The fire wouldnât catch.
I crouched low, shoulders hunched against the cold, fingers stiff around the flint. My breath came in shallow bursts, white in the early dark, but my face stayed blank in a careful neutral expression. Unreadable. A mask â the same one I wore in court, in front of nobles, in front of Lucen the snake when he first slithered in.
I wouldnât let them see how they got to me.
Even when theyâd never see my face again.
And now here in the forestâs chill, I also wasnât about to let the stupid flint and pitiful kindling see how frustrated I was.
Even if they didnât have eyes to see my face.
I struck the flint again. A spark flew from the rocks like a pathetic firebug and died before it touched the kindling.
Again.
A few more sparks danced, one or two touching the tinder, and I held my breath. A tendril of smoke roseâthen vanished.
I had checked the firepit a dozen times, made sure everything was correct, just as I had been taught under Grenâs meticulous instructions. It should be working.
The kindling was dry. The angle was right. I had followed every bit of instruction drilled into me. It should have been enough, had always been enough before.
It wasnât enough now.
My hands trembled â not from fear, not from weakness: from hunger. From the ache in my arms and the tightness in my gut that gnawed on my spine like it had a mouth of its own. My knees were soaked through where they pressed into the thawing dirt. The fire pit in front of me was a perfect ring of stones. Too perfect. Like me. Like the version of myself I carved out for years with care, and silence, and shame.
I tried again, striking the flint deftly, just so.
The spark flashed. Smoke rose. Then nothing.
I sat back on my heels and exhaled through my nose. Slow, measured, calm. My lips were cracked and my throat parched. My hands were chapped from the biting cold. Still, I said nothing.
My food had run out two days ago; that last scrap of cheese, that shriveled strip of meat â I had stretched it too far and now my body wanted to make me pay for it. But I didnât complain. I remained silent and kept my face schooled in a careful expression. I was stronger than this pain and hunger and freezing cold.
That was how Iâd survived: by being quiet, careful, and stronger than they expected. By never drawing attention. By folding myself into shapes I had not meant to fit, until I fit them so well they forgot Iâd ever been anything else.
I could recite fifteen clauses of the Fenrathi treaty from twenty years ago and I could tell anyone in great detail the specifications of trade and land rights between Raul and our two bordering kingdoms, Karaprecia and Tivalendale. I could arrange cutlery for six rival diplomats without a spoon out of place and I could bow low enough that my spine ached and my soul obediently cowered. I could read and write in five tongues, only two of those my fatherâs scholars begrudgingly taught me. I had mastery of sword, staff, and spear, drilled alone until the movements lived in my bones. I could hold my own against boys twice my size and outspar most of the guards of the castle. I was swift of foot and sure in the saddle, unseating riders trained since boyhood. I could move unseen, pass through guarded halls or shadowed woods without stirring notice.
But I couldnât keep a damned fire alive.
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Hold your cup by the base, not the handle. A ladyâs fingers should never clench.
Not my voice â but it lived behind my teeth, ringing like a gong everyone insisted on sounding.
Sit straight. Smile gently. Say only what is asked, and never what is felt.
Suddenly I was sixteen again in the tea room. A long table laid with lavender-dusted cakes and candied violets that stuck to the teeth. Thin gold forks beside embroidered linen napkins. Sunlight spilled through the arched windows, but the air still felt cold â sharp with perfume and judgment.
My gloves had been a pale lilac, far too tight across the knuckles and snagging on the calluses on my palms. My fingers ached, half-numb. I didnât flex them, didnât shift in my seat. I had held perfectly still, hands folded neatly in my lap, posture proper and demure, head turned down politely.
I had smiled until my jaw felt locked in place. Answered questions with words pressed flat and sweet like dried fruit â pleasant, forgettable, harmless. I had complimented hair ribbons, laughed in the right register, and allowed myself to become something soft and smooth and silent.
I remembered how the porcelain cup felt â thin as eggshell, the gold rim warm from tea, the treacherous tremble in my hand visible only in the surface ripple of the liquid. I'd held it still. Ds Almost perfectly still.
That was the first time I noticed Lucen watching me.
His eyes tracked me from the doorway â not invited, not announced, just present. He leaned into the frame like something draped there, casual and rotting. His eyes were too pale, too calm, and far too interested.
