Up at dawn; the sky burns red at the horizon, and mist hangs heavy over her father's Eyrie. She gets the water for her sisters' early-morning wash, makes her father his coffee, fills the wash tubs, and starts working while nibbling on some dry, dark bread. She hangs the wash out to dry.
Late morning, and she must set the table; there are guests for lunch today. Use the rose-spray porcelain, and pour the yarbarah in the crystal wineglasses. All the dishes spotless, the table scrubbed clean and covered by the pressed, dark green tablecloth.
Keep the soup from burning; pull the loaves of bread from the oven. Searing heat on her face as she checks the cakes to make sure they're done. She can feel the skin stretching in the heat.
Scrub the floors, the harsh lye-soap burning her hands, the stone floor scraping at her knees. The frosty winds chill her to the bone, raising gooseflesh, as it blows through the cracks in the door. She'll have to fix those.
She hauls water from the well, chops the firewood, and waits on the guests. Mends her sisters' and her mother's clothes, as well as her father's. She hopes she does this well enough that she won't get a swat, or worse, a whipping. She washes all the dishes from dinner, ignoring the leers from her father's friends as they play cards and gamble money.
She never has time for herself, time to eat, and to rest, and to read.
She must then scrub the table and wash the table cloth, sweep the floors again, take in the wash drying out on the line. She folds the laundry and puts it away. She makes sure that there's enough food in the pantry for tomorrow, since tomorrow is Market Day and she must go with her mother to get what the household requires.
Then she trudges up to her bedroom in the attic, and falls into bed, sighing, and shivering with the cold from the cracks in the ceiling. She never does get around to fixing their kitchen door.
She's so cold, she grabs all her blankets and lays down in front of the fireplace, feeling the heat warming her.
She pulls out the uncut Rose Jewel from around her neck and stares at it in wonder. In a few days, she'll be old enough; old enough to make the Offering to the Darkness, and walk away three levels deeper in strength, three levels darker. She can do it in just a few days... then her parents will be proud of her, and no longer work her like a drudge.
She falls asleep in front of the hearth, ashes on her cheeks and the tip of her nose, and her wings curled up to prevent them from freezing. A soft wind swirls down the chimney, and ashes whoosh from the fireplace, touching down on her like soft snow, soft as gray silk. She sighs in her sleep, and her Jewel glows a soft rose color among the ebon-gray of the ash.
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