Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 1

Aemilia sat up from her bed with a start.

Abruptly waking in the night was a common thing in E-Rantel as of late, with the citizens sleeping fitfully after the shadow of the Undead Sorcerer King fell over the land. Like many others, she had become a mess of looming fears and frayed nerves in the past week since the city was ceded. The heavy metallic tread of the monstrous Undead patrols; the sense that something evil had just flown over her roof, and the nightmares which haunted her dreams would all take turns prodding her into fearful wakefulness layered in a sheen of cold sweat. The exhaustion made her hours out of bed seem a waking nightmare which blurred from one day into the next.

The reason for her sudden panic this time, however, was caused by none of these. Instead it was because she had, for the first time in what seemed an eternity, slept soundly. The previous evening, Aemilia had flopped onto her bed after ensuring her mistress was settled for the night and by the time she stirred again the light of dawn was peeking out from behind the curtains of the room’s windows. Alarmed by the idea that she might have slept in, her eyes shot open and she dashed out from beneath her covers. Tiptoeing to the drapes, she opened the windows of her bedchamber to banish the drowsiness that still clung to her with the chill of the morning air.

Aemilia tossed her nightwear into the room’s laundry basket and quickly slipped into a fresh woolen shift. She moved on to prepare the rest of her outfit, and the only point in her frenzied activity where she slowed was when she took her time to ensure that her uniform and general appearance met the standards of presentability befitting a maid. Looking at herself in the body-length mirror that stood beside her dresser, she allowed herself a smile at the sight of the uniformed woman looking back at her: a senior member of a noble household, holding a position of honour and respect.

The smile continued to creep and grow despite her efforts to straighten it off her face; tears came to her eyes as the reflection of the maid in the mirror made memories of the journey that her life had taken up to this point drift to the forefront of her thoughts. Well, it wasn’t exactly a journey that spanned great distances: she was born in E-Rantel, to common parentage. Her father was a tailor; her mother a seamstress. They had met at their shared place of work: a large workshop that catered mostly to producing clothing for the labourers of the city and, while the stories conflicted about whether they had a child and had gotten married or the other way around, they remained together to lovingly raise their family with three children in the humble apartment where she had grown up.

Aemilia’s brother, her sister and herself all followed in their parents’ footsteps, starting near the age of six, slowly picking up their craft as children usually did. Presently, her brother – the eldest of the three – had already become a journeyman in the same store that their parents worked in. Her older sister also completed her apprenticeship, but had gotten married and moved to another part of the city a year previous. Aemilia’s own apprenticeship had not gone as smoothly, at least in the eyes of her own family. While she clearly had an interest in clothing and fashion, the line of work that her family engaged in had a distinct lack of the latter, which resulted in her being constantly on the lookout for new opportunities even as she became familiar with the skills and workings of her family’s trade.

Inspiration came one day when a storm in the form of a woman of average height and mature appearance swept into the rough storefront of the workshop. From the corner of her workspace nearby, her younger self peeked up from her tasks as the shop’s clerk was sent scurrying off to find the owner with not much more than a few words spoken with a quiet, but firm tone. To her surprise, what had sent the man running appeared not to be an influential noble or wealthy merchant, nor was it a famous adventurer or a powerful magic caster. Instead, what stood waiting in front of the counter was a woman dressed in the uniform of a maid.

She continued observing from her inconspicuous vantage as the Master Tailor himself came to attend directly to the woman’s presence. To Aemilia’s astonishment, the prideful and haughty owner of the workshop had turned one-sidedly servile in the face of the woman that she had considered at the time a menial servant. Most of the afternoon passed as she watched him work to carefully note the maid’s instructions – which defined the attire of an entire household’s staff in intricate detail – his hands endlessly moving to fill sheet after sheet of preliminary drafts to satisfactorily meet her demands. He did not argue, contradict or make excuses; he simply kept his head low to the table as if there was some invisible hand firmly holding him there.

After they were finished, she turned to leave and a footman, who Aemilia had not even noticed standing in the room the entire time, opened the door for her. It was only after the carriage that had been awaiting them rolled away did the Master Tailor dare to move: exploding into a flurry of action and shouting orders as he ran back into the workspace beyond the counter. He suspended everyone’s current tasks to fulfill the maid’s order as quickly as possible and the entire workshop was spurred in his wake.

