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Chapter Text

“Naexi, come back!”

The little red-headed girl kept running away from the voice that called her - her father’s voice. He’d ran out from the kitchen as soon as he’d realized that Naexi had stolen a tray with fuming pastries he’d just taken out of the oven, and now he was running after her in a cloud of flour that puffed out of his apron. 

“They’re for my friends!” Naexi cried as she kept running. Her legs were short and she was not very fast, but she had her ways to run away from her dad when she stole something from the kitchen: the channels for the laundry. 

Nobody knew those channels better than she did. Her dad was one of the bakers in the kitchen of the Meridian palace, while her mom was in the group of servants who took care of the laundry of the Escanor family and of the important people who lived in the palace - guests, the First Advisor, the General of the Army, and the Commander of the Champions. Naexi was only five years old and was too young for being schooled as a maiden, so she stayed with her mom and played with other children while her mother worked. Running after each other in the channels that people used for transporting the laundry was their favorite game, and they didn’t care that those channels were used for dirty laundry. The royals’ clothes always smelled nice even when they discarded them as dirty. 

Naexi jumped into one of the channels and slid down, careful to keep the pastries from scattering away from the tray. Her father’s voice was now just a muffled sound far away from her. 

She wanted to share the pastries with the other children. Her father and the other bakers and cooks baked enough of those and cooked enough food to feed an entire village, while the Escanors were only a family of three. Queen Weira, Consort Zayden and Prince Phobos. They wouldn’t even notice that one tray was missing, and dad was probably already laughing and walking back to the kitchen, knowing that his delicious pastries were about to fill hungrier bellies than those of the spoiled royals who wouldn’t even touch them. 

Eight years later

“Mom said that the nobles from the other towers will come to the investiture!” said Nagadir, looking up from her work. Naexi glanced at the cloth she was embroidering. Nagadir was so much better than her at embroidering. The initials of Queen Weira on her cloth were perfect, while Naexi’s were only acceptable when looked at from the front, and a complete disaster on the back. 

Embroidery was the part of her schooling that she hated the most. She looked forward to finishing her apprenticeship so she would never have to stitch initials on the royals’ fabrics ever again. She was so bad at it that she was sure she would never be chosen for this specific task. She hoped, however, that whatever task she would be chosen for, Nagadir would be chosen as well. Nagadir was her best friend since when she had memory and she didn’t want to be separated from her. 

“I heard that the Prince will be named Vice Commander already,” said Laetzia, who was sitting together with Naexi and Nagadir. 

Nagadir blushed as she always did when someone brought up the Prince. Nearly all the girls who were being schooled as maidens had a crush on one of the apprentices who were training to become Champions. From the ones of the same age as Naexi, up to the sixteen year-old maidens, they all drooled after one of the apprentices, who were about to recite the oath and be named Champions, and of course the handsome Prince was very popular. Too bad he seemed to favor a human girl - a Guardian of Kandrakar with long black hair that Queen Weira couldn’t stand the sight of. Naexi was sure that the Prince’s interest lay somewhere else, and that he was going after that Nerissa girl only to displease the Queen, but one thing was certain: there was absolutely no chance for any of the maidens who sighed at his sight. If he was not hiding somewhere with the human, he was always hanging out with Cedric, the blonde pageboy and Champion apprentice, who believed he was an Escanor as well just because he was allowed inside the Prince’s quarters. 

Naexi did not have a crush on anyone and when her girlfriends started daydreaming about their imaginary boyfriends in silver armor, she kept doing her task, be it stupid embroidery or making the beds or dusting, and she let her mind wander somewhere else. She liked to make up stories  in her mind as well, but there were no boyfriends in these. She dreamed of being someone important in the castle - the Light’s Maid, perhaps - someone who knew everything about everyone, and someone other people would come to when they desperately needed a favor. In her dreams, she was respected by all other servants and she collected information and useful items, and she had a nicer room in the palace - a room that she shared with Nagadir. She dreamed of a world where there could be two Light’s Maids and Nagadir could be the other one. In her dreams, Naexi didn’t have to do the laundry or clean because as the Light’s Maid, her job was to lead the other maidens and to help the Queen dress and prepare for her day or for the important events. She would comb her hair, prepare her headpiece with the crown, her jewels, and she would never be sitting in a damp room washing bed sheets. 

Not that she didn’t like to do laundry or clean. She did, but only because she did it with her mom and because it was the best way to know what the royals and their guests were up to, if you were not one of their personal servants. One could gather a lot of information from how people changed their clothes and bed sheets. 

“Naexi? Are you there?” Nagadir’s voice brought her back to the embroidery class. 

“I think she’s thinking about the Prince, too,” Laetzia crooned. 

Naexi shook herself. “Me? The Prince?” she snorted, going back to her embroidery. “Everyone knows he’s chasing after the human girl because the Queen said no, but he likes Tea Boy.”

Laetzia and Nagadir gasped at Naexi’s blunt accusation. “Naexi!” they scolded her. 

She shrugged. “What can I say, if you want a chance with him, you should probably learn how to shapeshift.”

After embroidery was done for the day, Naexi went to the laundry room. 

“Your father is looking for you,” said her mom as Naexi took a load of bed sheets.

“Now?” Naexi asked. 

“Yes, now.” Mom sounded excited. Did they finally request a room for her, so she wouldn’t have to sleep in a corner behind a tent in her parents’ room anymore? Perhaps she would have a room together with Nagadir, now that they were old enough! Naexi dropped the basket and ran the way back to the servants’ quarters, then to the kitchens. 

Dad was taking out a tray of fuming buns from the oven. 

“Hello, dad!” she greeted him, craning her neck to see what was already on the counter of the bakery. She grabbed a pastry with the shape of a half-moon and took a bite. The buttery pastry melted in her mouth, and she rejoiced when she realized the half-moon was filled with jam. 

“Naexi!”, he scolded her when he turned and saw what she was doing. “They’re for the royals!”

He said that with the usual tone he used whenever she stole a half-moon or a bun or a cookie that was destined to be ignored by the Escanors - that is, the tone that gave away that it was his duty to reprimand his daughter, but he was actually happy that she enjoyed his baking. 

“Mom told me you were looking for me,” Naexi said, her mouth full with the half-moon pastry. 

Dad glanced at Raywin, his young apprentice who was at the other side of the bakery, kneading a huge dough with his mouth distorted in concentration. He did not seem to pay much attention to them. 

“Yes, I was,” dad said, and he beamed at her. 

Yes! I’ll finally have a room with my friend!

“Dhoria was looking for a replacement for the pageboy who serves tea to the royals when they have their family gathering, since he will be named Champion soon,” dad said. Naexi’s smile dimmed. “And I proposed you!”

Naexi swallowed the piece of half-moon, and it was suddenly tasteless. “Serve… tea? To the Escanors?”

Dad excitedly waved his hands covered in flour, smiling brightly. “Yes! Isn’t it great? It’s the best opportunity to make the royals see you! If the Queen likes you, she will certainly choose you as her maiden!”

“B- but-” she staggered, “I’m not done with schooling, and- and serving tea means-”

“You’re almost done with schooling and Dhoria said you can skip some classes, like embroidery. You hate embroidery, don’t you? And don’t worry about serving tea, the pageboy, Cedric, will teach you what you need to know. You’re a smart gal, you’ll learn in no time.”

Dad was right on almost everything. She did hate embroidery. Serving tea to the Escanors was definitely the best way to be seen by the Queen. And she was smart enough that she would quickly learn what she had to do. 

What dad didn’t know was that there was something that she hated even more than embroidery, and that was being in the same room as Tea Boy. 

Mom had told Naexi that perhaps she was just prejudiced against the shapeshifter. If she went there with a smile on her face, everything would be fine. 

Naexi did not go to the service room next to the Escanors’ tea room with a smile on her face, but Cedric didn’t either. He distorted his pouty mouth in a disdained grimace as he arrived, much later than she did, and he saw that she was there. 

“And I thought I was having a bad day,” he muttered. 

Naexi had no idea why they had always disliked each other - they’d never spoken before. She wasn’t even sure he disliked her as much as she disliked him until now. 

Cedric was much taller than her, and he always went around the palace with a stance and a pout as if he was wasted to be a pageboy. Now, he was sixteen and he would be finally named Champion and would not be a servant anymore, so they would see him hanging out in the servants’ quarters of the palace less and less. Some of the other girls blushed when someone brought his name up or when he passed by in the common room of the servants, but he was not as popular as the Prince. In any case, it was not clear if he had any interest in having a girlfriend - or a boyfriend, for what matter. He seemed to care only about his books, his training and his two friends - the Prince and the stable boy, Vathek. 

“I know you think any idiot can serve tea, but it’s not like that,” Cedric said as he came towards Naexi. The table was set with a cloth and nothing else. Cedric passed her and went to the cabinet at the wall. When he stood in front of the cabinet, he turned to give her a look with eyebrows raised. “So? Are you going to stand there the whole afternoon or will you come here and try to learn something? I’m quite busy, you know.”

Naexi was already about to snap back, but she remembered her mom’s words. A smile on your face. She distorted her mouth in an attempt to smile and joined Cedric in front of the cabinet. He matched her fake smile with an almost disgusted expression. 

Cedric showed her how to prepare the table with all the varieties of tea that were in the cabinet and in a precise order. Pure black tea, black tea mixed with ekrinas flowers, blue tea, green tea, purple tea, and white tea. When Naexi asked why they needed six types of tea if the Escanors were only a family of three, Cedric sighed and rolled his eyes at her ignorance. “Because they always want something different, and you need to understand what - without them asking,” he had said. 

Then they prepared the tea sets and the boiling water, and when Raywin came to bring the trays with the pastries, they also prepared those on the table. 

While they waited for the royals to arrive in their tea room next to the small service room where they had prepared the table, Cedric gave her some more details on the royals’ habits, which could help her understand what they were in the mood for. Consort Zayden was the easiest one - he was rarely in the mood for anything other than white tea, with one pearl of honey and pastries with blue jam. Queen Weira usually shifted between purple tea, blue tea and pure black tea, and her mood could be predicted based on the weather outside. If it was sunny, a purple tea with a matching pastry with purple filling. If there were clouds, a blue tea with a small cookie. And if it rained, pure black tea, no pastries - and it had to be on the table before she entered the room. Prince Phobos was the most unpredictable of all and Cedric claimed that only someone who knew him well was able to understand what tea he wanted and with which pastry - that is, nobody but Cedric could nail the tea and the matching pastry the Prince wanted. According to Cedric’s valuable opinion, there was no hope for someone like Naexi, who didn’t even exist in the Prince’s eyes, so it was a waste of time to try to teach her. He suggested she should just try one among blue, green, purple and white tea - never black tea - and see what happened. 

If Naexi had doubts that she may have been prejudiced about Tea Boy, now she was certain that her gut feeling was right: he really was an asshole. 

Naexi peeked through the curtain that separated the service room from the tea room when the royals arrived. She’d never seen them so close before. They were… perfect. They looked as if some artist had sculpted them and painted them, and dressed them with perfect dresses as if they were dolls. Queen Weira was known to be a beauty, but in person and from such a close distance, she was breathtaking. Her skin was fair and pink, like the skin of all Escanors, and was so smooth and glowing, that Naexi would have wanted to touch it to see if it was made of soft velvet. She had beautiful green eyes that contrasted with her auburn hair. She was wearing the crown and an elaborate blue headpiece with silver curls extending from where the headpiece touched the crown and matching her dress, which was also blue, embroidered with silver thread. 

Consort Zayden was exactly what one would expect from a consort of the Queen of Meridian. He was completely overshadowed by the magnificence of his wife and one had to make an effort to remember that he was in the room at all. If one remembered that he existed and looked at him closely, one could see that he was good-looking as well. He had pink skin like the rest of the Escanors, but his ears were pointed. During her schooling, Naexi had been taught that the consorts were chosen among the noble families and they were always males, irrespective of the Queen’s preference, because the reason they existed was to produce the next Light of Meridian. There was no specific preference as to whether the consort came from the noble family of Idier, Hoel, Brandis or Grendal - it was all a matter of timing, namely a matter of who was the family who had a bachelor of the right age who could be proposed as the next consort of Meridian. Zayden had pink skin because he came from Grendal, where the nobles had a similar skin tone as the Escanors but had pointed ears. His hair was of a blonde so light it almost looked white, and his eyes were pale gray. 

Prince Phobos had many nicknames among the servants - Prince Charming, Prince Flower, Prince Green-Thumb, Prince Cranky - and now that Naexi could see him closely, she finally understood why some servants called him Prince Eyebrow. Despite the curious shape of his auburn eyebrows, the Prince’s looks justified the number of girls who sighed when talking about him. He had many traits in common with Consort Zayden, like the color of his eyes and hair, or the shape of his nose and jaw, but his presence in the room was something he had definitely inherited from the Queen. He was not an accessory, not a tool, not someone who existed only for generating babies. He was a Prince and he made sure that everyone around him was aware of it. 

Cedric came next to her and looked through the curtain as well, but only for a few seconds - the time he claimed he needed to understand what the royals wanted. “White for the Consort, blue for the Queen, green for the Prince,” he said boredly. “And don’t stare for too long,” he warned her. 

