2. The Shithole Farm
The Shithole Farm
Ash
Three miles outside the castle walls, in a patch of mud that generously calls itself "Grimwald Acres."
I’m up to my elbows in pig shit.
Again.
The sun has already gone down, but the work hasn't.
Baron Grimwald, my stepfather, my tormentor, the man I fantasize about murdering at least six times a day, decided that tonight of all nights was the perfect time to "deep-clean" the entire sty.
Because "the pigs deserve better than your lazy ass, boy. "
The pigs. Deserve better. Than me.
I haul another wheelbarrow of muck toward the compost heap, every muscle in my back screaming from twelve hours of this exact bullshit. Plowing fields. Mending fences. Carrying water. Being the unpaid pack mule for a man who hasn't done an honest day's labor since he inherited the title.
I’m twenty-six years old. Six-foot-four. Built like a man who's spent his entire life doing the work of ten servants because that's exactly what I am. My hands are calloused enough to sand wood. My shoulders are broad enough to carry the weight of this entire godforsaken farm.
And I’m so fucking tired.
"One of these days," I say, dumping another load, "I'm gonna shove this shovel so far up Brant's ass he'll taste last week's turnips."
A chorus of tiny, squeaky cheers comes from the open barn window.
"Fuck yeah, boss! Do it! Make it a double shove!"
"Tell 'em to choke on it!"
I glance over. Three pairs of beady black eyes peer out from a gap in the hayloft.
My rats.
Squeak, the big talker: notched ear, endless opinions, absolutely no filter. Nibbles, the short one, always chewing on something he shouldn't. And Twitch never shuts up but can pick any lock in the county with his teeth.
They’re my only real friends, which says everything about my life that needs saying.
"Keep it down," I tell them. "Grimwald hears you talking and he'll set traps again."
"Let him try," Squeak squeaks, puffing out his tiny chest. "We'll shit in his pillowcase. Again."
From the roof beam above them comes a dry, disgusted croak.
It’s One-Eye. The crow. Ancient as dirt, mean as a snake, and sporting one milky-white eye that suggests he’s seen some shit and regrets every second of it.
He's been around longer than any of us, longer than the farm, some say.
He claims to remember when this land was "respectable," whatever that means.
"Idiots," he announces. "All of you. Especially the big one with the shovel and the tragic backstory."
"Coming from the bird who owes me three weeks of corn for that broken wing last spring."
One-Eye fluffs his feathers indignantly. "I was dignified about it. You lot are just... vermin with delusions of grandeur."
A furious honking erupts from the equipment shed, followed by my brother's voice.
"Bastard, I swear to every god listening, if you bite my ass one more time I'm making you into a pillow!"
That’s Slade. Middle brother, twenty-four, lean and quick with a face that can charm coins out of a miser's pocket. He's been fighting a losing battle with a broken plow blade for the last hour, shirtless because he tore his tunic on a nail. The goose isn’t helping.
Bastard waddles out of the shed looking deeply unbothered by Slade's threats. He’s huge, white-feathered, and radiates the energy of a creature who’s committed crimes and would commit more.
Slade saved him from becoming the Baron's dinner three years ago.
In return, Bastard appointed himself Slade's bodyguard, confidant, and occasional weapon.
He honks again, long and judgmental.
"I know the plow is shit," Slade snaps, emerging with grease smeared across his chest. "I don't need commentary."
From the barn roof, a third voice drifts down. "Having goose problems?"
I look up. Wreck, our youngest brother, twenty-two, feral energy barely contained in a compact, wiry frame, is hanging half off the edge of the roof.
Why is he on the roof? Unclear. Something about a loose shingle and a bet he made with himself.
He has a hammer in one hand and a stolen apple in his mouth.
"Why are you on the roof?" Slade demands.
"Shingle was loose."
"Is it fixed?"
"Define 'fixed.'"
Two sinuous shapes rocket out of a hole in the barn wall and spiral up a support beam at impossible speeds.
Susan and Gerald, Wreck's ferrets, have the soulless black eyes of creatures who looked upon chaos and found it good.
They chitter wildly, doing a synchronized war dance on the beam before launching themselves at Wreck's shoulders.
"Hello, my beautiful nightmares," Wreck coos, letting Susan nestle into his collar while Gerald attempts to steal the apple from his mouth. "Did you steal something good today?"
Gerald produces a silver cufflink from somewhere in his fur. Susan has what appears to be a human tooth.
"We don't ask about the tooth," Wreck informs the air. "We never ask about the tooth."
I don't ask about the tooth.
One-Eye lands on the peak of the roof, surveying our assembled chaos. "The rats are horny," he announces. "The goose is violent. And the ferrets are almost certainly building a shrine to a dark god somewhere in the walls. I should have migrated south when I had the chance."
"You love us," I call up.
"I tolerate you. There's a difference. And it grows thinner every day."
Slade, Wreck, and I aren’t related by blood. But we have the same basic story: our mothers married Baron Grimwald, our mothers died suspiciously soon after, and now we’re permanent indentured servants with no inheritance and no way out.
We've become brothers in every way that matters.
The sound of the farmhouse door slamming cuts through the evening air.
All three of us tense automatically. Even the animals go quiet. It’s a conditioned response, years of bracing for whatever fresh hell our stepfamily was about to deliver.
Baron Grimwald's biological sons strut across the yard like peacocks who've learned to walk upright.
Brant, the elder, is tall and blond and conventionally handsome in that "I've never worked a day in my life and it shows" way. Garrick is slightly shorter, slightly dumber, and compensates for both by being twice as mean. They’re dressed to the nines tonight, silk doublets, powdered wigs, enough cologne to make a skunk gag.
