~ANYA’S POV~

Standing near the base of the throne steps was a handsome prince, dressed in a sharp, tailored silver suit, watching the scene with quiet interest.

Opposite the prince, seated comfortably on an elegant velvet accent chair, was the vicious woman from the cell. She was wearing a sleek tailored emerald green designer dress. The moment I walked in, she crossed her legs and her eyes narrowed with pure, venomous hatred.

“Your Majesty, what is the meaning of this?" the woman snapped, her shrill voice echoing in the vast room. “Why is this filthy village rat still breathing in our palace? She should be locked away for life!"

My blood ran cold. I instinctively shrank back, terrified of this cruel, elegant woman who had tormented me earlier in the holding cell.

“Enough, Seraphina," King Alistair commanded. His voice was deep and rough, but it held such absolute authority that the woman immediately closed her mouth, though her eyes still burned holes into my skin.

I quickly dropped to my knees on the polished marble floor and bowed my head as low as I could.

The massive room went dead silent. I was terrified.

“Stand up," King Alistair ordered, his piercing icy blue eyes locking into me.

I slowly stood up, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor, doing my best to ignore Lady Seraphina's deadly glare.

“Captain Julian told me everything," the king said, his commanding presence filling the space. “He told me how your father gave you away as collateral, how your family traded your life to save their own necks.”

I bit my bruised lip to stop myself from crying. “They are not my real family, Your Majesty. I am an orphan. But they showed me mercy by taking me in, and I will always be grateful for that."

Lady Seraphina let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Pathetic,” she muttered.

The king's brow furrowed as he studied me. The handsome prince just tilted his head, watching me closely. The king watched my face for a long time. Even standing at a distance, that rich scent of cedarwood and winter air reached me, making my heart pound with nervous fear.

“I know you did not try to assassinate me," the king finally said. “If you wanted me dead, you would have left me to bleed out in the woods."

I looked up in pure shock, my eyes finally meeting his cold blue stare. He believes me!

“Because of that, I will not order your death," the king continued. His voice was strict, leaving no room for argument. “I will let you live. In fact, I will give you two choices."

"Choices, Your Majesty?” I asked quietly.

"Yes,” the King said, leaning forward on the throne. "The first choice: I will give you a large sum of money, and my guards will drive you back to your village, back to your family.”

My stomach dropped. Go back to Silas and Martha? The fact that they feel threatened by Captain Julian's words means they will kill me.

“And choice number two?" I asked.

The king's icy blue eyes seemed to flash as the light from the chandeliers hit them. His gaze held mine. My heart lurched, but I refused to look away. “Choice number two," he said. "You can stay here at the palace, and start working as a maid. If you want.”

He looked at me, waiting. The throne hall was quiet. Every eye in the hall settled on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a noblewoman gripping the armrests of her chair, her eyes intentionally staying on me. I looked away from her.

I did not even have to think about it. Go back to being beaten and sleeping in the freezing, drafty barn? I could not do it. I did not see a future for me in that village.

I remembered Clara's wicked lies. The wicked smiles on their faces when the guards took me. I would rather scrub marble floors in the palace, than ever go back to those monsters.

I took a deep breath, looked up at the king and spoke.

“I choose the palace, Your Majesty. I will stay."

When I said those words, the huge throne room became silent. The noblewoman scoffed loudly. She looked at me from head to toe with pure disgust.

"Why would you choose the palace, you dirty thing?” Lady Seraphina spat, her beautifully contoured face twisting with anger. “You do not belong here.”

"Seraphina,” the king said sharply. His deep powerful voice cut through the quiet room like a knife. He looked at Lady Seraphina with a strict, final warning in his cold blue eyes. "Watch your words."

Lady Seraphina froze. She didn't push any longer. She forced a fake, sweet smile on her face and looked back at me. Her tone changed trying to sound reasonable, but her eyes were still burning with hate.

“I mean… why would you do that?” Lady Seraphina rephrased her question. "Won't it be better to go back home? The King will compensate you greatly. You could be rich in your little village.”

