After their talk last night, Azrayel had led her to her room without words.
The moment her head touched the pillow she had fallen asleep. Everything still weighed on her but now, as she woke, she knew she had to face the maid.
There's no use in lingering to the past.
She is who she is with her past. It doesn't mean she would forget or that Azrayel will. Someday, they will pay, but for now she has urgent things to face.
Kalistra was already moving about the chamber, pouring tea into a small cup and setting it by Metheea's hand.
Resme sat with a ledger on her lap, her quill scratching. The routine of their roles pressed in on the room while Metheea lifted the cup and sipped, the warmth steadying her.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
The two ladies straightened at the sound, both looking at Metheea.
She gave a small nod.
Resme moved to stand at her side and slightly behind her, while Kalistra went to open the door.
She was kneeling just outside the threshold when the door opened, her posture formal in the old Dythridian way that made Metheea's stomach twist.
Rising, the woman stepped in.
She wore a simple dark gown and a white collar that made the line of her neck look slim and controlled. Her hair was coiled at the nape of her neck, not a strand astray.
She closed the door without looking behind her and lowered her eyes.
"I am Fiona," the girl said. Her voice was quiet, smooth. Each word landed in the room as if it had been measured.
She sank to one knee with practiced grace, presenting herself as one properly sent to a princess. She looked every bit the Dythridian servant, precise in form and gesture, and the sight of it unsettled Metheea.
"By command of Her Royal Highness, Queen Tilde of Dythrid, I have been sent to serve you faithfully, Princess."
Metheea did not answer. She watched the girl bow.
The bow was low and proper. When Fiona lifted her face again, her eyes were clear and soft.
Metheea could not tell their true color in the light, only that they held the patience of a person who had learned to wait in doorways without shifting her weight.
"Every day," Fiona added, "my queen longs to hear that her daughter is cared for." The words were gentle but they both know she is lying. It was common in Dythrid that the queen as well as everyone else did not care for her.
She was not a noble of Dythrid, perhaps a peasant. Would her mother stoop so low, sending her daughter a peasant maid?
Still, Metheea would not put it past her.
"You will serve here," she said, and heard the thinness in her own voice. "You will keep your eyes on your work and your thoughts to yourself."
Fiona bowed again.
"As you command."
"You will speak to Resme and Kalistra and follow their instruction," Metheea said. "If there is any matter of health or comfort, you bring it to them before you bring it to me."
"As you command," Fiona said once more.
She stood with hands folded at her waist. The hands were clean. The nails were rounded and short. No rings. No ribbon. No sign of pride or vanity.
Metheea found that she could not place Fiona's age. Not a child. Not a woman long in service. Somewhere in the even space between.
Resme stepped front and looked at Fiona. Her lips did not smile.
"You will address me as Lady Resme. Foreign or not, you answer to me. Nothing passes to the princess without my leave."
Fiona bowed. She did not step back.
"I will remember your title, my lady. I will also remember that I was sent to serve Her Highness." She lifted her eyes for a heartbeat to Metheea and then lowered them again.
The gesture was perfectly appropriate. It also made Resme stiffen by a fraction.
Kalistra crossed to Metheea and stood beside the chair, her shoulder a bare hand's width from Metheea's shoulder. Her face was calm, but her eyes said more.
She looked at Fiona and then at Resme, and then she spoke in a steady tone.
"Her Highness decides who attends her," Kalistra said. "Not you, Resme. Not Dythrid. You are both here to serve her needs. That is all."
Resme's chin tipped up by the smallest degree. "I serve the needs of this wing," she said. "Which means I protect it from errors of judgment, whether those errors belong to foreign courts or to anyone who believes loyalty is license."
Her eyes moved to Kalistra's plain sleeves and then away again as if the cloth were of less worth than the air.
Metheea's stomach drew tight. She felt the two women bristle on either side of her.
Fiona stood between them, slightly to the right, as if she had chosen that gap on purpose. Her face did not change. Her hands remained folded.
Only her eyes moved, from Resme to Kalistra to Metheea and back.
