A Tithe Of Blood

The chamber around her was dim, cloaked in shadows where the light dared not reach. The dying ember in the corner brazier pulsed faintly, like the last heartbeat of a forgotten god. Its glow cast long, shivering silhouettes against the stone walls ghosts of firelight that shifted every time she breathed.

Elira stirred beneath her blanket, every joint aching. Her back throbbed dully from yesterday's endless scrubbing, and her right arm bound in a rough linen wrap throbbed with quiet protest. She unwrapped it slowly, gently brushing her fingertips across the bruise that had bloomed like ink beneath her skin. The flesh was warm and tender, but the skin remained unbroken. A blessing, perhaps, in a house that did not believe in mercy.

The estate twisted time in strange ways.

Day bled into night and back again, until all that remained was the scraping of brushes on stone and the quiet shuffling of weary feet. What had happened yesterday scrubbing stairwells, hauling buckets, enduring the withering gaze of nobles already felt distant. Like a dream remembered only at its edges. Like smoke glimpsed through glass.

A sudden clang.

The morning bell.

Its iron cry echoed through the halls like a warning. She startled upright, wincing as her bruised muscles protested.

She dressed quickly threadbare wool, an apron still stained with ash and pushed the chamber door open. The corridor beyond was already stirring with life. Dust floated in the weak morning light like dying stars.

Marta stood just outside, broom in hand, her expression carved from flint. Her gray hair was pinned in a tight coil, and her apron was immaculate, as always.

"Good. You're up," she said without looking at Elira. "The lord notices tardiness. And he never forgets."

Elira fell into step beside her, clutching her wrap tighter around her shoulders. Her voice was tentative. "I… heard something before the bell."

Marta paused for just a breath—just enough to betray that she'd heard it too.

"It sounded like…" Elira hesitated. "Singing."

A low, distant melody. Ethereal and strange. Too soft to follow, too piercing to forget.

Marta's jaw tightened, but she kept walking. "Ignore it."

Elira glanced at her. "Was it someone from the west wing?"

This time, Marta's pause was longer. Her knuckles whitened around the broom handle. "I said ignore it."

They didn't speak again.

The morning dragged in cold silence.

Elira was sent to clean the lesser gallery, a long corridor nestled between two wings of the estate rarely used, sparsely lit. The air there was damp, filled with the scent of mildew and faded perfumes. The walls were lined with ancient tapestries some eaten away by moths, others hanging like veils guarding the secrets stitched into their threads.

Statues lined one wall: marble women and beast-headed warriors, cloaked kings with hollow eyes. Each pedestal bore a name, but the inscriptions had worn away with time. They seemed to watch her as she worked, heads tilted, eyes blank.

She tried not to look at them. Tried to keep her head down, her mind quiet. But one tapestry drew her gaze like a moth to a dying flame.

It was different.

A woman stood tall, wrapped in silver robes that shimmered even through the dust. Her long hair billowed like smoke, and beneath her feet, shadows writhed in worship. She faced a black throne—vast, monstrous, empty. Her hands were raised in offering.

But it was her eyes that caught Elira's breath.

They were blue.

Not the pale gray-blue of frost or ice, but something deeper—storm-touched. Familiar.

Like mine, she thought.

A chill crawled down her spine.

She stared too long.

A hand clamped onto her shoulder.

Elira gasped and whirled around, stumbling back.

It wasn't Marta.

A boy stood there taller than her by a head, with warm olive skin and dark curls tucked beneath a soot-stained servant's cap. His shirt was wrinkled, and a rag dangled from his belt. His hands were rough from work, but his eyes brown, keen, curious held no threat. Just mischief.

"You're the new blood," he said.

Elira blinked. "Yes."

"Thought so. I'm Corrin. Stable hand. Floor runner when they feel like torturing me."

"Elira."

He glanced around, then stepped in closer, lowering his voice. "Don't stare at that one too long," he nodded toward the tapestry with the silver-clad woman. "Bad luck."

"Why?" she asked.

Corrin scratched the back of his neck. "They say she was the first offering. Came here before any of us were born. Calvorn kept her for a hundred years."

Elira's brow furrowed. "That's not possible."

Corrin gave a half-shrug. "Nothing here's impossible. Only forbidden."

A gust of cold air slithered through the corridor, brushing against her neck. She shivered and looked back at the tapestry but the woman's expression seemed to have changed.

