10. Ellowyn
Chapter 10
Ellowyn
“ A Keeper?!” I whisper-shouted at my father. “You brought a Keeper here? With Lord d’Refan coming for my Awakening later this week? Are you mad?!”
“Ellowyn! Do not speak to your father that way!” Mother hissed and lightly smacked my hands from the air.
I huffed in indignation, both at her action and my father’s actions.
Why would they bring a Keeper here?! They’re putting us all in danger .
“What happens when he finds out?” My voice shook and I hated that I gave away my nervousness.
“He won’t,” my father said confidently.
I sighed and sat back in my chair, crossing my arms against my chest. Tears formed in my eyes and I rapidly blinked them away. I was mad, not sad, and hated that I often cried for both emotions.
“Ellowyn, pull yourself together. This is not about you, stop making it about you,” Mother hissed from next to me, and my father sighed. Peytor and Finian stayed blessedly quiet throughout the entirety of dinner, even after the news Father decided to spring on us while eating our main course.
There were two little surprises from my father; a Keeper was in the house, and Lord d’Refan would be attending my Awakening Ceremony. He’d avoided Peytor’s and Finian’s, but was returning for mine. His attendance, coupled with the smuggled Keeper, put me on edge.
“Ell,” Father said gently, “I know you’re nervous about your Awakening . . .”
“This has nothing to do with my Awakening and everything to do with the fact that you’ve put all of us in danger by having this Keeper here. Put him back where he belongs . . . out of this house,” I huffed, angrily wiping at the tears falling down my cheeks.
“He’s here for a few days, at most. He’ll move on when the time is right and it’s safe to do so, but we need him here, Ellowyn. You know they can see the future, and your mother and I have some questions for him. Fate led us to him, and we plan on using him while we can.” His tone was gentle but brokered no arguments.
I loved my family more than anything, but I didn’t always agree with their decisions.
Pushing back in my chair, I kept quiet as I studied his face. My father was older now, the stress of leadership and fatherhood painting deep lines on his forehead and by his eyes. His normally dark beard and hair were peppered with grey, and his eyes were shadowed by dark bags. The only thing that hadn’t changed as he aged were his eyes—they were still the clearest grey that sparkled when he was particularly happy or entertained. Now, though, they were dull and weary.
I didn’t look like either of my parents—both had brown wavy hair whereas my hair was light blonde and curly. The only thing we had in common was our height and grey-blue eyes. Peytor, of course, looked almost exactly like our mother—tall with deep chestnut-colored hair that waved if it grew too long. While his broad nose and square jaw were all Father, his rounded eyes and high, almost feminine, cheekbones bespoke of Mother. My eyes were the light grey of the d’Aelius line, but they weren’t quite rounded like Mother’s and not quite almond like Father’s. My face was sharp and angular, my nose small and thin. It seemed like everything on my body was thin, a stark contrast to the stockier build of the rest of my family.
Peytor used to tease me relentlessly about being adopted until I went and cried to Father one day. His normally twinkling eyes turned to a storm, and Peytor never made fun of me again—at least for that .
I sighed, consciously loosening the ball of anger and frustration in my chest.
My father was a soft spot for me.
“Okay, Father. I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I just worry.”
His face softened as he patted my hand across the table. “I know, sweetheart. It’s that big heart of yours.”
I laughed woodenly before extracting my hand from his.
“May I be excused?” I asked no one in particular.
My father simply nodded, and I stood from the table, only to be intercepted by Mother.
“Ellowyn, there is a new maid in your rooms.” My feet froze and I turned slowly to regard her.
“What happened to Talunda?” Talunda was my maid my entire life, and we’d formed a bond that I didn’t have with my mother.
Who would I go to when she was particularly combative or aggressive? Talunda was my safe space.
“She had to return to her home. Something about her son falling ill with Mage Sickness.” She waved her hand dismissively.
I blanched at that.
Mage Sickness? It wasn’t contagious and only affected Mages when they pulled too much or not enough magic, causing their magic to eat their organs from the inside out. It was a particularly nasty and painful way to die and overwhelmingly plagued the lower classes who generally only had access to crystals for magic storage rather than a Vessel. The crystals came from a singular mine in the northwest corner of Elyria, and their rarity caused Lord d’Refan to ration the number given to each person. Those who were older or sick received less, those in his army received more. Smaller villages were only given an allotment after each of the larger cities. Similarly, the lower classes were given access after the upper classes, which always seemed strange to me as the lower classes needed them the most. They were the ones who worked for the upper classes, they were the ones Awakened early, and they were the ones unfairly plagued by Mage Sickness.
My heart broke for Talunda and her son—there was no known cure for Mage Sickness and generally the afflicted were just given a drug for the pain or even just a small dose of Pleasure Magic to help ease their passing.
“Yes, it’s all dreadful. But Pip is your new maid. She’s young and inexperienced, so I expect you to teach her as best as you can, Ellowyn,” my mother said without looking up from her dinner.
I nodded my head curtly. “If that is all?”
My father smiled warmly before gesturing for me to leave. I curtsied before making my way to my room.
I was exhausted from my day at the temple and the dinner of surprises, and the last thing I wanted to do was teach a new maid how to do her job.
Surprisingly, when I entered my room, I found a hot bath waiting for me in my attached bathroom, but the maid was nowhere to be found. Usually, Talunda helped me out of my dresses, dirty from a day spent at the temple, and into my nightgown once I bathed, but today my clothes were simply laid on my bed.
