Chapter 3. Ash in Her Hair

The summons arrived at dawn’s pale edge. Three slow, even knocks at the dormitory door—neither urgent nor polite—echoed through the dim hall. Aeryn sat upright on her cot, eyes open, spine straight. She had not slept since the strange mark beneath her mattress had emerged. When the knock came, she was ready.

It wasn’t a guard who entered. It was Elric, the steward—a thin man whose voice was softer than dust, whose clothes always smelled of boiled cloth and ink. He seldom addressed the orphans directly; when he did, it was Matron’s unspoken command.

He looked only at Aeryn. “Matron wants you,” he said. “Now.”

Aeryn rose in silence. The other girls feigned sleep. Sera blinked once but said nothing. No one dared question what would come next.

They passed into a narrower corridor, older stone walls pressing close, air still and heavy. At its end stood a heavy oak door carved with dozens of shallow lines—shapes no one could name. The black-iron knob gleamed, worn smooth by years of use.

Elric knocked once and entered. “Go in.”

Beyond the threshold, warmth curled from a cast-iron stove. Curtains were drawn but for slits of morning light that striped the room in pale gold. Matron stood by her desk, her veil folded on a chair. Her face was narrow, skin pale and dry, lips thin as if carved by wire. Iron-gray hair was braided with a single red thread. Her eyes, however, were sharp—analytical rather than cruel.

She motioned at the chair. “Sit.”

Aeryn hesitated only until Matron raised one brow. “You’re not being punished,” she added, voice calm.

Reluctantly, Aeryn sat. Matron circled the desk, fingertips pausing over a small stack of files—one tab bearing a name blurred by distance.

“You’ve been out past the frost line,” she stated.

Not a question.

Aeryn remained mute.

“Did you see anything?”

Still no answer.

Matron’s eyes narrowed, voice unruffled. “The older orphans whisper of lights in the woods, of shadows moving where no living thing should be. They wake scratched, smelling of things they can’t name. Marks.”

She pronounced that last word precisely. Aeryn held Matron’s gaze.

Matron placed both hands on the desk. “There’s something in you, child. Something I should’ve noticed sooner.” Her voice carried neither anger nor reproach, but curiosity—almost hope. “I’ve seen girls branded and broken. You didn’t scream.”

Aeryn sat like stone.

Matron lowered herself into her chair. “You’re not afraid of me.”

No question spoken. Silence answered.

Matron closed her papers. “Return to your dormitory. Tell no one of this. If it follows you again, let it—but do not invite it.”

Aeryn rose wordlessly. The door clicked shut behind her.

On the walk back, the corridors felt alive. Every corner held a suggestion of sound—thoughts on the brink of speech. Her fingertips brushed the ancient stone; it thrummed faintly, then stilled. In the dorm, the younger girls whispered near the stove’s reluctant warmth. No eyes met hers. A few glanced up, then dropped away, practiced in their caution.

Her bed lay undisturbed: blanket neatly folded, cot made without a crease. She sat, eased her legs along the thin wool mattress. The brand on her back throbbed with slow-pulling pain. She reached beneath her pillow, instinctively seeking the small weight she always hid.

Her fingers found roughness instead of cloth. She drew her hand back, revealing a single object: a wolf’s claw, dense and curved as polished stone, slightly yellowed with age. Its base was wrapped in dark, fibrous strands—her own hair, braided tight.

It felt neither threat nor warning, but a gift in a language of symbols. The wrapping bore no stain. Whoever—whatever—had placed it here had done so with careful hands.

Outside, frost clung to the windowpanes. No footprints marked the dew-frozen ground. Yet the claw had come.

She replaced it beneath her pillow with intention and lay back. She did not sleep. She listened, and the silence that filled the room felt less empty.

Later, after supper, the cots stripped and turned, the younger orphans huddled by the stove for their evening ration. Aeryn sat cross-legged on her cot, back to the wall. She might have been reading the wood grain beneath her palms.

Sera approached without a sound. Aeryn may have sensed her—or may not—but offered no resistance. Sera’s fingers slipped under the pillow’s fold, lifted the claw, froze.

Aeryn heard her inhale before the object emerged.

By the lamp’s glow, Sera’s face shifted. It was not fear or anger but something deeper. She turned the claw over, studying the braid. “Aeryn,” she said, voice low. “What is this?”

Aeryn met her gaze, silent.

“Where did it come from?”

Still no answer.

Sera’s voice tightened. “Did someone give this to you? The boys? Elric? One of the sisters?”

“No,” Aeryn said, quietly.

“Then who?”

Aeryn looked away, then back. “Not who.”

“Then what?”

A charged pause. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t human.”

The words settled between them.

Sera stared, lips parting. She let the claw slip back onto the mattress, the tiny sound final. She rose slowly, eyes fixed on Aeryn’s still face. “I won’t tell. But if it returns—and you let it in—I cannot protect you.”

She returned to her cot and lay with her back turned.

Aeryn sat in silence, the claw resting between her fingers. Beyond the walls, something waited.

Two days later, they sent her out again. No hatchet this time, only a stiff sack smelling of frost. Guards at the gate offered a silent nod. She slung the bag over her shoulder and passed the nursery fence into the forest.

She walked past the usual clearings—hollow stones, the fallen pine—holding her pace measured, routine. After twenty minutes, she reached the crooked pine by the old riverbed: mottled bark, one-side branches leaning east. Its twin, marked with her crude “X,” lay farther on. She dropped the sack and stepped closer.

The shallow cut she’d made had transformed—widened and deepened by something precise, the lines extended into unfamiliar points. Not the work of any child raised behind walls.

She traced the new mark. The bark pulsed with warmth—not from sun, for the clearing lay in shadow, but from some deeper heat that throbbed beneath her skin. It answered her touch.

Then she heard it: her name, not spoken aloud but as a vibration under thought, against bone. Aeryn. The voice neither asked nor pleaded. It simply was.

She did not turn. She stepped back until her shoulders pressed against the hollow pine. The marked tree stood silent, patient.

Aeryn. Not a whisper, but a presence.

She exhaled, braced herself. Somewhere beyond the leaning branches, a shape stirred—never rushing, only shifting, as if it had always concealed itself here.

She bent, lifted the empty sack, and turned toward the path. She did not run. She did not look back. But she carried her name back through the forest, where something in the dark had learned to speak it.