From Maid To The King's Beloved

“I hate you," I muttered.

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

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

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

“Are you okay?” she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I said nothing.

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

I pressed my lips tight and said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My stomach dropped straight to the floor.