Page 29 of A Queen’s Game (Aithyr Uprising #1)

Chapter Twenty

Marietta

M arietta sat for breakfast the following morning.

In the corner stood her elven handmaid, Amryth, unnervingly quiet.

Despite the heat, she wore a long-sleeved dress, and her black box braids pulled back into a bun.

Though she looked young for an elf, she held the austere expression of an old fisherman, the ones in Olkia at the fish market who Marietta could never get to smile.

She cocked a brow at the handmaid and her odd manner.

Uncomfortable silence hovered between them like a heavy fog as she stood watching Marietta eat.

Such a feeling was rare for Marietta. Usually she could get people to laugh, to ease them when they first met—but not with Amryth.

Keyain just had to insist she had a handmaid.

“You can sit if you’d like,” Marietta broke the silence, gesturing to the chair across from her.

Amryth gave her a sobering look. “That would be improper, my lady.” Her voice was unimpressed, as if she wished not to be there. Marietta held her laugh. At least they had that much in common.

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that now, would we?

” Marietta said, her tone laced with sarcasm.

“It’s completely normal for someone to stand while someone else eats.

Not saying a word, not doing anything.” Marietta popped a strawberry into her mouth.

Enough food arrived to feed her and Keyain, but he had left before she woke up. She hadn’t heard him leave.

Amryth narrowed her eyes. “I must insist that I stand, my lady,” her tone more impatient that time. So she did have emotions.

Annoyance laced Marietta’s tongue. “Right, for the good of my noble bearing, you must stand and serve me. You should not speak unless spoken to. Stand rigid and never relax. Wipe my ass—”

“Would sitting placate you that much?” Amryth snapped.

“Yes,” Marietta said, gesturing to the chair. “Is it too much to ask that my only companion for the foreseeable future acts like a normal person?”

Amryth hesitated, then crossed the room, taking the spot across from her. A headache—that’s what she would be. Keyain found a handmaid as stubborn as him and likely did it on purpose. Amryth had a soldier’s rigidity as she stiffly sat in her seat, her shoulders back, and sat up straight.

Marietta took another bite, looking at her companion. “There’s too much food here for just me to eat. Help yourself to any of it.”

“I ate before coming,” Amryth said as she tilted her head to the side, “but thank you, my lady.”

“Well, if you change your mind, then don’t hesitate.” Marietta returned to her plate.

“Handmaids don’t sit down with their ladies, and they most definitely do not dine with them.”

“Well, I don’t like the formality, and I’m not used to servants. What I need right now is a friend.”

“Unfortunately for you, my lady, I am your handmaid, not your friend. I have me a job to do, and I will see to it,” she replied, her tone absolute.

Great. Of course, Keyain would trap her in the suite with someone who’d follow his every word. Gods give her strength to get through it.

After a silent breakfast, Marietta readied herself for the day. Was there a point to appear presentable if she must stay in the suite? No, but perhaps it would make her less antsy. The restricted freedom was already getting on her nerves.

Amryth followed her into the bathroom, turning the bath’s faucet. “Is filling the tub necessary? I can help myself, you know.” Marietta attempted to ease the irritation in her voice.

“I have a job to do, my lady.”

“I get that, but please,” Marietta said, waving her out, “I need to keep doing some stuff by myself to stay sane while being trapped in here.”

Amryth crossed her arms, giving Marietta a stony stare. “As you wish, my lady,” she sighed, walking out of the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

Marietta sunk into the deep tub, her gaze fixed upon the ridiculous fireplace. A bathroom fireplace—she wished she could hear Tilan’s opinion on its absurdity.

The heat of the water soaked into her bones as she leaned her head against the side.

Living in Satiros felt like wearing a dead man’s clothes: nothing fit right and everything felt strange.

The lifestyle, the clothing, the fireplaces.

Gods, even having people wait on her hand-and-foot was uncomfortable.

If servants were responsible for starting baths, then the nobles really must have had their asses wiped for them as well.

Where was their need to be self-reliant?

Marietta couldn’t grasp it; she had always been self-sufficient.

To have someone else wait on her felt absurd.

Tilan had teased that Marietta was so independent that it wouldn’t have surprised him if she took over her clients’ businesses.

There was always another way to help if she looked hard enough.

Tears formed in her eyes as she smiled to herself.

He would never tease her again. Never share their inside jokes, crying from laughing so hard.

Regret formed a knot in her stomach, knowing she should have spent more time with him, should have taken fewer clients, should have spent more days at home.

But it was too late, and she would never see him again.

The water rose above her head as she sank into the deep tub, drowning her tears.

Marietta’s hair still dripped as she sat before her vanity in the bedroom, her face staring in the mirror. Except her body was different. The once rounded curves fell flatter, her cheeks sallow; even under her eyes looked bruised. It was an unknown version of herself—one she didn’t like.

She worked a comb through her hair as Amryth walked in. “I can help you with that, my lady,” she offered, approaching Marietta.

“No, it’s alright. I can—” The comb found a knot, and Marietta yanked at it with frustration. She just wanted to look like herself.

