Chapter 7

Astrid’s Pov

Aliyah released my hair and threw me to the floor like I was nothing.

I hit the cold stone hard, my palms scraping against the ground. Before I could even think about getting up, her foot came down on my hand. Not a kick. A slow, deliberate stomp. I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood. I would not scream. I refused to give her that, even though it hurt real bad.

She stood there for a moment longer than necessary, then lifted her foot and walked out without a single word. The door swung shut behind her.

For a few seconds, nobody moved.

Then the whispers started.

“She has not even been here a full week and she is already on Aliyah’s bad side.”

“Did you see how she was crying? So weak.”

Someone laughed. A few others joined in, low and muffled but loud enough for me to hear every word.

I stayed on the floor. I could not get up. My hand throbbed where she had stood on it, red and swollen, and my whole body felt like it had simply given up on me. The laughter floated around the room and I let it. I had nothing left to fight it with.

Then someone crouched beside me.

It was Mara.

She had never spoken much to me before. We had exchanged looks here and there, small tired smiles in passing, but nothing more than that. She looked at me now with something quiet and steady in her eyes.

“Stand up,” she said softly.

“Oh, so now you want to play the good person?” A maid across the room, Dena, folded her arms and watched with a smirk.

Mara did not even blink. “Mind your damn business, Dena. I was not talking to you.”

Dena made a sound in her throat but said nothing else.

Mara helped me to my feet and guided me to her corner of the room, the small strip of floor she had claimed with a thin mat and a folded cloth. I sat down slowly, cradling my hand against my chest.

The tears came before I could stop them. Not loud, just steady and quiet, rolling down my face while I stared at nothing.

“It is okay,” Mara said. “When I first came here, I cried too. Every single night for weeks.” She paused. “Do you need a hug? I know it sounds strange, but sometimes it helps.”

I did not even think about it. I just leaned into her and let myself cry properly.

Tessa’s face came to me first. The way she had looked at me right before they took her. See you on the other side, Astrid. And then my mother. Her blood-soaked hands gripping my face. Her voice cracking as she told me to run. I was never going to see either of them again. I was never going back to anything I had known.

I cried until my chest hurt.

“Astrid.”

I pulled back and looked up. Another maid, Petra, was standing over us with her arms crossed. Her voice had none of Mara’s softness.

“You have a chore at the gateside. You should have been there already. You want the warriors to come in here and drag you out? You want more lashes today?”

Mara turned to her. “You could have said that a little kinder.”

“Kinder?” Petra let out a short laugh. “She needs to get a grip of herself and stop acting like a weakling. This is not a place for tears. It never was.”

She walked away without waiting for a response.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and looked down at my palm. It was red and swollen where Aliyah had stood on it, no broken skin, but the ache went deep. I flexed my fingers slowly and stood up.

“Thank you,” I told Mara quietly.

She nodded once. “Go before it gets worse.”

I gathered the tools I needed and made my way to the gateside.

The sun was already high and brutal, pressing down on everything with a weight that felt personal. As I walked through the open yard, a warrior passing by let his shoulder slam into mine without breaking his stride. Another one made a low sound in his throat as I passed, something between a growl and a laugh. Someone’s hand brushed my back in a way that made my skin crawl and I kept walking, eyes forward, chin down, just like Lorraine had told me.

Keep your head down. Be invisible.

The gateside was worse than I expected. This was where the warriors trained, sparred, dragged people in chains and left messes that nobody thought to clean until they assigned it to someone like me. I dropped to my knees and started scraping the dirt and dried filth from the stone ground, working my way slowly across the large stretch.

My knees ached. My back burned from the whipping days before. My hand throbbed with every scrape of the tool against the stone. The sun beat down on my neck and arms without mercy.

I worked for hours.

The yard was never quiet. People moved through constantly. Chains rattled somewhere behind me. At one point I looked up and saw a group of people being marched in, people I half recognized from Stormvale, their heads down, wrists bound. Some of the warriors were dragging lesser wolves by the arm, treating them like they were worth less than the ground they walked on. 

I saw a woman shoved hard into a doorway and disappeared inside. They have been made as a tool for sex. These warriors fuck them how ever they please and they can’t say no or do anything.

I lowered my head and kept scraping.

I should be grateful, I told myself. I was a maid. Just a maid. That was the lesser cruelty, and I needed to remember it.

