Nella had started out young in the Varissen House.
It was all she'd ever known, and she'd seen the keep through three barons now: first, old Gerlan Varissen, drunk most of the time but mean enough when it counted. Then Edric's brother, who died to bandits or poison, depending on which story you believed. And now Edric himself.
The House of Varissen: Barons of the Western Ridge, sworn to the crown but too small to matter much unless the Ridge's mines happened to yield something worth taking that year. Yet here they stood, clinging to title and stone because it was all they had left.
She had spent most of her life waiting for sickly little nobles to die.
It wasn't a cruel thought. Just a fact of her station.
You cleaned their sheets when they coughed blood. You spooned broth into their mouths when they couldn't lift their heads. You watched their mothers weep. Then you washed them and helped carry the little bodies down to the crypt when the bells tolled.
That was how it went.
That was how she expected it to go with this one too, the Ashveil boy.
Cael Varissen, they all called him, but she'd heard enough whispers among the laundry women to know that wasn't quite right. Varissen only by his father. Ashveil by his blood.
And Ashveil blood, everyone agreed, was bad luck.
Tonight she carried a basin of warm water and a clean cloth down the servants' hall. She kept her head down, though she caught the steward glancing at her as she passed. Nella quickened her step.
It was after supper, and most of the servants were off dicing in the corner or gossiping in the kitchen. But as usual, Nella was left to see to the boy.
The door to his little room was shut.
She knocked anyway.
No answer.
With a sigh, she nudged it open with her hip, careful not to spill the basin.
He sat at the foot of his bed, hands folded, the faint outline of that strange locket pressing through his tunic. He always wore it. Never let her touch it either, not even when she helped him change after a fever.
Nella set the basin on the little table, dipped the cloth in the water, and wrung it out.
"Don't you ever sleep, young master?" she asked lightly.
Cael glanced at her, then back to his hands. "Not really."
She frowned at that, not the words, but the tone: flat, like he already knew she wouldn't approve.
"Well, you ought to. Lord Edric notices when his heirs come down to breakfast looking like ghosts. Or so the kitchen girls say," she added quickly when his eyes flicked up.
That earned her the faintest ghost of a smile.
She sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. He let her, bony and cold, more like a dying old man's than a boy's.
She dabbed gently at the burn on his knuckles.
"You're lucky it wasn't worse," she muttered.
"It didn't feel lucky."
That sharp answer startled her.
"Well, you're still breathing, aren't you? Plenty of noble brats don't last half as long as you. You've got more stubbornness than them, at least."
His lips pressed together.
"I hear what the others say," he murmured finally.
"Servants talk," she said flatly. "We always do. Not because we're cruel, though some are but because it keeps us alive. We watch who falls, who rises, who's to marry whom, which cousin has the lord's ear, which steward cheats which guild. If you're quiet long enough, you learn more than any lord ever wants you to."
She crouched so her face was level with his.
"And what we see here is that you don't belong."
His eyes flickered at that.
He gave her a look too old for his age and she knew exactly what he meant.
The aunts whispering in the corners. The uncles at supper. The squires behind his back in the yard.
The Ashveil boy won't last another winter. Poor creature. Better for the house if he just went quietly.
Nella felt her cheeks heat.
She drew her hand back.
"They don't mean anything by it," she said after a moment. "Servants and nobles alike — it's just what folk do when they're frightened. They talk."
"About me."
"Aye. About you. About the baron. About the Ridge and the taxes. Folk talk because it keeps them busy."
He tilted his head slightly at that.
Nella lowered her voice, leaning closer.
"But listen here, young master. You'd better be careful who else starts talking about you. Because it's not just this house. Not just the Ridge. Other folk out there, highborn and low have sharper ears than any of these fools."
"What do you mean?" he asked softly.
"I mean," she said, her voice barely above a whisper now, "if you keep drawing attention the way you do, creeping around at night, burning yourself on things no one understands, wearing that pendant like it's a crown, someone's bound to notice. Someone willing to make it more than it seems."
He stiffened at that, but didn't speak.
Good. He was listening.
She dipped the cloth back into the basin and wrung it out.
"You ever heard the saying," she went on, more to herself now than to him, "'Ashveil blood draws both the rats and the hawks'?"
His head jerked up at that.
"Aye," she said, meeting his eyes. "That's what they say. Folk want it, your name, your blood, even knowing it's cursed. So you'd better keep your head down till you're strong enough to fend for yourself."
She dabbed his hand one last time, then stood.
"Do you believe it's cursed?" he asked quietly.
That made her pause.
After a long moment she said: "Doesn't matter what I believe, does it? Look around you. Everyone else does."
She gathered up the basin and cloth and started toward the door.
Before she left, she glanced back at him still sitting there on the bed, fingers curled lightly around that locket under his shirt.
"You keep listening more than you speak," she said softly. "That's good. But don't listen too hard. You might start hearing things that aren't there. Maybe even seeing them. Just like your mother."
She left him in the quiet, closing the door behind her.
Down in the kitchen, she dumped the water into the drain and hung the cloth to dry.
The other servants were still at their dice, but they fell quiet when she passed.
Everyone knew she was the one who tended the boy.
Everyone pitied her for it.
But they pitied him more.
She poured herself a cup of weak ale and sat by the hearth.
If the boy lived, she thought, it would be a miracle.
But if he did, if he managed to survive this house, this family, and his cursed blood, then everyone here would regret pitying him.
That much she was sure of.
Later that night, as she passed his door again on her way to her pallet, she stopped.
For a moment she thought she heard… something.
She didn't linger.
Just muttered under her breath:
"Don't let your blood drag you down, boy. Live. If not for yourself, then for your mother."
Then she went to bed.