He showed her how to prepare the teas - which pot to use for which tea, how many leaves, how much honey, if any, and how to place the cup, the saucer and the pastries on the tray. Each of the royals had their own tea sets and matching trays, and different ones for each tea, for a total of eighteen different sets and trays plus two spare ones. And we have one pot and six mismatched cups in the servants’ wing, Naexi thought. 

Cedric placed each of the three trays on a bigger one and headed towards the curtain. “Stay here and watch closely what I do,” he muttered, then disappeared into the other room. 

Naexi did as she was told and watched carefully how he served the tea to the Escanors. He put the bigger tray on a table close to the curtain, then he brought the tea to the Queen first. She watched closely where exactly he put the tray with the cup and the plate with the pastry and how he poured the tea into the cup. The Queen smiled gracefully and said “Thank you, dear”. A rush of jealousy crossed Naexi’s body. The Queen calls him ‘dear’, she thought. Will she ever do the same to her? Maybe, if one day she became Light’s Maid, she would. 

Consort Zayden smiled and nodded politely as Cedric served him his white tea. So far it did not look too complicated - it was certainly not worse than embroidery. But Naexi was curious to see how Cedric would serve the Prince, and how the Prince would react to him. The two were close friends, at least when they were both dressed as Champion apprentices, but Naexi had never seen how they behaved when Cedric was not there as the Prince’s comrade, but as his servant. Naexi didn’t know what to expect - perhaps a thank you, or a smile, or even a conversation. Instead, there was nothing. Prince Phobos didn’t even look at him, and it was as if his tea had magically appeared in front of him or had been brought there by invisible hands. Nothing that gave away that the Prince had even noticed that Cedric was in the room. 

Cedric put the last pot back on the bigger tray, then picked it up and came back to the service room. 

“What?” he asked as he met Naexi’s widened eyes. 

“Is the Prince always… like that?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Like what?”

Naexi blinked at him. Perhaps this was the answer to her question. If even Cedric did not manage to receive a glance from the Prince, then Naexi could be certain that he wouldn’t even notice when she would take Cedric’s place in serving the tea. She felt relieved at the idea that the Prince would not look at her with his creepy eyes that always seemed to want to turn people into ice statues. 

The royals met for their family gathering over tea every third evening. After the third time, Cedric sent her to serve the tea in his place. Naexi was nervous, but it went very smoothly - if anything because Cedric had told her what tea she should prepare, so she was not scared that it would be the wrong one. 

The Queen cocked her head, studying her closely, when she appeared in the room. Consort Zayden lazily glanced at her, seemed to acknowledge that her hair was red, not blonde, and her skin was green, not pink like Cedric’s, and then went back to puff smoke from his pipe. The Prince was talking when she’d entered the room, and didn’t even glance her way. He just kept telling his parents about how he wanted the celebrations for the investiture to be done. 

The Queen seemed to be listening with only one ear, while she observed how Naexi poured her tea - purple, for tonight. Naexi was beginning to sweat when she was done, and her knees almost gave up when the Queen said “Thank you. What’s your name, young girl?”

Naexi took a step back and bowed her head, holding the pot with both hands to keep it from trembling. “Naexi, your Majesty.”

The Queen hummed. “Very good. Thank you, Naexi.”

Naexi made a quick curtsey, then moved on to serve the Consort and the Prince. The Consort nodded in acknowledgement, in the same way as he always did with Cedric, and the Prince simply kept talking as if she did not exist. 

When she went back to the service room, she hurried to leave the tray on the table before she would make it fall on the floor. Her hands were trembling. 

“You were nervous,” Cedric said. He was leaning against the wall next to the table, his arms folded at his chest. 

“Thanks for noticing,” she muttered, then went to stand close to the curtain, glancing at the tea room from time to time to see if any of the three needed the cup to be refilled. She had to do it the whole evening, until they would hand in their cup to her, as a sign that they didn’t want any more tea. Who could have known that serving tea could be such a complicated task? 

The day of the investiture of the new Champions came closer, and Naexi kept serving the tea to the royals every three days. Cedric supervised her boredly, at the beginning telling her what tea and pastries she should serve, until in the end he would only tell her what to serve to the Prince, while she was left to decide what to bring to the Queen and her husband. However, as the weeks passed and she kept observing the royals, she found herself disagreeing with Cedric’s choices for the Prince. From the way the Prince picked up his cup and the bored expressions he made after taking each sip, she was sure he did not like any of the teas that Cedric made her serve him - usually blue tea, sometimes green, purple or white. The longer she served the royals, the more she was convinced that Prince Phobos’s preference was with black tea - not the pure one that his mother drank when she was in a very bad mood, but the one with the ekrinas flowers. 

And now, after almost two months, she decided it was time to test her theory. 

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Cedric hissed, and he hurried towards the table, to stop her from brewing the black tea leaves in its specific pot - an elegant silver one. She was surprised by herself when her hand promptly reacted and blocked Cedric from putting his hands in between. “Have you ever tried this one?” she asked. 

“Of course not,” he almost snarled. “He. Doesn’t. Like. Black. Tea.”

Naexi hated when Cedric used that tone with her, marking each word as if she was stupid. “Very well,” she said. “If this is not of his liking, he will send me away and you can celebrate.”

He held her gaze in defiance. “Very well,” he said through clenched teeth. 

Naexi hesitated for a few seconds behind the curtain, her tray in her hands, before crossing it. She took in a deep breath and straightened her posture, then painted the usual neutral but slightly smiling expression that she always kept on her face when she did this task. She served the Queen and her husband as usual, then moved on to the Prince. 

She had noticed immediately that the Prince was not in a good mood, and now that she heard what he was complaining about to his mother, she knew why. The Queen had rejected his wish of inviting the Kandrakar delegation - that is, the five Guardians - to the investiture. It did not take too much imagination to understand why. 

Naexi managed to keep a steady hand while she poured the tea in front of the Prince. When the Prince stopped talking mid-sentence, though, she had to fight not to start shaking. She could see in the corner of her eye that the Prince was looking at the liquid that poured from the pot to the cup, and she noticed that the Queen and even the Consort were doing the same. 

When she was done, she took a step back. She wanted to wait there and look, to see how the Prince would react to her choice, but she knew she was not supposed to stand there and watch the royals, so she forced her legs to walk away and go back to pick up the tray. She took more time than necessary to tidy it up, though, and in the corner of her vision she saw the Prince taking a sip while the Queen started to talk, perhaps to interrupt the silence. 

When Naexi picked up the tray and headed to the curtain, she could feel the piercing gaze of Prince Phobos on her back.

Chapter Text

Three years later

Naexi was alone outside the maidens’ service room, sitting on a marble bench and fidgeting nervously with her hands on her knees. She was wearing the new apron she had just received half an hour ago, when Dhoria had given it to her as a sign that she had completed her schooling and she could now be chosen as a maiden for the Consort, the Queen or the Prince, if any of them needed a new one. In the absence of a call by one of the royals, she would continue to serve tea to the Escanors, like she’d done in the last three years, and serve as a common maiden for every guest and every other important person who lived in the palace. 

Naexi had only one objective in mind: being chosen by the Queen. Over the years, her dream of becoming Light’s Maid had only become more and more vivid. She wanted to be chosen by the Queen, and she was confident that the Queen liked her and that it was only a matter of time. The Queen always thanked her with ‘Thank you, little one,’ when she brought her tea and not even once had Naexi served her the wrong one. 

Not that she’d ever made a mistake with the Consort or with the Prince either. It had been embarrassing at first, three years ago, when Prince Phobos had started to acknowledge her existence. She’d soon realized that it was much better when she was just part of the furniture, and she would have preferred to go back to being a chair or a painting at the wall than to feel his piercing stare on her while she served him his favorite tea - which had turned out to be yet another type of black tea scented with chräesja petals. The first time the Prince had gone so far as to nod an acknowledgment, she’d almost gasped and let the pot fall on the floor. 

Now she was used to his presence, but still she found him creepy. But this was not a concern of hers. Her concern was being liked by the Queen so she could become her maiden one day. 

The reason why she was sitting outside the service room and waiting nervously was that Nagadir was still inside with Dhoria. She was the last one of Naexi’s year to sit the final judgment by the Light’s Maid today and Naexi wanted to be there when she was done. 

Naexi and Nagadir shared a room in the servants’ quarters now, and Naexi couldn’t be happier. She shared nearly everything with Nagadir. The room, the cutlery and tea pots they jealously kept for themselves in their room, the hair brush, their clothes. To save time when it was time to take a bath in the common washrooms of the servants, sometimes they even shared the bathtub so they would only have to queue once. They also talked about everything. Nagadir always wanted to hear everything that Naexi overheard when she was serving tea to the Escanors, and together they speculated on what the royals may have been up to, based on the fragments that Naexi could collect every three days. Lately, the main topic of discussion had been the Solstice, the preparations for the parade and the celebrations. It would not be the first parade Prince Phobos would take part in, but it would be the first one where he was acting as Vice Commander. 

The door clicked and Naexi jumped to her feet. Nagadir came out of it wearing the same apron as Naexi. The two smiled, then ran towards each other and celebrated their new accomplishment with a tight hug. Nagadir bursted into laughter as she lifted her head and took Naexi’s between her palms, touching her forehead with hers. Naexi laughed with her, letting the tension wash away in her best friend’s arms. 

Solstice was Naexi’s favorite festivity. The palace always started to buzz with activity weeks before the day of the celebrations, because there was so much to prepare, and it was  the responsibility of the servants to do so. There were tables and benches to be moved to the yard, the carriage to be decorated with blue roses, decorations to be put up everywhere inside and outside the castle, and there was so, so much to bake for Naexi’s father, which also meant that he received a higher pay for the weeks that preceded the festivity. Now that Naexi was part of the maidens’ group, she had to prepare the rooms for the guests from the other towers and make sure that everything would be perfect for when they come. 

The preparation of the feast was Naexi’s second favorite part of the whole festivity. The party itself was mostly work for the servants, and they never got the chance to see the Parade and the grand entrance of the Queen to Meridian, because they had to be ready to serve food and drinks in the yard. For the occasion, nearly the whole staff of the palace had to pick up the task of serving the tables. The real party started once the Queen retired to her chambers, usually late in the night. That was the moment when everyone was released of their duties and the servants could celebrate the Solstice until dawn, if they wanted to, and it was Naexi’s favorite part of the celebration. 

During the last Solstice in Meridian, Naexi and Nagadir had been too young to stay until dawn. But this year, they were both sixteen years old and their parents had allowed them to stay without limits after the Queen had retired. 

It was wonderful. From time to time, the servants had little parties in their wing of the palace, for example when someone had a birthday or had received a promotion. But nothing was like the Solstice celebration. There was still enough food and enough drinks for all servants to eat what they would not even eat in a month, the musicians were still playing music and everyone would dance. 

Naexi and Nagadir danced for the Gods knew how long, and when they were so out of breath they couldn’t even laugh anymore, they decided it was time for them to go to their room and laugh and comment on everything they had seen that day. They were giggling and conspiring already when they heard voices in one of the corridors of the servants’ wing. They halted and strained their ears to try to understand who was talking. From the tone of the two voices, it sounded like a conversation that was meant to be private between a man and a woman. Spying among servants was always considered rude, and not even two curious girls like Naexi and Nagadir ever did it, but crossing that corridor was the only way to reach their room, so they silently approached the corner that turned towards that corridor and cautiously peeped in the direction of the two voices. 

The silver mask was not enough to hide from Naexi who was leaning against the doorframe of Kealar’s room with an arm, his face merely inches from the pretty face of the Queen’s maiden. If not by his unmistakable blonde hair, Naexi would have recognized him by that pose that seemed to scream ‘I’m so much cooler than everyone else’. In full armor and with the snake-like mask covering the upper part of his face, Cedric was whispering something to Kealar’s ear, making her blush and chuckle while she covered her mouth with a hand, as if he’d just told her some unspeakable thing. 

Nagadir turned to look at Naexi and mouthed, It’s Cedric! 

Naexi rolled her eyes, then they peeped again in the corridor. The whispers had turned into staggered breaths and moans as Cedric was holding Kealar’s face in his grip and devouring her face in a disgustingly deep kiss. Naexi and Nagadir immediately retreated and hid behind the corner. 

“That’s so romantic, a Champion and a Queen’s maiden!” Nagadir whispered. 

“I think I’m going to vomit here,” Naexi whispered back, the content of her stomach really starting to swirl. Poor Kealar. After his investiture as Champion, Cedric’s popularity among young women and men had increased significantly, only becoming second to Phobos’s. Unlike the Prince, who generally ignored the sighs of all the girls in his way and only occasionally gave attention to some lucky young men, Cedric had embraced his fame and had broken a number of hearts in the past few years. Apparently, Kealar was the next one on his list. Naexi was not particularly close to her, since the Queen’s maiden was two years older than her and Nagadir and had never had much to do with the two girls. But still, she felt sorry for the heartbreak she would have to face soon if she went on hanging out with that prick. 

They heard the click of a door and peered again in the corridor. They caught a glimpse of Cedric and Kealar disappearing behind the door of her room, before the door closed behind them. 

“Well, at least they cleared the way,” said Naexi, taking Nagadir’s hand to make her follow her. 

“I still find it romantic,” Nagadir said as she followed her. 

“Wait until you find Kealar crying in the common room like Alina did last week.”

“You’re finally here!” Nagadir jumped on her feet as Naexi opened the door to their room and ran to take both her hands in hers. 

