Lord Daryn. Proper and distant. The way all humans speak of their employers when they want to avoid punishment for familiarity.
"Valas Morthen." I set Amisra down before extending my hand—a human custom, but one I've always found oddly charming. "Friend of the family."
She hesitates. Just for a heartbeat. Then she places her hand in mine, and?—
Oh.
The contact is brief. Professional. But something in menotices—the warmth of her palm, the calluses on her fingers suggesting hard work, the way she meets my eyes even though I can see the effort it costs her. Most humans look away from dark elves. Survival instinct.
This one doesn't.
"A pleasure," she says, and withdraws her hand quickly. Not rudely. Just... careful.
"Keira makes honey cakes on Seventhdays," Amisra informs me, apparently bored with adult pleasantries. "And she knows songs from across the sea, and she doesn't mind when I ask a million questions."
"Only several thousand questions," Keira corrects, but there's fondness in it. Real affection, not the performance many servants put on. She genuinely cares for the child. I can see it in the way she smooths Amisra's hair, in the protective angle of her shoulders. "And now it's time for bed, Ami. We had a bargain."
"But Uncle Val just got here!"
"And I'm just leaving," I say, crouching to Amisra's eye level. "Your father and I had a long talk. I'll visit again soon—I promise. But Keira is right. Growing young ladies need their sleep."
Amisra pouts, but it's halfhearted. She's already rubbing her eyes, the late hour catching up with her. "You promise you'll come back?"
"I swear it on all Thirteen." I tap her nose, making her scrunch up her face. "Now go. Before Keira decides you've lost your nightbird privileges forever."
That gets her moving. She hugs me fierce and quick, then takes Keira's offered hand and lets herself be led toward the house. But she turns back at the door, waving with her whole arm.
"Goodbye, Uncle Val! Love you!"
"Love you too, little bird."
They disappear inside, and I'm left standing in the garden with moonlight pooling at my feet and something uncomfortable twisting in my chest.
It's nothing, I tell myself. Just surprise at meeting someone new. Just the stress of Daryn's news making me feel raw and strange. Just?—
But I can still feel the ghost of her hand in mine. Still see the way those hazel eyes held mine without flinching. Still hear her voice, gentle but unyielding, protecting a child who isn't hers by blood or law.
I turn and walk away quickly, as if distance will erase the feeling. It doesn't.
Something hungry hooks deep and refuses to let go.
1
KEIRA
I've been in Daryn Vaelor's household for two weeks now, and I still can't decide if I'm lucky or doomed.
Lucky, because Amisra is everything bright and good in this world—a little half-elven ray of starlight who asks questions like breathing and hasn't yet learned that humans are supposed to be invisible. Lucky, because her father pays well and doesn't beat his servants, which makes him practically saintly by dark elf standards. Lucky, because the work is manageable: caring for one precocious four-year-old, keeping her fed and educated and entertained, making sure she doesn't accidentally set the garden on fire with unauthorized magic experiments.
Doomed, because I'm human in an elven household, and that's always a precarious position no matter how kind the master pretends to be.
The other servants make that abundantly clear.
They're all dark elves, naturally—kitchen staff and groundskeepers and the austere woman who manages the household accounts. They move through the estate like silk on water, speaking in that liquid language I'll never fullyunderstand, their violet and indigo eyes sliding past me as if I'm furniture. Breath and background. A necessary inconvenience.
I've grown used to it. Had to, really, or I'd have gone mad years ago when I was still in the textile mills, surrounded by overseers who thought humans were best seen with fists and worse. At least here, the disdain is polite. Distant. They don't acknowledge me, but they don't hurt me either.
It's a strange kind of freedom.