I shook my head, desperately looking at the king. “I do not want to," I said, making sure my voice was steady. “I do not want to go back to that family. I want to save money and go to school.”

The room fell silent again, I could feel the king gaze on me. I did not dare to look up into his handsome face. But even while staring at the marble floor, I could feel those icy blue eyes gazing intently at me. Finally, he nodded once and ordered one of the guards to escort me to the maids’ quarters.

******

My new working life in the royal estate started that exact day. I handled the hard labor very easily. Polishing marble floors and laundering clothes in the high-tech utility rooms was a million times better than working for free and beaten in that barn. But I quickly learned that the palace was full of its own hidden dangers.

The biggest danger to me was Lady Seraphina. She despised seeing me. Whenever I was cleaning the main halls with other maids, she would walk right toward me in her designer heels, and roll her eyes. She would pull her expensive silk dresses close to her legs, acting as if just standing near me would infect her with dirt.

“Get out of my sight, you little rat," she whispered to me one morning as I was wiping down the grand glass staircase. “You think you are special because the king favors you? You are nothing but trash."

After that day, I tried my best to avoid her. I memorized all the hidden back hallways and service elevators used by the staff. If I heard the sharp, loud clicking of her stilettos echoing down a corridor, I would quickly duck into a supply closet or turn the other way. I just wanted to do my job in peace.

Luckily, I did not have to face palace life alone. I had Maya – the maid who had helped me figure out the shower on my first day.

Maya had worked at the palace for five years. She was the same age as me, beautiful with rich, warm brown skin and thick, curly black hair that she always tied up in a neat, professional bun. She had big, brown eyes that always looked happy.

After the first day in the bathroom, Maya took me under her wing.

I remembered my first official shift. I was standing in a huge, confusing hallway, struggling to carry a tall stack of heavy white towels. I was completely lost and sure that a security guard was about to yell at me.

Then Maya walked over with a warm smile. She took half the towels from my aching arms and promised to help me find my way around. Over the next few weeks, she taught me everything about the royal household. We became very close.

~Anya’s POV~

One afternoon, Maya and I were posted at the king's pantry while taking a short break. We were sitting at a small stainless-steel prep table in a corner. We are eating bowls of hot, thick potato soup mixed with sweet yellow corn. Beside the streaming soup, we had thick slices of warm brown bread spread with salted butter.

My face was completely relaxed, and for the first time in the time I had been in the palace, I had a big, genuine smile on my lips. Today wasn't very busy and I haven't laid eyes on Lady Seraphina for days.

“Eat more, Anya,” Maya said, pushing the tray of warm bread toward me. "You are still too petite. You need to build your strength.”

“This is the best food I have ever had," I replied, taking a big bite of the soft bread. “I still cannot believe I get to eat this every day."

Maya smiled, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners with joy. "So, tell me,” she said, intentionally leaning forward. “Why did you really choose to stay in this place? Most girls would take the envelope of cash and run far away. Palace life is exhausting.”

“I told the king the truth," I said softly, looking down at my soup. “My adoptive family treated me like a slave. If I went back with that money, Silas would just take it and keep treating me cruelly. I want to save the wages I earn here and pay for my own education.”

Maya looked at me with something that looked like deep respect. “You are very brave, Anya. But you must be careful here. Especially with Lady Seraphina.”

That exactly makes me ask the question that has been eating me up. “Why does she hate me so much?" I asked quietly. "I did not even do anything to her.”

"She is the Prime minister's daughter,” Maya explained, her voice dropping to an anxious whisper. "And the official Royal consort candidate for the king. Her family holds immense power, and everyone in the court expects her to marry the King and become Queen. She is viciously jealous of anyone who gets His Majesty's attention. And the King himself… he is very difficult right now.”

I frowned, lowering my spoon. “Difficult?"

She looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Nobody knows what really happened.” She whispered. "But the King can not sleep. His doctors do regular check ups on him but…” she shook her head. "The medicine they came up with only works sometimes. Even the Queen mother had arranged countless physicians for him, none was able to cure his condition except the medicine from the doctors. He just gets furious sometimes and completely loses control.”

Before I could ask anything else, our peaceful break was shattered.

Loud, aggressive noises echoed down the grand hallway outside the kitchen. We could hear heavy furniture hitting the floor and glass shattering into tiny pieces.

A group of senior maids came sprinting down the hall. They stopped right outside the kitchen looking absolutely terrified. The King was throwing things again. He was having another violent outburst inside his private suite.

A maid named Sarah stood at the front of the panicked group. Her pale skin was as white as a ghost. Her expression was pure panic. Her hands were shaking so wildly that the shiny silver tray she held was rattling loudly.

On the tray was a small porcelain cup with a fitted lid used to serve medicine. It must have been brought to him from the Queen Mother.

“It's a heavy sedative meant to force the king to sleep and calm his terrible rage," Maya whispered.

No wonder he refused to take it.

Sarah stared at the heavy wooden doors of the king's suite at the end of the hall. Then she looked back at the group of trembling servants. No one wanted to go anywhere near him. Finally, her terrified eyes locked onto me.

Before I could even step back, she ran over and shoved the silver tray directly into my hands. “You are the new girl, right?" she whispered, her breathing fast and shallow.

I stared at her, confused. Before I could react. “You go," she said. “Give the King the medicine."

My heart plummeted into my stomach. My hands began to shake immediately, making the water slosh dangerously inside the glass. Me? Why me my God? “Me? But he is breaking things!” I whispered, eyes wide with dread."

“We are all too scared to enter, but you are new. Who knows?" Sarah said quickly, taking large steps away from me. My eyes even widened. Out of everyone that is here. Why does it have to be me?! I cry internally. “If he does not take it right now, he will destroy the whole suite and someone could get hurt. Go!”

Without waiting for my answer, Sarah and the other maids quickly turned around and practically ran in the opposite direction, leaving me with Maya in the Grand hallway.

I bit my lower lip and looked at Maya. She was unconsciously biting her fingernails, her face drained of color. She looked like she was about to cry.

Without another word, I turned toward the huge, imposing doors of the king's suite. Another loud, violent crash echoed from inside, followed by a low swallowed hard. I looked down at the small porcelain cup on the silver tray.

My legs felt like jelly, but I forced myself to move forward. I took a deep, shaky breath, and slowly pushed the king's bedroom door open.

I stepped inside and eased the door shut behind me. The click of the latch sounded too loud in the sudden quiet.

I quietly slipped off my shoes. The room wasn't filled with rage. It was filled with grief. Dark wood, high ceilings, heavy curtains pulled shut against the daylight. A shattered vase lay in pieces near the window. The air smelled of smoke and spilled wine. For all its size, for all its wealth, the room felt empty. Hollow. Like someone merely survived here instead of living.

He was standing near the far wall, back to me, shoulders rigid.

“Get out." He roared and the sound made me jolt. A wine bottle sailed past me and shattered against the door, red liquid splashing across the wood and pooling on the floor at my feet.

I didn't move. I don't know where the courage came from. Every instinct in my body told me to run. But my feet stayed planted on the cold floor, and I stood there, holding the tray, waiting.

He noticed. Slowly, he lifted his icy blue eyes until they met mine.

The chandelier caught his face, his jaw cut like a blade, his features brooding in a way that made him almost unbearably handsome even now. His scent clung in the air, cedarwood and crisp winter air.

His eyes swept over me, from head to toe, before returning to my face. Looking at me the way someone looked at an object they weren't sure was worth the trouble.

“It was you." His voice was low, controlled in a way his temper clearly wasn't, and it sent a strange jolt through me anyway.

“Yes, Your Majesty." My hands trembled around the tray.

He said nothing for a long moment. Just looked at me, his gaze pinned in place like I was something to be studied rather than someone standing in his room.

