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My eyes flit down to Linette, who looks up at me at the same time then stares at the ground. She looks wounded, a thousand thoughts going through her head. Linette looks whiter than a ghost, a vein of shock difficult to conceal flashing through her eye. My gaze narrows on the familiar stick on the floor, but I manage to keep myself from uttering a word.

But it’s obvious when the reason clicks in her head: her body lowering itself closer to the carpet in defeat. Of course, there was no battle to begin with. As a servant, she did not have any grounds to complain.

“I don’t think that would be appropriate, Mother,” I say lightly, forcing myself to take another bite of the pastry. It tastes like sawdust in my mouth now. The abominable reed stick taunts me on the ground, begging me to throw caution to the wind and strike Katya across the face with it.

Would the empress’ mask break, revealing the horrid thing underneath it? Or even more frighteningly, would Empress Katya be unfazed as she had already predicted the possibility of it happening?

Either way, the thought disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving me behind with my ‘mother’ whose smile was sending chills down my spine.

“But with who else would it be more appropriate than your own mother?” the empress muses. I recall that in the past, she was always uncomfortable when being referred to as my mother, but now she openly embraces the word. “It is good to be a generous mistress to those beneath you, but I’m afraid that your kindness has been taken advantage of.”

.....

I try another angle. “But Linette did not do anything to deserve punishment. If I am to... discipline... a servant, it should at least be one who has done something worthy of it.”

Katya throws a knowing look at the kneeling maidservant. “Oh, she has,” she says, Linette’s head bowing further in shame as if to confirm the empress’ words. “But I’ve already told her I shall not be beating her today. So you must.”

Her eyes flick up at me, almost taunting me to see if I would dare disobey. I have half the mind to storm out and return to my palace, but there’s something in Empress Katya’s emerald green gaze that tells me the consequences could be heavier if I shirk this order. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, sweat beginning to pool on my forehead and under my arms. It’s almost a familiar sensation at the point, the panic stirring in my belly like a writhing beast.

Violence is more commonplace in this era than it was in my modern world. Thieves lose their hands for stealing, criminals are branding with hot irons on their faces so all can see. To ask me to raise a hand against a maidservant who I admittedly do not like at all but still don’t hate enough to hurt, is completely averse to my morals. Katya knows this and now she is pressing me on the matter.

But whether I will give in this quickly is another question.

“I don’t want to,” I say simply, setting the tasteless pastry back on my plate with a bang. “So I won’t.”

Katya smiles as if she knows something I don’t and takes a sip of her tea. Linette quakes beside us, awaiting her fate.

“But Winter dear, what if I insist?” she asks after thoroughly wetting her throat.

“Then I’m afraid I must respectfully decline nonetheless,” I push my chair back and stand defiantly, my short stature barely setting my shoulders above the table.

The empress looks upon my disrespectful etiquette with faint humor, lacking her typical rigor for when I break etiquette. “You’re a member of the imperial family. You hold the lives of many in your hands.

“All the more reason to treat them with respect. I would not like to hear rumors tomorrow about how I mistreat those who serve in the palace and suffer a loss to my reputation.” I nudge at Empress Katya’s fresh wounds, the loss of a lady-in-waiting and her squeaky clean reputation.

Katya flashes a wounded smile, sniffing her perfumed handkerchief. I see that it is the very one that I embroidered a few months ago, the Duvernay rose mocking me upon the fine silk it is set in. Is this a warning to me? Or simply a reminder?

Bishop Duvernay’s conditions from the military front flash through my mind, especially the one that I had refused: to take Empress Katya as my legal mother. Is she using the handkerchief as a signifier that she too knows of the agreement her brother and I had come to?

My eyes flash to my unconscious half-brother, snoring away without a care as I have a polite showdown with his mom. I had agreed to heal three people, yet could not revive Julian no matter how hard I tried due to the strange energy within him.

However, I never received any notes or requests from House Duvernay. Even the empress seems somewhat indifferent to the fact that I was unable to heal her son. Which begs the question: which three people, aside from the mysterious patriarch, would the illustrious house deem worthy of me to save? And why isn’t one of them the prince who carries their bloodline?

This meeting with Katya tosses more questions onto an already full plate, revealing small kernels of fascinating information for me to digest later.

“You’ve grown, Winter,” the empress says almost affectionately, interrupting my thoughts.

“I’ve passed just as many summers as Julia,” I reply with a faint shrug.

Is it a dig at Julia, who is immature, whiny, and inherited some of her mother’s sadism? Yes. Do I care? Not in the current circumstances. I’m just trying to say anything to distract the empress from the matter at hand.