Almost as if… she was smiling.

"Corrin!" Marta's voice snapped like a whip down the hall.

The boy winced. "Duty calls." He winked. "Try not to get turned into a statue."

And with that, he vanished through a narrow side door, leaving Elira alone beneath the tapestry's haunting gaze.

She stared one moment longer drawn to the eyes that felt too familiar and whispered under her breath:

"What are you?"

The corridor gave no answer.

But somewhere in the depths of the estate, the unseen voice began to hum again low, haunting, and heartbreakingly old.

Later that evening, after the dust of the day had settled into cracks and corners, Elira found herself sweeping the south hallway near the servants' inner quarters a narrow stretch of corridor between the wine cellars and the lower kitchens. It was a place that usually hummed with quiet gossip and foot traffic, but tonight it felt strangely still.

The air was heavy, humid from the kitchens below. Faint smoke from burnt herbs drifted upward, mingling with the scent of boiled roots and freshly scrubbed stone.

She worked in silence, her broom brushing softly across uneven tiles.

Then voices.

Muffled, low, coming from the cracked door just ahead. The scullery pantry.

Elira paused, broom mid-sweep.

The voices were familiar. Marta's. And another. A man's older, with a raspy edge. She didn't recognize him.

Her hand stilled. Curiosity tugged like a thread caught in a thornbush. She moved closer, pressing her side to the cool stone wall beside the door. Just enough to listen.

"—I'm telling you, Marta," the man was saying. "He's come earlier this time. That means something."

"Don't be foolish," Marta snapped. "Dukes don't come early. They come when they intend."

"But why now?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "Why the girl?"

A pause.

"She bears the mark," Marta said finally. Her tone was quiet. Grim.

"She doesn't know, does she?"

"No," Marta replied. "And it's better that she doesn't. Not yet."

Elira's blood turned to ice.

"She's been dreaming again," the man said. "She hums old songs in her sleep. Songs none of the others remember."

"I know."

Elira's heart pounded in her throat.

"Does Lord Calvorn know?" the man asked.

Marta's voice was sharper now, clipped. "He knows enough. But Alaric…" A longer pause. "He remembers too much."

"Her eyes are like the first one," the man whispered. "That's what's unsettling everyone. The same eyes. The same blood."

A rustle paper or cloth then Marta said, "He'll make a claim before the new moon. I'm sure of it."

"Calvorn won't allow it."

"He might not have a choice."

Silence.

Then Marta again, softer this time. Almost sad.

"The girl thinks she's just another servant. But fate doesn't ask who is ready. It chooses. And the old blood has stirred."

The sound of footsteps broke Elira's trance.

She darted back around the corner, sweeping with forced casualness as Marta opened the door behind her. The old woman stepped out, expression unreadable.

"Elira," she said flatly. "You're not sweeping air again, are you?"

Elira blinked, heart racing. "No, ma'am."

Marta's gaze lingered on her face for a beat too long then she turned on her heel and walked away, the other voice gone with her.

Elira gripped the broom tightly.

They were talking about her.

And the mark. The dreams.

The tapestry in the gallery. The song in the dark.

She looked down at her hands, trembling now despite the warmth of the kitchen air. Everything she thought she knew her name, her debt, her fate was crumbling like old mortar in the walls of this cursed estate.

And far above, in the highest tower of House Calvorn, a raven circled once against the sky and vanished into the clouds.

___________

As the sun sank behind the jagged peaks beyond the estate, the halls of House Calvorn slipped into a hush broken only by the shifting creak of ancient beams and the distant clatter of kitchenware being scrubbed clean. The light grew thin, turning the walls to ash and the tapestries to moving shadows.

Elira was finishing her evening chore replacing herb bundles in the lower hallway when Marta appeared beside her like a wraith from the gloom, without so much as a footstep.

"Take this," the old housemaid said, slipping a tightly folded piece of parchment into her hand. The wax seal bore the impression of a coiled serpent. Brass.

Elira blinked, confused. "To whom?"

"To the third floor," Marta replied, voice low. "The lord's steward. You'll know the room. The door has a brass serpent across it."

Elira hesitated. "Should I wait for a reply?"

"No." Marta's gaze sharpened. "Knock twice. Leave the note. Don't speak. Don't linger."

Elira felt the weight of the sealed parchment in her palm light as paper, heavy as fate. She gave a small nod and tucked it into the folds of her apron.