Maid’s Blade: Rebirth

The wind howled through the cracked wooden slats of the attic window, a mournful sound that matched the ache in Erin's chest. She sat hunched on a threadbare blanket, her only shield against the biting chill of the manor's uppermost room. In her calloused hands, she clutched a broken phone-an oddity in this medieval sprawl of stone and timber, a relic she'd scrimped for over six months of scrubbing floors and hauling coal.
Its screen was a web of fractures, glinting faintly in the moonlight that spilled through the gaps. It was useless now, but it had been hers, a fragile tether to a world beyond this prison of servitude. Erin's breath hitched as she traced the cracks with a trembling finger. She was nineteen, though the weight of her years felt closer to ninety. Her mother's face flickered in her mind-pale, smiling, then fading into the gray haze of memory.
Five years ago, fever had stolen her away, leaving Erin alone with a stepfather who stank of ale and spite. He'd sold her to this manor to settle his debts, bartering her life for a few coins and a cask of wine. "You're worth less than a mule, " he'd slurred, shoving her into the arms of the manor's steward. That was her beginning here: a maid, a shadow, a thing to be used.