Chapter 1

Her eyes slowly opened, brilliant green wide eyes the color of emeralds or the green, green grass that grew in the gardens during the all too brief months of spring and summer. They were slitted. Like a cats, people would always say. Even after all this time, she couldn't help roll her eyes when someone said that. It was so ... cliché. Obvious.

Obvious or not, it was still pretty accurate. Like a cats, Silmaria's eyes were slitted, sure. They also saw incredibly well in the dark. The room was near pitch black; the candles had already burned down to nothing, and the fire in the tiny, pathetic excuse for a hearth in the corner of the room was out as well, leaving nothing but the barest remaining glow from the embers, and the very first rays of sun peeking meekly through the cracks of the room's stone slab walls.

Silmaria threw the threadbare cover off and sat up. She stretched, yes, catlike, arching her back and wriggling briefly, then glancing around the darkened room with clear seeing eyes. None of the other girls were awake yet. Good, she thought; most of them she couldn't stand to begin with, and the few she could would hog all the water. The young woman rose gracefully to her feet, silent and careful. She quickly threw on one of her plain scratchy woolen dresses, more for the sake of warmth than modesty, before gingerly stepping around and between and even over the other women sprawled in their pallets in the small servant's quarter.

Quietly, Silmaria padded down the sleeping halls, the cold stone under her bare feet, causing the short, sleek hair of her pelt to raise all over her body. The halls at the back of the Manor were a maze, twisting and winding and leading to a multitude of servant's quarters, washrooms, storage cubbies, broom closets, larders, pantries, and other dusty and neglected nooks. But Silmaria knew the Manor well and could have found her way even without her night-eyes. She pushed a door open, wrinkled her nose at the screech of the old hinges, and stepped out into the only-just-barely dawning air outside. The cold rushed over her even more frigidly than in the empty halls inside.

Wanting to spend as little time out in the cold as possible, Silmaria sprang to the small stone well to the left of the door and set to pumping water into a much used wooden bucket. It was hard work; this early in the morning and this close to winter the pump took an agonizingly long time to get the frigid water moving. The Gnari girl was persistent though, and working the pump kept the chill at bay. At last, her beat up old bucket was full. She hefted it carefully; in need of a washing or not, she had no desire to get drenched out here in the cold. A careful nudge pushed the door open, then closed once more.

Silmaria was almost feeling awake and in a halfway good mood as she rounded the corner to the corridor leading back to the washroom adjacent to her quarters.

"Sil, drop the pail and get your narrow ass in here," A familiar voice called just moments after she passed the main kitchen.

Silmaria blanched and for fleeting moment she considered walking on as if she'd heard nothing. But it would be pointless; Cook would only raise her voice and scream after her until the whole Manor was springing wide eyed from bed. Turning, she kept her bucket of water still clutched hopefully in her hand.

She really didn't want to see Cook this morning. Sure, she would rather see Cook than just about anyone else in the Manor, but she didn't want to see anyone this early in the morning.

Cook stood in the door of the kitchen, her large, round form blocking most of the light from the kitchen fires crackling behind her. Cook had been working the kitchen at the Manor longer than Silmaria had been living. So long that most people half believed Cook really was her name. She had short, wiry brown hair gone gray, a plain face that scowled frequently but smiled well when someone made the old lass laugh, and an abundance of hip and bosom that made Silmaria's own, which were amply generous to anyone's appreciative eye, look like a girl barely in bloom.

Cook's old apron was already heavily caked in flour from the first batch of bread she'd already sent into the oven, and a similar film of the white powder was splotched all the way up to the elbows of her heavy arms. Her hands were strong and worn from many a year of kitchen work, and presently planted on her hips as she absently tapped a big wooden ladle on the thigh of her dress, missing the apron completely.

"My ass isn't really all that narrow," Silmaria replied wryly. She silently hoped Cook would relent and leave her be even as she knew there was no chance. Her bath was slipping further away by the moment.

"I've enough backside for three of you!" Cook quipped. "In the kitchen! Now!"

Silmaria sighed. She knew it was useless to argue; Cook was as relentless a woman as ever lived and if she had her mind set on Silmaria helping in the kitchens, she wasn't likely to give the a girl a moment of peace until she complied. Which normally wouldn't have been a problem. Silmaria didn't mind helping Cook with kitchen duties; on the contrary, of all her duties and tasks and work at the Manor, kitchen duty was one of the most enjoyable to her.