That evening, when she had returned home with her family, she had learned that the maid who had visited the shop was the Housekeeper of Count Jezne’s primary manor: the young nobleman had recently inherited his office, and his household staff was receiving new uniforms to represent the change in leadership. Aemilia’s mother had gone into some detail about what it meant, not daring to relate her knowledge in any way that could be construed as speaking ill of the maid, as if she was some existence far above her own. To her mother’s shock and horror, Aemilia immediately declared that she wanted to become a maid after the explanation. Her mother tearfully called for her father and Aemilia found herself facing both angry and worried opposition.

The proud figure of Count Jezne’s unnamed maid had already become etched in her mind, however, and their warnings of how difficult and dangerous it was to become part of a noble’s household had fallen on deaf ears. Fortunately for Aemilia, the Empire’s annual challenges had already become a regular occurrence, so the yearly influx of visiting nobles that came to represent themselves on the field also meant that the guest houses of the administrative district faced a steep increase in demand for temporary maids at the same time. For a few months out of every year, she would step away from her apprentice’s duties – to the continued opposition of her parents – and earn her keep while training and serving as a maid.

The transient nature of the position meant that she spent most of her time as a poorly-paid Between Maid, but it suited her perfectly well since it allowed her to observe many of a noble household’s domestic activities in detail. She did not even mind the cold, bare accommodations that accompanied her low-ranked and unaffiliated position, instead focusing her efforts on slowly cultivating the forms of etiquette and awareness that were required for the close servants of nobility, as well as learning to read and write at a level she thought would be needed for the position that she coveted. After several years of this temporary work, Aemilia felt that she had a firm enough grasp to begin pursuing a position as a permanent member of a noble’s household staff.

Unfortunately for her, she had very little in the way of gaining the notice of her prospective employers. She had very few interactions with the upper household maids and senior staff – the afternoon in the tailor’s workshop had actually been the closest and longest she had been to one, even after all those years working as hired help. The position that she desired, which was that of a Lady’s Maid, saw extraordinary competition. To be the direct attendant of a high ranking noblewoman or one serving the consort of a noble house, it was essentially mandatory to be a noble oneself, as their duties overlapped with those who sought to become a Lady-in-Waiting to a noble family. Even the housekeeper that had inspired her to pursue her path she had discovered later to be a daughter of one of House Jezne’s noble vassals.

This narrowed her prospects down to serving a house that held a minor title – a Baron at most, or perhaps in the secondary manor of a higher-ranking noble or one of their cadet branches – though it was more likely that she would see her best chance aiming for a position serving the least prominent of noble families. Aemilia had spent the better part of the year deciding on what she would need to do to get her proverbial foot in the door: even becoming a mistress to gain favour for the position was not out of the question, though she wasn’t really confident she could compete in that arena. Then, the Battle of Katze Plains brought reality crashing down around her.

She could only stand by helplessly as the nobles fled to the toll of the city bells accompanying the news of the Royal Army's catastrophic defeat on the field. Lord Rettenmeier and his entire administrative staff quickly vacated themselves, leaving the citizens to their fate. When the Sorcerer King entered the gates at the turn of spring to claim his prize, she felt as if all of her efforts had been for naught.

Strangely enough, it was then that the door she had long sought to open presented itself. As the servants of the Sorcerer King took their places in the city, so did a handful of maids which hailed from the mysterious place – she still had no idea where or what it was – that had occupied her city. Most notably for her were Yuri Alpha and Tsuareninya Veyron, Humans who did not flinch or cower in the presence of the Undead that filled the streets.

They went around the city looking for the people that formerly served as maids in the central district and, when they came knocking at her door, Aemilia had desperately grasped at the opportunity much like a drowning person would grasp at a straw. Taking her to be sequestered away in one of the now empty guest manors in the administrative district, she was trained for the following week by Tsuareninya. Though meek in appearance, the new ‘Head Maid in E-Rantel’ put her through her paces alongside several other candidates that were gathered from around the city, smoothing down and polishing all the rough edges that Aemilia thought she had already refined to an acceptable degree.

