Outside, the sky began to lighten slowly at the edges.
The Farm was draped in a heavy, pre-morning silence, broken only by the rhythmic, hollow thud of ironwood crates being stacked in the secondary courtyard.
Evryn stood alone on the stone balcony, her silhouette hidden by the deep shadows of the overhanging eaves.
She had been there since the bells struck the fourth hour, her fingers numbed by the biting chill of the stone railing.
Below her, illuminated only by a single flickering torch mounted to a stone pillar, Auren was at work.
While the other male servants were still snoring in their hay-filled bunks, Auren was hauling crates that should have required two men to lift.
Yet, he didn’t grunt…He didn’t heave or gasp for air.
He moved with a rhythmic precision, his white servant’s tunic…which he somehow kept miraculously clean even in the dead of night…stretching taut across the broad planes of his back.
Evryn watched him, her eyes narrowing with every movement.
She watched the way he set a heavy crate down and immediately paused, not to catch his breath, but to brush an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
He moved with a regal, maddening boredom, as if he were merely indulging the wood by moving it from one place to another.
“You’re up early,” a hushed voice whispered behind her.
Evryn jumped, her heart hammering against her ribs as Brinna stepped onto the balcony, wrapping a thick wool shawl tightly around her shoulders.
“The sun isn’t even a thought yet, Evryn.
Why are you out here in the freezing dark?”
“I’m supervising,” Evryn hissed, her gaze snapping back to the courtyard below.
“Look at him, Brinna.
It’s four in the morning, he’s hauling ironwood, and his shirt is still perfectly white.
He’s been out here for an hour, and he hasn’t even broken a sweat or stained a cuff.”
Brinna leaned over the railing, squinting into the flickering torchlight.
“He is…
very thorough.
And quite handsome in the moonlight, if you ask me.”
“He’s a nightmare,” Evryn muttered.
“He just moved five crates and now look…he’s stopping to inspect his fingernails again.
Who does that?
He’s a servant!
He’s supposed to be covered in the world’s grime, not looking like he’s posing for a royal portrait in the middle of the night.”
Below them, Auren paused.
With agonizing slowness, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a microscopic speck of dust from his thumb.
He tilted his head back, his silver eyes catching the faint moonlight, though he didn’t look up at the balcony.
“That’s it,” Evryn whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of cold and spite.
She reached for a bucket of water that had been left near the drainage spout.
It was grey, murky, and smelled sharply of vinegar and old lye…the stagnant remains of the night’s floor scrubbing.
Auren stepped directly beneath the stone spout to adjust his collar, checking the fold of the fabric.
She tipped the bucket.
“Oops,” Evryn said, her voice a sharp, frozen blade of fake innocence.
Splat!
A massive, wet sound echoed through the silent courtyard as the sludge-colored water slammed into Auren.
In a single second, the pristine white tunic was transformed into a dripping, vinegar-scented rag.
The filth ran down his face, matting his dark hair into sodden clumps that dripped onto his boots.
Brinna gasped, stepping back and pressing her hand to her mouth, but Evryn leaned further over the railing, a triumphant, jagged smile on her lips.
Auren didn’t move.
He stood perfectly still in the flickering torchlight, water dripping from the tip of his nose.
Inside his mind, a cold, dark voice was screaming.
I am going to snap her neck.
when I break this spell, I am going to bury her in the deepest, filthiest dungeon in the realm until she forgets what the sun looks like.
But as the thought formed, the spell struck his chest…a sharp, warning sting that reminded him of his current “station.”.
Auren slowly raised his head.
He pushed his wet hair back with a hand that was now undeniably, finally, covered in grey slime.
He looked up at the balcony, his eyes locking onto Evryn’s with a terrifyingly calm intensity that made her breath hitch.
“Oh!
I am so sorry,” she called out, her voice ringing through the pre-dawn stillness.
“The bucket just…
it was so heavy, and my hands are so delicate in this cold.
I completely lost my grip.
You’re not too upset about the clothes, are you?”
Auren exhaled slowly, a thin plume of mist escaping his lips in the freezing air.
He didn’t break.
He didn’t even scowl.
Instead, a small, terrifyingly calm smile touched his lips.
“Mistakes happen to the clumsy, Evryn,” he said, his voice carrying perfectly across the yard.
“Though I suspect the weight of the bucket wasn’t the issue, but perhaps the weight of your own boredom.”
Evryn’s smile faltered.
“You’re filthy.
You look like a drowned rat.
Maybe now you’ll stop acting like you’re too good for the dirt and actually work.”
Auren looked down at his ruined tunic, then back at her.
“Dirt is merely a temporary state of the skin.
Pride, however, is a permanent state of the soul.
I can wash this water away in a moment.
Can you wash away the desperation in your eyes to see me fail?”
“I’m not desperate!” she snapped, her face heating up despite the cold.
“You are leaning so far over that railing you’re practically falling into my arms,” he remarked, his voice dropping into a smoother, more dangerous register.