Bastard's head swivels toward them with the slow, deliberate menace of a creature selecting its next victim.
"Not yet," Slade says, putting a hand on the goose's neck. "Let them talk first."
"Oh, look," Brant drawls, surveying us with theatrical disdain. "The livestock is gathering. How fitting, since you all smell like you've been rolling in it."
"Probably because your father makes us roll in it," Slade replies, voice sweet as poisoned honey. "Daily. For years. Almost like he's compensating for raising two sons who couldn't find their own cocks with a map and a lantern."
Garrick's face reddens. "Watch your mouth. We're going to the ball tonight. Lady Cinder's ball. You know, the Lady Cinder? The one looking for a husband?"
My ears prick up despite myself. Lady Cinder. Even out here in the shit-covered countryside, we've heard the rumors. Beautiful. Powerful. Rich as sin. And apparently impossible to please.
Wreck drops down from the roof edge, hanging by his hands, suddenly interested. Susan and Gerald perk up on his shoulders, whiskers twitching.
"Wait, the rich lady who keeps rejecting everyone? What's the deal with that?"
Brant puffs up like a bullfrog in silk. "The deal is that Lady Cinder has announced she's tired of, how did she put it? 'Soft-handed princes who finish before she's started.' She wants a man who can actually perform."
Something hot and reckless shifts in my chest.
"A real man," Brant continues, sneering at us. "Someone with stamina. Someone who can satisfy her... thoroughly."
"So naturally she'll pick one of you two," I say flatly. "With your legendary stamina. Brant, didn't you cry last time a woman touched you?"
"That was one time, and she had cold hands."
"And Garrick," Slade adds, grinning now, "I heard the milkmaid laughing for ten minutes after she saw you naked. Something about a frightened earthworm?"
Garrick lunges forward, but Brant grabs his collar.
"Ignore them. They're jealous." Brant straightens his doublet, composure returning to smug.
"They'll never even see the inside of that ball.
No invitation, no clothes, and frankly, no chance.
Lady Cinder wants nobility. Breeding. Class.
" He looks pointedly at my shit-covered boots. "Not whatever that is."
"She wants a man who can fuck," Wreck calls down cheerfully. "You just said so. Pretty sure that eliminates both of you on a technicality."
Brant's face goes purple. "You'll be mucking out the cesspit for a month for that."
"Worth it."
Baron Grimwald's voice bellows from the house. "BOYS! The carriage is ready! Stop wasting time on the animals!"
Brant smooths his doublet one final time. "That's us. Off to secure the fortune and title you three will never have. Try not to choke on your own inadequacy while we're gone."
We watch them climb into the gilded carriage. Watch it roll away toward the distant castle lights.
Silence settles over the farm.
Then Squeak's tiny voice pipes up from the hayloft.
"Boss. Boss. Did you hear that? She wants a man who can perform."
"She wants stamina," Nibbles adds breathlessly.
"She wants to get fucked right," Twitch squeaks, bouncing so hard he nearly falls off the beam. "Boss, that's you. That's all three of you! You're literally built for this!"
Bastard honks emphatically. Even Susan and Gerald pause their chaos to chitter in what sounds like agreement.
I dump the last wheelbarrow of muck, lean the shovel against the barn, and strip off my tunic to rinse at the pump.
Water sluices over my chest, cold and bracing.
I let myself imagine it, just for a second.
Walking into that ball. Being seen as something other than a servant.
Finding a woman who wants what I could give her.
A woman who wants to be handled. Claimed. Ruined.
Slade wanders over, arms crossed, a dangerous glint in his eye. "You're thinking what I'm thinking."
"That the lady deserves better than those two useless sacks of silk?" I grab a rag, drying off. "Yeah. But we've got no invitation, no clothes, and no way in."
"About that," One-Eye croaks, gliding down to land on the fence post.
His voice carries the weight of someone about to make a decision he’ll deeply regret.
"I've been... collecting things. From the old witch's grave beyond the creek. Shiny things. Magical things." He ruffles his feathers, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Been saving them for an emergency."
Wreck drops the rest of the way from the roof, landing in a crouch that makes both ferrets shriek with excitement. "Define 'magical things.'"
"Things that could, theoretically, transform three mud-covered disasters into something presentable.
Clothes. Carriage. The works." One-Eye's good eye fixes on us with weary resignation.
"Midnight curfew. Standard fairy-tale fine print.
One night only. After that, everything turns back to shit. Probably literally, knowing your luck."
The rats erupt into cheers. Bastard flaps his wings triumphantly. Susan and Gerald do a ferret war dance of such intensity that Gerald falls off Wreck's shoulder.
I look at my brothers, my real family, forged in shit and suffering and spite. Then at the animals who’ve stuck with us through everything. Then at the distant castle lights glittering on the horizon.
Something is building in my chest. Something that feels dangerously like hope.
"Three princes crashing the kingdom's most exclusive party," Slade says slowly, that wicked smile sharpening. "With magic clothes and no noble blood..."
"To compete for a lady who's explicitly tired of limp-dicked disappointments," Wreck adds, eyes gleaming.
"And we're all that's standing between her and a lifetime of mediocre sex," I finish.
The rats start chanting. Bastard honks victoriously. Susan and Gerald steal One-Eye's shiniest feather and run.
One-Eye sighs the sigh of a creature who knows, deep in his ancient bones, that this is going to be the most exhausting night of his very long life.
"Three of them," he says. "The witch's magic is strong, but I don't know if it's stupid enough for three of them."
I’ve made my decision.