Naexi blinked at the excited welcome. It was late in the evening, as tonight the Escanor family had stayed quite long in the tea room before handing their cups to her, and she didn’t even expect to find Nagadir still awake, let alone jumping on her feet like a cricket. 

“What happened?” 

Nagadir emitted a little squeak, her dark green eyes sparkling. “I’m going to be a Queen’s maiden!” she exclaimed. 

Naexi’s jaw dropped. “You- when? How?”

“Dhoria told me today!” Nagadir said. “I will start next week!”

Naexi’s mouth was open, but no words came out. The Queen had a spot in her maidens’ group, and-

And it did not go to her, but to her friend. 

Naexi’s stomach shifted with unease. She’d never felt anything like this. She wanted to be happy for her friend, after all they both dreamed of becoming a Queen’s maiden, and they had promised each other that if they would become Queen’s maidens at different times, or if only one of them made it, they would be happy for each other. She had to be happy for her - she had promised, and she was sure that Nagadir would be happy for Naexi if the Queen had chosen her. Nagadir was so pure, so joyful, she would have never resented Naexi for being chosen in her place. 

Naexi had always thought she was pure and joyful as well… until now. 

“That’s… fantastic!” she said nevertheless, conscious that her tone was not reflecting her words. 

Nagadir's smile dimmed. Of course she would notice. “I… I hope it’s not a problem.”

Of course it’s a problem, was Naexi’s first thought. But the apprehension in her friend’s eyes made her heart squeeze. Nagadir did not deserve her resentment. She was the person she loved the most in this world, probably even more than she loved her parents. 

Naexi chuckled, trying to summon a sincere smile on her face. “No, of course not. I’m happy for you!” she lied, then she hugged her friend. 

It was difficult to really be happy for Nagadir, once she’d started her service as Queen’s maiden. She received a new set of fancy aprons, the earrings and the matching stone that all Queen’s maidens wore on their forehead as an ornament. Naexi had always thought that Nagadir was very beautiful and had always envied her for her green eyes, auburn dreadlocks and her curves, but now, with the Queen’s maiden uniform, she was stunning. 

After a few weeks, Naexi realized that what really stung was not just the fact that she had not been chosen as Queen’s maiden. She slowly realized how afraid she was that Nagadir would find the other maidens of the Queen more interesting and more beautiful than her. Or even worse - that she would fall in love with a Champion, like most of the Queen’s maidens did, and that she would either leave the palace when she’d be old enough to marry him, or cry in the corner of the common room as soon as said Champion would move on to the next maiden. 

Naexi kept telling herself that she was just being paranoid, and Nagadir would never leave her for a dumbass that walked around looking like a silver teapot. Besides, after the first few weeks, Nagadir did not seem to have changed her attitude towards Naexi. To the contrary, they kept exchanging gossip and now their puzzles were easier to solve, because they both had the chance to overhear what the Escanors said on different occasions.  However, there was not much going on after the Solstice. Disappointedly, the only news after the festivity was that Cedric and Kealar were surprisingly still spending time together, as both Naexi and Nagadir had had the pleasure of stumbling upon them while they were making out in the corridor more often than necessary. 

It was after about three weeks from Nagadir’s start as a Queen’s maiden that Dhoria came to see Naexi. It was late in the afternoon and Naexi was taking off the bed sheets from the room where the Lady of Hoel and her husband had stayed as guests while they were visiting Meridian for the Council of the towers. Naexi jolted as she turned around and found the old maiden’s stern look fixed on her. 

“D-Dhoria,” Naexi stuttered, “I’m sorry, I did not hear you coming in.”

“Of course you didn’t,” the old woman replied, her yellow eyes unforgiving. “You’re always lost in your own world, young lady.”

Naexi dropped the load of bed sheets in the basket on the floor and stood upright in front of Dhoria, her hands gracefully clasping in front of her, waiting for an order. Perhaps-

No, she can’t be here to tell you the Queen has chosen you, Naexi thought. Why should the Queen hire a new maiden now, when she had just hired Nagadir? The hope bloomed in her chest nevertheless. 

“I have found a spot for you, young lady,” Dhoria said, making the sparkle of hope flare up. “A very prestigious one.”

Naexi widened her eyes. She tried not to look too eager to hear what her new position would be, but she couldn’t wait. Her lips spontaneously curved into a smile. 

“As you may have heard, Laetzia was the third maiden this month to be kicked out from the palace,” Dhoria said. Her words felt like a bucket of iced water on Naexi’s sparkle of hope. Laetzia had been chosen one week ago to replace Esteria as the Prince’s maiden. Both had lasted less than seven days each before being kicked out and left in the streets. 

“Y-yes, of course I have heard,” Naexi whispered, lowering her gaze. Please, don’t…

“Nobody seems to be capable enough to take care of the Prince’s rooms,” Dhoria sighed. “And I proposed you as the next one to attempt the feat.”

Naexi’s ears started ringing. She wants me out of the palace, she thought, a lump forming in her throat. Why? She had always been a good student, except for embroidery. She served tea to the Escanors and had always done a good job, and the Queen seemed to like her. Why did Dhoria want her out of the palace? 

“You will start tomorrow,” Dhoria said. “You will find the Prince’s schedule in your room, so you will know when he is not in his quarters and you can enter. I have high expectations of you, don’t disappoint me.”

“I- I won’t.”

The next day, Naexi took a deep breath in front of the huge doors of the Prince’s quarters, before entering them, pushing the cart containing the cleaning supplies she thought she would need. 

The Prince was not there - Naexi had studied his schedule the whole evening, and to be completely sure that she would not accidentally enter his quarters while he was still there, she had been sitting behind a column within eyesight of his doors since early in the morning, until she’d seen him leaving his rooms. He was really impressive when he was wearing the Vice Commander armor. 

When she closed the doors behind her, she gaped at her surroundings with her jaw dropped. 

Oh Gods, how can I clean all this on my own before he comes back?, she thought. 

She stood in a wide entry hall surrounded by marble columns and archways, decorated with paintings, sculptures and plants, and a ridiculously elaborated chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the central vault. From there, she could get a glimpse of at least four more rooms - one that looked like a dining room, one that looked like a parlor or another hall, and one that seemed to be a study, judging from the corners of bookshelves she saw. Certainly there had to be at least one bedroom and a washroom, and perhaps even a dressing room. 

Alright, Naexi, buckle up, she told herself, trying to gather some courage to start.

She started by dusting the hall, and soon she picked up a steady rhythm and let her mind wander in her usual dreams as she went on cleaning the rooms. The task, however, did not allow her to zone out much and get lost in her daydreaming, because the rooms were in such a disarray that she had to come back to the present and consider where one or another item should go if she wanted to tidy it up. From time to time, she had the feeling of being observed. However, there was nobody in the rooms except for an impressive number of plants. And plants could not observe people, could they? 

The Prince’s quarters indeed had a dressing room - a really huge one no less. Naexi found it when she was looking for a place where the magnificent robes she’d picked up from the floor of the bedroom could go, and she found herself standing in the middle of a room that was even bigger than the bedroom, with a wardrobe that could have contained clothes for the entire staff of the palace, mirrors and a dressing table that looked like a massive work of art. 

You’re not here to stare, you’re here to clean before he comes back, she told herself every time she realized she’d been gaping at the rooms with her mouth open. 

It took her the entire morning to finish cleaning the rooms, including the washroom which was as big as the common room in the servants’ wing and hosted a sunken bathtub that could have welcomed at least four people at the same time. 

While she walked around the rooms to do a final check that everything looked as perfect as it could be, she wondered what it was that maidens like Laetzia and Esteria did so wrong that the Prince had kicked them out of the palace. She knew both of them and they were certainly not slackers. And certainly Naexi was not better than them at cleaning. And why did Dhoria pick her, one of the youngest maidens, instead of giving the task to an older and more experienced maiden who  could perhaps do a job that met the expectations of the Prince? 

What if… What if the Prince’s expectations had nothing to do with cleaning? 

As she stood in the entry halls of the Prince’s quarters, it struck her. 

She knew what the Prince did not like. While she had never exchanged a single word with him, she had observed him and served him tea for the last three years, every three days. The Prince did not like things and people that he considered boring. Although nobody ever dared do anything for him on their own initiative, unless they were completely sure that he would be at least indifferent to them, the Prince appreciated when someone stood out from the crowd. He had appreciated Naexi that day three years ago, when she had decided to ignore Cedric’s suggestion and brought him black tea. And he had even smiled when she had tried the black tea with chräesja petals. 

Yes - Naexi was sure now. The reason why he had kicked out the previous maidens was that he found them boring, and he would certainly do the same to her if he came back to his rooms and found nothing special, only perfectly tidy and clean spaces. 

What could he like?, she thought. 

Could she bring some of his favorite tea and leave it on the table in the study? 

Nah, then he would need to prepare it and serve it himself. It would be insulting.

It had to be something that left a sign, without requiring him to lift a finger. 

She closed her eyes, considering options. With her eyes closed, she noticed how the rooms smelled faintly like the soap she had used to clean the surfaces of the furniture. 

She snapped her fingers. Scent!

Yes, a nice scent for the rooms was something that would leave a mark that she - and not some boring maiden - had been there, and it was something within her limited skills with magic. Naexi crossed the room and went to the parlor, where the biggest fireplace was located and a small blue fire was crackling. Using her magic, she did one of the few things she had learned to do - communicating a specific scent to the fire. She went for chräesja petals. The Prince enjoyed their scent in the tea, so chances were that he would also like it in his rooms. Besides, using the same scent as that of the tea she had found out was his favorite would leave a clear message that she was his new maiden, and that she was trying to get to know him better so he would be happy to enter his quarters the next time. 

The afternoon after she’d finished cleaning the Prince’s quarters was one of the most dreadful ones of Naexi’s life so far. She spent it helping other maidens finish cleaning the guest wing of the palace, and every time she heard footsteps in the corridor, her heart started to race with fear that it could be a guard coming to take her and kick her out of the palace. 

Nobody came to take her away, however, and she even managed to rest a few hours before going to prepare the tea in the service room. She wondered if the Prince had seen his quarters at all that day, and if perhaps he would make a scene during the evening, as soon as she  appeared in the tea room. That was unlikely - the Prince would never take care of kicking her out himself. He would probably ignore her as usual, and the guards would come to take her either when she was done, or the next day. 

When she was done for the evening, she hurried tidying up the service room and then ran to her room in the servants’ wing. 

“How did it go?” Nagadir asked as soon as Naexi entered the room. “Did he say anything?”

Naexi closed the door behind her and leaned against it with a sigh. “No, but it was awful.”

Nagadir stood up and crossed the room, coming to take her by the shoulder and looking at her with worry in her eyes. “How? Was he… mean?”

Naexi shook her head. “No, no… it’s just…” she shivered. “His eyes… He stared at me, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”

Her heartbeat quickened again as she recalled the Prince’s cold stare fixed on her. Never like that evening had Naexi wished she was just a decoration in the room, or a piece of furniture, or just part of the wall. The Prince had followed each of her movements in the room with his gaze, and even the Queen had looked at her in a strange way that Naexi couldn’t decipher. She couldn’t say if it was curiosity, suspicion or pity, perhaps because the Queen knew that Naexi’s time in the palace was close to an end. 

“Don’t worry,” Nagadir said, taking Naexi’s face between her palms. “If you go, I will go with you - I promise!”

But nobody came to take Naexi and escort her out of the palace. Nobody came to tell her to stop doing what she was doing either. Naexi was sure that this did not mean she was safe and that the Prince would not send her away any time now, but since nobody told her not to, she went to the Prince’s quarters the next day again and cleaned, tidied up, and summoned the same scent as the day before. Scared that the Prince would find it boring to come back to the rooms looking and smelling the same as they did the day before, she also went to the bakery to ask her father if he had any of the half-moons with purple jam. She was lucky and dad had just finished preparing a batch, so she could fill a small plate and bring it to the Prince’s quarters. She knew he liked those. 

And again, nobody came to take her away. Nobody told her to stop. And so Naexi went on cleaning the Prince’s quarters when he was not there, summoning different scents that she thought he could like, and bringing some pastries from time to time. She smiled when she found the plates empty, a sign that the Prince had either appreciated them or had burned them in the fire, but at least did not seem to take them as an insult. 

Naexi continued to serve tea as well, and after the first evening when the Prince had stared at her the whole time, now he had gone back to ignoring her and merely nodded an acknowledgment of her existence after she’d poured tea in his cup. 

It went on like this for two weeks, and Naexi was starting to enjoy her new position. Perhaps one day she could be the Queen’s maiden anyway, if the Queen had a spot and realized that a maiden who made the Prince happy, must be a really good maiden that she should not let escape, but for now, she enjoyed taking care of the Prince’s rooms and finding new creative ways to leave a mark that she had been there. 

After two weeks, she found herself opening the doors of the Prince’s quarters with ease and with a smile on her face. 

A smile that dropped immediately as she almost stumbled against the Prince in the flesh. 

Naexi gasped when she realized that Prince Phobos was really standing there, in the middle of the entry hall of his quarters, staring down at her. He was splendid in his Vice Commander armor, as always. 

Naexi retraced her steps immediately, lowering her gaze. “I- I apologize, Your Highness, I thought- uh, I must have mixed up the days in your schedule, I’ll come back later,” she stuttered, and kept walking back, pulling her cart with her towards the doors. 

