Back to the world of Demon's Fall

I was told several times that the setting of Demon's Fall was too rich not to mine further. I'm not a series kind of gal, but I ended up coming up with a nugget of an idea, very different in tone, but leaning on some of the world-building. Here's the start of the very preliminary draft.

Let Slip Glory

Keziah was born during a raging storm.  The midwife bundled her up and offered her to her mother, but her mother, blind, never reached for her. Instead she turned her face toward the window and asked between peals of thunder, "Do you hear wings?" before succumbing to the hours of labor and blood loss.

She had been a young bride, less than a year into her marriage.  Keziah did not blame her father for wedding again soon afterward to a proud woman who showed as little care for her stepdaughter as her predecessor had.

Finding little to keep her in the house, Keziah spent most of her time in the kennels and stables. The dogs and horses were skittish of her at first, but soon came to welcome her presence and her gentle hands along their backs. Her favorite was an alaunt bitch, a liquid-eyed hound with the keenest intelligence of them all. They spent nearly every waking hour together, and some in slumber, and Keziah was happy. Then her stepmother realized that her own daughters' prospects might be dimmed by this wildling child in her household.

From then on, she was supervised by a governess and taught deportment, history, and embroidery. Her days were a misery of lessons never learned right, her evenings full of teasing from her stepsisters for the same mistakes. So on the night of the great storm, when she would have once been pressed against the warmth of canine bodies and the occasional cold nose, she was in the house, trying to memorize noble bloodlines through eight generations to the sound of pounding rain and howling wind. She heard the older servants whisper about how there hadn't been such a storm since the night her mother had died.

Two months later, the alaunt whelped. The kennel master, who still held a softness in his heart for the child who had once wandered his domain, sent her word through a chain of servants, and she climbed out of her window to be there. The first pup born was large, and his dam strained to bring him into the world.  She died soon after, and the rest of the litter with her.  Keziah mourned her passing, but soon found herself busy caring for the pup, for he was clearly a mongrel and the kennel master could not spare any time for him.

She called him Caleb.

He had a keen nose and keener mind, and she swore there were times when he understood her words. He knew to stay absolutely still and silent under her bed when her governess swept in, and never whined for more food, as though he realized that she was sneaking him as many scraps as she could, sometimes giving him some of her own share. Even on his meager rations he grew into a large beast. Keziah watched this with pride and dismay. She knew it would only grow more difficult to hide him.

It was worth it, though, to have a friend. He lent his warmth at night, and listened patiently to her practicing her recitations. When one of her stepsisters set up a wailing about her latest sartorial disaster, Caleb would flatten his ears and exchange looks of long suffering with her that made her laugh. And after her father once again waved off one of her anxious queries with barely a glance at her, she would go to her room and sit on her bed, and Caleb would rest his head in her lap and she would know that she was loved.

But as she had learned with the arrival of the governess, happiness never lasted.

The kennel master inadvertently revealed Caleb's existence, as he had assumed that the master of the house had blessed it. The governess was horrified and her stepmother furious.

"Sell it immediately," she commanded.

The kennel master wrung his hands. Calm when dealing with snarling dogs, he was at a loss when faced with an angry woman. "I wouldn't get anything for it, m'lady, except perhaps as stew meat. He's a mongrel, you see."

"You can't let him be eaten!" Shocked, Keziah twisted out of her governess's grasp and threw her arms around Caleb's neck.

"Come away from that thing this instant," the governess said, tugging ineffectually at Keziah's arm, dignity overcome by her ward's scandalous behavior.

But when Keziah looked up, through her tear-blurred vision she saw her stepmother standing still and thoughtful.

"I won't have the dog sold," her stepmother said.

Keziah didn't move.

"But this is a respectable house. We can't have a half-breed sullying our lines, nor have you running wild with animals as though you were one yourself."

She hated it when her stepmother spoke in this reasonable tone, as though coaxing her from ridiculous fancies. "What will you do with him?"

"There must be some farmer or rat-catcher who'll take a free dog. In return, you'll apply yourself to your studies and act like a proper daughter of this household."

She breathed in Caleb's scent, feeling the tension in his body and knowing that the only thing keeping him from growling was that it would make the situation worse. Did it matter that he was a mongrel? He was the most intelligent creature she'd ever known. "Will I get to see him?"

"No. A proper daughter, I said." Her stepmother came closer to her in a rustle of skirts and laid a careful hand on her shoulder. She rarely touched Keziah and didn't seem to quite know how to go about it. "Focus on becoming a proper wife to a wealthy man. Then you can ask him for all the hounds and horses you like."

None of them would be Caleb. But she hugged him one last time, knowing that the choice her stepmother presented to her wasn't really a choice, and stood, one hand still on his ruff. "All right. Just don't send him to be butchered."

"I won't."

Her stepmother had never lied to her. Keziah let go of her last hold and watched the kennel master take Caleb away. He went quietly, but only after turning his gaze upon her in a long look. She did not think it meant farewell.

"Now go to your room, and don't expect any supper," her stepmother said wearily, as though Keziah were throwing a child's tantrum. "Tomorrow's a new day, and we'll start over then."

What did she expect? That with the dawn, Keziah would turn into a simpering likeness of her stepsisters? But she bit her tongue and obeyed. She threw herself onto her bed and let the sobs finally come.

Once she had cried herself out, she fell asleep. When she awoke, it was night, and Caleb was howling.