Maude stood in the corner of the sitting room in the imperial palace, doing her best to be invisible. Zara had no problem informing Maude that her presence was far from welcome on their family’s trip to the Imperial Palace, but the empress had clearly specified that Zara bring both children of the Holloway household. Resentfully, Zara had complied.
“I’m sure the empress will regret her decisions as soon as she gets a whiff of how useless you are,” Zara had muttered as Maude had boarded the carriage.
The carriage ride had been equally as miserable, with little Callum bouncing all over, excited to meet his new playmate, the imperial prince.
He was no different now that they were in the empress’s sitting room. Precious artifacts from all over the continent dotted the edges of the room.
“Callum, Callum,” Zara said to her son, waving her hands “Calm down. Be careful! I’m sure it is only a matter of time before his imperial highness is here.”
Maude swallowed hard as Callum bounced a bit too close to a priceless Estelian wedding vase. It rocked a bit on its surface.
“Callum, come here!” Zara exclaimed sternly. Callum giggled and stuck three fingers in his mouth. “Stop suckling on your fingers, my child,” she said in her stern, motherly voice, a voice Maude had only ever heard used with her brother. “You’re old enough to know that’s not befitting of a young duke in training.”
Callum giggled again, removing his fingers from his mouth. “I’m special!” he exclaimed. He toddled across the room away from Zara, back towards the wedding vase. Callum tripped at the edge of the rug that was under the couches, and fell straight on his face. His hands reached out as if to catch himself, instead slammed into the vase’s stand.
Maude watched the vase fall in slow motion. She reached her hands out as if she could have possibly grabbed it in time, despite being across the room.
It crashed into the floor, the sound of breaking pottery shrieking through Maude’s ear. It had shattered into hundreds of pieces.
“Callum!” Zara cried, getting up off the couch and picking her son up all in one fluid motion. As soon as he was up in his mother’s arms, his face scrunched up and he started howling. He was lucky only the vase had gotten hurt.
The door to the sitting room opened suddenly. “Is everything okay?” a maid asked, peeking her head in. She gasped, seeing the vase shattered on the floor. “Heavens!” she exclaimed. “What happened? That was one of the empress’s prized possessions!”
Zara pointed at Maude. Maude felt her heart drop. “My daughter was playing and jumping around. I asked her to stop multiple times. She refused, and bumped into the vase, knocking it down.”
“Her eminence will be furious!” the maid exclaimed, her face turning bright red.
“No! That’s not what...” Maude started to say.
Zara turned, holding Callum in one arm and slapped Maude across the face. “Do not try to worm your way out of the responsibility for your actions, Maude,” Zara said, her face bright red.
“But that’s not...!” Zara slapped her again.
“I will bring the empress,” the maid said, shutting the door. She hadn’t even blinked twice at how Zara treated Maude.
“Mother!” Maude exclaimed. “It was clearly Callum who knocked the vase over! Why are you telling them it was me?”
“What are you talking about?” Zara asked, gently patting Callum on the back. “You were the one who knocked over the vase, Maude.”
Maude felt her eyes widen and her mouth drop agape. “What? Mother! You watched Callum bump into it! What do you mean?”
“I very clearly watched you bump into the table it was on, Maude. Something is wrong with your memory today.”
Maude’s head was spinning. It was Callum who had knocked it over. I’ve been standing in this corner this whole time. Why is mother insisting it was me?
Maude balled her hands up into fists. “Nothing is wrong with my memory, Mother,” she said. “I think something is wrong with yours.”
Zara sighed aggressively and sat down on the sofa. “Maude, you worthless girl! How dare you argue with your mother?”
Maude shrank back from the insult. I wish the floor would just swallow me, she thought.
“Do you not realize that Callum is the future duke of Holloway? What good would it do him to start out his life with the imperial family hating him from breaking a priceless artifact when he was a child? Like it or not, it is best you take the blame!”