“Wait, maiden,” the Prince said. She froze in place. She’d never heard him speak directly to her. She had to hold the cart to steady herself. “What’s your name?”

“Naexi,” she said. Of course he didn’t remember her name. This is it, she thought. He’s going to kick me out himself. She kept her gaze low, now tears starting to tingle behind her eyes. Whatever happens, don’t cry in front of the Prince. “I… apologize if the scent is not to Your Highness’s liking, I won’t do it again,” she offered. 

The Prince didn’t even seem to listen to her. “What else do you do in this palace?”

Naexi hesitated. Why was he even asking? “I- I clean the rooms in the guest wing, Your Highness. I help with the rooms of the Commander and of the General, and I- uh. I serve tea to Your Highness and His family every three days.”

“From now, it will be no more,” the Prince said, taking a few steps towards her and studying her more closely. Naexi wanted to melt with the door behind her back and disappear. What will I do now, if I cannot work here?

“You will only work for me,” the Prince went on. Naexi almost whimpered. “You are forbidden to do anything else.”

Naexi opened and closed her mouth, no words coming out.

“Is there a problem?” he said, his eyebrows twitching in an irritated frown. 

“The Queen… the tea…”

Prince Phobos impatiently waved his hand adorned with silver rings, turning away from her and pacing the entry hall. “Any idiot can serve tea, the Queen will find someone else. You will be my personal maiden.” He turned to look at her again with a snap, making her jolt. “You will continue to do whatever you’re doing here, and you will manage this place so I don’t have to waste my precious time. And when I call, you run.”

Naexi realized she had flattened against the door behind her and that she was trembling like a leaf. 

“Is that clear?” the Prince asked. 

With a considerable effort, Naexi detached from the door and found the ability to curtsy. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Chapter Text

Another three years later

At the age of nineteen, Naexi finally understood that there was a better dream than being the Light’s Maid. 

The real dream was being the Prince’s one and only maiden. 

She would have never believed it three years ago, but being Prince Phobos’s maiden gave access to information about everyone and everything in the palace - if one managed to read the details of his rooms and of his schedule correctly. And if there was anything that Naexi had learned in the last three years, it was definitely how to interpret the Prince’s days. 

Besides, being a Queen’s maiden - even the Light’s maid - only meant to take care of some specific part of her routine or of her rooms, while being the Prince’s only servant gave Naexi complete control of everything that happened in his quarters, including the Prince’s own preparation every time he had to leave the rooms. 

Naexi took care of nearly everything: at the beginning, she cleaned his rooms, changed the bed sheets, and tidied up his clothes. But soon, her tasks had started to go beyond those of a simple cleaning maiden. She prepared his baths, she put three or four different robes on his bed every morning before opening the curtains so he could choose what to wear for the day, if he was not wearing the armor, and more often than not she stayed and helped him comb his hair and braid it with rings. When he didn’t want to join his family for meals, she brought him his dinner and drinks to his private dining room, and never forgot to add one of the little pastries he liked the most. 

The only thing she did not do for him was polish his armor, as this was done in the armory, but she did take the armor to the people who had to take care of it whenever it needed to be polished, and brought it back and carefully reassembled it on its stand when it was ready. 

Being the Prince’s maiden also meant having a network of contacts in the palace that a simple maiden would likely never have. The Prince had a rather lavish lifestyle, and often spent time in his quarters drinking expensive wine with some lucky man who had attracted his attention, or with Cedric. Occasionally, however, the amount of wine got out of hand and he needed Naexi’s help to become presentable the next day. At first, Naexi did not know what to do and had tried to solve the situation with tea. Over the years, she had learned that the alchemists always kept a stock of special potions that could erase the effects of a hangover, and that the handing of these potions was extremely regulated - namely, they could give them away only if the Queen approved. 

Naexi had tried many times to bribe the First Alchemist, an old man who was so deaf one had to shout in his ears to make him understand any request, into giving her these potions for the Prince, and she had never succeeded. 

But when she was old enough to understand how certain men could be persuaded to do what she wanted, she had focused her attention on the alchemist’s apprentice, a young man one year her senior named Lhoris who did not have much motivation in his job, but definitely had a soft spot for red-heads. Thanks to Lhoris, she now had free access to those and many other potions, in exchange for a little persuasive talk from time to time. 

Lhoris had not been Naexi’s first. When she’d decided to go down this route with him, she wanted to be sure that she knew what had to be done, so she’d gone to Raywin, her father’s apprentice in the bakery, also one year her senior. She’d known Raywin her entire life and they were good friends, and she knew that he would say yes to her request - especially back then, when he was all moping around because Kealar was not considering him anymore, since the handsome messenger from Grendal who was dating Cedric had left Meridian and Tea Boy was now up for grabs. 

Naexi had to shake her head every time she saw Kealar disappearing in the corridor that led to Cedric’s room. She could understand her: although Naexi found Cedric obnoxious whenever he opened his mouth to say a word, she understood that he had something that always made heads turn in his direction. She only hoped that Kealar would one day open her eyes and see that Raywin was really in love with her, and that Cedric in turn only had eyes for the Prince. 

She had no proof of what Cedric and the Prince were doing when they spent the evening in Phobos’s quarters, but she was fairly certain that they had never crossed any lines. First, because the code of the Champion did not allow it. And second, because Naexi always recognized the signs of when the Prince had let his visitors entertain him in a more intimate way than by just talking over wine. The Prince had the habit of using the settee or the couch in the parlor for this type of encounter, as if he wanted to keep his guests out of his bedroom, but it was always easy for Naexi to see when a guest had stayed nearly the entire night there. When Cedric was there, on the other hand, they never moved to the parlor, always staying in the dining room or in the study and drinking way more bottles than when the Prince had different types of company. 

The relationship between Cedric and Naexi had certainly not improved over the years, but they agreed on one thing: they hated being in the same room. However, on certain occasions they buried the hatchet and at least pretended to tolerate each other for the Prince’s benefit. More than once had Cedric dragged Phobos to the front of her door in the middle of the night, when the Prince had engaged in some tavern fight and had drunk way too much ale to dodge a fist that broke his nose. It had happened again just recently, the day the Prince had discovered that Queen Weira was expecting a baby girl and nearly the entire platoon of Champions had had to scatter around Meridian to look for him - only to find him in the most decaying tavern in the city, throwing fists with another drunken patron. 

On these occasions, Cedric and Naexi had to team up and fix the consequences of the Prince’s behavior - be it fixing his nose and giving him a potion for the hangover, so he could show up to do his duties the next day, or carrying him into the bathtub, or simply making sure that he would eat something and that he would not forget his schedule as Vice Commander. 

And it was on these occasions, as well as on the days that followed, that Naexi observed how something was changing in the Prince’s mood. It had not taken long to understand what had bothered him: the Queen was expecting a girl - a new Heiress to the throne. The laws of Meridian were clear and everyone knew them, even the servants: the Crown of Light had to pass on to a woman. But after twenty-two years, everyone had started to suspect that Consort Zayden was not able to give the Queen a Heiress, and rumors had started to spread that the Queen was considering changing the laws so her son could inherit the Crown, instead of changing the Consort. They were only rumors and nobody knew if such a proposal was being discussed in the Council, but now it didn’t matter anymore: there would be a Heiress, and the Prince would never become King. 

The Prince’s mood was not the only thing that had changed. His relationship with Cedric was also morphing into something twisted that Naexi did not like at all. There were days when Cedric was basically living in the Prince’s quarters and she found herself bringing meals to him, too, and she hated it with all her heart. The only reason why she did not spit in his plate was that he would notice it and make a fuss in front of the Prince, which would only annoy the Prince and ruin his mood. Other days, the two didn’t even greet each other when crossing paths in the corridor and Cedric was promptly knocking at Kealar’s door every evening. 

It was on one of such days that Naexi went back to the servant’s quarters hoping yet again that Kealar would slam her door shut against Cedric’s nose once and for all. She went to the kitchen in the servants’ wing. It was her turn tonight to cook for her and Nagadir. 

Naexi had tried to reconstruct the events of the last days to understand if anything had happened between Cedric and the Prince, but without success. All she knew was that after they’d come back from Hoel, the Prince had taken some time off his duties as Vice Commander and was spending most of his time in his garden or in his rooms - Naexi knew this because she’d had to adjust her own schedule to when the Prince finally left his rooms at the weirdest times of the day. 

But the Prince’s mood did not seem to be as bad as other times when he’d had some kind of fallout with Cedric. Perhaps he only needed a break - after all, he was training to become Commander and soon his schedule would be even more intense than it was now. 

While she stirred the stew in the pot by the fireplace, Naexi tried to clear her mind and think about the evening ahead - a free evening, unless the Prince would call for her for some reason. She could finally spend some time with Nagadir, something she hadn’t had the time to do lately. They still shared a room and were still very close, but over the years something had changed between them, too. It was when Nagadir had started dating Wysarie, one of the Champions, that Naexi had found out that she was jealous. Wysarie was a douche, just like most of the other Champions, and Naexi couldn’t stand the idea that he could hurt her friend, and that she could prefer his company to hers. But tonight, they had agreed that they would have a girls' night: no talk about Wysarie - only them, dinner, tea and some gossip. 

She was already smiling at the thought, when he heard a clang of metal coming closer and a known, detested voice in the corridor. 

“Where did you think we eat, under the table where you and your parents sit?” Cedric was saying. 

Naexi’s ears twitched. WIth whom was the shapeshifter talking? 

She gasped when she recognized the voice that answered. “I didn’t expect this place to look this clean and organized, that’s all.” It was the Prince.

The Prince! Here! 

Naexi flattened against the wall and slid against it until she was close enough to the archway of the kitchen that she could see the corridor and the two men who had just passed by. 

It was really them - Cedric still wearing the armor, and the Prince wearing a robe, both walking away in the direction of Cedric’s room. 

Her mind had started racing, wondering what the Prince was doing here, and she had only one explanation: they were going to cross that line and ruin both their lives. She could  support Cedric ruining his life with his own hands, but the mere thought that the Prince could face the consequences of Cedric’s habit of thinking with his dick instead of his head, made bile rise up in her throat. 

And yet there was nothing she could do, so she tried to continue  her task of preparing dinner. She would certainly not waste a stew over Cedric’s poor choices. 

Her hand was trembling, though, at the thought that Cedric could break the Prince’s heart and put him in trouble by breaking the code. She kept stirring the stew and tried, again, to clear up her mind and stop thinking about it. There is nothing you can do, she kept telling herself, and she did her best to think about the evening she would spend with Nagadir instead - where they had no code to be broken, and yet they would likely never go in the same direction as Cedric and the Prince were doing now. The familiar bundle of sadness nudged against her chest, as it always did every time she thought about how she would have liked things to be with Nagadir.

She was done cooking the stew and was just finishing pouring two generous portions into two bowls on a tray, when she heard steps coming back from the same direction Cedric and Phobos had disappeared earlier. She cautiously approached the doorway  to see again. Her hand snapped to stifle a gasp as she recognized the Prince walking the way they had come from, with a deep frown and rage in his piercing eyes. 

Something went wrong, she thought, and she couldn’t help but feel relieved. The Prince would be mad at Cedric for a while, perhaps, but at least he was safe. 

Naexi was smiling again when she went to her room, bringing the dinner for her and for her friend. 

Her smile dropped immediately when she found Nagadir curled up on herself on her bed, her face streaked by tears. Naexi put the tray with the dinner on their small desk and hurried to climb on Nagadir’s bed, her thumb brushing away the tears. “What happened?”

Nagadir answered with a sob and hid her face in the pillow. 

“It was Wysarie, right?” Naexi almost growled. That asshole.

“He doesn’t want to see me anymore,” Nagadir’s words were muffled against the pillow. 

Naexi let out a soft sigh. She was hungry and wanted to eat dinner, but she couldn’t force Nagadir to eat now, not in this state. She nudged her with her knee to make her scoot over a little, and she lay on the bed facing her. Nagadir looked at her with a little pout. “I know you’re going to say ‘I told you so’”. 

Naexi smiled at her. “I was not going to say it, but you’re right - I told you so.”

“I’m so stupid,” she whimpered. 

Naexi cupped her cheek with her hand. “No, you’re not. He is, but what can you do - he’s a Champion. They select them based on how stupid they are and how big their ego is.”

“Except the Prince,” Nagadir gave her a crooked smile. 

“Yes, of course, except the Prince.” 

Nagadir came closer to her, dropping a hand around Naexi’s waist. Naexi’s heartbeat picked up the pace. Nagadir had no idea how her heart always raced when she casually touched her, or when she fell asleep in her bed when they both lay there while telling each other the latest news from the palace. 

“It would be so much easier if it were just the two of us,” Nagadir said. She seemed… serious. 

Naexi’s throat went dry. “The two of us?” she whispered. 

Nagadir locked gaze with her again. She really looked serious. “Yes, the two of us.” Then she suddenly chuckled and fluttered her eyelashes with excessive emphasis. “Why, don’t you find me pretty enough?”

“You are the most beautiful person I know,” Naexi breathed. 

Nagadir instantly turned serious again. “I am?”

Naexi only nodded, the words evading her. She observed how the light in Nagadir’s eyes changed. She saw surprise at first, and then realization. Now she was screwed. Had she just ruined her friendship with the most important person in her life? 

