Maleah blankly stared into the fireplace as she listlessly went through the motions of cleaning the sword in her hands. As she had done so many times before, she swiped one edge to the tip and then back up the other side to the hilt.
As the slave girl to the town's sword maker Henry Smith, she had no other purpose in life but to do his bidding, which included attending to the swords he either made or that came to him from his customers.
She also dutifully serviced him as a wife would, cooking and cleaning his home and workshop as well as fulfilling his needs in bed. Not that she cared or liked to do any of the above.
Having been forced into servitude when she was 7, Maleah had no choice in the matter. Her father sold her to Henry to get money to support himself. Her mother had died giving birth to her and her father had slipped into a drunken stupor not long after.
He had ignored her pitiful pleas and clinginess as he handed her over to the burly man. She never saw her father again. He died less than a year later.
At age 10, Henry decided Maleah was old enough for his own pleasure and started raping her. Maleah learned not to struggle but rather keep still and limp and it would be over faster.
Fortunately, having made friends with a local marketwoman who felt motherly toward her, Maleah learned how to mix an herbal concoction to drink after Henry fell asleep so as not to get pregnant and bear the bastard's children.
When she could think for herself around the age of 12, she meekly petitioned Henry for the opportunity to return to her father's house so she could scavenge any personal belongings. He surprisingly albeit begrudgingly allowed her that one request.
And while she didn't find much upon her visit to the rundown and abandoned hut, she did stumble upon a sketch of which she assumed to be her mother.
Despite him banishing her to bondage, Maleah forgave her father then and there, having supposed he couldn't bear to look at her as a youngling as she was a spitting image of her mother with dirty blond hair and silver eyes.
In her early teens, Maleah attempted to escape but Henry had eyes and ears everywhere and local customers who automatically returned her to him. He didn't beat her on the spot for her traitorous behavior; rather he punished her in bed later. She came to hate the control a man had over a woman behind closed doors.
So Maleah learned to watch the sword play between customers and mimicked moves when home alone, for one day she intended to kill the man.
The opening to slay him came quicker than she would have thought.
On this day, as she mindlessly cleaned swords, Maleah, now 17, noticed Henry excitedly bustling around the property before bursting in the front door.
"Hurry and clean yourself up girl!" he ordered, snatching the sword from her hands and shoving her toward the bedroom. She gave him a confused look.
"Lord Rahl is coming! Put on that nice dress I gave you and do it fast!" he explained, his voice rising. Maleah indifferently shrugged her shoulders but did as he demanded, unwilling to face another night of abuse.
She had vaguely heard about the royal wandering around the Midlands. During their daily gossip, the women in the marketplace had mentioned Lord Rahl's wife had died and he had become a drifter since then. She wondered why he would leave all his riches behind as she pulled the one piece of finery she owned over her head.
Stepping into the main room, Maleah's breath was taken away as Lord Rahl appeared in the doorway. Henry hastily bowed and then puffed himself up in front of the Seeker.
She had never seen someone so ruggedly handsome who was so visibly sad. He barely noticed her as he spoke to Henry. He unsheathed his sword and handed it to Henry, who painstakingly accepted it and handled it as a thing to be cherished.
Henry beckoned to Maleah to his side and she silently accepted the sword from him, her eyes to the floor.
"Lord Rahl requests we clean it and restore it to its natural shine," Henry gently instructed her. She was surprised by his — dare she say loving — demeanor, obviously an act to impress the royal before him.
Maleah murmured the appropriate response of "yes, sir" before backing away with the regal sword cradled in her hands, never making eye contact with Henry or Lord Rahl.
In her years under Henry, she had never seen anything so magnificent up close. She immediately returned to the bedroom to change into her work clothes once again. Ironically, Henry permitted her to wear pants and shirts when she was at home, claiming that it was easier to keep her clothed, not to mention it made her less attractive to customers.
She heard the front door close before Henry barged into the bedroom and seized the sword from its resting place on the bed. He started talking to himself and she overheard him using the words "fetch a good price" and "ditch this place."
Henry laid the sword back on the bed without even casting a glance in her direction before heading out the door.
A sense of dread overcame Maleah as she watched him leave.