The queen, my step-mother Marden, had asked about my needlework, and I had lied â a smooth, practiced lie about meditation, tranquility, and the quiet dignity of the craft. All while my fingers had burned with memory of the blade that had glanced off my knuckles in the spar that morning, the weight of a hilt, the thrill of defiance in the ring.
I hadnât bothered to embroider or spend time with fancy needlework since I was old enough to realize pretty things were for true daughters.
The queen nodded once. Dismissed me with that thin-lipped approval that always felt more like a leash being tightened than praise.
âAt least she wonât shame us,â Marden had said to the gathering of noble wives and daughters, as though I were a hound that had finally stopped pissing on the rug.
Lucen had said nothing. Just watched. And then â he started calling.
I struck the flint again. It sparked. Died.
The forest didnât care how gracefully I failed.
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The stones were cold beneath my shoes, slick with soap-water and heat. The smell of onions and marrow clung to the air, thick enough to make my stomach twist until I hated myself for needing. Iâd been kept late again â another punishment for speaking too quickly, for knowing too much, for daring to answer like my tongue had any right to shape words at all.
The others had eaten already. Their laughter was a knife dragged over stone, meant to scrape. They waddled away with sugared lips and smug bellies, careful never to meet my eyes. They never did. Something in me unsettled them. Too sharp. Too watchful. They sensed the difference even if I didnât have a name for it yet â the way my gaze clung too long, too knowing. Like an animal studying the slowest member of the herd.
And I was left staring at the pot.
Still warm. Still fragrant. Half-full, the broth thick enough to cling to the ladle. My throat opened. My body moved without thought â a step, a reach, a hunger I didnât bother to hide.
The steward turned. His eyes skimmed me like I was dung on a boot, but beneath his dismissal was something else â wariness. He always watched me longer than the others, as though my silence might split into snarling. âDonât beg,â he said, flat as stone. âGood girls get offered.â
The stewardâs words hit like the back of a hand. Not sharp, not shouted â but the kind of insult that sank in and stayed. Good girl. The phrase tightened around my throat like a leash.
Good girl. Good dog.
That was all I ever was to them. A half-thing. A creature to be tolerated at the edges, kept in sight but never trusted near the table. They never said it outright â not where the king might hear â but it hung in every glance, every muttered laugh that trailed me down the halls.
Something in me unsettled them, I knew. Their eyes always slid from mine too quickly, their smiles came too forced, their laughter too sharp when I walked past.
So when the steward said it â good girls get offered â I heard the rest beneath it. Dogs donât ask. Dogs donât choose. Dogs wait until the master decides to throw the bone.
I felt my face stiffen, every muscle fixed into silence. I could not afford to break shape, to let the shadow of difference slip through. So I bowed my head. I stepped back. I swallowed the ache in my throat and the shame in my gut.
I said nothing.
I ate nothing.
And they left me with nothing.
But that night, lying on my narrow cot, I turned the words over and over until they pressed raw places into me. Good girl. Good dog. I thought of the pot, of the steam rising in lazy curls. I thought of ladle and bowl and marrow-thick broth. I thought of shoving past the steward, of daring him to stop me, of making him see that I was not a mutt at heel.
I thought it. I replayed it. But when morning came, I still wore the silence theyâd taught me. Still bore the leash. Still carried the weight of being the thing they feared without ever knowing why.
And I told myself the lesson mattered. That silence was dignity. That hunger was a virtue. That not asking meant I was strong.
But the truth was simpler. I was starving.
And they liked me that way.
â---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My stomach growled â low at first, then louder, dragging through my gut like claws. Desperate. Animal. It echoed against my ribs like a drumbeat, steady and furious, but I made no sound to answer it.
I stayed crouched, shoulders still hunched, my hands trembling in my lap. My left clenched around the little pouch of useless tinder, its seams fraying against my calluses, while my right still gripped the flint. The sharp edges bit my skin, my palms stung, my fingertips were raw from cold and friction. I refused to look at them. Looking would mean feeling, and feeling had never saved me.
The forest pressed in, not quiet but intent, listening. Every groan of shifting bark, every hush between wind-stirred branches, every sigh of snow giving way felt like judgment. I half-believed it was weighing me, deciding whether I deserved to freeze here or drag myself to death some slower way.