Then it happened all too fast for Naexi to understand how - she didn’t even have the time to blink, and Nagadir’s lips were pressing against hers. And then Nagadir’s hands were around her face, drawing her closer. And then, finally Naexi understood, and she kissed her back. 

Nagadir's legs were intertwined with hers and the stew had long gone cold, when the Prince called. Whenever the Prince called, for Naexi it was only a brief instant during which she heard his voice in her head, calling her name. From the outside, Nagadir had told her that it looked as if her body went rigid and her black eyes became glazed by a milky veil for a second, before coming back to normal. 

Naexi had always been happy to run to the Prince’s quarters every time he called, regardless of the hour, because it made her feel special, important, indispensable. But tonight, she was not happy to get up from the bed, get dressed again and leave Nagadir alone in bed. 

“Will you come back?” Nagadir said as Naexi opened the door. 

“Of course, he probably just needs a potion or is hungry, it will be quick.”

When Naexi entered the Prince’s quarters, she understood immediately that it would not be quick. 

The Prince was wearing a blue satin night robe closed at his waist by a ribbon, the red tattoos visible on his bare chest underneath. He was slumped on the couch, his head back on the backrest and his eyes half-closed, the black kohl on his face smudged and his legs spread apart, revealing that he was not wearing much below his waist either. 

Yep, it won’t be quick, Naexi thought, looking away from the Prince’s legs. It was not the first time she saw his private parts, but she certainly never looked more than necessary. She complimented herself for having brought one of the spare potions she kept in her room with her, so she wouldn’t need to go wake up Lhoris. 

His eyes opened one after the other and landed on her. They were rimmed with red. “Oh, you’re here,” the Prince exhaled, and made an attempt at getting onto his feet. Naexi hurried to help him. 

“I can do it, I can do it,” he garbled, and he actually made it to at least sit in a more appropriate position. 

Naexi produced the potion and handed it to him. 

“Oh, my sweet Naexi,” he mumbled. He tried to open the small bottle, and failed. Naexi opened it for him, then he gulped it down. 

“Are you hungry, Your Highness?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” he whimpered, and he ran his hands over his face. 

He did not look angry. He looked sad instead. Heartbroken. Something bad had happened with Cedric, something that had not left him furious like other times, but rather helpless and longing. 

Naexi cursed Cedric with all her heart. How dare you do this to him, she thought with rage. 

“I will bring you something to eat,” Naexi said, trying to control her voice so it would come out soft and not as enraged as she felt. “Anything else?”

“My armor,” he slurred. “I need it tomorrow…”

Naexi cursed under her breath. How was she supposed to find someone in the armory who would polish it now? 

“Of course,” she said nevertheless. There was no time to waste - she needed to go to the kitchens, find something to eat for the Prince, then run to the armory and see if anyone who could polish the armor was there, and bring everything back. 

She stood up and was turning on her heels to head back to the entrance, when the Prince’s hand clamped around her wrist, making her inhale a sharp breath. 

“Naexi,” he murmured. “I know I interrupted something.” He was serious when he looked at her. He looked… as if he was sorry. “Thank you for coming.”

Naexi’s heart melted. It was the first time he’d ever thanked her. “Always, my Prince,” she whispered, then he let her go. 

She first picked up the armor and quickly put it on the cart that the Prince allowed her to keep in a corner of his study, so she could carry it to the armory more easily, then she left the Prince’s quarters. 

Her first stop was Raywin’s room. She used to go to her father at the beginning, but then Raywin had told her that he was happy to help her when the Prince had cravings late in the evening or during the night, so she could give her dad some rest. While Raywin was at work in the bakery, she ran outside the palace and to the armory, pushing the cart with the armor. And of course, nobody answered. She tried with the military barracks, but the huge doors were closed and the two guards wouldn’t let her through - not even when she said it was for the Prince. 

How am I supposed to do this now?, she thought as she sat on the steps of a fountain close to the stables. And now that she had stopped running and everything that had happened that evening started to sink in, she felt tears stinging her eyes. She thought about Nagadir, about how she’d left her there, alone, when all she wanted was to hold her in her arms. And instead, she was sitting outside in the dark, with a stupid teapot dismantled in a cart and no way to help the Prince have it ready by tomorrow morning. 

“Are you alright, Milady?” 

She jolted at the voice that spoke behind her. She jumped to her feet and grasped the cart with the armor, standing in front of it as if to defend it against whoever was walking towards her. 

She could only see the contours of a shape and-

Oh Gods.

It was a huge shape. Coming towards her. Her brain told her to flee, to run back to the castle and put the Prince’s armor to safety. What if this brute was going to steal it? It was made of silver and it belonged to the Prince - it was probably worth a fortune. 

She exhaled when the man came to an illuminated spot and she recognized his face - blue-skinned with fangs contouring his round jaw and forehead. 

“Vathek,” she said. “I did not recognize you.”

“Oh, that’s you,” Vathek said. “Is this… the Prince’s armor?”

Naexi nodded. “Yes… He wants it polished by tomorrow morning, but there is nobody in the armory.”

“You came outside the palace on your own with a Vice Commander armor at this hour of the night?” 

“What would you have done in my place?” Naexi asked defensively. 

Vathek hummed, then he seemed to shrug in the dark. “Yeah, I would have done the same. I can help you. I have storm mallow vinegar in my cottage - sometimes Cedric stays at my place while he does that, so we can hang out.”

Naexi could not hold a smile. “Really? Oh, finally Cedric makes himself useful for once.”

“You two really can’t stand each other, can you?”

After Vathek had given her the flask of storm mallow vinegar, Naexi ran back to the palace. She passed by the bakery again, where Raywin had just finished baking a pie with vegetables - the Prince did not like to eat meat - and a small batch of half-moons with the purple jam. 

She passed by the tea room and prepared some black tea as well, then she went back to the Prince’s quarters. Leaving the cart with the armor and the flask of vinegar in the entry hall, she picked up the tray with the food and tea and went to search for the Prince. She found him lying on the bed cover, half-asleep. It was not the first time that something like this happened, and she knew what to do, so she went to the bed stand next to him, walking on the tips of her toes, and silently left the tray on it. 

“What about the armor?” he mumbled, his eyes still half closed. 

“It will be ready tomorrow, Your Highness,” she assured him. 

The armor was indeed ready the next day, but at the price of Naexi’s sleep. After she’d brought the Prince the tray, she went to the dining room with the armor and closed the doors behind her, then she sat on a chair and started working on polishing each piece of the armor with a cloth and the vinegar she’d gotten from Vathek. The armor had so many pieces that by the time she finished, she hated the order of the Champions even more than before. If anything, the armor really looked uncomfortable and heavy, so at least she was reassured that they were all paying a price when they had it on. 

She quietly went back to the Prince’s bedroom in the small hours of the night, and she found him deeply asleep, still on the bed cover. First, she took a blanket from a chair in the room and put it on him, and she saw in the dim light of the dying fireplace that he had barely eaten. It was not too surprising - he rarely ate anything in these situations, but he would wake up with cravings and would certainly eat the rest in the morning. 

Careful not to make any sound, she placed the pieces of the armor on its stand. 

She realized that it was too late in the night for her to go to sleep - if she did, she would not be able to wake up early enough to come back here, open the curtains and prepare a bath for the Prince. So she closed the doors of the Prince’s bedroom behind her and used the last few hours she had before dawn to pick up her cleaning supplies and start cleaning the other rooms, so she could rest the next day instead. 

Her tired thoughts were confused and overlapped with each other as she went on cleaning. Sometimes she smiled like a honey pot, thinking about Nagadir. Other times, rage bubbled inside her chest again, recalling how all this mess and the Prince’s pain was certainly Cedric’s fault. She was not sure she would be able to stop herself from slapping his face the next time she crossed paths with him. That asshole really needed someone to throw a punch on his pretty face, and perhaps she could be the one to do this service to the community. 

At first light, she went to the Prince’s bedroom, crossed the room and went to prepare a bath in the washroom. When everything was ready, she came back to the bedroom and opened the curtains. As the Prince did not give any sign of waking up, she went to his bedside and laid a hand on his shoulder, as she usually did when he wouldn’t wake up. 

“My Prince…” she whispered. 

He opened his eyes. They were not rimmed with red anymore, a sign that the potion had worked. He blinked a couple of times, before his eyes focused on the surroundings and finally landed on her. For just one second, his eyes softened at her and the shadow of a smile curved his lips. “You saved my ass again,” he murmured. 

“I only do my job, Your Highness,” she whispered, standing up again and going to stand against the wall, waiting for him to tell her if she had to stay or if she was free to go. 

He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, and glanced first at the bed stand with the tray, then above his shoulder, to the corner of the room where the armor was shining. 

When he frowned at the armor, Naexi felt as if the floor was crumbling under her feet. Her gaze shot at the armor as well. Did she put it back in the wrong way? Had she missed a piece? Did she not polish it well? 

The Prince stood up and crossed the bedroom until he was close to the armor, inspecting it. His attention had been caught by the blue shoulder plates. 

“Who polished it?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the armor. 

Naexi’s first instinct was to lie. She could just blame the workers in the armory and say that she had no idea who exactly took care of the armor. But before she could say it, she realized that her lie would not survive for long. The Gods knew what kind of punishment the Prince would give the people in the armory, and it would certainly come up that they weren’t even there yesterday evening and that Naexi had told a lie. 

“I did, Your Highness,” she murmured. The Prince turned to look at her with a frown. “It was late, and the armory was closed,” she explained, staring at the floor. “The stable boy gave me the vinegar and I stayed here to do it myself so it could be ready today.” She glanced at the Prince again, and then looked down at the floor immediately as she saw that the frown was still there. “I- I apologize if it is not done well.”

“They always forget the spaulders,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you go to the military barracks? Someone should have been there.”

Naexi hesitated. What would be the consequence of telling the Prince that the guards did not let her through? Was she about to ruin someone else’s life? 

“Answer me,” the Prince demanded, with a tone that made her understand that it was either the guards or her. 

She had done nothing wrong. She looked at him again. “They wouldn’t let me pass.”

The Prince’s face was distorted by rage for a second. “I knew it, those fuckers,” he cursed. 

Relieved that there would be no punishment for her, Naexi suddenly felt tiredness take over her body. She hadn’t eaten anything yesterday evening, nor had she slept a single minute. She waited patiently in silence, hoping that the Prince would dismiss her. Unfortunately, he didn’t. He told her to help him get ready instead, so she obeyed and helped with the bath, with putting the armor on, and she combed his hair and braided it in the usual way. 

It was only when she was almost done with the braids and he was painting his eyelids with the black kohl that he halted and looked at her reflection in the mirror of the dressing table. 

“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asked. 

Naexi kept braiding his hair, without looking at him. “I will sleep later.”

She felt his gray eyes on her, studying her closely. Then he resumed painting his eyes as if nothing had happened. “Take the tray on the bed stand with you and eat something, I’m not hungry. I don’t want to see you here until tomorrow.”

Naexi’s hands froze and she stopped braiding his hair for a second. Was he… giving her a day off?

He answered her silent question. “I have no use for a dead maiden, so don’t come back until you can keep your eyes open.”

Nagadir was already at work in the Queen’s quarters when Naexi came back to their room. She ate some of the vegetable pie, and left the half-moons for when Nagadir would come back, then she finally slept for a few hours. In the afternoon, Naexi went to the bakery and stole some cookies from his dad’s production. She put them in a little bag and went to hang it on the door of the cottage where she knew Vathek lived, to thank him for his help. 

When Nagadir came back in the late afternoon, she beamed at Naexi. She was not angry at her for not having come back the night before, and Naexi couldn’t be happier to spend the entire evening with her and pick up from where they had left off. 

The next day, she went to take care of the Prince’s rooms as usual. The Prince had apparently reprised his duties as Vice Commander, so her schedule would finally go back to normal again. 

When she entered the dining room, she found two dresses on the table. She frowned, as these did not look like the robes the Prince wore, but rather like dresses for tiny ladies. One was green with silver decorations, the other one was purple with the same pattern of decorations, but in gold. They looked like they cost as much as the pay of two years of service. Her heart was thundering in her ears when she saw a piece of paper - a message - on the two dresses. 

For you and your friend.

A few weeks later, Nagadir came back to their room all squeaking and excited in the same way as she always did when she had overheard something very juicy. 

“What happened?” Naexi asked, already smiling, looking up from the skirt she was trying to patch. “Did they announce the name of the baby girl?”

Nagadir came to sit next to Naexi on the bed. “The Prince has been named Commander!”

Naexi gasped and they both almost started to jump on the bed. “Commander!” 

“Yes!” Nagadir exclaimed. “I was there, I saw it with my own eyes! The Queen called us all and made us follow her to the Champions’ room, and then she named him!”

“Oh, he must be so happy!” Naexi said. She did not expect to feel so happy about this achievement, but she really was. She looked forward to reassembling the armor of the Prince on the stand and to put the Commander shoulder plates on it. She would polish them every day, if the workers of the armory didn’t do it. “Who was named Vice?” 

Nagadir’s smile turned into a grimace. “Guess who…”

Naexi let out a snort. “Ugh. He will become even more insufferable now.”

Nagadir giggled. Over the years, she had been affected by Naexi’s dislike for Tea Boy. “As if he could become even more obnoxious.”  