But how could Empress Katya fall for that? Her lips press into a thin smile that shows more displeasure than pleasure before she looked at the stick on the floor.

“Pick it up.”

A maid subtly moves to stand before the door, a quiet signal that I won’t be released until I comply

So, I move to pick up the reed with my right hand, only for it to slip from my weakened fingers. I brush it off as a change in plans, fiddling with the sturdy buckle of my shoe so the empress doesn’t catch the weakness.

“Pick it up,” the empress urges again.

The fatigue from a few minutes ago is gone, she is simply rejuvenated watching my emotional turmoil. I nod wanly in response and pick it up with my left hand. The smile that emerges on Katya’s face is like the sun rising atop the horizon, showering golden light on everything it touches. It is so infectious that I feel half tempted to return one.

Linette kneels before me, her back open and waiting. The obedience that I struggled to adapt to during my first few years is ingrained in her bones. She does not tremble or shiver, completely accustomed to this type of discipline. I think of how outspoken the maid is and the fearsome reputation she bears within the entire palace as one of the empress’ closest maids. Peeking under the mask to see the tamed girl underneath, will this result in more underhanded slights from her minions in the palace after witnessing her embarrassment?

I tap the stick once on Linette’s shoulder. “There. Done,” I say.

The personal maid jumps slightly until she realizes the touch was soft. The smile fades from Empress Katya’s face. It is clear she doesn’t take kindly to being mocked.

“Winter,” she begins slowly, my skin crawling after hearing her lips utter my name. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all.”

She shakes her head, the familiar disappointment in her eyes. It’s the same one I’ve always seen before she asks me to lift my skirts to receive the rod. I raise a brow in defiance, determined to drag this out as long as I can. In actuality, now I’m rather intrigued by another matter.

When my father promised to give me better treatment if I healed soldiers day in day out, did that include protection from Katya? Today I shall determine once and for all, even with all of my newfound ‘usefulness’, how much a promise from the emperor is worth.

And I find out the answer before long. That it isn’t worth a damn.

“Prince Julian! Your Majesty, he has risen!” a maid cries as if the second coming of Jesus is upon us as I hold the reed in my hand high above Linette.

I pause before the third strike of the reed stick against Linette’s back, the recoil of each strike hurting me nearly as much as it hurts Linette. When I drop the stick to the floor and back away, my chest heaving with a malevolent fury that causes a hitch in every breath, my palm is bright red.

Even as I see Julian stare confusedly at his bed and his mother, the anger does not abate. But the change in emotion is good, being angry will serve me more than being sad and hopeless.

In the confusion that naturally arises when the prince that was left for dead suddenly awakens, I know no one will ensure I continue my lesson in discipline. But lest I be knocked for poor etiquette, I curtsey in the empress’ direction and slip out the door after swiftly healing Linette’s injuries, yet another snub to Empress Katya.

Emma and my attendants stand outside, curious expressions on all their faces at the sudden hubbub inside.

“Your highness?” Emma asks me quietly as I bask under the sunlight with my eyes closed.

“Emma, the plan? I don’t just want to burn Katya. I want to rope Julian into this somehow,” I say slowly, the idea coming to me gradually.

The empress had been composed, but I could see that losing a key pawn to her plans had been troublesome. Although she could theoretically try to have another child as she is just in her 30s, raising another obedient prince to compete with the already beloved crown prince would be a difficult gamble to pull of. Not to mention, House Duvernay may not even agree to let her bear another child for my father if they care this little for Julian’s life.

“You wish for me to harm the prince?” Emma asks, cracking her knuckles as if she’s ready to go in on Julian.

I look down at the bright red mark on my hand. “No. I just want him to learn how worthless he is in not only House Duvernay’s eyes, but his mother’s eyes too. He seems to treat this world as a vacation, he has no stakes in the game. I will show him how much he has to lose and how in actuality, his position is no different from mine.”

“And then?” Emma asks. I think of how the empress had thoroughly enjoyed the show I’d put on for her entertainment today. I rub my red hand on my dress, but it can’t take away the violence that they’ve committed.

“And then set him on the empress.”

To see an obedient animal snap at its owner’s hands should be just as interesting as it was for Empress Katya to watch me betray my morals and beat Linette. It might be so entertaining, I might be able to forget the most frightening thing I realized when I struck Linette’s back twice with the reed.

Despite the moral high ground I’ve prided myself for standing on since I arrived here, I felt nothing the actual reed struck Linette.

No guilt. No sadness. My previous emotions at having to inflict violence upon another person disappeared like smoke once I swung. All that remained was overwhelming fury at being forced to do something against my will.