"I will serve however my princess commands," Fiona said, still in that smooth, careful voice.
"I only hope her court does not quarrel so openly in front of her. It would make any servant wonder which law to obey." She made a small, regretful smile as if she wished she had not needed to say it.
Heat rose up Metheea's neck.
The remark had been soft and shaped like respect, but it had landed like a stone in a pool. She felt the ripples move through Resme and Kalistra at once.
Resme drew a breath that lifted and settled, and when it settled her words came out like the click of a clasp.
"You will find our laws written and clear," Resme said. "Your duty is to learn them and keep them. You will not speak on the conduct of the court."
Kalistra's voice cut clean across the space. "You will not provoke my lady either. If there is a question, you bring it to me." She looked at Metheea and her eyes softened.
"Enough," Metheea said, and the word surprised even her with how firm it sounded.
She stood.
The chair made a small sound as it moved against the carpet.
"Fiona," Metheea said. She turned her eyes to the girl who had come from the court that had taught her hunger and fear and silence.
"You will serve in quiet. You will speak when spoken to. You will keep a record of your tasks and present it each evening to Resme and Kalistra together. You will eat at the hour given to you and sleep when you are dismissed."
She looked at the maid with open disdain.
"You will not leave this wing without a written pass. You will not carry a letter that has not been read. You will not keep a hairpin that can turn in a lock."
Fiona bowed for the third time. The bow did not change. "As you command," she said.
Her voice cooled. "Leave me all of you. I wish to read in peace." They obeyed, though the truth was simpler: she was only tired, her body begging for rest she could not admit aloud.
She turned from the window and undressed without help. Kalistra would have stayed if asked. Metheea wanted privacy more than she wanted help.
Sleep did not come at once.
She dreamt of a garden in another country where birds sang and she was free.
Then woke before the first bell to the soft weight of quiet.
The door opened and Kalistra stepped in with a basin that steamed. She set it down and smiled. The smile was small and real. "You slept," she said.
"A little," Metheea said. She gave a small laugh. "It is as if you are a witch, Kalistra, knowing when I wake."
Kalistra smirked as she wrung the cloth. "I have to outdo Resme somehow. She is irritating enough. And that girl Fiona should have been executed rather than brought into this household."
Metheea smiled faintly. "I am glad you came to serve me. You make everything easier."
Kalistra shook her fingers dry from the cloth and smirked. "You would not say that if you knew your schedule today."
Metheea groaned. She had been too busy for days already, and now it felt as if everything was becoming more and more hectic.
"You have a full morning. Resme will bring the schedule."
She passed the warm cloth to Metheea and turned to the wardrobe to draw out a gown. "Do you want the cream or the blue."
"The blue," Metheea said. She washed her face and held the cloth to her eyes a moment longer than she needed to.
The heat carried comfort into the space behind her eyes and into her jaw where she had clenched her teeth too hard while sleeping.
Resme arrived with the ledger under one arm and a list in her hand. She spoke at the door to the guard, then entered without waiting for permission.
"Morning," she said. "There is a private breakfast with His Highness, Azrayel, at the third bell. The seamstress will attend at the fourth to measure the new bodice. The priest has also sent a prayer for you to keep in your drawer."
"Which priest," she asked.
"Father Irian," Resme said. "He sends a script that speaks of shelter."
She set the paper on the dressing table.
Metheea lifted her hand to stop her, the talk already pressing against her head.
"Later," she murmured. "Not now. My head aches."
Then a knock came at the door.
Before Fiona entered she knocked, and once again Kalistra opened the door to find her kneeling. Metheea frowned at the sight.
"Do not kneel anymore," she told her. "We are in Katarthan, not in Dythrid."
Fiona lowered her head and answered softly, "Please allow me to keep the custom, Princess. I would like to still honor the traditions of your mother's court, unlike others."
Her jaw tightened. She wanted to refuse, to force the girl to stand, yet she could already hear what others would whisper if she rejected Dythrid's custom too fiercely.
Against her will she gave a slight nod, though inside she groaned and wanted nothing more than to throttle the girl for pressing her so boldly.