know I was ready for my morning bath. They would come to me as quickly as they would to Haydyn. After all, I was her best friend, her family. I had been ever since I had been brought to the palace nine years ago by Syracen Stovia. I was only twelve years old at the time. Haydyn was ten. Upon our arrival, Valena was taken from me and given to Raj. Kir lived with Syracen and his family. And I lived at the palace with Haydyn.
Both grieving for the families we’d lost, it hadn’t taken long for us to find solace in one another.
Haydyn’s mother had died in childbirth, leaving Haydyn alone with her father. The Rada had pushed and pushed him to take another wife, to have more children, but he had loved Haydyn’s mother too dearly. He couldn’t bear the thought of making someone else his kralovna. That left only the kral and his baby daughter.
Two peas in a pod they were, Haydyn told me. Inseparable. She had depended on her father for everything. Love, comfort, affection, friendship, advice, security. With him gone, she was adrift. And I happened to be the float she grasped on to in his passing. She demanded I be given the suite next to hers where I had roomed ever since. I was also granted the run of the palace as if I were royalty. In return, she looked to me for love, comfort, affection, friendship, advice, and security.
I feared my presence was hindering Haydyn to become the truly independent leader Phaedra needed, but I gave her my strength because she was the only family I had left. And because, after a number of years of begging me to tell her why I screamed in my sleep, I told her what Syracen Stovia had done to my family, to Kir’s and Valena’s families as well. There was only my word against his. By then I had been at the palace for four years.
Kir had escaped only a year after our arrival, and Haydyn had grown strong enough that Stovia didn’t chase him for fear of disrupting the peace. And Valena couldn’t remember anything before being brought here.
But Haydyn believed me. And she demanded the Rada listen. She ordered that all twelve members of the Rada Council travel to Silvera to judge Vikomt Syracen Stovia for his crimes. Even if the captain of the Guard had not come forward and confessed what he remembered doing under the compulsion of Stovia, I knew Haydyn would not have stopped until the vikomt was punished.
She was only fourteen years old then. But I was her family. And he had wronged me.
I pledged my everlasting loyalty to Haydyn that day.
The Rada were disgusted by Stovia’s methods and ordered him imprisoned in Silvera Jail—the lone prisoner. He didn’t take the news well. I remember the sweat beading on his forehead and the nosebleed he sustained as he fought to break through Haydyn’s evocation. Powerful as he was, he was strong enough to reach for Haydyn to use her as a shield in order to escape. The captain of the Guard did his duty, however, and killed the threat to the princezna’s life.
Syracen Stovia’s death didn’t ease my grief. But I felt freer than I had since the death of my family.
The servants arrived and Haydyn took her leave while I helped the girls fill the bath with the hot water. Like every morning, they swatted at me to stop.
“The Handmaiden of Phaedra shouldn’t be doing servants’ work.”
I grunted at the nickname I had been given many years ago. It made me sound like something I wasn’t.
After they were gone, I soaked in the tub and grew irritated at having lost productive hours in the day by oversleeping. I hurried out of the bath, toweling my long hair dry before braiding it. It hung heavy and damp down my back, the ends brushing the bottom of my spine. Quickly, I stepped into a dark rose dress of the finest velvet. All my clothing was chosen by Haydyn, and she loved clothes and jewelry. None of these things interested me but for Haydyn’s sake, I wore everything she bestowed upon me.
“Ah good, you’re dressed.” Haydyn barged into my room without knocking. Lord Matai, second lieutenant of the Guard and a young vikomt of a good family, was Haydyn’s newest bodyguard. He hovered protectively, even when she was alone with me.
I smiled indulgently at her before noting the slight strain in her