Ophelia Skyfeather's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

The feathers were still on the table by his crown when Gruk untied her from the bedpost and pointed at the corner. "Nest," he said. "Before the eggs come. You please me, you stay. You do not, you go to the pot at the next feast." He walked out and left the door open, the tether trailing loose behind her. Ophelia stood in the middle of the room and understood that the corner he pointed at was empty, and that a harpy with no wing feathers could not gather branches from a tree. She would have to make a nest from what a goblin king kept in his own chamber, and she would have to do it before her body forced the matter. She worked all day on her hands and knees. She dragged the bedfurs off the frame and shook the straw from the pallet into the corner. She tore strips from the hem of the long cloak on his peg and wove them through the straw the way her mother had woven reeds. She pulled the down from a cushion on his chair and lined the hollow. When she saw the pile of her own plucked feathers on the table she stopped, then took them down one handful at a time and pressed them into the ring. The nest was low and round and smelled like him. When Gruk came back at dusk he stood over it a long time. He crouched and touched the rim with one thick finger. "Good," he said. He unhooked a plain iron cup from his belt and set it beside the water bowl. "Yours." Then he sat on the edge of the bed and watched her the way he had watched the eastern chief kneel in the hall, pleased and certain. Ophelia climbed into the nest she had made from his room and her own feathers and lay down on her side. She had bought the winter. The corner was hers now, and so was the cup, and so was whatever grew inside her before the thaw.