Fated Eclipse: The Illegitimate Princess And Her Alpha Suitors

Chapter 276: What They Carry

Lyria’s POV

The maids exchanged a look between themselves before turning back to me.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Pippa spoke.

”This is happening faster than we expected.”

I frowned.

”W-what do you mean?”

Elara sighed.

”Sit first, Your Highness,” she said.

I frowned at her but did as I was told, settling into the chair at the desk and folding my hands in my lap.

Elara studied me for a moment before she began.

”You suspected correctly,” she said. ”We are more than ordinary maids, Your Highness. We are yours to use, as you see fit.”

She paused, as though gathering the words she needed.

”All of us,” she continued, ”carry histories that shaped us long before any of us became maids.”

She offered a soft smile, though it did not entirely reach her eyes.

”I, for instance, was once the Queen’s maid. A lady-in-waiting, in truth. Not a servant in the way you have known me.”

I frowned.

”You were a n-noble?”

She nodded, the smile on her face turning sad.

”I was. Though my family no longer exists because my younger sister offended the Queen.”

She was quiet for a moment, looking at her own hands.

”My sister was six years old when it happened.”

She let that sit in the room for a moment before continuing.

”Six years old. And the Queen saw to the destruction of the entire family because, apparently, a child of six had poured tea upon her on purpose.”

She shook her head slowly, the motion small and tired.

”There is more to it,” she said. ”But it is difficult to speak of all of it now. I do not often discuss it, even amongst the others.”

Bridget spoke next, straightening slightly as though preparing herself for the telling.

”Unlike Elara, I was a commoner,” she said. ”But my elder brother was Captain of the Royal Knights. He climbed the ranks through nothing but his own merit. No title behind him. No name to ease his way.”

She smiled as she said it, the pride in it unmistakable even now.

”I wished to follow him,” she continued, ”because he had proved that a commoner with nothing could climb the ranks and become captain. He was someone I idolised.”

Her smile did not falter, though her voice grew quieter.

”But I should have known that things would take a turn. We were commoners after all, and my brother was branded a traitor. Our family was destroyed for it. And I am the only one who remains.”

She said all of it with the same smile fixed upon her face, and I found that more unsettling than if she had wept.

Pippa spoke next.

”I was a commoner too,” she said, though her voice did not have the cheerfulness it normally carried. ”My mother was a cook. A very pregnant cook, as it happened, whom the King took a liking to.”

Her voice dropped low.

”He went so far as to have my father killed,” she said, ”simply so that he might have his way with her without obstruction.”

I went very still in my chair.

”I watched from the shadows,” Pippa continued, her tone flat now, stripped of anything that might have softened it, ”as my mother was murdered by the King’s own guards, disguised as common men so that none might trace the matter back to the palace.”

Margery spoke after her, and I realised these women carried scars from the royal family one way or another.

”I worked directly under Princess Jacinta,” she said. ”I had a lover once. A stable boy, and he was quite handsome by every account, though I confess I am not the most impartial judge of that.”

A faint, watery attempt at humour. It did not last.

”We were in love and even planned to marry,” she said. ”But Princess Jacinta wanted him for herself. To this day, I wonder what she wanted with a stable boy so far beneath her station.”

She smiled sadly.

”He refused every attempt she made to seduce him, even going so far as to make plans to run away with me. But it proved futile in the end because the Princess obtained him in the only manner left available to her.”

She did not need to finish the sentence.

I already knew what she meant.

Jacinta had him killed.

Debbie spoke last.

”I was from a noble family,” she said simply. ”But they are all gone now.”

She shook her head once, firmly.

”I would rather not speak of it, though. Not today.”

I nodded at her, and she seemed grateful for that small mercy.

I remained quiet through all of it, turning each story over in my mind, letting the weight of them settle properly before I spoke again.

Then I looked at Margery.

”Was your p-partner’s name Paul?” I asked.

Margery’s eyes grew watery at once.

”Even you know of him,” she said softly, her voice catching slightly on the name.

”I did n-not know h-him well,” I admitted. ”But I k-knew there was s-someone Jacinta had b-been o-obsessed with years ago. The name c-came up once or twice, though never with much explanation attached to it.”

Elara spoke then, drawing the conversation back together.

”All of us here,” she said, ”carry something against the royal family. We are here for our various reasons, Your Highness.”

She held my gaze steadily.

”But one thing remains certain above all else.”

”You come first,” she said. ”Whatever else any of us want from this palace, whatever debts we mean to see settled—you come first.”

I considered that for a long moment.

I wondered, quietly and without quite deciding how I felt about it, whether they had come to this palace for revenge and whether I was simply the vessel through which that revenge might eventually be carried.

It was not an entirely comfortable thought.

But it was not an entirely unwelcome one either.

”Since you have t-told me your stories,” I said after a moment, ”w-would you care to h-hear mine?”

Elara shook her head gently.

”We already know your story, Your Highness.”

I frowned.

”How m-much do you know?”

Pippa answered first, without hesitation.

”We know you are illegitimate,” she said. ”And that the Queen never wanted you.”

Margery nodded in quiet agreement.

Elara added, after a brief pause, choosing her words with care,

”I know your mother was also a maid to the Queen before the King took notice of her.”

I suspected, from the careful way she said it, that perhaps she knew considerably more than that.

But I did not press her on it.

I simply nodded, accepting what had been offered for now.

Then I looked at each of them in turn.

”I w-want you to be honest with me,” I said. ”Why are you in this p-palace? And why did you choose to s-serve me?”

I paused.

”I am i-illegitimate, after all, and possess very little power.”