I stripped from my day dress as quickly as possible, struggling a bit with the laces that tied the dress together in the back. Once the knot was loosened, I was able to slip the dress off my shoulders and let it pool on the ground. My underclothes were quick to follow and, once naked, I padded across the warm stone floor to the large oak door that separated my bathroom from my bedroom. The door matched that of my bedroom’s main door and was a dark and heavy oak with wrought iron designs crisscrossing in a flowing pattern.
The ostentatious nature of my living quarters carried from my bedroom into my bathroom—the dark stone floor was heated throughout, and a massive iron tub dominated the space. It was deep enough that, when the water was full to the top, I could sit on the bottom and simply duck my head into the water to clean myself. It was glorious, and my favorite part of the bathroom. Lit candles lined the top of the walls, creating a bright and glowing ambiance, even with the lack of windows in the space. There was also a small table with a matching iron washbasin for my morning routine, but it was currently empty.
I crossed the room and climbed the stool at the base of the tub, carefully swinging a leg over the lip of the basin and hoisting the rest of my body into the deliciously warm water. I left my hair in a bun at the top of my head. Tomorrow I’d have this new maid braid it—I was simply too tired to wash it thoroughly tonight.
I sighed as my body sank into the tub, my tight muscles slowly relaxing in the warm, borderline hot, water. Someone had activated the tub warming mechanism with their Fire Magic before leaving, so the water would stay warm as long as I needed or until her magic drained from the device. Some days, I would sit in the tub for an hour, letting the warm water soothe both my skin and my soul—I did my best thinking in the tub—but today I simply wanted to crawl into bed. My thoughts were too muddled after my parents’ announcement about the Keeper, and no amount of warm water would unravel them.
I reached for the rough sponge and lavender oil goat milk soap that rested on the stool next to the bath. I quickly lathered the sponge and set to cleaning my body, focusing on the areas that were rather grimy from the day. Once my body was clean and slightly raw from the rough sponge, I lathered my hands with the same soap and quickly washed my face before splashing water to rinse everything off. The soap always made my bath water smell like the lavender fields that surrounded our home, and it put me at ease.
I pulled myself from the bath and made quick work of exiting and wrapping myself in a linen towel. I dried myself off as best I could without the help of Talunda and made my way back into my bedroom.
I picked up the nightgown from the bed before dropping the towel.
A nightgown was one thing, but how was I going to dress myself in the morning without help?
The small sound of a throat clearing startled me from my thoughts and I screamed before using the nightdress to cover my exposed body.
“Uh, excuse me, uh, miss.” A small girl probably no older than twelve or thirteen stood just to the side of my open bathroom door.
How did I miss her there?
Her eyes were downcast, and she was doing her very best to look anywhere but at my exposed breasts and legs.
“My name is Pip and I’m here to, uh, help you with your, uh, dress,” she squeaked out.
I cocked my head at her, not loosening my hold on my clothing.
“Pip? How is it that I’ve never seen you before?” I liked to think that I knew, or at least knew of, all the servants in our home. Though, now that I looked closer at Pip’s face, she seemed somewhat familiar.
“It’s, uh, my first day on the job, miss,” she said, “I’m here to replace . . . uh, Talunda, for a bit.”
I sighed involuntarily and the girl, Pip, flinched.
Of course Mother would place the youngest and most inexperienced maid with me.
Though I also knew that the servants had very little autonomy over where they served and were directed by the head of staff, Bern—a stout, angry woman in her late sixties. What Bern said, the servants did.
“Pip, would me putting on my undergarments make this conversation easier for you?”
She nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, miss, please.” She slammed her eyes closed, her little pointed nose scrunching up at the movement, and her limp, mouse-brown hair fell in front of her face.
I quickly set the nightgown on the bed and grabbed my underclothes, putting them on as I made small conversation with Pip.
“How old are you, Pip?”
“Twelve, miss.” Pretty spot on with my guess, then.
“Why aren’t you in school, Pip?”
“My mom works here in the manor, and I was needed to help bring in money for our family. There’s quite a lot of us, miss.”
Mom?
“Who’s your mom, Pip?” I asked as I finished dressing in my underwear and pulled the nightgown over my head. “I’m decent, you can look now.”
The girl raised her head and met my stare head-on for the first time. Her eyes were a dim brown, nondescript and bland. The lack of interesting physical features left her parentage to best guess.
“Eloise, miss,” Pip said, unblinking, “she works in the kitchens.”
I chewed my lip in thought again and absentmindedly fiddled with the hair framing my face.
“Do you know how to properly secure buttons on a dress like this?” I crossed to my armoire and pulled out a dress with what looked like a thousand buttons. Pip nodded her head and I set the dress back down. “Okay, then. Can you sweep and manually light a fire?” More nods accompanied my questions. “Can you empty a bath and refill it when necessary?”
“Yes, miss, my mom taught me a lot of things at night when she would come home.” At least the girl was more confident in her words now that I was dressed.
I sighed and rubbed my brow. “Very well, Pip. You may assist me. But you’re going to have to get over your aversion to a naked body.”
Pip’s cheeks stained a deep shade of red. “Of course, miss. I’ll do my best.”
I patted her shoulder again before straightening up to my full height. “You go on to your family’s quarters now, Pip. I’m going to turn in for the night. Make sure you’re here just after sun-up to help me in the morning, okay?”
Pip nodded vigorously, her hair falling in her face.
I smiled despite the situation; Pip was just too endearing to be displeased with. I ruffled her hair lightly before scooting her out the door and climbing beneath the heavy covers on my bed.
I expected sleep to evade me after the surprises of the day, but I drifted easily, my eyelids fluttering and limbs growing heavy the minute I settled in bed.