Ophelia Skyfeather's Arc

Chapter 4 of 11

Winter closed the hall and shrank her world to one room. The eggs grew inside her a little each week, a hard weight low in her belly. Ophelia learned Gruk's chamber the way she had once learned the sky. She learned which stones near the brazier stayed warm at night. She learned to fill the iron cup at the water bowl before he asked. She learned to sit on the rim of her nest with her wings folded small so he could see the curve of her and the swell she carried. When goblins came in with maps or tribute, Gruk did not send her out. He pointed at the corner and she went to it. She knelt in the down and kept her eyes low. The goblins looked, and Gruk let them look, and none of them touched. She understood after a few visits that this was part of his rule. A king who kept a harpy in his room was a king who took what he wanted and held it. The eastern chief came at midwinter with salted meat and a bent head. Ophelia had seen him kneel in the hall once before. Now he sat at Gruk's low table and ate from Gruk's bowl, and his eyes went to her twice and away. Gruk waited until the meat was gone. "My mate," he said. "Carrying." The chief bowed to her from his seat. Ophelia felt heat climb her neck and did the only thing she knew to do. She rose, walked to the table on bare feet, and filled Gruk's cup from the jug the way a wife would. She set it by his hand and went back to the nest. Gruk did not look at her. He drank. When the chief left, Gruk shut the door and stood over the nest. "You did well," he said. He crouched and put his palm flat on her belly and held it there until he felt one of the eggs shift. "You stay in this room now. Until they come." He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Ophelia lay back in the down and understood that she had passed some test she had not known she was taking. The corner was hers. The cup was hers. Her body was his. She had wanted a mate who would keep her, and she had one, and the shape of being kept was smaller and harder than she had pictured. She folded her hands over the weight inside her and waited for the thaw.