Morning in the Kingsbane Castle was very unusual today.
In the center of the courtyard, a black coffin sat upon a simple wooden trestle, looking small and strikingly lonely against the backdrop of the Duke's sprawling polished castl
Millia knelt in the dirt with her forehead pressed against the polished wood of the casket.
"Madam..."
Her sobs were heart wrenching.
She didn't care about the judgmental stares of the other servants or the coldness of the stone beneath her knees. To her, the woman inside wasn't just a maid or a illegitimate concubine, she was the gentle soul who had shared her meager bread and offered a kind word when the rest of the world offered only thorns.
Her mother, the Head Maid, stood a few paces back. She looked stoic, but her knuckles were white where she gripped her apron.
She looked at the coffin and then toward the veranda, where the Duke sat in a high-backed chair, as still and cold as a funeral monument.
