To hell and back

Rules of the house

Petro, the butler, led me to what he explained to be the part of the house that was inhabited by the staff, but he explained that the mistress of the house requested for me to move into a room closer to the young mistress, and so I would not be staying with her, but this is where I will be able to find the rest of the staff. As per request and agreement with the mistress of the house, from tomorrow I will be staying by the younger girls' side at all times.

Doesn't that sound fun...

Twenty-four-seven care of a bratty spoiled little princess, I can already feel the headache coming.

After showing me to my room, Petro, as the one in charge of the staff of the house, took it upon himself to familiarize me with the rules of the house... and there were a lot of them.

It all started with simple things like when breakfast and dinner times as well as where I was supposed to eat those meals. The fun twist was that I was supposed to match that time perfectly with the young mistress's schedule, so she would not miss my presence, and it would not be noticed that I was missing from her company... not sure how that was even possible... but sure.

After rule twenty-four, I stopped listening. I was not planning to stay here for long enough to learn the rules. Some of them were quite out there, like I should never dare sneeze in the presence of the family we were serving, which was interesting as I did not think one could control such things. My tired brain was tuning out the old man as he continued to talk. Maybe I should listen to what he was saying, but how hard could this be? They can not be more intense than the Dark King and his little possy, any misstep in their presence would not cause you to get a slap on the wrist, but something a bit more memorable... I remember that one of the new staff people made the mistake to look up when a plate fell and their eyes met the kings eyes. As punishment, one of their eyes had been removed. And that sort of punishment was not that uncommon among the staff. There were people with missing fingers or tongues, among other more torture like punishments, where they used magic to make the person that missed stepped to remember that lesson for the rest of their life.

"Did I make myself clear?"

My eyes shot to the older man as I blinked away the haze of exhaustion as I nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, in the morning I will send a maid with your uniform."

"Thank you, sir."

I gave him a short bow as he walked out of the room.

Once I was finally alone in the room, I released a deep sight as I felt my body relax, as I could take in the room when I was no longer observed by the watchful eye of the older man. There is no mistaking that he will be my biggest problem and I will have to be extra careful with him in the future. I am sure he will be the one that will watch me the closest... and, due to his status, I am sure he will be the one to figure out some of my secrets the fastest... like the fact that I have no idea what it entails to be a maid. Sure, I had them for a bit, but after a while they became a risk, so I let all of them go. So this will be a bit difficult for me, but from what I understand, my role will be more of a bodyguard than a real maid, so I have a feeling that the heads of the family are not expecting me to do real maid work.

Feeling uneasy, I took off my cloak and unclipped the bags I had tied around my waist with the money I got from the kind man as well as the few essentials that I brought over the wall. It was the bare minimum and I would have to get a few things to prepare some protection stuff for myself and something for the young girl I would be protecting. Sure, I don't believe that she is being targeted in that way, but they will be expecting me to provide something for them to believe that I am keeping the young girl safe.

As I put the little baggies on the table, the fancy-looking necklace caught my eyes and my mind returned to the light-haired man that saved me at the border. The look on his face and the gleam of his eyes that I saw in that window as we were leaving was not leaving my mind and was making me smile. I was kinda curious to know who he was, but due to the fact that I took his money and precious jewelry that he was keeping close, it was better that our paths would not cross in the near future... or I might end up beheaded... or even worse, sent back to the Dark kingdom.

With a sharp shake of my head, I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and started getting ready for bed.

I started by taking off my gloves and for a moment just stared at my hands. To an inexperienced eye, it looks like normal hands for a maid my age, with burn marks from work as well as some other scars... but a person that knows magic, especially dark magic, they could instantly tell that these hands had done things... dark, unspeakable things...

Back when I had powers, I used to have constant glamour, so one could see the price for magic I paid. But now I could not do that, so I had to settle for gloves, no matter how much I hate it. My senses had dulled after losing magic and, with the additional layer of fabrics between me and the world, it was extremely frustrating and annoying not to be able to feel things by touch.

But I guess it is a small price to pay for not being banished back to the dark kingdom.

Feeling even more exhausted, I started working the corset of my dress open. The exhaustion I was feeling had very little to do with being tired from the trip. No, it was the soul deep exhaustion that one feels after living through too much, but I could now let myself get sucked into that trap of tiredness... at least not yet.

When my dress finally fell to the ground, I let myself stretch. I hate feeling the little aches from every small little thing. As I arched my back, I could not stop myself from looking in a mirror at the side of the room. Slowly, I let the undergarments I was wearing under my dress fall to the ground as I walked closer to the mirror and looked at the multiple runes engraved in my skin.

All of them are useless now that I had no power, and it was yet another memory of the power-hungry witch that did everything to get more powerful. When I closed my eyes I could still see the puddle of blood that I was lying in when I carved these into my skin.

I had to force myself to open my eyes and not to let myself get sucked into memories, there was too great of a chance that I might get tempted to turn back.

My eyes instead turned to the freshest carvings on my side, that were supposed to keep my presence hidden from anyone and everyone that would even attempt to look for me. It was a sort of security system that I had put in place that night that I left. It was the most powerful cloaking rune there was. Not even the Dark King was supposed to be able to overpower it...

At least I hope that it is powerful enough to do so...