Maude felt as though her heart had just been ripped out of her chest. “What?” she said. “Mother, you know the punishment is bound to be brutal for such an act!”
“Better you than Callum,” Zara sniffed, rubbing the back of the boy’s chest. His cries were finally starting to subside. “He is only five years old. He could easily die from the punishment.”
What about me? Maude wondered.
“But Mother!” Maude exclaimed once more.
“That’s quite enough, Maude,” Zara snarled. “Despite you being worthless, I have ensured you are fed and clothed and kept under the Holloway roof. You cost us a pretty penny with just that. You can contribute to the Holloway household by protecting your brother from harm.”
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Maude felt tears brimming the edge of her eyes. I will not cry, she thought. Not in front of Zara.
The door burst open again, and the empress walked in, holding her son’s tiny hand in hers. “What is the meaning of this?” she exclaimed as Zara bowed to the floor. Maude followed suit, trying to copy Zara’s every movement.
“Your eminence,” Zara said. “I’m so terribly sorry.”
“So terribly sorry,” Maude echoed.
“That vase was irreplaceable!” The empress shouted. “One of a kind, from my homeland.” She sounded as though she was holding back sobs of her own.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Zara replied in the same tone of voice.
“Terribly sorry,” Maude echoed again.
“You said it was your daughter, correct, Duchess Zara?” The empress grabbed Maude by one arm. Maude winced as she felt her shoulder threatening to come free from its socket.
The maid was now holding the empire’s prince in her arms. Which meant that the empress’s beady eyes were left to bore into Maude.
“Correct, your eminence,” Zara replied. “She was running around the room and bumped into the table and knocked it over,” Zara said.
“You little brat,” the empress spat in Maude’s face. Her face was contorted with rage. Maude couldn’t help but shiver. “I was generous enough to extend the invitation to your family to you, and this is how you repay that generosity?” She flung Maude towards the entrance to the room. “From here on out, Maude Holloway is banned from coming to playtime. She is also to receive twenty lashings on the back of her legs.”
Twenty lashings? Maude thought. That’s too many! I won’t be able to walk!
“Despicable child,” the empress muttered under her breath.
The maid closed the doors to the sitting room. Maude could hear her tapping the crop on her hand.
I will not cry, Maude promised herself. I will not give Zara that satisfaction.
Then, she felt the crop hit her calf.
~
“Oh my goodness, sweet child!” Helena exclaimed. “How could your step-mother possibly have done that to you?” The young woman looked at Maude in the mirror in horror.
Maude grimaced, setting her jaw to help cover up how constricted her throat was starting to feel from telling Helena about the incident. “My step-mother did whatever she could to torture me or to get rid of me. It never mattered to her if I was a sword saint or not. She just loathed my existence.”
“How could you have endured that for so long?” Helena asked, gently brushing Maude’s hair.
“I don’t know how I did it,” Maude admitted. “Honestly, the longer I am at the Rosenberg manor, the harder it is for me to remember just how I pulled it off.”
“And your father did nothing when he saw you with twenty lashes from the play date?” Helena asked, braiding Maude’s lengthening hair into several small braids on her right side.
“He didn’t seem to think anything of it when the four of us met back at the carriage,” Maude said. “I could barely walk, but he just blinked as though it was of no importance to him.”
More truthfully, Maude knew that she could never forget the look of disgust on her father’s face when he saw her limping up to the carriage. It had been one of the worst carriage rides of Maude’s life between holding back tears, and every bounce of the carriage shooting pain up her legs.
While telling Jaspar some of her story had given Maude more confidence to be honest about what she had gone through, she still wasn’t quite sure how much she could tell Helena yet.
“My God, how terrible,” Helena said. “And this was before you had gotten your power, right? Was it any different after you awakened your sword saint abilities?”
