Prologue
My name is Valerie Alaric, and I just turned eighteen yesterday. Not later. Not “tonight at midnight.” The first thing I felt was that strange excitement that makes your stomach flutter like you’re about to run somewhere. Eighteen. In my head, it sounded like freedom. Like I could finally do something that mattered.
I lay on my bed for a minute, staring at the ceiling we’ve repainted too many times, listening to the house wake up. My dad’s footsteps outside. My mum humming—soft, tired humming—while she got ready for work.
I smiled into my pillow. Because today wasn’t just about being eighteen. Today was about working. About supporting my family. My dad repairs cars and motorcycles for rich people—the kind of rich that don’t look like work. Their cars come in shiny and perfect, and my dad still kneels beside them like they’re ordinary, like he isn’t literally keeping them running. When he comes home, his hands always smell like oil and metal no matter how much he washes. Sometimes I see him scrubbing under his nails like he’s trying to erase the whole day. My mum works as a nurse at a small clinic.
She doesn’t talk about it much, not the hard parts. She just comes home and sighs like the air itself is heavy, then still finds energy to ask me if I ate. We weren’t starving. Not exactly. But we were always… careful. Always counting. Always hoping nothing breaks, because if something breaks, we break with it.
So when I told myself, I’m eighteen now, what I really meant was: I can help now. And I already knew where I would work. At the Weldons’. As a maid. Even thinking that word made my throat tighten a little. Not because the work is shameful—no. Work is work. I’ve watched the Weldons’ staff move through that massive house like they’re made of quiet, like they’re trained to leave no trace. They’re the reason the floor always shines, the food always appears, the beds always look untouched.
But being a maid wasn’t something little Valerie ever imagined for herself. Little Valerie imagined school would lead somewhere. Real school. University. A life where my mum didn’t have to come home exhausted and still pretend to be fine. But imagination doesn’t pay fees.
I got into St. Artemia Academy on scholarship—the rich-people school. The kind of place where the halls smell like perfume and money and the teachers pronounce your name carefully because your parents matter. Except my parents didn’t. So I mattered only when I was perfect.
Then Mira Weldon happened. I met Mira when we were thirteen. Back then, I was the quiet scholarship girl who kept her head down and did everything right.
Mira was… Mira. Loud, fearless, always smiling like rules were a joke she’d already heard before. She caused trouble constantly. The teachers hated it. The students pretended they didn’t admire it.
I told myself I wouldn’t get close to her. Being close to Mira was like standing near a fire—you either warmed up or got burned.
But one day, a few kids cornered her behind one of the side courtyards. The spot where nobody really watched. Mira had said something—she always said something—and they didn’t like it. I saw it in their faces first. That slow, ugly decision. Mira didn’t step back. She lifted her chin like she was daring them. And I don’t even know what came over me, honestly. I just moved. I stepped between them like my body had decided before my brain did. “Stop,” I said. My voice shook. I hated that it shook.
They looked at me like I was an insect that had learned to speak. Then they hit us. I still remember the shock more than the pain—how fast it happened, how unreal it felt. Mira fought like she had claws. I fought like a person who’d never been in a real fight in their life. After, my uniform was dirty and my skin was burning and Mira’s lip was split open. She tasted blood and still laughed like she couldn’t help herself.
The next day, Mira’s parents came to the school. Not politely. Not quietly. The students who attacked us were expelled so fast it was like they’d never existed. After that, Mira claimed me like I belonged to her. “You’re my best friend now,” she said one afternoon, like it was a fact, like I didn’t have a choice. And maybe I didn’t.
From then on, I spent time at her house—her estate, really. Calon City wealth. Massive gates. Security. Marble. Staff that glided instead of walked.
At first I thought it was all magic. Then I started noticing the people behind it. The maids. The way they kept their faces neutral. The way they worked around conversations like invisible furniture. The way they were everywhere and nowhere at once. And because I’m me—because I think too much—I started wondering how someone becomes that. How someone gets hired. What it pays. If it could help my family.
There wasn’t going to be university for me, not unless a miracle fell directly into my hands. So I decided: if I’m going to work, let it be somewhere stable. Somewhere safe. Somewhere I already know. Somewhere with the Weldons.
Calonia is weird like that. We have modern buildings and phones and trains… and still a monarchy. Still a royal family like we’re living inside an old story with new clothes.
Seven states, all doing their part. Nordania with the mines. Selonia with the horses. Marlenia with inventors. Valdoria with nobles who act like their blood is different. Nourvia with food. And Eldrida—my Eldrida—with ancient trees and old soil and people who work hard and don’t get noticed.
The royal family lives in Calon City, far from the parts of the kingdom that get dusty. The Queen is dead. The King is still alive. He has three children: the Princess, the Crowned Prince, and the youngest Prince. And the funny thing is, I never cared much about them. Not until Mira did.
When we were thirteen, Mira started talking about the Crowned Prince like he was a secret she couldn’t keep inside. Like the whole world was waiting for him to look in her direction. She’d show me pictures, videos, news clips—always with this bright, hungry look in her eyes. I’d watch politely, because that’s what you do when your best friend is obsessed.
But I didn’t understand. Princes weren’t for girls like me. Princes were for headlines and fancy parties and people who wore dresses that cost more than our rent. I thought my life was already decided. I thought the biggest change waiting for me was a uniform and a paycheck. I didn’t know my life was about to shift.
I didn’t know that stepping into the Weldons’ house as staff would bring me too close to the kind of power that destroys people. I didn’t know the Crowned Prince would stop being a name in Mira’s mouth and become… real. I just knew I was eighteen. And for the first time, I felt like maybe—maybe—I could finally be useful.
