The Last Living Legacy

The servants deliberately avoided Lady Elowen's end of the banquet table.

She watched them circle past her empty goblet, their eyes sliding away like water off stone. The massive oak table stretched before her, laden with roasted boar and honey-glazed roots, yet she might as well have been invisible.

Her gown—pressed but threadbare, mended but unfashionable—marked her as clearly as a brand.

"Pass the wine," she called to a passing servant.

The boy's steps faltered. He glanced toward the head of the table where her husband Lord Alaric of House Denvyr held court, then back to her. "My lady, I—"

"The wine," Elowen repeated.

Reluctantly, the servant filled her goblet, but his hands shook as wine splashed onto the white tablecloth, staining it red.

"Clumsy fool," young Lady Tressa's voice carried from across the table, full of mockery and quiet cruelty. "Look what you've done to Lady Elowen's... charming gown."

Laughter rippled around them and Lady Isolde, Tressa's mother, raised her fan to hide her smirk. "Perhaps the stain will improve it."

Elowen lifted her goblet and took a deliberate sip, but said nothing.

Toward the head of the table, where Lord Alaric Denvyr—her husband in name, never in affection—sat with the ease of a man who had never known hunger, nor shame.

Laughter curled from his lips like smoke, charming the lords around him with tales of border skirmishes and blood-soaked victories. His goblet caught the light. His smile caught everything else.

Once, that smile had been hers.

Or so she’d believed.

They’d married in the spring, when the wildflowers bloomed too early and the ink on her dowry hadn’t yet dried. She had worn a gown borrowed from a merchant’s widow.