A Tithe Of Blood

The bells rang slow and ceremonial, far softer than those used for commands or bloodletting. This chime was reserved for nobler occasions gatherings that tasted of ripe fruit and power laced in honey.

Elira smoothed her apron once more, though her hands were already clean. The polished silver tray in her grasp held a delicate carafe of bloodwine and two crystal glasses. The scent was rich aged like memory, thick like promise. Her steps were measured and silent across the carved stone.

She knew this wasn't just brunch.

It was a performance.

And she was part of the set.

The scent of roasted chestnuts and honeyed figs drifted through the upper halls of the estate, weaving itself into the cold stone like a ghost of warmth. Elira moved in silence, the silver tray balanced perfectly in her hands, though her heart beat with a soft drum of dread.

The solar look, once a dusty relic of Calvorn's ancestry, had been cleaned and dressed in velvet for the occasion. Heavy crimson drapes filtered the morning sun, casting bloodlight across the long oak table where five men lounged like lions. Their laughter echoed, rich and slow, the kind that left no room for dissent.

Lord Calvorn sat at the head, a glass of dark cordial in his hand, his sharp eyes half-lidded. Sunlight kissed the silver strands at his temples, but nothing softened him not the wine, not the velvet, not even the company of old allies.

Elira entered with a bow so slight it was nearly invisible.

Around him, five noblemen lounged and drank. Lords of neighboring keeps in the central kingdom, each one a blade sheathed in silk smiling, laughing, measuring every word.

But none commanded the air like the man who stood near the window, not seated, not eating.

Duke Alaric.

Clad in a deep grey coat lined with black fur, his silver hair was drawn back, revealing the sharp lines of his face cold, handsome, and unreadable. Unlike the others, he had taken nothing from the platters. He stared out across the snow-covered rose gardens with the quiet patience of a predator waiting for movement in the thicket.

He did not sit. He did not drink. He merely observed like a wolf invited to the table out of formality, not trust.

"Elira," Calvorn said without looking up, "begin with Lord Verent."

She stepped forward, her stride sure but not hurried. The blue-grey dress she wore, newly tailored, hugged her frame in a way that was modest by court standards but did nothing to hide how she had grown. Months in the estate had stripped away the hill country dust, but none of her spirit. Her honey-dark hair, now longer and often pinned back, shimmered in the light.

As she moved, the lords watched.

Verent, the oldest of the guests, a merchant-noble from the river border, chuckled. "Well, well. You've certainly trained this one, Calvorn. She glides like poured wine."

"She was a wild thing once," Calvorn replied lazily, his eyes following Elira as she poured. "But the stone polishes the blade. Now she gleams."

Elira kept her eyes down, her expression unreadable. Her role was to serve. But she felt the weight of every gaze like fingertips brushing skin.

"Too lovely for scullery work," another lord murmured, chewing a fig. "She'd draw coin if you offered her to the court."

"She is not for sale," Calvorn said smoothly, though his tone darkened just slightly. "She is here by law. A gift of the Blood Tax."

That word tax. The room shifted subtly, as if some current had passed beneath their feet.

Alaric turned from the window. At last.

His silver gaze flicked over Elira once

measured, not indulgent and then returned to the table.

"Strange," he said softly, "how your part of the Center still insists on parading your tax girls like baubles."

"Strange," Calvorn returned without missing a beat, "how the North believes it can hold the higher ground while it sits on a throne of snow and bones."

One of the younger lords laughed uneasily. "Now, now. We're allies, not rivals. The tax keeps order. Keeps tradition. Each province must offer a girl. That's how peace is held."

"In the South," Verent said with a mouthful of pastry, "they've begun branding theirs. Marking them like cattle."

"Savages," another muttered.

Elira's hand tensed around the tray.

Alaric's gaze returned to her. "And when do we decide that beauty is worth less than blood? Or is it easier to forget that these girls have names?"

His words struck like the cold of deep snow—quiet, but cutting.

"She's called Elira," Calvorn said after a pause. "And she serves well."

"But does she choose it?" Alaric asked.

Silence fell. Even the birds outside seemed to hush.

Elira did not speak. She wasn't meant to. But inside her chest, something stirred anger or gratitude, she couldn't say.

Calvorn raised his glass again. "Elira is what the law made her. Like all of us."

"And yet some of us make the law," Alaric said.

The tension cracked like frost underfoot. Verent gave a nervous chuckle, trying to chase it away.

"Well, I say we drink to her, then. To Elira. A rare bloom in a bitter garden."

Glasses lifted. Calvorn's most of all. Elira bowed slightly, then turned to retreat behind the drapes, heart pounding.

But just before she slipped away, a hand brushed her elbow.

Not harshly. Not with demand.

She turned.

Alaric. 

Still beside the window. Still watching her through the gauze of golden morning light, his silhouette cut sharp against the glass and sky. He hadn't moved during the entire brunch silent, still, unreadable. But now, as the others laughed and sipped wine and spoke of things that had nothing to do with her, he spoke.

His voice was low meant for her and no one else.

"I remember the old blood," he said, and each word seemed to echo off stone. "You carry more of it than they know."

Elira's breath caught. She turned toward him fully for the first time, the tray trembling ever so slightly in her grasp.

Her lips parted, a question on her tongue, a name perhaps but he was already walking away, his long coat trailing like a shadow behind him. No further glance. No explanation.

She stared after him, her heart fluttering against her ribs like a trapped bird. It wasn't just what he said it was how he said it. Not with curiosity. With certainty.

A slow chill ran through her limbs.

And then she saw it.

Lying on the silver tray where her hand had rested just moments before so lightly she hadn't even felt its presence was a black feather. Delicate, weightless, almost unreal. Its surface shimmered faintly in the light, like something caught between the material and the arcane.

She reached for it, hesitated, and then closed her fingers gently around the stem.

Soft as breath. Cold as a warning.