The Substitute Queen 👑

Chapter Four

Celeste

The room the maid led her to was larger than anything Celeste had slept in her entire life.

High ceilings, pale gold curtains pulled back from tall windows, a bed that looked like it belonged to someone important rather than someone who used to steam ballroom carpets by hand before sunrise. She stood just inside the doorway for a moment, taking it in, feeling strangely like a trespasser in her own assigned room.

"It's yours, Your Majesty," the young woman said, setting Celeste's bags down by the wardrobe. "I'm Mia. I'll be your handmaiden , myself and a couple of others will be looking after you from here on."

"Celeste is fine," she said, before she could stop herself.

Mia's smile flickered, uncertain. "I'll try to remember that when no one else is around."

Celeste almost smiled back. Almost. "Do you know where my friend is? Sallyn. She came with me."

"She's been given a room in the west wing," Mia said. "She's being looked after too. Some of the others will be attending to her needs there. I can take you to see her in the morning, if you'd like."

"I'd like that."

Mia nodded, gathering herself toward the door. "Get some rest tonight. It's been a long day. We'll come for you in the morning."

The door shut softly behind her, and Celeste was alone for the first time since dawn.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a long while before she managed to lie down at all, staring at a ceiling she didn't recognize, in a palace she hadn't chosen, married to a man who'd made it very clear exactly how much he despised the position she'd been put in. Twenty-four hours ago, she'd been on her knees steaming a carpet, invisible enough that half the household forgot she existed most days. Now she was lying in a bed meant for a queen, wearing a name that had been forced onto her like a costume, wondering how an entire life could turn itself inside out in the space of one morning.

She didn't remember falling asleep. She only remembered, faintly, thinking that none of this felt real yet, and hoping, in some small useless corner of her mind, that maybe in the morning it wouldn't be.

The knock came early, and it startled her out of sleep before she'd even opened her eyes.

"Your Majesty?" A voice, muffled through the door. "Are you awake?"

Celeste blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling, disoriented for a second before yesterday came rushing back all at once. Your Majesty. The words sat strangely in her chest, like a coat two sizes too big, something draped over her that hadn't been tailored to fit.

"I'm awake," she managed.

The door opened, and three young women filed in, all dressed neatly, all a little too composed for how early it clearly was. Mia was among them, along with two others Celeste didn't recognize yet.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," the tallest one said, already moving toward the wardrobe. "We're here to get you ready before breakfast. The king leaves for his council meeting shortly after, and you'll want to be dressed before then."

Celeste sat up slowly, still half-caught in the strangeness of being spoken to this way , brisk, respectful, entirely unfamiliar. "Ready for what, exactly?"

"Breakfast first," Mia said, gentler than the others, clearly having decided overnight that she was the one meant to explain things. "After that, you'll begin lessons. Etiquette, protocol, your duties as queen. Your coronation is one week from today, and there's a great deal to prepare before then."

"A week," Celeste repeated, mostly to herself.

"Best to start now, Your Majesty," the third maiden said, already laying out a dress across the foot of the bed. "There isn't much time to waste."

Celeste looked at the dress, then at the three of them moving briskly around the room like this was the most ordinary morning in the world, and felt that same strange weight settle over her again , the title, the room, the whole shape of the life now expected of her, none of it quite hers yet, all of it already happening anyway.

She got up, and let them dress her.

The dress laid across the foot of the bed was nothing like anything Celeste had worn before, heavy silk in a shade of deep blue , embroidered beautifully along the hem with golden thread , sleeves structured enough that they seemed to hold their shape even empty. It looked less like clothing and more like something built, engineered to sit a certain way on a certain kind of woman.

Nothing like the plain, practical things she'd worn her whole life , clothes chosen for how well they hid stains, how easily they let her move while she worked.

"We'll bathe you first," Mia said, already gathering towels, oils in small glass bottles Celeste didn't recognize the scent of. "Then hair, then the rest."

The bath alone took longer than Celeste expected. Two of the maidens worked at once , one at her hair, working some kind of fragrant oil through it strand by strand until it gleamed, the other scrubbing along her arms, her shoulders, her back, with a care that felt almost clinical, checking every inch of her the way someone might inspect a piece of furniture before deciding it was presentable. No one had ever touched her this carefully in her life. It should have felt indulgent. Instead, it felt strangely impersonal, like she was being prepared rather than cared for , an object being readied for display, not a woman being helped.

By the time they moved her to the vanity, Celeste had gone quiet, letting them work without protest, because she genuinely didn't know what she'd even say. Powder, brushed carefully along her cheekbones. Something dark smoothed over her lashes until her eyes looked bigger, sharper, less like her own. Her hair pinned and re-pinned twice before the third maiden was satisfied, twisted up in a style Celeste had only ever seen in portraits, never on herself.

She watched the whole process happen in the mirror like it was happening to someone else. A woman assembled piece by piece , skin, hair, face, dress , until what looked back at her barely resembled the girl who'd been steaming carpets on her knees just yesterday morning.

"There," Mia said finally, stepping back to look her over, satisfied. "Beautiful, Your Majesty."

Celeste stared at her own reflection and felt nothing beautiful. She felt handled. Arranged. Something dressed up and set carefully in place, the way a child might pose as a doll inside a dollhouse, deciding exactly how it should sit and look before anyone else came to see it.

"Thank you," she said anyway, because it seemed like the only acceptable answer.

Mia smiled, missing , or kindly ignoring , the hollowness in it. "Breakfast is waiting. Shall we?"

Celeste stood, smoothed the unfamiliar silk beneath her hands, and followed them out, feeling, with every step, like she was watching herself do it from somewhere just outside her own body.