And Mother only cried and said, 'What can I do?'
A beautiful room in the manor house has been prepared for her. It's so beautiful and fancy that at first she forgets all about Mother and Father, and the farm, and her friends in the village. At night, though, she cries and misses her family.
Lord Tanen calls the three old women 'crones.' He says that she is to do everything they tell her, and that if she does not, he will come back and punish her.
'Where will you be?' asks Sela.
'I will be in the city,' he says. 'But I will come to visit from time to time.'
Lord Tanen is old, and his skin looks like Father's old saddle. His breath smells sour. She does not like him, so she is glad he is leaving.
'Don't you want to know why I've brought you here?' he asks her.
Sela hasn't thought about it. She doesn't know what a ward is, but she is a good girl and does as she's told.
'Why?' she asks, because he wants her to.
'Because I have searched far and wide for a special girl like you,' he says. 'Did you know that you were special?'
'No.'
'Do you want to know what makes you special?'
'Okay.'
'There might be something inside you called a Gift. Do you know what Gifts are?'
'Magic,' says Sela. Everyone knows that. 'There are twelve Gifts. But children don't have Gifts and, and farmers don't have them, either.'
'That is mostly true,' says Lord Tanen. 'Children do not express their Gifts; they only manifest during puberty. But there are ways of knowing in advance. And while it is true that the lower classes show a far lower rate of manifestation, it is not unheard-of.'
Sela doesn't understand what Tanen is saying, and is getting bored. She looks around her bedroom for something to play with.
'May I have a doll?' she asks.
'You won't have time for dolls,' he says.
Sela was sitting quietly in the tearoom when Lord Everess stepped through the door, still shaking the rain from his hair. He was the sort who seemed jolly but, upon closer inspection, was anything but. Even with the Accursed Object damping her down, Sela could see it.
'Sela,' said Everess with a curt bow, the benevolent recognition of a nobleman to a woman with no status whatsoever. Under normal conditions, it would have been impossible for Everess even to address her, so there was no appropriate greeting.
'Lord Everess,' said Sela, rising and curtseying automatically, as she'd been taught since her earliest childhood. Always ready to please. Always ready to obey.
No. This was not Lord Tanen. All lords were not the same. That's what Everess had told her.
She looked him directly in the eye. 'How may I be of service to you, Lord?'
Everess cracked a smile. He took a large pipe from the pocket of his voluminous overcoat and lit it, puffing quietly for a moment before speaking.
'Let me ask you a question, miss. How do you like it here?'
If Everess was expecting a polite response, he wasn't going to get one. 'I despise it here,' she said simply.
Everess laughed out loud. To him, she was a puppy nipping, nothing more. 'Brutally honest as ever, yes. This place hasn't drained that out of you.'
'I am what I was made to be,' Sela said.
Everess watched her, puffing on his pipe, saying nothing. Letting the silence between them grow dense.
Finally, he spoke. 'What is it that you want?' he asked.
'Excuse me?'
'For yourself. What is it that you want for yourself?'
'I've never been asked the question before.' Sela thought back. No, it was true. At no time in her life had anyone ever asked her what she wanted;