Naexi would have expected the Prince to celebrate his appointment in some way, either by having some handsome guest for the night or by spending the evening drinking with Cedric. But when Naexi went to his quarters the day after the appointment, she did not find any signs that he had spent the night with anyone, nor that he had celebrated on his own. So she decided to do something nice for him instead, to show him that there was at least one person who was happy for him, since apparently his friend Cedric was not in his good books these days. 

She took care of his rooms as usual, but she also went to the bakery of the palace and then to the wine cellar, and pulled all the strings she could to get her hands on one of the bottles of wine she knew the Prince liked. 

When she was done and closed the doors of the quarters behind her, after having left a small refreshment with everything she knew the Prince appreciated, she felt as if she had really achieved something with her life - as if she was living a dream she had never thought was even possible. 

She would have never imagined, back then, that this was only the beginning of the Prince’s downfall.

Chapter Text

The Queen and the Consort are dead.

The sentence echoed in Naexi’s mind as she ran in the halls of the palace, together with the other two servants who had come to the common room to tell everyone the news. 

The Queen and the Consort are dead. 

The hall in front of the Queen’s quarters was crammed with people. Council members, guards, servants, the ambassadors who were staying in the castle these days, and of course - the Champions. They were in the first line, in front of the door, listening to what the High Priest was saying. 

Naexi tiptoed and craned her neck to see better and to scan the faces of everyone wearing a silver armor. Cedric was on the front, wearing his new blue spaulders of Vice Commander, frowning at the High Priest. The Prince was not there.

Next to the group of Champions, the maidens were all standing there, looking down at the floor. They had already changed into black aprons. Her heart squeezed as she saw Nagadir’s face streaked with tears. What will become of them now? Will they all take turns taking care of little Princess Elyon? Who was taking care of the baby now? 

When the High Priest left, people started to leave the halls as well. The maidens were the first ones to leave, followed by the members of the Council. As the view was cleared between Naexi and the Champions, she inevitably crossed gaze with Cedric. 

For the first time since they knew each other, neither of them scowled. Neither of them grimaced in disgust. Naexi saw fear cross Cedric’s face, and she knew it matched the fear that was painted on hers. 

The Prince will be regent.

Naexi started to walk backwards, still looking at Cedric. 

And he’s completely alone now.

Cedric probably had to stay with the Champions for a while. Naexi didn’t know how things worked when a Queen died, but she was sure that the maidens and the Champions were the last ones to be released of their duties and left free to grief. But someone had to go to see the Prince, to check that he was alright, to see if he needed anything. And the Prince didn’t have anyone except her and Cedric, so now it was her turn to go. 

She ran to the Prince’s quarters. She would have never entered without being sure that he was not there, but this was an emergency, so she went inside. Only to find the rooms empty. He was not there. 

So she ran down the stairs, crossed halls, almost stumbled to get outside the palace. Outside, it was getting dark and it was pouring. She’d never seen so much rain in Meridian. And it was cold - too cold for the Thoron season. 

The Queen and the Consort are dead. 

And the sky of Metamoor was crying for them. 

She was soaking wet when she reached the hedge of the Prince’s garden. There was not much light, but she could see his figure, sitting on a bench. She hurried to him and kneeled in front of him, trying to search his eyes. How long had he been here, outside? He was soaked too, his hair plastered on his drenched robe and falling in wet chunks on the bench. 

“Your Highness…”

No response. 

The Prince didn’t even seem to have noticed her, even now that she was kneeling in front of him. She dared to touch him, taking his hands. He kept staring in front of him, unseeing. 

Oh Gods…

“My Prince…”

Nothing. Tears started to mix with the water that ran down her face. Was this the end? Was he gone, too? 

“The palace, Your Highness… Meridian needs you,” she whimpered. 

He blinked. His pupils shrunk, as if his sight was focusing again, and then he saw her. 

She tried to smile. “Your Highness!”

“I don’t want to see anyone,” he said, his voice flat. 

She squeezed his hand. She didn’t care if she was overstepping - she could not let him drift off again. “Then you don’t have to. But please, my Prince, don’t stay here in the rain. I can take care of you.”

For a second, she had the impression that he squeezed her hand in return. “The palace can’t see me like this,” he whispered. “Nobody can. You…” 

His eyes snapped at her, the pupils dilated again. He jumped to his feet, making her lose balance and fall on the gravel path, hitting the ground with her lower back. She crawled backwards, looking up at him with wide eyes. 

“You can’t see me like this,” he growled. His eyes were… flaring. Perhaps it was only Naexi’s imagination, but she thought the gray around his pupils was now glowing. And then- 

And then his hands were really glowing, a pale blue halo surrounding them. 

“No…” she whimpered, and frantically crawled away from him. She got on all fours, and then finally she stood up and ran away, to the small gate of the garden. She was almost there, her hand reaching out for the gate, when vines slithered from the hedge and formed a cage around it, closing her only way out of the garden. 

“No…” she murmured again as she reached the caged gate and  turned, flattening her body against it. 

Prince Phobos was slowly walking towards her, with terrifying rage in his eyes, and the beams that lightened up in his hands made her tremble like a leaf. 

“My Prince…” she repeated, but her whisper was carried away by the loud downpour of rain. She hadn’t been scared of the Prince for a long time by now. The last time she’d felt really scared had been that day a few years ago, when she’d found him in his quarters and he’d told her she would work only for him. After that, the Prince had always been nice to her, or neutral at least, and she never understood why everyone else in the palace was so frightened in his presence. 

Now, she feared he would kill her. What if… No- she couldn’t even bring herself to formulate the terrible thought that he could have done something unspeakable, that he could be the reason why Nagadir was now wearing a black apron and crying.

She made herself small against the gate, shaking her head. She could not believe the Prince was capable of doing that - not to the Queen, and not to her. “Please, Your Highness…”

He was within arms reach when his eyes went back to normal and the beams vanished, and the garden was again semi-dark. His pupils seemed to focus again, and his eyes went wide, his mouth half-open, as if he couldn’t believe what he was doing a moment ago either. 

“Naexi…” he whispered. 

She was still shivering against the gate. Would he attack her again if she touched him now? What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t leave even if she wanted to. 

He’s alone.

She reached out with a trembling hand and took his hand again. 

She accompanied the Prince to his quarters with a hand around his arm and fighting to hold the tears that desperately wanted to burst from her eyes, now that the rush of panic was fading away. Upon her suggestion, the Prince had glamoured himself so he would look like a servant to everyone who would encounter them in the halls, but they did not find many people on their way. The palace had fallen in a sad silence, and even the lights that illuminated the corridors and the halls had dimmed. 

She took the Prince to the parlor with the biggest fireplace. The Prince stood numbly in the middle of the room while she used her magic to tell the fire to grow and bring some more warmth to the rooms. 

“I will prepare a bath,” she said, turning to leave the parlor. 

“No,” the Prince halted her. “I just need… something dry. And-”

He did not finish the sentence, as if the words died in his throat. Naexi hurried to the dressing room and picked a clean robe and a headpiece, then she grabbed a hairbrush and went back to the parlor. She found the prince sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace, his legs crossed under his drenched robe, and his face hidden in his palms. She’d never seen him sitting on the floor, let alone like this. 

“Your Highness…” she whispered. 

“Leave it on the couch,” he said, without moving or turning to look at her. “You’re dismissed.”

His words hit her like a punch in her stomach. Dismissed, now? “But-”

“I said you’re dismissed.”

Naexi could not sleep that night. 

Nagadir came back late and without saying a word, she crawled on the bed next to her in the dark. They both cried in silence for the Queen, holding each other tightly. Naexi fell into slumber from time to time, only to jerk awake at the image of the flaring eyes of the Prince. She wondered what he was doing, if he had put the dry clothes on, combed his hair on his own, and if he could sleep. Something told her that he could not - and that he would likely need a potion in the morning. 

In the morning, she went to the bakery. She found Raywin alone, her dad was not there yet. Like everyone she’d encountered on her way, Raywin, too, looked sad and grim. Who didn’t? But he was working nevertheless - everyone was. The palace was like a small version of the Meridian city, and the activities that kept it alive could never stop. 

Naexi and Raywin greeted each other with a sad smile, but they did not speak. She took a plate and filled it with some buns and half-moons, then she went to the Prince’s quarters. 

And on her way, she stumbled upon the last person she would have wanted to see leaving the Prince’s rooms. 

Wearing only the dark green clothes the Champions wore under the armor and carrying in his hands the pieces of the armor he was not wearing, Cedric looked as if he’d been run over by a carriage pulled by a dozen horses. He was so pale he almost looked gray, his hair usually as smooth as silk was a mess of tangles and he had dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes. A sign that whatever had reduced him to this state was very recent, if he hadn’t given himself a makeover using his powers yet. 

Cedric gave her a look that seemed to tell her ‘say a word and you’re dead’ as he passed her, so Naexi thought better than to say anything or even greet him. 

Her empty stomach shifted with unease as she slowly put the pieces together and realized what must have happened during the night. 

She was about to open the doors of the Prince’s quarters, when the image of the evening before, of his eyes glowing with fury and his hands lit up with beams ready to strike, made her hand freeze. 

How had she forgotten that the Prince was one of the most powerful mages in Metamoor - second only to the Queen? How stupid was she, carelessly entering his quarters, managing them as if she was the mistress of those spaces, when the man who inhabited them could have killed her with a flick of his wrist?

Naexi.

The Prince’s voice filled the air surrounding her, calling her. 

For the first time, she hesitated.

She had the impression of being observed - two gray eyes looking at her, with expectation and hope.

Was he going to hurt her? 

Please, the voice said.

No, the Prince would never do this to her. He was alone, and he needed his maiden.

The study looked just like she expected. Empty bottles, two goblets, and stains of red wine here and there on the table and on the carpet.

Maybe it was not like she thought and they only sat here and drank for the entire night, maybe-

Her body went rigid when she saw the bedroom, and she found the Prince there, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding his head in his hands, the satin robe open but at least covering what was not supposed to be seen. The signs were all there - the bed was a mess, the blue robe that Naexi had picked for him the evening before was tossed on the floor, the headpiece thrown in another corner, and the jar that usually stayed in the parlor for the Prince’s encounters was there, on the floor, open.

You violated his bedroom, you bastard.

She focused her attention on the Prince. Her anger at Cedric would do him no good. His Highness needed help, and he needed her to understand what to do without being told. 

Breakfast. He needed to eat. And to drink water. A potion. A bath. And-

A knock on the entrance door made her jolt. 

Who dared coming to the Prince’s quarters?

The Prince slowly lifted his head from his hands, looking in the direction of the door. 

“Your Highness,” came a male voice from outside, then another knock. “Your Highness, your presence is required.”

At the third knock, as Phobos did not give any sign of moving from the bed, Naexi crossed the rooms with long strides and opened the door for the minimum necessary to see who was knocking. 

It was the High Priest. 

“Move along, girl,” the old man scolded her. “The Council awaits the Prince.”

“The Prince will come when he says so,” Naexi said. 

“And who gave you permission to talk like this?” the High Priest snapped. “The Prince will come now. It is his duty.”

Naexi clenched her jaw. “And who are you going to complain to if he doesn’t?” her words left her mouth before she could hold them back. 

Oh Gods, I just snarled at the High Priest.

The High Priest looked at her with wide eyes for a moment, then his face was distorted by rage. “Watch how you speak, servant! Know where your place is.”

Naexi straightened her back, trying to look confident. “My place is exactly where I stand now, because I’m the Prince regent’s maiden and I only respond to him. And now you respond to the Prince regent, too. He will come when he deems appropriate.”

She slammed the door shut before the High Priest could say anything, then leaned against it, panting. 

When her breath and her heartbeat slowed down, she noticed that the Prince was standing in the vault between the entry hall and the study, watching her. 

“I knew I could count on you,” he said, and those words were enough for Naexi to find her strength again. 

“You need to eat, Your Highness,” she said. “I will take care of the rest.”

She left him in the dining room in front of the plate she had brought from the bakery, a glass and a jug of water. There was no time to stay there and check that he would actually eat - something she doubted he would do anyway - so she ran to the alchemist’s lab. She was lucky, and Lhoris was there alone. 

“I need something stronger,” she told him when she entered the lab. “Something that holds him together while waiting for the potion to have its effect. He needs to stay focused, he has a lot to do now.”

As Lhoris hesitated, she realized that it had been a while since the last time she had given him something in exchange for his help. Nagadir did not like it, of course, but she had understood that it was important that Naexi could control the alchemist to make him do what she wanted. “Tonight. I’ll come to your room, I promise. I just… I don’t have time now,” she said.

Lhoris shook himself and went to the cabinet that they kept closed with a lock - the one where the alchemists kept everything that should never leave their lab. “Please, give a good word for me to His Majesty,” he said in a whisper when he came back.

Naexi froze. His Majesty. The way Lhoris was looking at her with fear. How he was pleading, asking her for help. At that moment, she understood what was happening - what had already happened.

The Prince was regent, he was His Majesty, and everyone’s job was at risk, because he could do anything he wanted with their lives. 

And she… she was His Majesty’s one and only maiden.

“I… I will,” she said, taking the two bottles he was handing her. One was the usual fluorescent green potion, the other one was dark purple. 

When she came back, the Prince was still in the dining room, but he hadn’t touched the food. He had drunk some water, though, and at least that was good news. He eyed the new potion with curiosity. 