“Time for my medicine, right?" he muttered.

“Yes, Your Majesty."

I glanced at the path between us. Broken glass littered the floor, catching the light in small, sharp glints.

“No." His voice cut through the room before I'd even taken a step to go around it. “You walk through it."

I froze, sure I'd misheard him.

“If you can't," he said, “you can go home. Tonight."

Instead a wave of anger rose inside me. I hated him. I hate that the man who had offered me a way out of my miserable life was now asking me to bleed just to deliver his medicine. But I thought of everything waiting for me if I walked back out that door with nothing to show for it, and I knew I wasn't leaving. I was not ready to give up.

I stepped onto the glass.

Pain exploded through my foot as the glass bit into my flesh. It shot up my leg with every step until I was standing in front of him, tray steady despite everything.

Something flickered across his face. Surprise? It was gone before I could be sure I'd imagined it.

“I like your energy," he said, and took the porcelain cup and drank the medicine in one gulp.

As he returned the cup, I turned and walked out, every step back across the broken glass sending fire up my leg. I didn't look back. But I could feel his eyes on me the whole way, and it stayed with me. When I reached my shoes I picked them up, and carefully walked out and shut the door behind me.

“I hate you," I muttered.

My breath shook as I stepped out into the hallway. The pain in my feet was a steady, screaming thing now, and there was no pretending otherwise anymore. Every step left a small dark print on the marble floor behind me.

“I hate you," I breathed out again, quieter this time, like saying it twice would make it true.

I turned to leave and saw Maya hurrying toward me, her face already creased with worry.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I wasn't. I could feel the tears building, hot and unstoppable, and I still found the strength to hold them back. I took another step and the pain shot straight up into my skull.

"Maya,” I choked out. "I hate him so much.”

"Blood.” Maya's eyes dropped to the floor, to the trail I was leaving with every step, her panic sharpened into something closer to fear. "What the hell happened inside?”

I took another step and groaned, my knees threatening to give out. I closed my eyes against the pain, and when I opened them again, someone else was standing in front of us.

“What is it?" a voice asked. I looked up. It was Prince Lucien. His brows were furrowed, his eyes moving over my face like he could read the whole story written there. “Are you okay?”

"Your Highness,” Maya said quickly, dipping into a bow beside me.

I bowed slightly but couldn't bring myself to answer him. I didn't have it in me to be polite to another royal right now. I took another step instead, and the sound that escaped me was somewhere between a groan and a sob. It felt like the shards of glass were still buried in my feet, working its way deeper with every movement. I couldn't hide the tears anymore. They just came, silent and endless.

“I don't think you can walk,” Maya said softly. "Let me help you. Get on my back.”

She turned, bending slightly, waiting for me to climb on. I hesitated, embarrassed at the thought of it, but the pain in my feet made the decision for me.

“Wait." Prince Lucien's voice stopped us both. His gaze had drifted past me, toward the king's door, and then to the trail of bloody footprints leading away from it. Something shifted in his face, though he didn't ask what happened. He just looked at me again, more carefully this time. “You're bleeding badly. You need to get to the clinic immediately."

“I'm fine," I said, even as my voice cracked around the edge.

“You're not." He said plainly, without anger, the way someone states a fact they don't expect to be argued with.

I opened my mouth to protest, but before I realized what he was doing, the ground disappeared beneath me. He had already closed the distance and lifted me, one arm under my knees and the other behind my back, carrying me in a way I had never imagined, cradled in a prince's arms. My shoes slipped from my hand and fell somewhere behind us.

A startled sound left my mouth. “Your Highness. I can walk. Put me down."

"You just told me you're fine, didn't you?” he said, not even glancing down at me. "And I'll advise you not to argue with me. I do not take no for an answer.”

Maya trailed behind us the whole way, I caught the stunned look on her face, like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing either. My shoes in her hand. He carried me all the way to the clinic and stayed until the doctor had properly looked at my feet before he finally left.

