Page 70 of The Ashpaw: Part One

But this was no Freywood Forest.

There was no birdsong, no chatter of squirrels overhead, nor distant splash of water bubbling over stone—only the soft, damp hush of a world not made for man.

The trees rose around her in colossal pillars, their trunks so wide it would have taken four alpha wolfkin with linked arms to circle them. Moss climbed every surface in thick emerald layers, swallowing bark, stone, and fallen branches. It draped from limbs in long trailing curtains that shifted almost imperceptibly in a breeze she could not feel herself.

She paused, frowning up through the canopy.

Dawn had fully broken by now, and yet little of it reached the forest floor. What light filtered through came fractured and muted, pale shafts caught in layers of mist. It felt less like morning and more like standing underwater.

But as she grew increasingly uneasy, her wolf was becoming more comfortable—stretching, sniffing, and wagging her tail.

This doesn’t feel off?

Her wolf chuffed. This is where I belong.

“I,” her wolf had said. Not “we.”

I.

You know if I die, you die, too?

Her wolf rolled her eyes. Humans. So dramatic. Just find some water.

Fern was going to argue, but her wolf was right in that this was her domain, so she’d let her order her around for now.

Because however strange these woods felt, they had not tried to cut off her hand.

Yet.

* * *

Water remained elusive, and by midday, her throat was parched, her trepidation slowly morphing into dread.

When she was sure she’d seen the same oddly shaped rock before, she took off her bracelets, unwinding them into their individual strips, and started tying them on branches to mark her way.

Fern had somewhat naively assumed food wouldn’t be hard to find, either. The forest outside her village had always been full of berry bushes in the summer, and she couldn’t count how many times her mother had scolded her for returning with cheeks and dresses stained red from juice.

But nothing here was familiar enough to try. Even the mushrooms were foreign, looking almost safe to eat but not enough to risk being wrong.

Her ears picked up what she thought was water, and she started to walk a little more quickly, the promise of something to drink, something to fill her body, pushing her forward.

And then she saw the scrap of fabric, tied neatly before her on a bare branch, and she dropped to her knees, her lips quivering and tears flowing before she could stop them.

Had this really been the best idea? Perhaps she should have stayed in the wagon longer, waiting until she was closer to somewhere more hospitable.

Or she shouldn’t have gotten on the wagon at all. She could have found another way out, and then headed south towards the human lands over the river. Her village wouldn’t have been safe, but there were dozens of others she could have lain low in until Darion had forgotten about her.

With Kyntha rejoicing that her “inconvenience” was gone, it probably wouldn’t have taken long.

Her wolf growled in disagreement, but Fern ignored her, preferring to wallow in misery, wondering why she was to be punished for the rest of her life for helping a wolfkin.

No, she realized. Not for helping a wolfkin.

For leaving the safety of her home during a full moon.

Her despair deepened, her tears turning into full, belly-aching sobs because the part of her that had clung to her innocence, that had tried to shield her from the truth of it by pretending that this was all the result of a universe stacked against her, was now admitting this was all her fault.

That she deserved everything that had happened to her because she couldn’t just follow the rules, as a human or a Solvekh. She’d insulted Darion’s concern, she’d drawn the attention to herself in a clan where you had to stay in your place…