First Thaw supper was the night Greywater decided who ate at the head table. I had set every plate in that hall myself.
Darragh came through the far doors with a woman on his arm. Ilona. Her belly pushed at the silk of her dress before she was halfway down the hall.
He stopped at my chair. Not the one beside it. Mine.
Darragh: Up.
I did not stand at once. Three years I had eaten in that chair beside him.
Fiona: You are joking.
Darragh: I never joke about my Luna.
Darragh: This is Ilona. She carries my child. She is Luna now.
The hall went so quiet I could hear the fire eating the logs.
Ilona reached up and took his jaw in her hand. Then she kissed him, slow, with her tongue, while every fork in the hall stayed down.
Ilona: Thank you, my love.
She caught his coat and pulled him down into the chair with her. She turned sideways across his lap, and her hem slid up past her knee.
His hand went under her dress. I watched the silk move where his fingers were. He did not stop when he found her bare thigh. He did not stop when she laughed.
Ilona: Darragh. People are looking.
Darragh: Let them look. Let them see what a Luna is for.
His palm pushed the silk up to her hip. The brooch on her shoulder was silver with a moon on it. I had never been given one.
Darragh: And you. Three years in my bed and not one pup out of you. A dry wife and a dry vault. That is all you gave me.
Someone at the long table laughed. I knew the sound of that laugh. It was Ilona's brother.
Fiona: I will not move for her.
Darragh's hand closed round my wrist. He pulled me out of my own chair and my hip hit the edge of the table. The cup by my plate went over and wine ran across the cloth.
Darragh: You will move, or I will move you.
His grip was tight enough that I felt my bones shift. When he let go, the marks were already coming up white and red.
Darragh: Speak to the elders and I will take your keys. Then walk out past the fence line and see how long you last in the snow.
I believed him. The snow out there did not care whose mother I was.
Ilona: The help eats in the kitchen. Take the apron off, at least. It smells of dirt.
I looked down at my apron. Greywater had eaten off that dirt for three years.
Something in my chest went quiet. Not a crack. A door closing slow and silent.
I had spent three years learning how to be chosen. I had been so careful and so good.
I wiped my lip with the back of my hand. It came away red. I had bitten myself and never felt it.
I picked my plate up. Not because he told me. Because I was finished eating beside him.
Fiona: The grain in this hall came through my hands. Remember that when the bread runs out.
He could keep the chair. Chairs did not feed anyone.
I had signed every seed contract in that hall. I would not beg for a seat in my own pack.
I would remember tonight. Not to cry about it. To settle it.