Most any day she would have gone readily. Only ... Silmaria had a well-known stubborn streak of her own. And it was too early for people to be ordering her about already. Even Cook. Especially Cook.

And ... her bath...

"But ... my bath..." Even to Silmaria it sounded little more than a halfhearted, grumpy complaint. It was all she really had the energy for this early in the morning.

"Bath nothing! Taleesha is abed with fever and Tomar was sent to the fields to help with the last of the harvest. There's no one else and I'm not about to feed this whole bloody house on my own. And you haven't had kitchen duty in longer than I can spit! Get your mangy hide in here!"

"My hide isn't mangy! Now move if you want my help. My ass may be narrow, but it's not going to get itself into your kitchen if yours keeps taking up all the doorway!" Silmaria snapped. She let her bucket drop to the floor ungently, sending water sloshing over the side to the stone floor. She stomped her way to the kitchen, taking some small satisfaction in her little protest. She would help, and she wouldn't complain about it. But if she were going to be separated from her bath to go sweat and labor in the kitchen all day, she damn sure wasn't going to act glad about it!

Cook just let out a cackle of laughter and walked back into the kitchen; the old woman was well used to Silmaria and her dispositions. The Gnari girl's moods were as bright and warm as summer's sun, and likewise as dark and frigid as a moonless winter night. Silmaria could be prickly at times true enough, and frequently guarded. But she never meant much harm by her grumblings and no matter what black mood might take her, she would work hard through them.

And work hard through her sulk she did. She pulled the first batch of bread from the oven and as Cook prepared a vast amount of porridge, Silmaria set to making a second batch of bread. She beat at the dough on her board with her fists, kneading it with energy and purpose, heedless of how much flour dusted her worn out dress. After the dough was set aside to rise she took a large joint of venison from the larder and skewered the meat upon a spit, then pushed it over the central fire to roast. This done, she helped Cook prepare small griddle cakes.

As it often did, Silmaria's bad mood lifted quickly. She and Cook worked together and she laughed at the older woman's crass jokes, her own wicked humor coming out as they worked over the cooking fires. The two made jests at each other's expense and laughed easily together. Cook was too old and had done too much living to have much in the way of shame or decency left. Silmaria, on the other hand, simply had too sharp and loose a tongue for her own good. With just the two of them there they could speak and laugh plainly without worrying about the judgment of the other servants, most of whom snatched at gossip the way the dogs snatched at kitchen scraps. Not that either of them cared overmuch what their fellows thought of them.

Still. The surly, sharp humored old cook was the closest thing that Silmaria had to a real friend.

Breakfast was a busy affair. The other servants and workers came to the kitchens in a rush of bustle and activity. Most of them simply grabbed up food and provisions and left, the field workers especially taking their meals and breaking their fast on the way. For a few moments the kitchen was crowded and full of the noise of stomping feet and yelled jests, friends and fellows exchanging goodmornings and how-do-you-dos.

Cook was a bear of a woman during it all, roaring at this person and that. No, your venison is over there. The bread is not burnt, take it, there won't be more later. No you can't have seconds, I don't care if you missed supper last night, it's almost bleeding winter and I haven't got a bottomless pantry or an endless larder, thank-you-very-much. Hey, you, get out the sodding doorway!

Silmaria stood to the side, helping Cook as best she could and making as much of a point to not talk to the others as they made a point to not talk to her. Few people in the Manor spoke with her, and those few seemed to be elsewhere this morn. Those who acknowledged her at all did so with baleful stares and narrowed eyes. The women were especially bold with their stares, contempt and sometimes outright hostility naked in their gazes.

Silmaria didn't flinch from the looks and in fact made it a point to meet them glare for glare. She was used to it by now; even in DarkFyre, the biggest city in the North, jewel of the Dale and the land's namesake, home to nearly every race and folk you could dream, Gnari were passing rare and mistrusted.

