MY LADY
The other handmaidens gasp around me as we see the acolytes cleanse dispassionately at the blooded dais; my Lady watches with a straight back, her thumb caressing the bulb of her cane. She glances back, those two eyes shining from behind the translucent silk of her veil. I smile at her, and she nods.
This was the first instance of our agreement.
I knock her cane against the wooden floor of her chambers, listening to the sounds of her robes rustling as she stands before me, fingers decorated with glittering golden claws. Those two same eyes shine like obsidian behind she veil she dons. I give her the cane reverently. My Lady bows her head to me. I allow a secret smile to twitch at my lips before I leave, that small smugness at her approval growing at my heart, swelling an ego that I had long left behind before our first meeting.
“Reveal nothing,” My Lady mutters in a smoky voice, marred by the time and huffs of pipes she used to love to smoke. I only give her an acknowledging look before she moves past to her son, speaking to him in low whispers. I revel in the envy the other servants give me for knowing everything she says, and it powers every step out of the room as if I am a Lord.
Those two black eyes shine up at me as I watch from the steps of the palace, hands placed placidly in my lap as we mourn the death of the king, the smell of incense and the wind floating throughout the court.
She is still not scared when there is talk of beheading those who orchestrated his killing.
My Lady sits beside her son, a smug smile on her red lips as she watches the court lower their heads to her and her son. I watch from above in the balconies with the rest of the handmaidens, bowing my head only gently to watch her. I had only dreamt of a crown on her tall head, but it seems as though that crown will stay with her unto the afterlife. I grin.
When the palace is seized by the lords from the southern lands, I take her cold land as she lay in the court, tears coating her young son’s paling face, dragging her away as my vision blurs the ground, dulling into that black darkness seen by so many.