41



You unthinkingly trace one of the diamonds on your harlequin sleeve, mind racing as the rest of the room just begins to awake.

There are a dozen cots lining the walls of the servants' longhouse you will come to call home. Your possessions are secured in the trunk at the foot of the bed which the vice steward assigned to you last night. Sleep was slow to start and quick to end, which left you ample time to dress in your meager finery as quietly as possible before sunrise.

"G'day," you whisper to the young man in the cot next to you as his eyes flutter open. He yawns sourly at you and rolls over. "G'night," you whisper again, amusing only yourself.

It's still hard to believe that your roll-of-the-dice actually ended this way, with a roof over your head and a courtly position before you. Not that it's the position you expected, of course. You bite the inside of your lip as a thought strikes you. Would you have left your home so abruptly if you knew being a "Lurker" was your destiny at the other end?