The Queen They Tried to Forget

Chapter 3: The Servants' Palace

The first crossbow fired before anyone could stop it.

Elara moved as if she had expected it. The arrow struck the air in front of her and shattered into silver sparks, falling harmlessly across the marble. A second arrow followed, then a third, and each one broke against an invisible barrier that shimmered around her gown like moonlight under water.

The guests screamed and scattered.

Tables overturned. Wine spilled across the floor. Musicians abandoned their instruments. Nobles who had laughed at a servant moments ago now crawled behind columns, clutching jewels and titles as if either could shield them.

The Regent shouted over the chaos. "Take her alive if possible. Dead if necessary."

Elara turned toward him.

"Still afraid of bodies in the river?" she asked.

His face darkened.

The private soldiers advanced.

Before they reached her, the service doors burst open.

Kitchen boys, chambermaids, stable hands, laundry women, footmen, gardeners, and scullery girls flooded into the ballroom carrying whatever they had been able to seize: carving knives, fire pokers, iron trays, curtain rods, heavy candlesticks. They did not look trained. They looked furious.

At their front stood Mara, the head laundress, a broad-shouldered woman with gray hair twisted beneath a cloth cap and burn scars up one arm. She had once slapped Elara's hands away from boiling water and muttered, "Royal blood or not, pain is pain."

Mara pointed a rolling pin at the Regent's soldiers.

"You heard the bell," she called. "And you heard the princess."

The Regent looked almost amused. "This is absurd. Servants against soldiers?"

Mara smiled coldly. "Servants know every locked door in this palace."

At once, the chandeliers went dark.

Not out.

Dim.

The ballroom sank into golden shadow as hidden doors opened along the walls. The servants knew passages the nobles had forgotten existed, corridors behind paintings, staircases inside columns, dumbwaiter shafts large enough for children and messages. For twelve years, the Regent had ruled the palace from its throne rooms. The servants had ruled its bones.

Elara had not hidden alone.

That was the truth the nobles had never considered.

She had survived because the invisible people carried her secrets.

The private soldiers suddenly found themselves surrounded. Trays crashed into faces. Hot wax splashed across gauntlets. A kitchen boy barely thirteen crawled beneath a soldier's legs and locked a chain around his ankles. The general drew a ceremonial blade from his cane and moved with surprising speed for an old man.

The ballroom became a battlefield without ever losing its beauty.

Cassian tried to slip away.

Elara saw him moving toward the west door and raised one hand.

The door sealed with a pulse of light.

He turned back slowly.

"Please," he said. "I was young."

"You were thirty," Elara replied.

"I had debts. Your uncle owned me."

"You sold a princess for gambling money."

His face twisted. "You do not understand what men like him do to people who refuse."

At that, her expression changed, not with pity, but with recognition.

"I understand better than you think."

Mara reached Elara's side, breathing hard. "We cannot hold them long."

"I know."

"Then what is the plan?"

Elara looked toward the Regent. He was withdrawing toward the staircase, protected by four black-armored guards. He did not look panicked. That bothered her.

"He wants me in the throne chamber," she said.

Mara frowned. "Then do not go."

"He has something there."

"Or someone."

Elara's gaze sharpened.

The old memory she had avoided all night returned without mercy: the final moment before the carriage plunged from the road, her mother's hand on her face, whispering not Run, but Find him.

For years, Elara had assumed the queen meant the general, a loyalist, someone who might protect her claim. But now, seeing the Regent retreat with that calculated certainty, she wondered if the message had meant something else entirely.

Someone else.

The Regent paused at the staircase and looked back at her.

His voice cut through the fight.

"Come to the throne room, Elara. Unless you no longer care what became of your brother."

The world narrowed.

Even the chaos seemed distant.

Mara whispered, "Brother?"

Elara could not answer.

She had been an only child.

That was what the whole kingdom believed.

That was what she had believed.

The Regent smiled.

"Your mother had many secrets," he said. "I kept the most useful one."

Then he disappeared up the staircase.

Elara stood motionless for one heartbeat too long.

Mara grabbed her arm. "Princess, that may be a lie."

Elara looked toward the staircase.

"Yes," she said. "But if it is not, he has had twelve years to punish him for my survival."

She pulled free and walked after the Regent.

Behind her, the servants held the ballroom.

Ahead of her, the throne room waited.

And somewhere within it, perhaps, was the answer to the one question that could break the crown before she ever wore it.