Four days later, in the early afternoon, I found the hunting hut.
No, I found its remains.
My future home was a one-room ruin slumped at the edge of Cairwyn Lake. Half the roof and one of the walls were missing.
And there was no door. No way to shut out the dark.
I dropped my walking stick and sat down—shedding the weir, satchel, and pack full of clothes for my brothers and a little food for the winter. Finally, I opened the burlap sack so Owain-the-hen could hop out and forage for food.
I buried my face in my hands.
I imagined that I was back in my room, with its bed that was always warm and its balcony that looked out over the lakes that my mother had loved when she was alive. I imagined a fire crackling and food that Bronwen had prepared. My brothers crowded around me, teasing. I teased back, with words right there on my tongue and the freedom to speak them.
I didn’t want to open my eyes.
And then the words I’d thrown at the Queen came to me—rebuking me for sitting beside the hut’s ruins and feeling sorry for myself:
We are the House of Cynwrig. We are the flight of swans bearing swords.
I stood. I was Andaryn of the House of Cynwrig, and it was time to set my new home in order.
The hut itself was well situated, close to the lake and sheltered by pine trees and a rocky bluff just behind it. I smiled. The hut reminded me of myself when I slept: pressing against something solid for protection.
It had been a good hut, once. One that princes might have used when they wished to hunt alone. The roof—what was left of it—was slate, something that wouldn’t rot like thatch if it wasn’t tended to regularly. The walls had been stacked stone.
I inspected the outside of the hut, stepping silently over the pine needles that velveted the ground. Three walls tilted against scrubby pines that grew beside them, but the wall that faced the lake had collapsed entirely, spilling stones inside the hut. The roof above the collapsed wall had fallen into the hut as well, and the portion that remained sagged dangerously under the weight of the slate shingles.
I found a nearby branch and poked the walls with it, determined not to walk into a hut that might fall on me.
Unsteady as they looked, the walls didn’t topple, no matter how I pushed.
I clambered over the collapsed wall into the hut itself, nearly slipping on the pine-needle-coated rubble. Then I wedged the branch under the sagging end of the roof to support it until I could fix it.
Fix it. I turned in a slow circle, taking in all that needed to be done. There wasn’t even room on the dirt floor for me to sleep!
I nodded to myself. That was where I’d start, then.
Even if I could completely repair the roof, I was certain water would seep under the walls and gather on the floor if it rained hard enough. So I moved some of the stones in the middle of the hut to the far corner, creating a raised platform I could soften with branches. Even if the entire floor became a puddle, I’d be able to sleep on something dry—a luxury after these past weeks.
Near the fallen wall, I created a hearth for cook fires, building up the wall behind it so that the fire would be protected. But laying stone for a wall had never been part of my training as a princess of Lacharra—more the pity!—and I didn’t know how to keep it from toppling over once I stacked it more than a few feet.
I sat back on my heels and surveyed my work. That would be a problem for another day.
Then I moved the rest of the rubble outside.
By the time night fell, I sat inside the hut next to a fire that I’d built. I ate a bit of cheese and roasted the last egg by way of celebration, while Owain-the-hen cluck-cluck-clucked to herself on the small nest I’d built her. The fire quickly warmed me, and the three walls and roof kept the rising wind from touching me.
I looked out the open wall beyond the fire and watched the moonlight edge the ripples on the lake with silver. I didn’t feel safe yet, not while I was so exposed. Not while I could imagine the Queen’s wolf men outside. But I felt safer than I had since leaving the castle.
Tomorrow, I’d find a place for the weir. And . . . perhaps there were different types of doors to make me feel safe. The old woman had talked about how nettles kept the wolf men away. Maybe I could plant nettles around my own hut.
Tired as I was, I didn’t fall asleep right away. I’d placed my bed so that I could sleep with my back to the wall, but everything was so new.
Then I saw the dark form hopping across the hut’s floor.
Owain-the-hen. She stopped right beside me. In the bit of moonlight slanting through the open wall, I could see her cock her head one way and then another.
What do you want?
Ah.
I rolled onto my back and patted my chest. Owain gave a small cluck, fluttered up on my chest, and settled herself so that the featherless part of her breast warmed me.
You are the maddest hen I know if you think I’m an egg. I rested a hand on her feathery back as I fell asleep. But I am so glad you do.