“You need strength, Your Majesty,” she said. His gaze snapped at her as she said Your Majesty. Had he not realized yet who he had just become?

The Prince did not say a word while she helped him get ready. He didn’t even comment or have a say on her choice for the robe. He did not have many black robes, as black was an unusual color choice for Meridian and was reserved for situations like this one, when there was someone to grieve for. But he had a few, and she picked the one she considered the most beautiful - the one that would tell the Council that they had to respect him. 

“Thank you, Naexi,” the Prince murmured, before he left his rooms, leaving Naexi to her job of cleaning his quarters. He thanked her very rarely, and every time he did, Naexi locked those words in her heart.

In the weeks that followed, the Prince regained a bit of his spirit from time to time, also thanks to the purple tonics that Naexi was able to provide him with. But his energy and good mood - if the Prince’s mood could ever be defined as good - were always short-lived. He was busy, barely had the time to eat and sleep, and most of all, Cedric was poisoning him with his constant presence at night.

Naexi encountered him more often than necessary as he sneaked out of the Prince’s quarters early in the morning, and she hated to clean up the rooms after he’d been there. She detested that the Prince was allowing him to stay in his bedroom instead of using the parlor like he did with anyone else. What did Cedric have that was so special that he could enter the Prince’s most private spaces? 

But what made Naexi’s bile come up was not just the fact that the two were having sex. She could have accepted it, if at least it gave the Prince some comfort, some relief from his worries. What Naexi couldn’t stand was that this relationship was destroying the Prince. It was destroying Cedric, too, and she could see it from how devastated he looked day after day, but she didn’t care if Cedric was suffering. She only cared about the Prince, and this had to stop.

She was becoming bitter and unhappy, too, and this showed in her life with Nagadir. She hated Cedric even more, now that his behavior was affecting her so much that it was making her fight and argue with the other half of her soul. She blamed Tea Boy for every single tear on Nagadir’s face.

Things started to change in the palace in the weeks that followed the Queen’s death. The maidens took turns in taking care of the baby Princess, but soon they started to be restless and afraid that the Prince would send them away, now that there was no Queen anymore and her quarters were empty. The other servants were scared, too, because the Prince did not seem too inclined to have as many guests and as many ceremonies as the Queen did, which meant that there was much less to do for the cooks, the bakers, the gardeners and the staff in charge of cleaning and laundry. Naexi did not fear for her job, but she did fear for the people she loved and cared about - Nagadir, her parents, Raywin, and even Lhoris. 

The Champions were nowhere to be seen. It was strange not to see their shiny armors around in the palace, and rumors were spreading that the Prince had killed them all and had only spared Cedric and the former Commander. Naexi did not give credit to these conspiracies. The Prince would have never done this to his companions. 

But then, the Council members stopped coming to the palace as well and the rumors intensified. Some people said that they had fled. Others were convinced that the Prince had eaten them alive. And others claimed that the Prince had a secret prison, and that he turned his prisoners into flowers while sending their souls to this prison of nothingness, where they would break apart. According to these rumors, the souls of both the Champions and the members of the Council were trapped in this prison, while their bodies were now part of the Prince’s garden.

One day, Naexi went to clean the Prince’s rooms as usual, and she stumbled upon him in the study.

“Your Highness!” she breathed. “I- I’m sorry, I did not expect to find you still here. I will come back later.”

He reached out with a hand before she could leave. “Wait, you may stay. Just do what you have to do, it won’t bother me.”

She looked at him with her mouth half open, uncertain as to what to do. Cleaning while he was in the rooms? It sounded like the most uncomfortable situation she could ever find herself in.

“Please, go ahead,” he said, waving with a hand towards the rest of the room. 

In silence, and a bit hesitant at first, Naexi started with her usual routine when she cleaned the rooms. She always started with dusting the entry hall, although there was not much to be dusted since she did it every day. She was cleaning the dining table with a cloth when she realized that the Prince was leaning against the vault that separated the room from the entry hall. She felt uncomfortable, as if he was examining how she cleaned his spaces. A sudden dread assaulted her - what if he was considering getting rid of her and hiring the Queen’s maidens instead? There was no Queen anymore, and he could have all her maidens if he wanted to. A group of trained girls, used to work in a team and in much bigger rooms, who could clean, change bed sheets, tidy up, and take care of his baths, his hair, his skin, his nails, in a much more efficient way than how she did on her own. 

“I have always wondered how you do all this,” the Prince said, making her freeze. “Go ahead,” he said as he realized that she’d stopped cleaning the table. 

She resumed cleaning. 

“You know what I found out?” he asked after a while, while she was turning over the chairs, putting them on the table so she could clean the marble floor below. She didn’t answer. She could not figure out what was even happening - why was the Prince staying there and, most of all, why was he talking to her as if he was talking to a friend over wine, and she was not sure if she was supposed to answer. 

“I found out that being Regent sucks,” he went on. “All the free time I had before? Gone. My roses are fuckin’ dying, Naexi.”

Again, she did not speak. What was she even supposed to say? 

“I had to hire a gardener, for Imdahl’s thunders!” he cursed, throwing his hands in the air. “Oh, but if that Daltar lets even a single one of my roses die, I’ll show him…” 

The Prince followed Naexi room after room, and kept talking - or rather rambling - about how much stuff he had to do now. He thought being Commander was already a pain in the arse - his words - but sitting on the throne was even worse. Especially now that he had to do everything on his own, without a Council. 

“Do you think I made a mistake, by sending the Council to the Silverhold?” he asked while she was desperately trying to erase a stain of red wine from the carpet and wondering why he had the time to stay in his rooms and ramble for hours if he was as busy as he said. 

What did he just say?! 

The Silverhold… she had heard this name. The people who claimed that Phobos had created a prison in a different dimension for the souls of the people who displeased him, also claimed that the name of such prison was Silverhold. 

It was real, then. And if he’d sent the Council there, perhaps he’d sent the Champions, too. And perhaps he planned to send the servants he didn’t need as well. 

“Uh… Of course not, my Prince,” she said, her voice trembling as she reprised scrubbing the carpet. “You never make mistakes.”

The Prince hummed, and Naexi wanted to believe it was with satisfaction. He started to pace in the study. “I need to be careful, Naexi. I need the support of the other cities, and I need more eyes, more ears… Perhaps I need new servants. How am I supposed to do this otherwise?”

New servants… 

Naexi went on cleaning with double the energy as before, while her mind raced and she thought about ways to make herself indispensable for him, so he wouldn’t send her away and replace her with the Queen’s maidens. 

But the Prince did not send her away, nor did he replace her. Instead, as the weeks passed, she found him in the rooms early in the morning, when she went to clean, more and more often. As he kept staying there, watching her clean and giving her his speeches, she understood that she was not the one who was being replaced. 

Cedric was. 

The two were still spending their nights together, but apparently their relationship had morphed into something that did not allow the Prince to use Cedric’s ear as a soundboard for his projects and ideas, or just for venting. 

Naexi got the confirmation that things were not as serene as they used to be with Cedric when, one day, the Prince started to complain about him. According to the Prince, Cedric was always moping around, always dragging him down with depressing thoughts instead of lifting his spirit. 

“I gave him everything,” he complained. “Power, my company, my bed, the Commander’s quarters… and he has the audacity to complain.”

Naexi always listened in silence, without interrupting her work, and only spoke when asked directly, and always along the lines of ‘Of course, Your Highness’. Until one day, he asked her the only question she dreaded. 

“So tell me, Naexi,” he said, sitting on the couch with a cup of tea in his hand. “What do you think of him?”

She pretended to have no idea who he was talking about and just kept dusting. “Of him?”

“Of Cedric. You live in the servants’ wing, don’t you? So you must have known him for a while.”

Naexi cleared her throat, looking for the right lie. “He was a very loyal Champion. He is surely a good lieutenant now.”

The Prince hummed, and she felt his stare on her. He definitely had to know she was lying. “Is he, though?” he said, turning thoughtful. 

Naexi cast him a quick glance. Perhaps there was hope to make Cedric stop poisoning the Prince, if she played her cards right. 

She started to set her plan in motion the next day. She hummed with agreement every time the Prince complained about something that concerned Cedric. And when asked, she told him that perhaps Cedric was an unproductive distraction, and that the Prince deserved someone who would admire him and support him, not slow him down. 

Triumph bloomed in her chest when she noticed, on the third day, that Cedric had not been there the night before. She still had some work to do if she wanted to stir things such that the Prince would really let him go, but one night apart was already a start. 

But Naexi did not have the time to bring her plan to an end, as fate always had other plans when it concerned Prince Phobos. 

The next day, she was woken up at dawn by Nagadir running into their room, panicking and crying, and telling her that Princess Elyon had been taken away.

Chapter Text

When the Queen died, Naexi had her suspicions that this was the beginning of the end. 

Now, with the Princess’s disappearance, she was certain that this was the end. It was not clear if she had been kidnapped, murdered or if she had just disappeared into thin air, but it was clear that former Commander Alborn, his wife Captain Miriadel and Lady Galgheita had something to do with it, because they had disappeared with her. 

This was just the last push that Prince Phobos needed. 

For the first time in years of serving him, Naexi could not open the doors of his quarters. They were locked - and her key did not work, because they were locked with magic. 

Panic started to rise. 

She had been locked out, and he was probably locked in - on purpose. Was he alone? Or was Cedric there? 

She started to pace in the hall in front of the door, nervously biting the nail of her thumb. What if he was alone? Or even worse - what if he had disappeared, too? 

The thought made her knees buckle. What would she do, if the Prince disappeared? What would they all do, if the last two members of the Escanor family were gone? Would Meridian just fall - would they all lose their magic? Something like this had of course never happened in history: there was always at least one Escanor in the palace. 

Maybe he’s just there with Cedric and they don’t want to be disturbed…

She was just starting to calm down at the thought that the Prince perhaps had reconnected with Cedric and merely wanted some privacy with his lover, and that he didn’t even know about his sister yet, when said lover came running to the halls, flanked by Vathek. 

It was still strange, even after weeks, to see Cedric wear robes instead of armor, and very expensive-looking ones no less. His gaze hardened immediately when he saw that she was there, in front of the door. 

“They’re locked with magic,” she said as Cedric tried to open the door. 

“What did you do?” he hissed at her. 

Naexi frowned. “Me?! I can barely light a fire, that’s not my magic, you moron!”

“Watch your mouth,” he snarled, and he came towards her pointing a threatening finger at her. Behind him, Vathek followed with an expression that betrayed how uncomfortable he was. 

As Cedric came closer, Naexi noticed how red his eyes were, and the dark circles below. He looked pale, and his cheeks were hollow. Couldn’t he always camouflage these things with his magic? Why was he not doing it anymore?

“What. Did you. Do,” he growled. 

She started to back away as he kept coming closer. If he lost his temper, she would probably be dead in a minute. He was powerful, both physically and with magic, and he had a sidekick who was three times her size. But she wouldn’t go down without a fight - not if she had the chance to at least scratch Tea Boy’s pretty face. 

“I only did my job. Cleaning. Because you know, some of us still need a job.”

“YOU POISONED HIM!” Cedric yelled. She hit a column with her back. As she saw his hand shooting forward, aiming at her neck, her hand reacted first. She had long and sharp nails, and before she even realized what she’d done, a bloody scratch had appeared on Cedric’s cheek. She took advantage of his surprise to push him, sending him to clash against his giant friend, and she freed herself from the cage he was trapping her in. 

“I ONLY CLEAN,” she shouted back. “If anyone has poisoned him, that’s you, Tea Boy,” she spat his nickname. “And that’s because you always think with your dick and not with your head!”

When Cedric turned to face her again, the whites of his eyes were almost crimson. 

A terrifying roar came from his mouth, and then a wave of scales started to close on his skin, and-

Naexi gasped in horror, staggering back as a tremendously huge creature loomed on her in the hall. A naga. She had heard the rumors, and had never believed it was true that Cedric could transform into something like that. 

“How dare you, filthy wraith,” he growled, his voice monstrously distorted. 

She kept walking backwards, unable to turn and run away. When the monster’s clawed hands lit up with two green beams, she knew it was the end. 

I can’t believe I’ll die roasted by Tea Boy…

And she hadn’t done anything wrong. It was unfair - so unfair, that a monster like Cedric had been blessed with tremendous powers that he could use to climb his way up in the palace, while she had been given nothing, barely the ability to warm up a room, and couldn’t even defend herself. 

A shadow appeared between her and Cedric, and she suddenly couldn’t see him anymore. She realized only on a second glance that she was looking at Vathek’s back. 

“Enough with this bullshit!” Vathek shouted. 

“Get out of the way, Vathek, this is none of your business,” the monster spat. 

“It is my business, if you hurt this girl and then I have to pick up your pieces when you realize what you have done,” Vathek said, now suddenly calm. 

She was too small to see Cedric’s face beyond Vathek. All she could see was his impressive snake tail, slithering and twitching on the floor. The sight of the scales made the content of her stomach swirl and come up. 

Her breath hitched, her heart slammed against her ribcage, and the images around her started to blur. The scales… so many scales. She couldn’t make out much of the rest of the dialogue between the two, and the next thing she saw was Cedric, back to his usual looks, dragged away by Vathek and shouting at him. 

