Hard Lessons

[Brenna Ylva Eir]

Hard Lessons
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The day was bright and warm and Brenna intended to savor every moment of it. It wasn't often that she was able to escape her mother's notice, but today F'reya had a special guest she was entertaining privately. Brenna had easily slipped a particular herb into her tutor's tea, which put the woman almost instantly into a deep slumber. She would awake in a few hours and Brenna Ylva would have already had her fun. Maybe she would come back in time and the tutor wouldn't even know she'd been gone. Her heart thrilled at the thought of going against her mother's wishes and not getting caught.

The little girl was but eight years old, but already she knew well the dire consequences that would come if she did get caught - it had happened often enough before. Brenna didn't let the thought bother her right now as she skipped along the ornate hallways of her mother's mansion on her way to the gardens.

 

[Brenna Ylva Eir]

Brenna's fingers trailed along the smooth wood of the banister as she raced toward the stairs that would lead her to the ground level of her mother's estate. The banister overlooked the winding spiral staircase that went down several floors before reaching the lower level. Normally, she would have used one of several smaller servant's stairs located throughout the massive building but today she happened to know her mother's exact location. F'reya had told Sabine, the head house servant who oversaw the running of the household, to prepare the Star Chamber earlier that week and Brenna had seen her mother leading her special guest towards the sacred room not long ago. That was when she knew she'd have the perfect opportunity to escape her studies for the day.

It never occurred to the young girl that it was strange to be surrounded by mostly women. The only boys in the entire complex were her brothers. All of her mother's servants were women. The only men she'd ever seen were the special guests her mother brought to the Star Chamber for the sacred ritual. She also didn't think it was odd that she never witnessed the men leaving her mother's estate, though she almost always caught a glimpse of them when they arrived. This was simply how things had always been.