Chapter Text
There was a woman on the bed—no, a corpse.
Her mother's long black hair was in a disheveled braid Cassandra remembered making the night before. Her mother was still alive at that point, complaining about Cassandra's own disheveled state.
She had a name, Cleo, that Cassandra was sure would be soon forgotten.
There was a man standing in the doorway. Tall, with a cane and a long glossy black beard. Cassandra had seen him often enough to recognize him at a glance.
Her father, Baron Atreus Orpheus, glared down at her as she knelt at her mother's bed. It was a less intense glare than the one her mother had always received, perhaps because they shared blood.
Cassandra rose to her feet, unwilling to let go of her dead mother's hand, already stiff and cold. But the man before her was prideful, and so Cassandra greeted him as she always had her entire life.
She bowed low, like a servant to her master. "My lord baron, it is a great honor to be visited by you."
The baron simply continued glaring, his gaze landing on the pale corpse on the bed. "Is she dead?"
There was something chilling in the way he spoke of the woman who had birthed him a child, but Cassandra knew where the coldness came from.
It came from the fact that she was a girl born out of wedlock, to a woman pursued relentlessly by a powerful man.
A powerful man, that like all men before him, was never satisfied.
He had a wife of good birth. Three legitimate children. What an ungrateful man.
"Yes my lord, mother passed away this morning." Cassandra's hands trembled, and she struggled to keep her voice even. If her father sensed weakness it might anger him.
Her father would not acknowledge her as his blood, yet he expected her to behave according to his standards regardless.
"My men will bury her in the village graveyard. You will come with me."
With that, the baron turned and strode out. Two men began wrapping her mother in her bed sheets.
"Now, Cassandra!"
Shaking herself out of her stupor, she took in the scent of bread and lavender one last time, and ran after him.
Fear ate away at her. Where would her father take her? A temple to work as a bonded servant? A convent to swear away her life and rot in piety? She wondered which fate was worse—losing her freedom or losing her name.
The irony left a bitter taste in her mouth. The freedom she might lose was the kind most would never call freedom. And her name? It came from a man. Did anything from a man ever truly belong to a woman?
Cassandra sat in her father's carriage across from him, unable to enjoy the luxury it provided. The soft cushions offered less comfort than the wooden benches she knew, and the enclosed space made it harder to breathe than a wagon.
Wagons had been her life's transport; whenever a neighboring village held a festival, her mother would grasp her hand and march to a parked wagon, trading freshly baked bread for a ride.
Life had been simple with her mother. Her father had been an occasional shadow, passing by, never lingering. The rest of the time was filled with selling bread to the villagers and travellers, skipping rope with the other girls, and falling asleep in her mother's bony arms as her raspy voice whispered sweet nothings.
The carriage jolted sharply, drawing her back to the present. They were on a long, wide road leading to an estate.
Her father's head leaned back, eyes closed, as though the journey burdened him. Or perhaps it was simply her presence, which had burdened him ever since she was born.
As the metal gates came into view, she recognized the coat of arms. A shield with a snake wrapped around it. He had brought her to his home.
It was odd, out of character. She wondered if her half-sisters had succumbed to the same plague as her mother.
Perhaps her father needed a new girl to place at the highest bidder.
"You will serve as my daughter-in-law's handmaiden."
"Handmaiden?" Such a role was reserved for noble women. To serve other much more powerful women.
A mere baron's daughter in law was not of high enough status nor of enough wealth to have one.
"Are you slow, girl? Wait here, a maid will take you to your room." With that, he exited the carriage, leaving her in confusion and silence.
The room she was led to was large—but also empty, cold and damp. Nothing like the home Cassandra was born in.
These walls lacked paint, yet in her own home Cassandra remembered her mother saving money for dyes. They would paint designs onto the walls, and laugh at the stains the dye left on their hands.
The wooden floor creaked beneath her steps, yet just a month before a neighbor had fixed their own creaking floorboards and sold them a rug to keep warm for the winter.
A bed, unfit for a noble estate, held plain, rough brown sheets. Yet the bed her mother died in, the one they slept in together every night, had embroidered sheets laid upon them. Cassandra remembered learning how to embroider with those white sheets.
Across the room, a wardrobe far too small for a baron's daughter leaned against the wall. Her old wardrobe at home was painted with the same dyes as their walls, and had been carved by her grandfather's old friend as a girlhood gift to her mother.
Between the bed and the wardrobe, a window cracked down the middle let in a sharp draft. In their own home, Cassandra's mother would never allow there to be a window without curtains to keep in the warmth and banish the cold.
Through the glass, Cassandra saw two young women on a garden bench, wrapped in wool dresses and thick shawls. Their expensive clothing marked them as her half-sisters.
They were hideous.
Cassandra’s mouth twisted in a cruel smirk. The thought led her to another.
Their mother must be ugly.
Their father, for all his distance and cruelty, was striking—tall, sharp-featured, and with thick black hair.
To have something her noble born sisters did not, even if it was as something superficial as beauty, was a satisfying fact.
A knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts. A noblewoman stood there, back as straight as an arrow.
Cassandra assumed she was her stepmother—until she noted the youth in the woman's features.
Far from hideous.
"Yes, my lady?" Cassandra bowed.
The woman's eyes were stern. "Ladies curtsy, men bow."
"And what does a bastard do?" Cassandra asked, briefly throwing caution out the window.
The woman glided past her and entered the room. "A girl bastard does not exist. You are either a common, fatherless girl who lives under her mother's roof, or you live under your father's roof in his name. You are now a lady. Curtsy. Like this."
She demonstrated a perfect curtsy. Cassandra tried to imitate it but stumbled, falling to her side. Her cheeks burned.
The woman huffed. "You will learn. I am Psyche, your brother's wife. Tomorrow morning you will sit in on my son Mikaal's lessons. A maid will guide you."
Psyche stood for a moment, studying Cassandra’s face. “Make sure to take out that nose ring before you leave this room.”
“My nose ring?” Asked Cassandra, reaching up to cup her nose.
“Those may be a fad where you come from, but here young ladies avoid imitating the barberians.”
And just like that, she was gone. Cassandra felt something coil around her heart as she watched Psyche's retreating figure.
She thought back to her words, 'under your father's roof in his name'. What a lacking room her lacking father's lacking name provided.
I pray his ugly wife makes him miserable.
Until nightfall, Cassandra stayed in her room. She stubbornly left her nose ring in. This household would change many things about her, but this little thing she would keep.
Occasionally she peered at her sisters through the window, who chattered on unaware of her presence. She wondered how they would react if they grew aware of her.
When darkness fell, she crept from her room, perched above the kitchen. Nobles might frown at kitchen smells drifting upward, but the cooking flames promised warmth in her mornings and evenings.
The hallways gleamed with golden engravings, ornate trimmings, and vases adorned with foreign designs and languages.
Cassandra remembered being around six, when she first saw her mother kneeling in front of her father. He smirked and threw a few coins at her face. A coin had landed on her mouth, splitting a lip.
Yet he had so much coin to spend on his mansion.
Her father was a baron, yes, but noblewomen always married up, never down. If this gold was real, as she suspected, it was far too lavish for him alone. Perhaps her sister-in-law had brought a magnificent dowry.
But from where, she wondered.
Cassandra felt anxiety gnaw at her very soul. Many powerful people were caught doing unsavory things just to gain more than what they were owed.
And when they were caught, because they always were, their entire bloodlines were massacred.