“You’re going to rip out your hair if you keep doing that.” She took the comb from Marietta’s hands.

The demanding tone surprised Marietta; the handmaid had some bite. Good, she wanted a genuine person with emotions as her company, not a silent overseer. She didn’t fight as Amryth took over.

“Gods, your hair is tangled. How did you manage this? Was anyone combing your hair?” Amryth’s face furrowed at the back of her head, concentrating on working the comb through her curls.

“My nurse insisted on using a brush on my hair—only when it was dry, too,” Marietta said with a frown tugging at her lips. “I don’t remember the nurses ever bathing me.”

“Of course, they only brushed it when it was dry. The nurses don’t know what they’re doing down there,” Amryth murmured under her breath.

She sighed before continuing, “They have a mage assigned to the infirmary. Instead of trying to bathe the ill or wounded, they use magic to clean their patients.”

“Magic must be nice,” Marietta grumbled. Unlike in Enomenos, Syllogi elves are well versed in magic, keeping their secrets to their region—always the elves, never the pilinos.

“Must be,” Amryth answered. “No one on the—er, none of the servants are proficient in magic.”

“But you’re elven,” Marietta said, turning to face Amryth. “I thought all Syllogian elves knew how to do it.”

She grabbed Marietta’s head and turned it back to the mirror. “Only those who have a promising mental capacity can wield it.”

“What does that even mean?”

“From what I know, it’s based on one’s ability to concentrate,” Amryth said. “The more you can focus, the better a mage you are, yet the practice is restricted even for elves. Not everyone gets to learn.”

Funny, Marietta always assumed most Syllogian elves knew magic, that Keyain was an anomaly of his kind. Turned out that he was more like his people than she ever realized.

Amryth made her way around Marietta’s head. As she finished, she placed her hands on Marietta’s shoulders and looked at her through the mirror. “How would you like your hair?”

Marietta smiled. Amryth had already dropped her title and gave her the choice of how to do her hair. “Leave it down. That’s how I like to wear it.”

Amryth looked like she wanted to protest but shrugged and left her hair as it was.

Marietta sat on the couch in the living room with her legs tucked up underneath her. After skimming the shelves of Keyain’s dry titles twice, she only found one of slight interest— The History of Satiros .

Beginning with a forest that held the land before the city-state was founded, the subject quickly changed to the life of the first Queen. The text caused her mind to wander from the pages. How funny that it focused on the elven Queen, but didn’t discuss how elves came to rule over the pilinos.

Since her arrival in Satiros, she had only seen elves, even in the kitchens. Curious. “I thought pilinos served the elves of Satiros, yet I haven’t seen either since I’ve been in the palace,” she asked Amryth.

At Marietta’s request, the handmaid read on the other end of the couch. When she looked up, her features grew dark. “Pilinos are too low to serve nobility.”

Marietta went still, feeling the roar of blood in her ears. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a hierarchy. Humans are the lowest servants and are cheap help.

Half-elves are a bit more… exotic. Wealthier families prefer them over humans to distinguish their wealth,” she said with a tight expression.

“The richest, like the nobility, can afford—in their words, not mine—actual people. So they employ full elves.”

Marietta furrowed her brows and pulled her lips back in disgust. The profound hatred for pilinos ran deep in Satiros.

Keyain knew this—knew that his entire city-state viewed people like herself as beneath them, and yet, she sat in his suite pretending to be a lady.

The deafening roar of anger left her speechless for a moment.

How could Keyain marry her at all as an elven lord was beyond her understanding.

With a calming breath, she asked, “So me being a part of the court, my… marriage to Keyain. Both are an anomaly?” The word marriage struggled on her tongue.

Amryth sighed and looked like she didn’t want to answer the question. “In the palace, within the court, yes. But in the city-state, not necessarily. Elves can claim pilinos as lawful partners since they don’t have full personhood. The law doesn’t need the pilinos’s consent.”

“What if,” Marietta asked and then paused. “What if the pilinos is from outside of Satiros? Outside of Syllogi?”

Amryth looked across the room in thought. “I’m sure elves have tried, but it’s not common. At least I have never heard of it. In theory, the pilinos would need to be a citizen of Syllogi, from at least one of the city-states, I would imagine.”

Marietta nodded her head, not bothering to hide the hostility from her face. Keyain had done as such, and somehow Marietta not being a citizen didn’t make a difference. “How does being a pilinos affect my position here? As a lady in court?”

“I don’t know, Lady Marietta,” she replied, adding the title as if she just remembered it.

Marietta remained quiet, stewing on the words.

Her father came from Syllogi, and not once did he teach her about the intricacies of the social classes.

Often he told Marietta to never trust Syllogian elves (the warning carrying merit since he grew up as one), but her father never went into detail.

He never told her that she wouldn’t be considered an actual person by the elves.

For him to marry her mother, a human born and raised in Enomenos, carried more weight than Marietta realized.

It also showed how off-base Keyain had been when they were together.

Her father had the same background, yet Marietta knew with certainty that if anyone had said a slur to her mother, they’d limp away from that conversation.

The contrast between them couldn’t be starker.