castle.
A basket was passed down the row when hers filled, emptied into a larger crate waiting at the path. She was ignored for who she was, but the simple acknowledgment of her work, her existence, was almost as sweet as honey cake.
By mid-morning, the beds were thinning out, leaving small hollows in the soil where roots had been. Fern wiped her wrist across her forehead and left a smear of dirt there without noticing, and looked up, as though some unseen force had lifted her chin.
She locked eyes with Jules, and her breath caught in her chest.
He looked much worse than she had days after her own attack. In fact, she was almost fully healed, while his face was still quite swollen, his arm in a sling and his gait uneven.
She knew she should be thankful he was alive, that he was well enough to walk.
But seeing the aftermath was a fresh wave of guilt, a tide bringing the small bit of peace she’d managed to find in the day’s work back out to sea.
He tipped his head a fraction, offering her a small smile.
She returned it, eyes wet as she mouthed, I’m sorry.
Jules shook his head.
Don’t be.
He then walked away to rejoin the group of wolfkin men, a bucket in his working hand.
Fern wanted to watch him more, but the woman next to her grunted loudly, pointing towards the next section with her chin.
“Potatoes after this,” she said sharply, as if knowing Fern needed the reminder to stay the course. She moved along, her fingers digging into the cool, dark earth.
Fern didn’t mind the dirt under her nails. It would take time to pick them clean in the cold waters beneath the castle, but the day spent in the sun, with the wind in her hair and something other than stone to kneel on, hardly made the future work a deterrent to her current enjoyment.
The early potatoes were roughly the size and shape of duck eggs in her hands, and she rubbed their skins before placing them in her basket as if they might be just as fragile, humming quietly to herself.
Her wolf had stirred inside her, lulled by the quiet safety.
Fern could picture her in her mind, her coat just a shade or two darker than her own hair, her stature slight.
Green eyes blinked slowly, watching her work and wondering what could possibly be so pleasing.
You eat these rocks? she asked.
Fern nearly jumped where she sat. A woman turned sharply towards her, and Fern smiled.
“Sorry, there was a bee.”
The woman rolled her eyes and went back to work.
They’re not rocks. And I do eat them. If given the chance.
Her wolf snorted, then yawned and closed her eyes, settling down for a nap.
As she dug through the next section, a small, brownish-gray stone caught her attention from beneath the leaves, and she picked it up.
Not a stone, but a snail shell, its inhabitant long gone.
Her thumb ran over the ridged surface, tracing the spiral.
She’d kept several snail shells in the hollow of her tree as a child, shapes that always seemed too perfect to be made by something as wild, untamed, and cruel as nature.
Fern tucked it into her pocket, feeling eyes on her. She’d assumed it must be her wolf again at first, but when she looked inward, the beast was still napping.
Then she raised her head.
Kyntha was walking with her attendants, one of them holding a parasol above her head as they moved. As if her skin were so delicate, a single drop of sunlight would burn straight through her.
The lady’s eyes were trained ahead, but it was darker eyes that had turned towards Fern.
Mauricia.
Watching. Learning.
Smiling.
Then she turned back around, following dutifully after her lady as they entered the castle.
A cold shiver ran down her spine, and Fern got back to the potatoes, trying not to let the feeling keep her from enjoying what was left of the day, a memory she could hold onto the next time the castle walls began to close around her.