The feline Demi-Humans were unnerving to many Humans. Gnari seemed a hybrid of Humans and some great hunting cat; though Human in shape in nearly every way, Gnari had the pronounced ears of a feline, twitchy and attuned to carefully listen for prey or threat. Where a Human's tailbone ended a long prehensile tail extended, giving them superior balance. Their graceful, slender fingers ended in small wickedly pointed hooked claws which could be extended and retracted much in the way any feline could. Their eyes, slitted and feline, gave them exceptional night vision, but simply struck most Humans as eerie and unnatural. Gnari's bodies were covered in a pelt of fur which ranged from short, sleek, and smooth to long and thick shags of hair. The coloring and patterning of a Gnari's fur was as unique and individual as a fingerprint.

Most Humans insisted that it was Gnari culture, so unlike their own, that made them so distrustful and uncomfortable of the catfolk. Silmaria found that hard to believe; she knew even less about her people's culture than most Humans did, and that had never stopped them from finding fault with her.

She got more sympathy from other Demi-Humans at least, but they numbered few. Though Dwarves and Elven folk, Halflings and even SkyRacers were more common than her people, Humans by far were the most predominant species in the Northlands. And in her experience, the most prejudice.

Many races cohabitated the Dale, but Humans held the power. Most of the wealthiest merchants and most successful tradesmen were Human. Demi-Human land owners were almost unheard of. And, of course, Humans made up the Noble and Royal caste ruling the land. Demi-Human blood in a Noble was ... well. Half breeds happened, certainly. But a Noble half breed wasn't even given the luxury of being an unacknowledged Bastard. Demi-Human blood was tainted blood in a Noble's case and any half breed child born of a Noble was promptly put down.

It was a bitter draught, one Silmaria still struggled at times to swallow. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right. She was what she was, and there was no help for it nor changing it. She'd never been given a choice in the matter. In a house comprised mostly of Human servants and workmen, Silmaria was a pariah through no fault of her own. Many of the servants distrusted her and kept their distance. They tolerated her because they had no choice. The unfriendly looks had become worse though, more blatant and open now that Master Edwin was gone. His watchful eye and stern hand was gone, leaving tongues to wag more freely than in the past.

"Sil?" Cook clapped her hands in front of the girl's face and a small puff of flour rose. Silmaria started guiltily and blinked her vivid green eyes at the robust woman. She swallowed down the complex whirl of emotions. Humans. If nothing else, they were never simple.

"Sorry, I was miles away," Silmaria apologized. Breakfast finished, their work was still not done; kitchen work was an all-day affair, and they were already working on the midday meal. Cook was preparing meat pies, stuffed with lambs meat, potatoes, carrots and shallots. Silmaria was rolling out sheets of dough to form the crusts of the pies, and had lost herself in thought while working.

"All the attention getting you down?" Cook asked as she diced the carrots on an ancient and much notched cutting board.

"Hardly," Silmaria returned, rolling her eyes. "I really don't give two shits what they think of me. Most of them are too spineless to say anything to my face anyway, and it's not as if looks can kill."

Cook chuckled and tossed a smirk her way. "Good thing, too, or you'd be buried out in the east gardens."

"Hah! Not likely. They'd probably say my corpse would poison the roses," Silmaria returned with a half-hearted scowl.

"Don't let that sour lot bother you, Sil. Not worth your troubles," Cook said as she started in on the parsnips.

"No, they're not. And they don't. So drop it," Silmaria replied firmly.

"Hmph. Maybe they're right about you, anyhow. Huffy little wench."

"I haven't even started huffing yet," Silmaria shot back in something very much like a huff.

"Bitch."

"Whore."

"Now there's the pot calling the kettle black!" Cook laughed, and gave that smile that made her not-quite-so-plain. "If you'd keep those legs of yours shut once in awhile the lasses around here wouldn't give you such a time, you know!"

Silmaria finished rolling out the pie crusts and turned to face Cook, grinning despite herself and resting the flour dusted roller on one curving hip. "Aw, what's wrong, Cookie? Is that a bit of jealousy I hear?"

"Please," Cook snorted. "When I was your age I had the lads lined up so thick the guards told them to move along for ruining city commerce."

"No doubt. Yet somehow, I don't think you got nearly as much grief for it," Silmaria replied, her voice gone melancholy as her playfulness fled. She picked up the sliced carrots and put them in the pies.

"That's because I didn't go breaking the species barrier," Cook said gently. She held up her hands, one still clutching her knife, before Silmaria could speak. "I'm not sayin' there's anything wrong with it, Sil. You know I don't give a spit whether you bed a Human or a Dwarf or a donkey. It's your business, not mine, and no one else's besides. But you know most the sods around here have small minds and big mouths."

