Damp stone and charred firewood clung to the morning air as Ethan hauled himself off the straw mattress. His body protested the unforgiving bedding, though he'd long since stopped expecting comfort. A slow exhale escaped him as his fingers brushed the loose floorboard beneath his cot the hiding place of that damned handkerchief.
A single day had passed since Princess Alice's unsettling visit, yet the memory pressed down like a millstone. Lord Julius's warning hissed in his mind like a live coal: "A mere servant should not dream beyond their station."
Ethan knew better than to underestimate nobles, especially ones like Julius from the game's lore men who fed on control. If the lord saw him as a threat, Ethan's name would vanish from palace records faster than ink dried.
"Stay invisible."Ethan said to himself
He slipped into the servants' hall, blending into the dawn shuffle of trays and brooms. Anna caught him first, her flour-dusted hands pausing over a bread basket. "You've got that look," she said, thrusting a crate of apples into his arms. "Like someone walked over your grave."
"Or threatened to dig it," Ethan muttered.
Her eyes flickered. "Is it about Julius?"
He stiffened.
"Should've guessed." She wiped her palms on her apron, voice dropping. "That man treats the princess like a jeweled trinket. Cross him, and you'll end up as the dirt beneath his boot."
Before he could reply, Master Reynard's bark cut through the chatter: "Lazy tongues make idle hands! Move!"
Anna rolled her eyes and vanished into the kitchen steam, leaving Ethan to his chores.
The morning bled into a blur of scrubbed flagstones and hauled firewood. Ethan had nearly convinced himself he'd escaped notice until a skeletal steward blocked his path by the spice racks.
"You," the man snapped, jabbing a finger at Ethan's chest. "Her Highness requires fresh linens. Now."
Ethan's throat tightened. *Of all the cursed luck.*
"Wouldn't someone more… experienced be preferable?" he tried.
The steward's lip curled. "Questioning orders, are we? Take the linens, or I'll have you mucking stables by sundown."
Ethan gripped the folded fabric, its crisp edges biting into his palms. One wrong step, and Julius would pounce. But refusal meant punishment either way.
He took the back corridors, each shadowed archway feeling like a sniper's perch.
Silence swallowed the royal wing, thick enough to choke on. Ethan's worn boots sank into carpets worth more than his life as he approached the guarded oak doors.
"Purpose?" growled a sentry, halberd gleaming.
"Linens for Her Highness."
The guard's scrutiny lingered on Ethan's threadbare sleeves before stepping aside.
Princess Alice sat bathed in window-light, her quill scratching across parchment. She stilled as the door clicked shut.
"Ethan." His name sounded foreign in her melodic tone.
He bowed, linen bundle crinkling in his grip. "Your Highness."
A nod sent him toward the embroidered divan. He deposited the linens with robotic precision, but her voice halted his retreat.
"Are they working you too hard?"
The question hung like a spider on its thread. Servants didn't merit royal concern.
"Adequately, Your Highness."
Her fingertip traced the parchment's edge. "Lord Julius spoke to you."
Not a question. Ethan's spine turned to iron.
"He guards his… interests fiercely." She rose, sunlight catching the sapphire pendant at her throat. "But you've no cause for fear. I don't tolerate bullies in my court."
Ethan's nails dug into his palms. Nobles loved pretty lies how many "protected" servants ended up facedown in the moat?
"Your kindness honors me," he said, the practiced words ash on his tongue.
As he reached for the door handle, her quiet words froze him:
"The handkerchief,do you thrown?"
His pulse roared. *She knew. Of course she knew.*
"Hidden," he admitted.
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "Wise."
That night, Ethan stared at the dusty ceiling, the princess's unreadable gaze haunting the dark. This wasn't how the story went. Alice was meant to be a pawn swept along by Julius's schemes, her compassion a scripted trait to make players swoon.
But the princess who'd noticed a missing servant's tension, who'd remembered a bloodied scrap of cloth that woman was no puppet.
And if the game's threads were unraveling…
Ethan pressed a palm to his chest, feeling the rabbit-quick thud beneath.
He'd thought himself a speck in this world's design, a background face to be buried in the third act. But variables didn't just exist they unraveled destinies.
And he?
He was starting to *itch*