Ilia hardly noted the singing birds and the warm afternoon sun as she wrestled with a piece of linen. She pinned the last of her master’s laundry up before she tallied her remaining chores. Dishes were next, then the evening supper. She gave a dry laugh. Most slaves dreamed of eating like their masters; under Lucius Pazo’s roof, that dream amounted to a bowl of bland oats.

She was turning back toward the house just as a courier reached the fence. The young man was flushed, his breath heavy from the near half-day’s climb from the docks of Svalis. Ilia watched him, wondering what news could be urgent enough to warrant a trek to the master's manor.

"Could you use some water, sir? It's quite the climb, isn't it?"

As she approached, the courier’s face reddened for a different reason. Ignoring her offer, his eyes locked onto the polished blue stone of her copper collar, his mouth twisting into a knowing grin. He traced a slow, hungry path from her face down to her feet.

Even as Ilia's face began to flush with anger the collar at her throat began to resonate. It was a warning. An outburst from a slave would not be tolerated. This was a free-man and his gaze was to be endured.

"I have a note for the Goodman Pazo," he said, opening the gate. His eyes went to her pointed ears as if calculating her price on the market.

Ilia held out her hand, posture stiff. "I’ll take that. And you had best be on your way."

"Of course, my lady," he bowed mockingly as he handed her the letter. He whistled as she turned, before sauntering on out the gate and back onto the King's Road.

The hum of the collar faded as her temper cooled. She told herself it could be worse; the Levosans at least pretended to be civil, unlike the butchers in Bristalze. There were laws here, supposedly, as much as they mattered behind closed doors, but Bristalze? Ilia shuddered. A slave's life there meant less than a dog's.

Ilia pushed open the heavy door. The manor was always dark. It smelled of vellum and the cedar shavings Lucius had her spread to prevent bookworms.

"Ilia, my dear, do you have something for me?" Of course he knew already, his office overlooked the road. Lucius Pazo waited at the top of the stairs, leaning on the wooden banister. He was wizened and stooped, his back bent from decades of poring over parchments.

"A delivery, Master. The footpost just brought it," she said, climbing the stairs. She hated to admit it, but she liked it when he called her 'my dear.' Lucius was the only master who had treated her like a person as opposed to an exotic conversation piece.

He’d taught her to read and didn't mind when she perused his near-infinite library when her chores were done. The worst he had subjected her to was his lectures on politica. It was an unintended punishment, yet it could go on for hours if she didn't find some excuse. She often invented chores just to flee his sermons on the subject.

She passed him the note, his hand trembling as he took it. "Thank you, dear. When will dinner be ready?"

"I can prepare it now."

Lucius nodded, already turning the letter over in his withered hands. Ilia retreated to the kitchen. She had expected him to regale her with his latest proposition. Usually, nothing energized the old turtle like business.

Instead he had acted like the letter might bite. Tax-collectors? Yet he was calm. None of the petulant cursing she often noted when the Chancery reminded him of his obligations. For the first time she wished for one of his pedantic lectures; she didn't trust this sudden change.

She boiled the oats, adding dried currants and saffron. When she brought the steaming bowl to his office, he stuffed the note into a desk drawer, covering it with a sheet of vellum.

"Good news?" she ventured.

"Business, nothing more," he refused to meet her eyes as she put the bowl in front of him. "Oh! Saffron? You went all out, my dear."

She was starting to worry. She tried not to let it show as she left the room, making her way back to the kitchen for her own supper. She took her wooden bowl to the chair on the porch, deeply unsettled. She didn't like that note. He never wasted an opportunity to bore her with his financial triumphs.

From the porch the evening breeze brought the scent of the harbor as the afternoon sun descended into the sea. As she ate, a glimmer caught her eye. Hazy in the sky, it hung in the twilight. If your eyes were good you could just make out the semblance of a floating castle. Everyone had taken to calling it 'The Palace.'

It had appeared one day, years ago, growing month by month until it became a permanent fixture of the sky; a fourth moon that shimmered in the evening. Some said the Gods built it to judge the wayward. Some others, those who felt piety was best expressed by the sword, had shed blood in its name. Eventually, the world simply got used to it. All that changed was the common folk had something new to swear by, and when the Gods never came, everyone went back to business as usual.

Ilia stared at the glinting silhouette long after her bowl was empty. Who lived up there? Did they have grand feasts? Spinning balls, wearing the flawless regalia of Gods? She couldn't imagine a life unbound by the collar.

Ilia was still pondering the Palace when something caught in the corner of her eye. She turned to it, thinking it was a pest for her to shoo away, only to catch what looked like a falling star in the East. It dragged a faint line across the horizon, burning down toward the distant wilds before fading into the evening haze.

She looked on as the streak it left widened and bloomed, the strange cloud expanding like the wake of a ship. Ilia tracked the strange plume as the breeze distorted it, wondering what lay at the end of the star's journey.

So many strange happenings of late. There had been talk lately of strange lights in the sky. Perhaps the Gods had decided to pay a visit after all?

As the evening chill set in, Ilia retired to her tiny room and pulled a candle from her dress. She had pilfered it from the study, though she imagined Lucius wouldn't mind. And if she imagined it well enough the collar wouldn't punish her for it. The trick was not to ask.

Setting it on her dresser, she closed her eyes and imagined heat expanding across the tip of her finger. A small flame sprouted, which she then transferred to the wick.

Reaching under her bed, Ilia retrieved a weathered storybook. Passing her hand over the chafed leather, she opened it to the creased and yellowed pages within, pages she already knew by heart. In it were fairy tales about children who defied witches and stories on morality that apparently few read. There were a few tales of steel-clad knights who vanquished evil and rescued maidens. As ridiculous as she knew those stories to be, they were her favorite.