Evryn felt a surge of irritation.
He was supposed to be broken!
He was supposed to be red-faced and shouting!
Instead, he stood there, covered in grey sludge, looking like he was the one in control of the conversation.
Suddenly, the copper bells of the Farm rang out.
Their deep tolling signaled the start of the workday and the awakening of the rest of the staff; the heavy silence of the dawn was broken as light began to bleed into the courtyard.
Evryn’s expression shifted from irritation to a sudden, sharp urgency.
“The bells,” she whispered, then leaned over the railing, her voice a hushed command.
“Go to the well and wash yourself.
Now!
Move before the head butler or the senior maids see you looking like a drowned beggar.”
Auren paused.
He looked up at her, his silver eyes narrowing.
He noticed the flicker of worry in her gaze…the way she glanced toward the servants’ entrance.
He realized then that while she took a twisted pleasure in breaking his pride herself, she had no desire to see him humiliated by the rest of the world.
This war was private.
It belonged only to the two of them.
“As you wish,” he murmured, his voice thick with a dark, knowing amusement.
By the time he reached the well, as he pulled the soaking, vinegar-scented tunic over his head, exposing the hard, scarred strongest of his torso, Evryn stepped forward and snatched the dirty white shirt from his hands with a rough jerk.
“I’ll take this to the washhouse,” she snapped, refusing to look at the way the water glistened on his skin in the rising light.
“Dress yourself in the spare linen I left by the bucket.
And when you’re done, go to the stables.
Clean every inch of them, and for heaven’s sake, forget about your hands for a moment.
Stop wasting time scrubbing them every five minutes.
To a servant, hands are nothing but tools.”
Auren dipped a ladle into the fresh well water, pouring it over his shoulders.
He turned to her, a drop of water clinging to his jaw.
“Even a common woodcutter sharpens his axe, Evryn.
The tools must be clean to work effectively.
I am simply making my tools perfect for the task.”
“Your tools are meant to be calloused and dirty!” she retorted, her voice sharp as a blade.
“Now move.
The horses won’t wait for your ‘perfection’.”
An hour later, the air in the stables was thick with the scent of dry hay and the heavy musk of horses.
Auren was knee-deep in the stalls; his new tunic already marked with dust.
Evryn stood by the heavy doors, her arms crossed, her eyes tracking every movement of his pitchfork.
She was silent, her gaze a constant, heavy weight on his back.
Auren stopped, leaning his weight against the wooden handle of the fork.
He didn’t turn around, but a smirk played on his lips.
“You know, Evryn,” he started, his voice echoing in the rafters, “the ironwood was heavy.
The muck is thick.
The work is grueling.” He turned slowly, meeting her sharp gaze with an unshakeable calm.
“But none of it is nearly as heavy as your gaze on my back.”
“I am making sure you don’t slack off, assistant,” she snapped, stepping further into the dim light of the stable.
“Don’t flatter yourself.
I watch you because I don’t trust you to do an honest day’s work without a whip at your heels.”
Auren took a slow step toward her, the straw crunching beneath his boots.
“Is that what this is?
Supervision?
Because it feels more like an obsession.
You hate my pride, yet you can’t seem to look away from it.”
“I hate your arrogance,” she corrected, her voice ice-cold despite the heat rising in her chest.
“I hate that you think you’re a king in a stable.
You’re just a man with a pitchfork.
Start acting like it.”
“A man with a pitchfork who has caught your eye since the sun was a mere whisper,” he flirted, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous tone.
“Tell me…
is it the work you’re evaluating, or are you just trying to memorize the way the light hits my shoulders?”
“Get back to work!” she hissed, her face flushing crimson.
“Or I’ll have you mucking out the pig pens next.
Let’s see how ‘perfect’ your tools feel then.”
Auren smiled under his breath.
He turned back to the hay, but as he worked, he knew he had won this round.
She was sharp, she was loyal to her station, and she was promised to another…
but her eyes were entirely his.
Truthfully, he was enjoying this.
There was a twisted sort of pleasure in pushing her buttons, in deliberately making her angry just to see the fire catch in her eyes.
It was a dangerous game, but a thrilling one…at least until he finally breaks this spell, drop the servant’s mask, and show her exactly who he was.
“Auren,” she called.
He stopped immediately; it was the first time she had spoken his name.
He closed his eyes for a brief, quiet second, letting the sound of it wash over him.
From her lips, it was soft…
softer than any of the grand, echoing titles he was used to hearing in the courts.
It sent a strange, unfamiliar ripple through him.
Steady yourself, fool, Auren commanded himself bitterly in the silence of his own mind.
Why do you suddenly love your name so much?
Opening his eyes, he turned slowly toward her, the smirk entirely gone from his face.
“I need you in the storage room, when you finish.” she said.
“Prepare your muscles.”
He held her gaze for a brief moment, then nodded.