I cross the room in three quick steps and take her hands without thinking. They are warm, familiar—and yet she stiffens, just slightly, before schooling herself into stillness.
“I am so glad you’re back,” I say. “I missed you terribly.”
Her smile is polite. Almost kind. “I am pleased to be of service once more.”
Of service.
The rest of the morning passes in a blur of small courtesies. Aileen answers my questions neatly, without elaboration. She asks after my health, my comfort, the King—always the King—with impeccable manners and no warmth beneath them. She never once asks how I have been, truly. Never once meets my eyes for longer than is proper.
By midday, my chest aches with it.
When I finally manage to catch her alone, I do not waste the chance.
I take her wrist gently and pull her into a narrow alcove between two pillars, half-hidden by a tapestry depicting some long-dead saint. The noise of the court dulls to a distant murmur.
“Aileen,” I say quietly. “What is this?”
Her spine goes rigid.
“What are you talking about, Your Majesty?” she says and tries to pull away.
I do not let her. “Stop this at once. Why are you so cold?” I ask roughly, unspilled tears clogging my vision.
“You sent me away,” she spits out. “I thought youwere my friend, but the second we returned to the palace, you sent me away without so much as a goodbye!”
I stare at her. “What?”
“You asked for space,” she continues, eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “Time alone with your husband. I was told you no longer required my presence.”
The world tilts.
“No,” I say at once. “I never said that. I never wanted that.” My grip on her arm tightens. “They sent all my maids away. All of them. I didn’t even know where you were.”
She finally looks at me then, something raw flickering across her face before she can hide it again. “They told me it came fromyou.”
A cold understanding settles between us.
I tell her everything—about the new maids, about the rules, the quiet tightening of the court around me. About how alone I have felt, and how deeply it cut to lose her without explanation.
When I finish, Aileen exhales shakily and presses a hand to her mouth.
“I thought you had discarded me,” she admits. “Like everyone else does, eventually.”
“Never,” I say fiercely. “Not you.”
We stand in silence while people pass by the alcove.
“They want us divided,” Aileen says at last. “That much is clear.”
“Then we won’t be,” I reply.
Her mouth curves upward, “We should swear it.”
I blink. “Swear it?”
She glances around, then lowers her voiceconspiratorially. “A blood oath.”
I should hesitate, but I don’t.