"So I'm supposed to keep myself to myself, say yes sir and no ma'am and mind my manners. I guess I should be seen and not heard and never touch anyone that isn't 'my kind' and all the other nonsense then, hmm? Sounds like a wonderful life to me," Silmaria tried to keep a tone of sarcastic flippancy in her voice to disguise the bitterness, and failed spectacularly.

"No, lass. I'd never want you to be anything but what you are. Just remember, the bolder you are, the harder they'll make it on you."

Silmaria shrugged one graceful shoulder and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Life's hard. You get used to it."

"Hard and harder every day," Cook nodded, and for a time the pair lapsed into silence as they worked.

The midday meal came and went. Cook was used to working with two hands to assist her, so the women had to work without break or pause throughout the day to keep up with the demands of the kitchen. Silmaria didn't mind; the work served to keep her mind off the unpleasantness permeating the Manor of late, and she preferred Cook's company and conversation over most.

Dinner arrived. Cook divvied out a thin stew of potatoes and chicken fat over the trenchers of crumbled or burnt bread Silmaria handed her, letting the stew soak into the bread. The field hands came trudging in. The lot of them were dirty and tired and caked to the elbow in mud, but even the most listless of them stomped his boots heavily before coming into the kitchen. Cook was fearsome with her threats when it came to keeping mud out of her kitchen, brandishing the sharpness of her tongue as readily as the sharpness of her knives.

As the Gnari girl handed out the last of the rations Cook wiped her hands on her apron and shook her head slowly. "Harvest's bad this year. Worse than it oughta be."

"How'd you figure that?" Silmaria asked. She leaned against one of the counters and wiggled her feet to relief the ache in them. She'd never even gotten a chance to retrieve her shoes or slippers. Cook would've never let her regular help get away with being barefoot in the kitchens. The hard stones underfoot made her feet and calves ache after so many hours on her feet, but at least they were pleasantly warmed by the big cooking fires.

"You can see it in the men's faces," Cook explained, her face pinched. "Gloom over every one of them. Not the faces of men who've brought home food for a well fed winter."

"Mm," Silmaria muttered, and her tail flicked restlessly. "It's already getting miserably cold, and winter's not even really here yet. Our stores are lower than they should be. A bad harvest on top ... it'll be a long, lean winter. Too lean. And all of us leaner already. Even you."

"Brat," Cook muttered with a smirk.

"Master Edwin wouldn't stand for it."

"No, he wouldn't," Cook said, her voice as solemn as it ever got.

"Steward Jonor is making a right mess of all of it," Silmaria scowled angrily and her ears flattened to the top of her head.

"Be quiet, fool of a girl!" Cook hissed, quickly glancing about the kitchen and the halls just outside, but already the workers and servants had either finished their supper or taken it away with them, and only the two of them remained.

"Why ought I?" Silmaria protested, crossing her arms stubbornly under her breasts. She had that wild look in her slitted eyes that Cook knew meant she was stewing for a fight. "What will he do? Cut my rations? Double my work assignments? Make me work the fields? Stop providing clothes, or blankets, or anything else I have need of to be warm and comfortable and content? Too late for any of that."

Cook shook her head and let out the sigh of the long-suffering. "Don't be stupid, Sil. Things can get worse. Much worse. We're not in chains yet. We're not being beaten or confined to quarters. We're not working until our backs break, though I'll be damned if mine doesn't feel like it's about to sometimes ... the point is, our lot can always get worse. Jonor is the worst kind of man we could hope for right now; he's a nobody like the rest of us, and he's been given the authority of a Noble. He's got no real power, but he's got all the power. Until the young Sir comes back, Steward Jonor's got the run o' this place, and all of us with it."

"If he comes back, you mean," Silmaria interjected bitterly.

"He will. And in the meantime, you'd be smart not to tempt the Steward to flex his new authority," Cook went on, "He's already making life harder on us than he has to. Give him a reason, any reason at all, and he'll make it straight up hell, mark my words."

Silmaria knew Cook was right; even with spending most of her time tucked away in the kitchen, the old woman was shrewd and full of experience. But Silmaria was too willful and proud, and angry to admit it. Instead she simply said, "Lord Edwin would have Jonor's guts for garters. If his son were any sort of man, he would, too."