When Naexi found herself curled up in the corner of the hall, against the wall, with her hands on her ears, she didn’t know how she’d ended up there. She’d been so scared she just blacked out until it was over. 

But now, nobody was in the hall. She would not try to open the doors of the Prince’s quarters again. They were surrounded by a blue glow, a sign that they were still locked with magic. She would go to her room and she wouldn’t leave it until she’d calmed down. And not without a knife hidden in her corset. 

Did he hurt you? 

The Prince’s voice in her head made her flinch. She shook her head. 

“Your Highness?” she asked the empty halls, as the Prince’s voice fell silent. 

No answer. 

The next day, Naexi brought Nagadir with her to wait in the hall for a sign from the Prince. Nagadir was furious when Naexi had told her what happened with Cedric, and she had insisted to accompany her - in case Tea Boy would show up again. Not that Nagadir could do much against him either, but perhaps Cedric would think twice before hurting not one, but two maidens for no reason other than being frustrated that his lover was not opening the door. 

Cedric appeared, always accompanied by Vathek. Nagadir and Naexi sat at the opposite corner of the halls, their hands clasped together and ready to bolt away at the first sign of danger. 

But Cedric didn’t even say a word. He just sat in his corner with Vathek, and waited.

They did the same on the third day. And then on the fourth day. 

On the fifth day, Naexi started to wonder why she was even going, and why Cedric was doing the same. Without the Prince’s quarters to take care of, Naexi was at least as unemployed as Nagadir and all of the Queen’s maidens were. But Cedric? He was supposed to be Phobos’s lieutenant now, the one who took care of things. Why was he sitting there with her the whole day? Didn’t he have papers to sign on the Prince’s behalf? Or taxes to collect? Orders to give? 

Perhaps he had no idea of what really had to be done, because the Prince was doing everything on his own, and Cedric’s role was only a formality. Or perhaps Cedric’s tasks had nothing to do with the administration of the palace, and he was taking care of some other business that happened far away from the walls that Naexi considered her only home. 

Finally, at sunset on the fifth day, the door opened. Naexi and Cedric jumped to their feet, followed closely by Nagadir and Vathek. Naexi’s heart picked up the pace as she waited for the Prince to come outside. 

The disappointment when the creature that stepped outside the room was not him made her realize how much she had wanted to see the Prince, to check that he was fine, that he had been eating. 

The creature that came out of the door was humanoid and androgynous, their skin green and splotched with lighter patches, their eyes green, too, and with long pale blonde hair. They did not wear any clothes, but they didn’t have breasts or anything between their legs. And they smelled like leaves. 

“Greetings, servants,” the creature said. Even their voice was neither male nor female, and as they spoke, Naexi had the impression of hearing an echo made of a thousand whispers. 

“And who the fuck are you?” Cedric spat. 

Naexi grabbed Nagadir’s hand, and pulled her close to her. The creature was creepy, and she wasn’t sure that addressing them as Cedric was doing was a good idea. 

“Careful, shapeshifter,” the creature said. “I am a Murmurer. My siblings and I are His Majesty’s new eyes and ears, and you, Cedric of Meridian, will only speak to us before you are allowed to His presence.”

“What?!” Cedric hissed. 

“Are you hard of hearing? Perhaps I should repeat myself.”

Naexi felt a shift in the air, and a moment later, Cedric was pressing his palms on his ears, bending forward and groaning in pain as if he was hearing a loud screech. 

When whatever was torturing Cedric faded away and the shapeshifter was standing again, the Murmurer nodded with satisfaction. “Very good. Now, about you,” their eyes snapped to Naexi. “You will continue to clean these rooms for His Majesty. But you won’t do anything else. We will take care of him. You are expected to come here every morning at dawn and be done by noon at the latest. Is that clear?”

As Naexi hesitated, looking at the creature with wide eyes, whispers started to fill the air. Is that clear? Clear? Is that clear? At dawn. Is that clear? 

“Yes, it’s clear,” she whispered. 

The Prince was nowhere to be seen in the months that followed. Naexi went to clean his quarters every day at dawn, as she had been ordered, and she had to swallow the discomfort of having to do it under the careful watch of one, sometimes two of those creatures that smelled like roots and leaves. Every day, there was a different one. They all looked similar to each other - all androgynous, tall and slender, with long hair, but their color palette was different, and taken together they reminded her of a bouquet of flowers. 

The palace was falling into an even grimmer slumber as it had done right after the Queen had died. Nobody smiled anymore, and even the common room of the servants was always silent. Everyone feared for their job, because there was really not that much to be done. On the top of that, a platoon of monstrous guards had appeared overnight, and their main task appeared to be scaring people, bringing prisoners in and obey to anything Cedric said. 

The Queen’s maidens kept cleaning all the rooms of the palace every day to keep themselves busy, but Nagadir was worried that one of those monstrous guards would come to take her away any time now. Naexi was worried for her, too, so she convinced her dad to take her in as an apprentice in the bakery, because even without a Queen and a baby Princess, as long as someone lived in the palace, there would always be a need for bread. 

The silent sadness in the palace turned into panic when people started to disappear. Then, so many prisoners were brought in from the city that a new external prison was now being built outside the palace. Every day, someone was arrested for conspiracy against the crown. And bringing the people in were always the scary guards, and sometimes Cedric and Vathek in person. 

Naexi and Cedric were the only ones who seemed to be spared by these changes, as they still had their tasks to do, and were allowed to at least speak with the eerie Murmurers, who were now a constant presence in every corner of the palace. Naexi’s privileged position was certainly not helping her relationship with the other servants, and things only became more complicated when one day, a Murmurer gave her the keys to the Light’s Maid rooms, where Dhoria used to live before, and told her she had to move in there, and that she was allowed to bring her friend along. When Naexi asked what happened to Dhoria, the Murmurer did not answer and simply walked away. 

Nagadir was not happy at all at the idea of moving into Dhoria’s rooms, especially since they had no idea of what had happened to her. 

“It just feels… wrong,” she said as they looked around the rooms. The Light’s Maid’s rooms were nothing compared to the Prince’s or the Commander’s quarters, of course. It was merely a bigger bedroom, similar to the ones in the guest wing, with an entry hall and a small washroom. Nevertheless, for two women who had always lived in the servants’ wing, queuing with the other servants to use a lavatory or a bathtub, having a private one felt like having just moved into the Queen’s apartments. 

“If one of us had become Light’s Maid, I would be thrilled to move in here,” Nagadir went on, sitting on the big bed and bouncing on it to test it. They would now have a giant bed, instead of two tiny separate beds. “But like this, it feels like we didn’t earn it.”

Nagadir’s words hurt Naexi as if she’d just punched her in her stomach. “I’m the Prince’s only maiden, and he is the regent of the crown. This makes me the Light’s Maid, Nagadir.”

“But the Prince is not the Light of Meridian. He’s just… the Prince.” 

Another punch in her stomach. “I worked my ass off to earn his trust, why do you always have to drag it down like this?” she blurted. “Just because he’s a man, it doesn’t mean that his maiden cannot be the Light’s Maid. I do so much more on my own than all of you put together!” 

Nagadir jumped to her feet, her jaw dropped in outrage. “How dare you talk like this of the Queen’s maidens! You’re just jealous because you were never chosen!”

“Jealous?!” Naexi let out a bitter chuckle. “Oh no, I think you and your girlfriends are the ones who are jealous. I have access to everything. I hear everything. The Prince talks to me. How many times did the Queen ever talk to you?”

Nagadir’s face was distorted by rage for a moment, and then she showed her teeth as she sneered, “Well, it seems that now your dear Prince is not talking to you either.”

At that, Naexi was at a loss for words. Nagadir was right - the Prince wasn’t talking to her, and it had been a long time since the last time she’d heard his voice in her head, calling her to help him. And she felt miserable. She missed him. She missed his presence, she missed taking care of his hair, doing his nails, choosing his clothes, opening the curtains when it was time to get up, bringing him something to eat. She was not indispensable anymore, now that he had those creatures around. She was sure that the reason why they were observing her while she cleaned was that one day, they would take care of the rooms in her place. But if they were learning from her how to clean, where did they learn how to braid his hair? Where did they learn what tea he liked, or what oils he preferred for his skin? 

“I’m moving in here,” she said through gritted teeth in the end. “You’re free to join me, if you want.” She turned on her heels and headed back to the servants’ quarters to pack her few things. 

The rage made space to regret, and then to pure sadness as she finished packing her belongings. She was weeping in silence and cleaning her side of the room when she turned, and the figure that occupied the doorframe made her jolt and let the broomstick fall to the floor. 

“What are you doing here?” she muttered, wiping away her tears with her palms. The last person she wanted to see right now was Cedric, and he was standing right there, in front of her open door. 

“Go away, I’m already having enough of a bad day,” she said, picking up the broomstick from the floor and turning her back to him. She froze when she heard the door slam shut and steps coming inside. 

“You know, Vathek has a soft spot for you,” Cedric said, his tone venomous. “But he’s not here to protect you now. And neither is your pretty girlfriend.”

Still facing away from him, Naexi held the broomstick tighter for a moment, as if it could serve as a weapon. It could not, and she had no way to defend herself if Cedric decided to attack her. Why was he even so angry at her? She hadn’t done anything to him. If she had to go down, she at least needed to know why. 

She turned to face him. “Before you do whatever you have come here to do, may I ask you something?”

He kept coming forward and once again, she noticed that his eyes were red, surrounded by dark circles, and his cheeks were hollow. Even his hair looked less shiny than usual. “Go ahead.”

“What the fuck is your problem? I never did anything to you!”

He stopped advancing towards her abruptly, narrowing his eyes. “You want to know what’s my problem with you?” His face was distorted by anger first, then his eyes widened. He looked as if he was about to have a breakdown. Or maybe he was having a breakdown. “I’m going to tell you what’s my problem with you,” he said, and started to pace in the room. Suddenly he did not look angry anymore. He looked nervous, frantic. “Oh yes, I’m going to tell you.”

Alright, that’s really a nervous breakdown, Naexi thought, and she couldn’t help but feel relieved. 

His head snapped at her. “You have something I will never have, Naexi,” he hissed. “You have him. I don’t.”

Naexi opened her mouth to retort, but Cedric suddenly reminded her of the Prince, all those weeks ago, when he paced in the rooms while she cleaned, rambling and venting about how stressed out he was. 

“I would throw myself in a fire for him, Naexi,” he went on. “I would do the most despicable things. I DID the most despicable things,” his voice came out rough, and broke. “All those people who disappeared? I brought them to him.” He sobbed. “I watched as he shattered people and put their souls into the Silverhold. I complimented him. All this, only to have him look at me. And then I receive nothing. NOTHING,” the last word came out in a growl with the same monstrous voice as when he had transformed into the naga. Another sob, and rage tears appeared in his eyes. “You, instead… you don’t even have to suck his cock to get his attention!”

Naexi found herself breathing fast, her heart picking up pace, and a lump forming in her throat. She did not want to feel compassion for Cedric, but the look in his eyes… the pain in his voice, and how he didn’t even bother using his powers to conceal how Phobos’s distance was hurting him, all made her realize that she and Cedric were not so different after all. They both loved the Prince, deeply, unconditionally, and they were both suffering because they didn’t know what they had done to deserve his absence in their lives. 

“You have to tell me, Naexi,” he came closer to her now, his eyes wide and crazy. “You have to tell me what he’s doing.”

The lump in her throat turned into tears in her eyes again. She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since before the Princess disappeared,” she said, her voice trembling. “And I haven’t heard his voice ever since.”

“LIAR!” Cedric shouted, again with the monstrous voice, making her stagger back. “I know you see him, I know you talk to him. You just want to keep him for yourself!”

Naexi let out a sob, tears now flowing down her cheeks. “No, I don’t… And I’m scared, Cedric. I’m SCARED!” she shouted, and this time it was his turn to flinch. “The Murmurers say they are taking care of him, and that I should only clean, but I don’t know what they are doing! I never see plates. I never see glasses. I never see a single hair on a brush,” she wiped away her tears with the palm of her hand again. “Is he eating? Are they taking care of him? I don’t know and I’m afraid that he’s suffering, and that he’s alone!”

Her sobs cut off her words. When she looked at Cedric, she saw he was crying, too. “Look how pathetic we are,” he said. 

She launched forward and grabbed his arms, shaking him. “We have to help him, Cedric,” she said. “We cannot leave him!”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, then he freed himself from her grip. “But I’ll do whatever he asks of me.” Then he turned and left her room. 

Naexi fell on her knees as soon as Cedric closed the door behind him, and wept. She wept for the fight with Nagadir, and then for the Prince, and she even wept for Cedric. He cared about the Prince at least as much as she did, in his own way, and he would not abandon him. As the tears dried out, she wondered if this was going to be the end of both of them, if the Prince would drag them down into whatever dark pit he was in right now, and then leave them there. 

That evening, she at least made peace with Nagadir. They both apologized, they hugged, they kissed, and then Nagadir took her things and moved into the Light’s Maid room with her. 

For a brief moment, Naexi thought that things could get better. At least, she had a nice room and Nagadir was by her side. That brief moment lasted for about two days. 

Until one evening, while she was eating dinner with Nagadir in the common room of the servants’ wing, the sounds surrounding her suddenly became muffled, and she heard only one voice in her head. It was feeble, as if in pain, but it was clearly his voice. 

Naexi.