The snares mocked me worst of all. I had set them with care, every knot tight, every loop measured, every sapling bent to the right angle. Grenâs lessons lived in my hands as surely as scars, and yet when I returned, the forest had undone them.
One dangled loose, cord slack and useless, as if it had never held weight at all. Another had sprung too soon, biting down on nothing but empty air. A patch of fur clung to a twig where the loop had caught for a breath before slipping free, leaving nothing but proof that I had been too slow.
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I left them as they wereâcrooked, broken, hanging like insults in the trees. I couldnât stomach retying them, not with my hands already split and raw. Better to walk away than admit that even my traps refused me.
I pressed my tongue against the inside of my cheek and found the wound again, raw and chewed through from holding back. Blood touched my teeth â warm, copper, humiliating. I swallowed it.
The absence of food had grown into a scream. A caged thing, clawing between my lungs and spine, rattling bars it could not break. My skin was damp, clammy; my head floated somewhere above me; my muscles dragged heavy as stone. Hunger burned through me like drowning.
And still, I kept my mouth shut.
Because there was no one to hear me. No steward, no cook, no father, no kind ear waiting for my voice. No table spread in apology. No arms to lift me to my feet. Only wet bark, hard dirt, and the circle of stones that mocked me with their silence.
I would not beg. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
I had never been allowed to ask. And the truth curdled hot inside me: I hated them for it. Hated the leash, hated the quiet, hated the way I swallowed my own rage while my body tore itself apart for want of bread and flame. Every breath I drew was fury pressed thin, fury denied the dignity of being seen.
And if the trees had listened close enough, if the stones themselves had ears, they would have heard it anyway:
I was starving.
And I was angry.
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It had been rainingâthe kind that sinks its claws into the bones and drags you down, heavy, cold, unshakable. The yard was a mire, flagstones gone under mud, every step a sucking weight. My braid tugged at my scalp with its own sodden weight, and my tunic plastered itself to my ribs, mud and rain clinging like a second skin.
The noble boy waited until I passed. Waited for the perfect distance, close enough to cut deep. Then he spat.
Right at my feet.
âFilthy mongrel bitch.â
He grinned, proud of the filth on his tongue, his friends laughing loud enough for all the yard to hear. Their cruelty was not hidden, not cautious, not afraid. Why should it be? They were safe. Always safe.
I froze. Rain streaked down my face, dripping from my lashes. My fists clenched tight. To the left, stewards leaned under the archway, dry and idle, eyes fixed but unmoving. To the right, the court historian walked past with stiff spine, deaf by choice.
And straight aheadâmy father.
He saw. I knew he saw. He looked straight at me as the words hit, as the laughter scraped, as the insult painted me filth before them all. And I waitedâgods, I waitedâfor him to rise, for him to thunder, for him to be more than crown and mantle. To be father.
He turned. And walked away.
The boyâs hand shot out, caught my braid, yanked it like a leash.
And I struck.
My knuckles split against his mouth, the crack ringing through the rain. He staggered, slipped in the mud, blood bright at his lip.
For one heartbeat, I felt taller than the sky.
And then silence.
No cheer. No defense. No hand reaching for me. Only the patter of rain, the sting in my knuckles, and the red taste in my mouth that was not victory but rage unspent.
Later, when I was summoned to my fatherâs study, I went still clinging to something fragileâhope. Hope that he might ask. Hope that he might explain. Hope for anything that could soften the turn of his back.
But he did not ask what was said. He did not ask why I struck.
âYou embarrassed me,â he said, voice clipped, cold, as though naming a wine soured or meat gone rotten.
The queen didnât even let him finish. Her voice was smooth as glass. âRage is for peasants,â she said. A law, not an opinion.
I stood there dripping on their fine rugs, soaked to the skin, the boyâs words still etched into me, burning. My knuckles throbbed with the mark of his mouth, my jaw ached from holding back everything I wanted to scream.
And that was the moment I knew. Knew in my marrow.
My father would never defend me. Not from them. Not from anyone.
He had seen. He had turned. He had left me to choke on their scorn alone.
The knowing hollowed me out. It numbed me, yesâbut beneath the numbness, it seared. It left me angrier than the boyâs slur ever had. Angrier than the laughter. Angrier than the leash yank. Because it was not the insult that ruined me. It was the silence. His silence. His turning away.
