The servant's hands shook as she set the bowl of soup beside Iana. Her eyes glistened, but she quickly blinked away the tears, afraid someone might notice.
"No one here will protect you," she whispered. "Not the master. Not the mistress. Not anyone… except me."
Iana stared at her, too shocked to speak. No one had ever said such words to her.
The woman leaned closer, her voice trembling but firm.
"My name is Elara. If they find out I've spoken to you like this, I'll lose everything. But I can't watch them destroy you."
She brushed Iana's tangled red hair back from her face, her touch soft, motherly. "Whenever I can, I'll bring you food. A blanket. Whatever scraps I can hide away. You must promise me, Iana… promise me you'll survive."
Tears stung Iana's eyes. She clutched Elara's sleeve like it was the only thing tethering her to life.
"I promise," she whispered.
From that night on, Elara became a shadow in Iana's attic. She never came openly only when the household slept, her lantern hidden beneath her cloak. Sometimes she brought bread wrapped in cloth, sometimes a flask of warm milk. Once, in the dead of winter, she smuggled in a thin wool blanket.
"You'll freeze without this," she murmured, tucking it around the trembling child.
Iana held onto the blanket as if it were treasure. It wasn't thick, but it carried Elara's scent lavender soap and smoke from the kitchen fires. It was the closest thing she had to warmth.
And more than food or blankets, Elara gave her words.
"You're clever," she whispered one night, glancing nervously toward the door. "I've seen the way you solve things the others can't. Don't let them dull that light. Keep learning, Iana. Remember every number, every word. One day… it will save you."
Iana drank in those words like water in the desert. She didn't fully understand, but she clung to them.
When the Alvez family sneered, when they starved her, when the cold bit into her skin, she repeated Elara's voice in her mind. Keep learning. Don't let them dull your light.
In a house that treated her like dirt, Elara's kindness became a secret flame, hidden but alive.
And Iana swore to herself she would never let it go out.