Curse of the Stars Book 1

Chapter 27

Chapter XXVII

The water slowly turned brown with mud and dirt as Fyran scrubbed at the rough potato skins with her fingers as hard as she could. Overtime she had traded her delicate artistic fingers for calluses and scabs. She frowned down at the angry red skin, wincing as her chipped nail brushed a bobbing potato.

I'm so sick of this job. She thought in frustration. Her hands couldn't take much more of this kind of labour. When would she be able to "graduate" onto something more? She threw a jealous glance towards Jaje and her new apprentice, Sylv. Sylv was a pretty girl who had instantly been hired as a waitress, with her bouncy red curls as auburn as maple trees in autumn, and those bright mahogany eyes. At first Fyran had wanted nothing to do with the waitress job but after three weeks of scrubbing and skinning potatoes, dishes, and tramping through the mist to chop down firewood, she was growing tired of the same boring routine.

Her evenings off were no better, though the work days were long. Her room was always cold with the incoming draft and she would spend most of her time cuddled up in her blanket trying to seek warmth in any way she could, counting down the time when she could have another warm bath.

Oh and those baths. Perhaps the only enjoyable thing about this place, there was nothing better after being contained to a cold inn and finally getting to sink into a deliciously warm bathtub. Fyran didn't have a tub where she lived. Her mother had dug a hole in the ground in their backyard; it was a hole that collected rain to water the plants, and for drinking. It was "not for touching or playing in." Family trips to the river was where they did their washing, and only when the weather was good and all the chores had been done.

Fyran had never liked water and so she did not look forward to those freezing river baths where the melted glacier water would pool into little inlets of the river Bult. But if there was one thing Fyran had enjoyed against it all, it was being clean. A rare thing when one had to constantly sleep on straw and sit on cobblestone and get their hands sticky with sap, but those few moments of being completely clean had been the best moments. What a luxury that a place like this could offer her cleanliness whenever she wanted. She supposed being cold all the time was a small price to pay for those glorious warm baths.

Fyran slept often, trying to escape the cold and the boredom, but continued to convince herself that the work was necessary. If she wasn't sleeping or taking a bath then she would spend her free time carving intricate designs into potatoes with a potato peeler and her blade. Sylv had noticed her talent and the girl's eyes had been wide when she said "Wow, you're really good! What are you doing in a place like this? You should be at the market!"

Fyran had shrugged. "I wasn't born into that sector of the city. I'm a daughter of a dead miner." The girl had gone quiet, her lips pursed, suddenly feeling awkward as her cheeks reddened. "I'm so sorry!" She blurted.

"It's fine." Fyran shrugged, even though it wasn't fine. It wasn't fine at all.

"Well...I gotta get back to my shift." Sylv had muttered awkwardly and then shuffled off.

She's like a scurrying little mouse. Fyran thought to herself, watching her go.

The little money she'd make to send home would be useful, she convinced herself. The little that she was making that WASN'T taken off for lodging and hot water and food would really help her mother out when she came home again. Yet she couldn't stop spending the money...spending it on hot water. It was just so cold.

It had been three weeks since she took up the job in the Inn, and still there was no sign of Vaekan. Though interestingly enough she had heard lots of news and gossip from the travelers who came to roost here on their way to their destinations. She had heard of a series of collapses that had happened at the mines where her father had used to work, as well as how the banks had begun to fail and families were slowly going bankrupt and that the King was beginning to face a lot of pressure.