All throughout that week, Yuri Alpha observed the proceedings – though it seemed that she was watching Tsuareninya’s harsh methods as much as the performance of the maids under her instruction. Still, as Yuri continued to hover about worriedly like a mother hen over the ‘Head Maid’ who seemed far inferior to her own regal bearing, Aemilia was constantly wary of the switch that the tall and stern-looking woman seemed to constantly brandish for some unknown reason. By the end of it all, she felt very much like a rock that had been tumbled in a keg of sand, but she could hardly argue with the results.

After attaining the degree of cultivation that the Head Maid in E-Rantel decided was acceptable, Aemilia was placed on standby for assignment as the next batch of maid candidates was brought in to face their own evaluation and retraining. Left to wait on her assignment, worries and uncertainty piled on once again, adding to the general unease that she felt accompanying the inhuman occupation of the city. Her wandering thoughts caused her to wonder if she would even end up in the retinue of an inhuman being. She prayed that she would not find herself in the employ of some horrid, flesh-eating monstrosity – especially not one of the Undead. Her time spent idle only served to add fuel to her nightmares. When she next saw Yuri Alpha, who came accompanied by a pair of Death Knights, she thought her heart would leap out of her chest as she was led away into the night to what felt like her own funeral.

The procession picked up three other women along the way and, under their umbrellas amidst the pouring rain, they were led to a dark and foreboding manor that seemed to be entirely unoccupied. Much to her relief, while they waited at the door for someone to answer the bell, Yuri explained that the mistress residing in the manor was a Human noblewoman who had recently arrived from the borderlands. After waiting for several minutes in the rain with no response, the Royal Maid launched herself onto the roof of the manor directly from where she was standing before the door. It must have been at least seven or eight metres and the maids below gaped in astonishment, uncaring of the rain streaming over their faces.

Following their entrance, Aemilia gathered what courage she had left and volunteered ahead of the others to see to the noblewoman’s immediate needs, and so she was introduced to Baroness Ludmila Zahradnik. If she were to be honest with herself, she wasn’t sure what to expect – her mind was only filled with relief over the fact that she would thankfully be serving a Human rather than some strange and unfamiliar being. When they had been brought to the Baroness’ solar, Lady Zahradnik was in the process of upending her clothing from her luggage onto the bed in a messy and disorganized pile. The young woman, in her plain roughspun kirtle that carried the odors of soil and vegetation, projected the image of a commoner from a poor, rural region of the duchy.

The underlying impression of the Baroness, however, conveyed a sense of dissonance with her rather uninspiring appearance. There was a tugging sensation – nearly an instinct – in the corner of the maid’s mind that the woman sorting through the chaotic pile of her belongings was definitely not what she appeared to be. This was confirmed almost immediately, when a Death Knight came stomping into the room, sending Terah and herself scurrying to the furthest corner of the solar in fright. The Baroness didn’t even bat an eyelash at the entrance of the Undead monstrosity – her only reaction was to instruct it to draw her bath after which she continued to go about her business before it even fully left.

It was not long after that both maids had been swept up in her pace, their training taking over as if they had been compelled to attend to her. Well, to say she was compelled would not be entirely correct: less so than being forced to act, her mind’s eye saw the place where she should fit and she had naturally moved to fill the needs with the skills that had been cultivated through years of training and experience. By the time they had completed her dress, Aemilia was convinced that her decision to become a lady’s maid had been correct and she silently promised herself that she would not let this golden opportunity get away from her.

Her commitment to her lady’s service only strengthened over the course of the next day; it felt as if her heart and spirit had been rallied out of the grey uncertainty that had clouded her mind. The fear that she had for the Undead still lingered, but it no longer dominated her waking hours as she grew accustomed to her newfound place. Now, as she looked in the mirror, she thought she could see a glimmer of the proud maid that had set her on her course as a child.

The sounds of the kitchen below drew her away from her reflection. She needed to ensure that her mistress’ portion for breakfast was larger today; yesterday’s meal seemed insufficient – the industrious Baroness appeared to have an appetite to match her drive. She would then head to Lady Zahradnik’s solar to help her prepare for the coming days. At the behest of her liege, Lady Shalltear Bloodfallen, the Baroness would depart for her demesne today – a trip that she said would take roughly three days by way of the Katze River. Aemilia would be accompanying her mistress, while the others would stay to tend to the manor in the city. A growing sense of adventure and excitement grew as she left her room and started her duties for the day; daydreams followed as she wondered what sort of magnificent territory her new mistress ruled over.