Maude chuckled softly. “In some ways it was better,” she said. “Primarily with my father because he suddenly had a use for me. It got worse between Callum and I, however, because he coveted my sword saint ability. And Zara hated that I stole any spotlight from her son.”
“Ugh,” Helena groaned. “Those are the worst kind of people.” she paused. “Why were you so eager to escape from the Rosenberg manor then?”
Maude laughed. “I have never been treated with kindness the way I have at Rosenberg manor. At first I was convinced that Duke Rosenberg was going to be worse than my father, simply because he was a duke like my father.”
“Oh goodness, me!” Helena exclaimed. “Duke Rosenberg is a teddy bear in comparison to your father.”
Maude laughed out loud. “Most people I’ve met in the kingdom of Aulbert are extraordinarily kind when it comes to my family.”
“Your family is definitely not the norm,” Helena agreed, pulling a couple of pins off her uniform to put in Maude’s nicely-up done hair. “Though, admittedly, your family is not unlike my own.”
“What do you mean?” Maude asked. “If you don’t feel like I’m prying, that is.”
“Oh goodness, Lady Maude,” Helena said with a giggle. “Not at all.” Maude could seem a blush spread across Helena’s cheeks in the mirror that was in front of them both. “In my family, my mother is the harsh one,” Helena said with a distant look in her eye. She was now adorning Maude’s hair with a flower comb they had picked out to match her tea dress. “But that’s in part because I don’t have a father, similar to Duke Rosenberg.” Helena looked forlorn.
“What happened to your father?” Maude asked.
Helena cleared her throat. “When Duke Rosenberg, his grace’s father, passed away, Duke Rosenberg’s carriage crashed into another carriage on a ridgeway, before both carriages fell off the ridge. My father was driving the carriage the late Duke’s carriage originally ran into.”
Maude gasped. “Oh Helena, I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed.
Helena waved Maude’s apology off with her hand. “Not unlike Duke Jaspar, I was young, so I do not remember much about my father. But in that instant, my mother became a widow with five extra mouths to feed. It was brutal, and being the eldest meant I raised my four younger siblings until I was old enough to earn some money myself. My mother would have gladly sold me into slave labor in the empire for short term funds had I not found my position at the Rosenberg manor so quickly.”
Slave labor in the empire, Maude thought. What am I going to do if that’s the truth? That the empire is full of slaves?
“Your mother was willing to sell you into slave labor?” Maude asked, feeling horror race through her.
“Without a doubt, my lady,” Helena replied.
“That’s fucked,” Maude replied.
“My mother was furious that I was willing to work for the family she claimed killed my father. Once I showed her how much I would be making, she piped down rather quickly. Thank goodness Duchess Rosenberg recognized that my father had been involved in the accident. Such a kind woman. I would not be where I am today without her.”
“You must feel very lucky,” Maude said.
“I do,” Helena replied with a warm smile. Helena looked down, so Maude could no longer see her facial expressions in the mirror. A beat later, Maude noticed Helena’s shoulders were shaking.
Maude stood up, and wrapped her arms around Helena, feeling her own throat constrict again. Against her better judgment, tears started flowing from her eyes.
“Why does life have to be so hard?” Helena asked. “It’s been forever since I’ve gotten to see my younger brothers and sisters. My mother may take the money, but she does so begrudgingly, still.” Maude started rubbing her hand in circles around Helena’s back, which just seemed to make her cry harder.
“Life is fucked,” Maude replied.
“It is,” Helena replied. She wiped her tears, and pulled a watch out of her apron. Her eyes widened, and she sniffled. “My goodness, my lady!” she exclaimed. “We need to hurry and finish getting you ready for your tea time with Lady Melissa and Lady Cristyne!”
Maude nodded. “Thank you for listening to me, Helena,” she said with a smile.
“Oh goodness,” Helena said, a blush gracing her face again. “Anytime, Lady Maude. Thank you for listening to me blubber as well.”
“Anytime,” Maude replied, her heart squeezing warmly.