Snow choked the stone courtyards of Blackstone Keep. It piled against the granite walls like ash, soft and soundless, burying the footprints of passing servants and bleeding heat from the marrow of those unlucky enough to linger outside.
Cairon Blackthorn stood barefoot in the slush, pale toes curling on the ice-crusted flagstones, a wooden bucket slung over one shoulder and his other arm hugging a bundle of firewood to his chest.
He was seventeen, though the lines beneath his gray eyes aged him more than the years permitted. His face was all angles and hollows, a jaw sharp with hunger and cheekbones like blades. A cut split his lower lip, not yet scabbed, and a bruise bloomed purple over his collarbone.
The ironwood door groaned as he pushed it open, stepping into the warmth of the great hall. Torchlight flickered across the feasting table, where none feasted now. House Vael had not held a proper banquet in two winters. Half the banners that once lined the rafters were gone, sold or burned or buried with better men.
Cairon moved quietly, careful not to let the firewood fall too loudly into the hearth. He had learned long ago that noise brought attention, and attention in Blackstone Keep was dangerous currency. He bent, tending the embers, when her voice slipped across the room like velvet drawn over broken glass.
"Is that soot on your face, bastard? Or are you just born with filth in your blood?"
He froze. Lady Isolde had entered unseen, as she often did. A specter in velvet, black as mourning cloth, her fur-lined sleeves trailing the rushes behind her. Her voice was soft, never raised, but the venom coiled beneath it like a viper in a jeweled goblet.
Cairon turned slowly. "My lady."
He did not bow. Not anymore. He had learned, after enough lashes, that she liked defiance more than obedience. It gave her something to punish.
Lady Isolde was younger than most noble wives, perhaps twenty-four. Her beauty was a knife's edge. Cutting, cold, deliberate. Dark curls cascaded over her shoulders, and her lips, crimson as spilled wine, curled into a smile that had nothing to do with mirth. She walked with the grace of someone who knew eyes would follow her, even if they hated her for it.
"You tracked snow through my hall again," she said, circling him like a wolf measuring her prey. "What a shame. I so enjoy a clean floor."
"I'll scrub it," he muttered.
"You will," she said. "But not until after you serve the men their evening bread. And not until you've cleaned yourself. The smell of you is... what's the word?"
She leaned closer, breathing in through her nose as if savoring rot.
"Earthy."
Behind her, two men-at-arms chuckled. Alrik and Toman, both of them veterans of petty border wars and withered dreams. They obeyed her like dogs, eager for scraps. They had beaten Cairon many times before, more often when he was a child, and would do so again if their lady commanded.
She reached out, brushing a strand of damp hair from Cairon's forehead with a touch that lingered far too long. He flinched, but didn't pull away. Pulling away only made her smile.
"Still so thin," she whispered. "But tall. Like your father."
The comparison was not a compliment. Lord Edran Vael had sired Cairon during a hunting tourney on some serving girl in a border village. He'd brought the bastard back to the keep to appease his guilt, then forgotten him in the stables. Cairon had been seven then. Ten winters had passed since, and nothing had changed.
"Are you going to strike me, my lady?" he asked, gaze steady.
Her smile widened, revealing perfect teeth. "No. Not today."
She turned with a swish of her cloak. "But Alrik may have a lesson for you later. He said you missed the piss bucket in the barracks."
"I didn't."
"And yet it was full. Strange how that happens."
She paused at the threshold.
"Be a good bastard and make yourself useful. Even filth has a place beneath our boots."
The men laughed again. Cairon watched them go, the fire crackling behind him, warmth doing nothing to chase the cold from his blood. His fingers curled against the firewood in his arms until the bark bit into his skin.
One day, he thought. One day I'll bury them all in the snow.
He turned back to the hearth, jaw clenched. For now, he was still the worm beneath the floorboards.
But even worms had teeth, given time.