I didn't see him again after that day. But the memory of it stuck with me. Finding myself in a prince's arms was never something I imagined would happen in real life, only in my dreams. The ease with which he'd simply picked me up. Up close, he had a faint, pleasant scent of citrus soap and fresh air. The plainness in his voice when he told me to listen to the doctor, like my wellbeing was something worth being firm about. It made me rethink, maybe not every royal in this palace was carved from the same cold stone as the king. And somewhere underneath that thought was another obvious one. He was so handsome, I couldn't stop seeing the contours of his face after that day.

The doctor told me to stay off my feet, to keep the wounds dry, and to take the week off. But by the third day I couldn't stand the stillness anymore. By the fourth morning, as Maya got ready for her shift, I was pulling on my uniform too.

“You should rest longer," Maya said, watching me lace my shoes carefully around the bandages. “The doctor said a week."

“I can't just lie here," I said. “I'll go slowly. I promise."

She sighed, the kind of sigh that meant she knew arguing was pointless, and helped me finish getting ready instead.

That morning, Maya and I were reassigned to clean the Grand Reception Hall. In the palace, maids were moved from one duty to another whenever extra hands were needed.

Word had spread since the day Prince Lucien carried me to the clinic. I caught pieces of it as I passed groups of maids clustered together, their voices dropping the moment they noticed me, then picking back up once they thought I was out of earshot.

“He actually carried her himself," one girl whispered to another, not bothering to hide the awe in her voice. “In his arms, like she was a princess.”

“Don't be dramatic," another one shot back, arms crossed. “He probably just felt sorry for her. It doesn't mean anything."

"Sorry enough to carry a maid through the whole palace to the clinic? I don't think so.”

I kept my head down and kept walking, my face burning. I turned forward and I found Lady Seraphina approaching me slowly, deliberately, the way a cat stalks something it already knows it's going to catch. As the official Royal consort, she didn't need to raise her voice to make a room go quiet. Her presence alone did that.

“So you're the one everyone's talking about," she said, looking me over. “The maid the Prince carried through half the palace."

I said nothing.

"Cute,” she said, and it didn't sound like a compliment. I know it wasn't. "Just don't go thinking it means something. He probably felt bad for you, that's all. Prince Lucien is someone who can even save a dying dog, just like you."

I pressed my lips tight and said nothing.

“You do know what you are here, right?” she asked, tilting her head, almost gentle in the way she said it, which somehow made it worse. "A maid. That's it. Whatever attention you're getting from him, it's not going to last, and it's definitely not going to change what you are. A maid.”

I know. I know exactly what I am. But I don't know why she had to remind me that every time. I stared at her perfectly made-up face. “I know, my Lady. I remember my place… or do you think otherwise?”

"How dare you talk back to me?” She spat. Her hand rose, aimed at my face. I braced for it, my jaw tightening, refusing to flinch away first.

Then her eyes flicked past my shoulder, and her hand dropped as though it had never moved at all. Her whole expression rearranged itself in an instant, cold fury smoothed into something warm and welcoming.

“Lady Seraphina, they're ready for you." Someone called from farther down the hall, someone waiting on her, someone whose opinion mattered to her more than mine ever would.

“Coming," she said sweetly, and swept past me without another glance, already moving to greet whoever had arrived.

A few of the maids nearby had stopped to watch, drawn in by the tension even if they hadn't heard the words.

“What else is there to look at?" Maya appeared at my side and glared at the maids who still had their eyes glued to me. One by one, they scattered back to their work, murmuring among themselves.

Maya turned to me, her expression softening. “Don't listen to her," she said, squeezing my arm. "You did something none of the rest of us were brave enough to do. That matters, no matter what she says.”

I nodded, though the words didn't quite reach the place in me that needed them the most.

That was when Sarah found us, slightly out of breath, her eyes darting between the two of us like she was picking up on something she'd missed.

“Anya," she said. “Since you managed to get the King his medicine that day, you should be ready to do it again tonight."

My stomach dropped straight to the floor.