Page 67 of The Ashpaw: Part One

The second one sniffed. “Smell what?”

“It smells like…”

Fern held her breath, her eyes shut tight.

“Your mother.”

The other one let out an exasperated grunt, and she heard a deep thud—a fist against padded flesh, followed by a rolling laugh.

“How do I keep falling for that every godsdamned…”

The two kept walking, and once she could no longer hear their footsteps, Fern dared to exhale. And when she finally moved again, her legs trembled so badly she nearly stumbled.

This was madness. Even if she made it beyond the walls with her loud breathing and strong scent, where would she go?

Back to her village, to Freywood?

Darion would find her before dawn.

Into the forests?

Her wolf huffed, watching with glowing, amused eyes.

You’re welcome to contribute.

Run downhill, the wolf said at once.

That was the sum total of her strategy. But at least it was a strategy.

So Fern did, skirting the edge of the training yard, ducking beneath a rack of practice spears, and squeezing through a narrow service gate someone had carelessly failed to latch.

Beyond it, the grounds widened into a maze of supply sheds, stables, and storage houses she had only glimpsed from windows.

Lantern light bobbed ahead, and she heard more voices.

She darted behind a stack of split firewood, and spied a broad wagon standing in the open yard, hitched to two large draft horses. Wolfkin moved around it, heaving sacks of grain and crates beneath the watch of a gray-bearded quartermaster barking orders.

“Mind the left wheel, idiot, unless you fancy explaining to Captain Serris why his flour’s in a ravine.”

It was now or never—if she climbed onto that cart, there would be no pretending this had been a mistake born of panic.

It would become a planned escape.

She took stock of herself, patting her skirts and realizing perhaps too late she had no food, nor cloak, nor treasures in her pocket to keep her calm—they’d been left in the Council Chamber.

But what choice did she have now?

“Supplies leave in ten!”

The workers were each too occupied with their own task to notice the dark shape crouched behind the woodpile.

At the rear of the cart, one wolfkin hauled up the final canvas tarp while another bent to secure the ropes.

Now! her wolf urged.

Fern ran.

Her slippers slapped once against packed dirt before she kicked them off entirely and kept going barefoot, the cold biting into her soles.