That was the day something cracked. Not my voiceâI stayed silent. Not my rageâI swallowed it whole. It was hope that broke.
And when hope was gone, all that was left was anger.
Years later, I can still taste itâthe rain, the blood, the rot of betrayal. I can still feel the leash yank, the mud sucking at my knees, the cold burn of being left alone. And I remember the lesson: no one was coming. Not my father. Not the court. Not the gods.
So I learned to carry my rage in silence. To bow when they expected, to swallow every fire they tried to starve out of me. But the fire didnât die. It smoldered.
It smolders still.
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The fire was still dead.
The wind shiftedâsharp and intimateâcurling down my collar like a cold finger tracing my spine. It carried the damp weight of dusk, the promise of another night without warmth. I hunched tighter, knuckles scraped and pale, lips parted but silent. My fingers, clumsy with exhaustion and cold, fumbled with the flint once more.
I struck it against the stone. The spark leapt, danced for a heartbeatâthen vanished into the breath of wind like it had never been there at all.
My eyes stayed on the kindling, blurred with more than cold. My vision swam with the kind of weight that pressed down from the insideânot tears, not yetâjust the ache of futility.
I had done everything right. Every lesson memorized, every technique applied. Bark shaved to curls, wood split to slivers, dry moss gathered like spun gold and cupped at the center as though it were an offering. My fingers had moved slow, reverent, as if performing a ritual. A prayer. One I did not believe in but needed answered all the same.
And still the damned fire would not light.
It wasnât only the cold seeping into my bones now. It was failureâquiet, endless, suffocating. Not sharp enough to scream over, not dramatic enough to weep. Just a dull throb beneath everything. My lips twitchedâa spasm, barely felt. A crack in the mask. Not a sob. Not a cry. Just that small, broken give at the corner of my mouth.
The words slipped out, soft and shaking, shaped like a prayer even though I had never prayed. What gods would listen to bastards?
âPlease. Just once. Please hear me.â
Not composed. Not performed. Not shaped into anything pretty. It came raw, from the bottom of me. From the girl who had stayed silent for days, mistaking silence for strength, for worth.
And the forest, impossibly, answered.
I struck the flint again and the next spark caught.
A thread of orange unfurled in the moss like a secret too long kept. It breathed once. Twice. Then kissed the bark. Then the splinters. Then the kindling, glowing like a heartbeat.
I recoiled at firstâas if it had struck meâthen leaned closer, slow, disbelieving. I bowed over the flame as though it were holy, arms wrapped around it, shielding it from the wind. My breath hitched. My throat tightened.
âThank you,â I whispered into the dark. Bare. True. Not to gods I had never trusted, not to people who had never listenedâbut to the flame, to the forest, to whatever had finally answered.
________________________________________________________________
I learned to stand where the light did not touch me, hands folded just so, back pressed to the cold wall of stone. My chin tilted downward, never too far, never defiantâjust enough to make me look sweet from across the room. Palatable. Decorative. Something easy to ignore.
I wasnât allowed to join the lessons, not formally, not like the daughters of dukes and generals. But no one forbade me from watching. So I did. I watched everything.
The girls who were chosen to be seen were draped in satin and lace, primped and powdered until they shone like porcelain dolls. Their laughter was not laughter at all but a kind of music, timed and tuned to draw eyes. I studied them the way a starving creature studies a feast: the precise tilt of a head when they feigned innocence, the flutter of lashes that bought forgiveness, the coy bow of lips that made the queen smile. I noted which giggle earned a kiss on the temple, which curtsy won praise, which careless show of wrist drew scolding.
Then I copied them. Not in play. Not for amusement. For survival.
I copied the posture, the careful sway of shoulders, the softness of gait. I copied the pauses in their speech, the rise and fall of intonation, the little sighs of delight at the right moments. I copied the way they blinked slowly to feign surprise, the way they held a teacup delicately by the bowl when a suitor entered so their hands might seem more delicate, more desirable.
No one taught me. No one guided me. But I learned. Because if I didnât, I would disappear. Not just from the lesson. From memory itself.
There was no mother to show me how to be lovely. No maid to brush out my hair before I was seen. I wore the same wool dress until it grew too tight across my shoulders, the seams cutting into me like shackles, and even then no one noticed. No one looked. Not until I began to move like the others. Not until I borrowed their faces, wore their voices, mirrored their manner so carefully it no longer mattered that my eyes and my bones were wrong.
