One

On a beautiful spring day, with wildflowers blooming in the fields and orioles heralding a rare and strong wash of warm sunlight on the village of Greymist Fair, Lady Greymist gave birth to a daughter who would be called the loveliest child in the world.

The first person to say so was the midwife, Gabi, who exclaimed with stunned surprise over Lady Greymist’s gasps for breath, “I’ve never seen a fresh bloody babe so pretty.”

The child was cleaned and given to her mother, who was enraptured with her upon first sight, as was the entire household staff. But perhaps the person most enamored with the girl was her father, the large and boisterous Lord Greymist, who spoiled her from that day forward.

They named her Katrina, after the lord’s grandmother. She had her mother’s olive complexion, her father’s stunning dark eyes, raven’s wing hair, and rosebud lips. Those who saw her even as an infant felt compelled to mention the grace of her proportions and the desire they felt to look upon her, to feel the softness of her skin and the silk strands of her hair. This effect only grew with her, so that even the servants who saw her every day remarked often on her great beauty. The lord and lady gave Katrina no siblings, for they felt they should not tempt fate when they had already been delivered perfection. They took her on walks around the village, and soon she became not just their daughter but the jewel of the Fair, lavished with praise and compliments and gifts. Even when Lord Greymist made an unpopular announcement about the smaller apportionments of the summer crop or the redirection of lumber to complete the extended wing of his manor, the villagers never took out their frustrations on Katrina. Having her along with him was a sure way to quell their anger.

Few people said anything about Katrina’s personality. They were often too busy admiring her beauty to notice what she did or said, and she learned of this strange invisibility very early in her life. When she was small, she remained quiet, because no one listened to her when she spoke. But after thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years, she no longer had the patience to remain quiet.

“MOTHER,” she yelled across the dinner table, where her mother sat idly sipping broth and smiling, unfocused, in Katrina’s direction. Lady and Lord Greymist both jerked upright, her mother dropping her spoon and splattering the front of her gown.

“Katrina, you don’t have to yell,” her mother said, shakily dabbing at herself as footmen stepped forward to clean the spill and retrieve the spoon from the floor. “I’m right across the table. We’ll have to call Luther to make sure I’m not losing my hearing from this din you’ve been causing.”

“Yes, you’re sitting there, but do you remember what I’ve been saying to you?” Katrina looked between her parents.

Her father, puffing up his great round body and turning red behind his bristly mustache, said, “Of course we know, we wouldn’t have been sitting here not listening—”

“So what did I say?”

“You said,” her mother began, then stopped abruptly, shutting her mouth, as if that was all she had intended to say. Then her brow furrowed, and she said, “Was it about the kennel dogs?”

Katrina huffed. “I said I want to go out on my own. Without either of you.”

The lord and lady glanced at each other. “Whatever for?” Lady Greymist asked. “Your studies are here; your books are here; all your gowns and instruments are here. I won’t abide you running errands; we’d look like we’re punishing you.”

That might well turn the villagers against them, Katrina thought, annoyed. “I just want to be on my own for a while. I want to—” She huffed again, hating that she didn’t sound more mature. “I want to make friends. There are plenty of others in the village who are my age. I want to talk to them.”

Lord Greymist shifted in his chair, puffed up like an angry bird. “And who would this be that you’ve got your eye trained on, then?”

“Does it matter?”

“It certainly does matter,” snapped Lady Greymist, her anger not directed at Katrina but at the villagers she chose to detest behind closed doors. “God forbid you be seen with the witch-slave’s daughter or with that innkeep servant boy.”

Katrina pursed her lips. Heike and Wenzel had, in fact, been at the top of her list, the two of them being the most interesting young people in town, by her estimation.

“I will go out,” she said. “At least once a week. And I’ll see who I want.”

Apparently forgetting to argue—her parents and tutors often did that, starting an argument with her only to forget halfway through what they were arguing about, or even that they were arguing—Lady Greymist looked pensively into her broth and said, “Someone of good breeding, from the houses, no one from the outskirts of the village.”

Her father, nodding, said, “Of course, of course.”

“What about Hans?” said her mother, looking up, eyes bright. “Jürgen is a great asset to this community, with a good livelihood and a strong build. Hans is quiet like his father, though I must say thankfully he gets his looks from his mother’s side.”

“Hans would be a good match, I think,” said her father.

Katrina ground her teeth together. She didn’t want to marry anyone; she only wanted to talk to them, on her own terms, without her parents hovering over her shoulder, carefully maneuvering her around like a pretty porcelain doll that might crack at the slightest jostle. And she especially didn’t want to marry Hans, who was handsome but dull eyed and cruel. Still, she knew her parents had softened; now she could get what she wanted out of them.

“I’ll talk to Hans,” she said, and added nothing at all about also planning to talk to every other young person she saw. “And I will go out into the village on my own.”

Her parents, finally, begrudgingly, agreed.