I was so deep in that thought that I did not notice the small side gate until one of the warriors left it open by mistake. He walked off toward a group of others who had started shouting about something, and the gate sat there, slightly ajar, just a thin gap of open space leading out beyond the castle walls.

I stared at it.

My heart started moving before my mind caught up.

If I could get outside, even for a short while, I might be able to find what I needed. Some of the herbs my mother used grew wild in forests. Certain roots, certain leaves. I did not know this land, but if I was careful and fast enough—

I looked down at my arm.

The peeling had spread since this morning. A larger patch now, creeping up toward my elbow. Dry and pale and getting worse. In a few more days it would be impossible to hide. My scent would follow. Then everything else.

Should I try?

The gate was right there.

But if they caught me running, they would not ask questions. They would just kill me. I had seen enough of this kingdom to know that.

I rubbed the patch of skin slowly, turning it over in my mind.

Should I try. Should I not try. Should I try. Should I—

“Astrid.”

I spun around so fast I nearly dropped everything.

Talon stood a few feet away, watching me with those steady, unreadable eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I am just scraping.” I gestured at the ground in front of me. “The chore. I was assigned here.”

He looked at me for a moment. “The Alpha sends for you.”

I blinked. “But it is not done yet. There is still a large section—”

“Are you questioning your Alpha?”

“No.” I shook my head quickly. “No, I’m sorry. It just came as a surprise because he said dawn. He told me to come at dawn, so I thought I had more time before—”

Talon just looked at me.

I stopped talking.

“You explain too much,” he said. “Even when nobody asks you anything. In a place like this, that is not a quality that will serve you well. Answer only what is asked.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Follow me.”

I fell into step behind him, then stopped. “I left my tools. Can I quickly put them away? I should not leave them—”

Talon turned slowly. “You would rather keep your Alpha waiting to go put away a scraping tool.”

“I’m sorry.”

He turned back around and kept walking. I wiped my dirty hands on the sides of my clothes and followed.

He did not take me toward Xavier’s chambers. Instead he led me through a part of the castle I had not been in before, down a wider corridor with heavier doors, until we reached a room that felt more formal than anything I had seen so far. The air inside was cool and serious.

Xavier was seated at the far end of a long table. This looked like a meeting room, the kind where decisions were made and not taken back. A few elders sat around the table, older wolves with hard faces and sharp eyes. They were wrapping up whatever had been discussed before we arrived.

Each of them stood up almost immediately, bowed to the alpha and left.

Aliyah sat at Xavier’s right.

When I walked in with Talon, her eyes found me immediately.

“Why do I keep seeing your face?” she said. “Are you following me around this castle?”

I did not know whether to answer. If I spoke, it would look like I was talking back. If I stayed quiet, she might take that as disrespect too. There was no right choice with her, there never was, so I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

Talon moved to Xavier’s left and sat down. “Alpha. She is here.”

“Come forward,” Xavier said.

I walked toward the table, keeping my eyes low.

“You look like something that crawled out of the ground,” Aliyah said pleasantly. “You smell like death. You should probably go ahead and die since you are halfway there already.”

Xavier turned and looked at her.

It was brief, barely two seconds, but whatever was in that look made Aliyah close her mouth and lean back in her chair with a flat “whatever” under her breath.

I kept my eyes on the floor.

“Look at me,” Xavier said.

I lifted my head slowly. His eyes met mine across the table and I felt it again, that strange pull, like something in my chest recognizing something in him that my mind had not caught up with yet. His hair fell past his shoulders, dark and soft, and his hazel eyes were so sharp they made it hard to think straight.

“I have come to a decision,” he said. “You will be my personal maid. You go where I go. You serve my meals, bring my breakfast when I choose not to come to the hall, and you will dress my hair.”

The room shifted.

Aliyah’s head turned so fast I heard her neck move. “What?”

Xavier did not look at her.

“You will be at my side,” he continued, his eyes still on me. “That is all.”

“No.” Aliyah’s voice came out controlled but tight. “This is not acceptable. Xavier, nobody touches your hair. You have never allowed anyone near your hair, not even me. That is something you have always been particular about. Since when does a lowly servant get to put her hands on you?”

“I did not say I needed her to touch it,” Xavier said simply. “I said I wanted her to dress it. There is a difference.”

“There is no difference!” Aliyah’s composure cracked just slightly. “This is completely unacceptable. She is a maid. A nobody. You do not make a nobody your personal anything.”

Xavier turned to look at her then…he said…

“Says who?”