And then they saw me.
Not me, but the mask. The quiet girl who smiled gently and curtsied perfectly, who never asked for anything more than what was offered. They liked her. They wanted her nearby. She was easy to praise, easy to pat on the head, easy to dismiss once the room grew tired of her.
So I buried the rest. The girl who spoke too fast, laughed too loud, burned too hot. The girl who hungered for more than scraps of notice. That girl was dangerous. That girl would never be accepted.
So I dug a grave inside myself, lined it with silence, and climbed in.
And in time, I learned the cruel truth: they would never accept me for who I was. That path had been barred before I could even walk it. What they gave meâthe scraps of affection, the scraps of belongingâwere not meant for me. They were meant for the mask.
So I made a choice. If I could not be wanted, then I would be what they wanted. If they would never see me, then I would give them something else to look at. I would smile in the right places, laugh at the right pitch, bow low enough to hide the rage in my spine. I would turn myself into the shape they praised, because even false acceptance was still better than none.
They fed me crumbs of approval, and I taught myself to live on them.
But the girl beneathâthe real girl, the one with the wildfire temper and the too-fast tongueâshe never stopped clawing at the inside of her grave. And I never stopped feeling her.
Every curtsy, every copied giggle, every careful silence was another handful of dirt packed down to keep her buried. But I knew she was still there. And I knewâsomedayâthe mask would crack.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
The fire had only just taken hold, a frail thread of orange winding through moss and bark, when the forest gave me more.
A rustle. A thud. Then the sudden burst of motionâ
a fat hare tearing through the underbrush and straight into one of the snares I had abandoned as hopeless.
The cord snapped. The loop cinched. The rabbit jerked, kicked once, twiceâand stilled.
I froze. My breath stopped. The fire cracked faintly behind me, but all I could hear was the sharp whip of the snare closing. It echoed inside me like a drumbeat, like the click of a lock turning.
And then it broke out of meâ
a laugh, too loud, too jagged, cracking from my chest like a branch torn in a storm.
âHaâ!â
It startled me. The sound didnât belong to the girl I had trained myself to be. It wasnât the careful giggle of the mask, not the gentle laugh practiced in mirrors. This was raw, unmeasured, spilling from me in bursts I couldnât stop.
âAhâhahâhahâhah!â
I clutched my side, half doubled over, the sound torn from me again and again until it left my throat burning. I clapped a hand over my mouth, but it muffled nothing.
âHhhâhahhâ!â
Ugly. Wild. True.
I stumbled forward on my knees, hands clawing through mud and brush until I reached the snare. The hare thrashed weakly, the cord tight, its body hot and trembling in my hands. I caught it against my chest like it was salvation, my breath coming quick and harsh.
âMine,â I whispered, fierce and shaking, though there was no one to hear me. âMine.â
The knife found my palm without thought. The movement was quick, clean, merciful. The hare went still, blood warm against my knuckles. My breath hitched, then broke again into that laughterâragged, cracking, unstoppable.
âHhhâhahâahhâhahh!â
It spilled into the dark trees, a sound that didnât feel like me at all. Or maybe it was the truest sound Iâd ever made.
I gutted it by firelight, hands slick, movements rough but sure. Grease and blood streaked my skin, smoke tangled in my hair. My body trembled with hunger so sharp it felt like prayer.
When the meat hissed above the flame, fat dripping into the coals, I crouched low, eyes fixed, lips parted. The fire painted everything gold and red. My chest heaved with breaths too deep, too jagged.
And the words came out, low and hoarse, without thought:
âIâm still here.â
The sound startled me as much as the laughter had. For years I had buried that girlâthe one with the too-fast tongue, the ugly laugh, the wildfire temper. Iâd packed her into silence, lined her grave with mimicry, smothered her with curtsies and false smiles. But she had clawed out of the dirt tonight.
Here, in the woods, no father watched, no queen sneered, no court turned away. Here, nothing bound me but hunger and flame.
I curled close to the fire, knees to my chest, rabbit roasting, smoke curling, grease slick on my hands. The laughter still echoed faintly in my ribs, trembling there like a heartbeat.
And for the first time in my life, I allowed myself the thought, sharp and certain:
âI could be feral here.â
And no one could stop me.