Two More Weeks
1259 Words
Ashen
“Some stupid masked wolf appears out of nowhere,” she continued, “dances with her once, runs like a coward at midnight, and suddenly half the court is whispering as if the Goddess herself descended in a silver coat.”
The teacup slipped.
It struck the table, bounced, and shattered against the floor.
Tea splashed across the rug.
The room went silent.
Slowly, Seraphine turned her head.
My stomach dropped.
“Clumsy Stupid omega,” she said. “Clean it.”
“Yes, Luna. Sorry, Luna.”
Her eyes sharpened.
For a breath, I thought she would slap me for the title again.
Instead, she smiled.
It was worse.
“Look at that,” she said. “He does remember how to grovel.”
Callan snorted.
I knelt and reached for the broken pieces.
My hand shook.
The glass sliced across my palm.
Blood welled bright against my skin.
Cael’s gaze dropped to it.
Something flickered in his face.
Recognition? Guilt? I could not tell.
I closed my fist before blood could drip on the rug.
Seraphine leaned back in her chair. “I looked for you when we returned last night.”
My pulse beat hard in the cut.
I kept my head down. “Did you, Luna?”
“Do not answer a question with a question.”
“Sorry, Luna.”
“Where were you?”
The room seemed to tilt.
Callan stopped chewing.
Cael went still.
My mind emptied, then filled too fast.
“I was out back,” I said. “Getting the wood ready for morning.”
Seraphine studied me.
“You expect me to believe you were chopping wood at midnight?”
“The south pile was low.”
“That was not what I asked.”
I picked up another piece of glass. Blood slid down my wrist.
“I wanted to make sure the hearths were ready before you returned.”
Callan laughed. “Saint Ashen, patron of firewood.”
I let him laugh.
Seraphine’s stare lingered a moment longer.
Then she looked away.
“After you clean that, scrub the rug. Then take fresh linens to the guest rooms. The east staircase needs washing. The kennels need clearing. The twins’ boots are still marked from the palace courtyard. The west fencing is loose again. The kitchen stones smell like smoke. The ash bins need emptying. And your sister’s laundry will not do itself.”
“Yes, Luna.”
She sipped her tea from the cup that had not broken.
“And Ashen?”
I looked up.
Her smile thinned.
“If I find out you were anywhere you should not have been, your sister will answer first.”
The glass in my hand cracked smaller.
I did not flinch.
“Yes, Luna.”
I cleaned the mess.
Washed the blood from my palm.
Wrapped the cut in a strip of cloth torn from an old rag.
Then I left before my face betrayed me.
Nara was in the laundry room, fighting with a basket nearly as wide as she was.
“You are supposed to be sorting,” I said.
“I am sorting aggressively.”
“You are going to fall in.”
“I might prefer it.”
I took the basket from her.
She saw my wrapped hand immediately.
Her face changed. “What happened?”
“Glass.”
“Did they—”
“Glass,” I repeated gently.
She looked at me the way children look at doors they are old enough to know are locked.
I hated that she was old enough.
“Come on,” I said. “You will be late.”
Her shoulders dropped. “Maybe I should stay.”
“No.”
“Ash, you have too much to do.”
“I always have too much to do.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It was not meant to be. It was meant to be true.”
I helped her change into her school dress, mended twice at the sleeves and once near the hem. I brushed her hair because she liked to pretend she hated it when I did it, then stood very still every time.
“You are pulling,” she complained.
“I am not.”
“You are thinking too hard.”
“That affects brushing?”
“It affects everything with you.”
I smiled despite myself.
For a moment, in the small servant room with morning light slipping through the cracked window, I could almost pretend we were only siblings.
Not prisoners.
Not promises.
Not children born under a father’s disappointment.
Just Ashen and Nara.
She watched me in the mirror. “Two weeks.”
I paused.
She met my eyes.
“In two weeks, I turn eighteen,” she said.
“I know.”
“You still mean it?”
I set the brush down.
“Yes.”
The first time I had begged my father for anything, I had been twelve.
Not for food.
Not for mercy.
Not even for myself.
For her.
“Let Nara go to school,” I had said, standing before Alpha Torren Drakewood with my hands clenched behind my back. “Please.”
He had not looked up from his papers. “She has chores.”
“I will do them.”
That made him look at me.
His eyes had been cold. Curious, almost, as if he wondered how much a boy could carry before his spine broke.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Without complaint?”
“Yes.”
“And if your work suffers?”
“It will not.”
He had agreed not because he cared about Nara’s mind.
He agreed because I had offered him a better servant.
Since then, every lesson she attended cost me another chore.
Every book in her bag sat on my shoulders.
I would have carried ten times more.
Nara turned from the mirror. “Where will we go?”
“South first. Maybe to mom's pack.”
“Away from snow?”
“Away from them.”
Her mouth trembled, but she nodded.
I tied the ribbon in her hair.
“Do not speak to Callan today,” I said.
“I try not to speak to Callan any day.”
“Try harder.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Ash.”
I picked up her school satchel and placed it in her hands.
“Listen to your teachers. Stay with the other students. Come straight back through the west path.”
She studied me like she wanted to argue.
Then she hugged me.
Quick.
Tight.
Before anyone could see.
“I hate this house,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“I know.”
When she pulled away, I touched her cheek.
“Two more weeks.”
She nodded.
Then she left.
I watched from the servants’ door until she disappeared beyond the frozen pines, small and brave beneath a gray winter sky.
My hand throbbed.
My body ached.
My mother’s ring was gone.
A princess had my secret in her palm.
Inside the packhouse, Lady Seraphine’s bell rang for me.
Once.
Twice.
Impatient.
I picked up the wood basket.
Two more weeks.
That was all I needed.
Two more weeks, and Nara would be eighteen.
Two more weeks, and I would take my sister, my mother’s memory, and whatever pieces of myself this pack had not stolen.
Then we would leave SilvaFrost behind forever.
I only had to survive until then.
- Writer
