𝑫𝑹𝑰𝑭𝑻 [currently being edited]

chapter 22 - knew

The staff always knew what was going on. Maids, guards, foots men, all paid for their work and their silence. Affairs, secret business deals, all went on with a maid cleaning the room, or a guard near the door.

Overlooked, paid to be in the shadows, that was what they did, yet the moon summoner would thank maids, most grisha were polite, yet the moon summoner was the only one who brought gifts on yule, that remembered gifts on yule for the maid's three year old daughter of the guards sick wife. The moon summoner was the only one who delivered personally made hot chocolate to the guards that worked in the winter.

The guards that were the first person Aruna saw who did not expect her to be worth any money, variable for work, anything but a child. The guards working that night saw a tired, injured, starved child. One that reeked of salt, and would stay that way for weeks, no matter how many baths the maids offered. The guards paid the lady the gursha founder sum and lent their jackets to the poor child.

The maids who helped Aruna with her reading when she didn't want to bother the teachers. The maid that helped Aruna when she had a nightmare or was lost in her first few months in the Palaces that were larger than the entire village she grew up in.

The maids that helped her when she lost a tooth when one of the older grisha children preyed on her still too weak body to fight.

That is why even when the staff knew that the moon summoner and 'temporarily' moved into the Grand Palace, into the chambers adjacent to the recently returned prince, they did not gossip as usual.

They did not let it slip to Genya, who they knew Aruna, kind Aruna would be embarrassed to tell.

Afterall they saw little Aruna and young Nikolai hiding from their lives in the library. The slight blush Nikolai had when he asked the staff to prepare a picnic for two one summer's eve, and the pale, fifteen year old Nikolai walking out of Aruna's room, in which they later changed the bodied sheets from an amused Aruna.

The silent shadows, paid to do work and keep their mouths shut, saw the letters between two separated friends every week, and they saw a furious Nikolai with a bloodied hand and the Darkling with a bruised eye, before he headed to the healers.

They saw it all, and they remembered the kindness that Aruna continued to show, and they remember the sun summoner's robes smelling like the Darkling and his face the day he requested another black kefta, one not with black or silver embroidering but one with gold.

Guards were at the door and heard the argument, the Darkling's confessions.

They saw it all, now it was only a question of what will happen and when the truth comes out, because the truth always comes out.

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Now the guards saw the moon summoner sleep in the chambers adjacent to the Prince's, not in the Darkling's. They observed the heavy drinking from the Darkling at night.

If it had been anyone else the stuff would have run their mouth off, afte rall a grisha in the bed with the Darkling only to move onto the prince's chambers just a mere day after his arrival. Perhaps they were old lovers reunited.

However this was Aruna, and they noticed the pain the moon summoner was in, watching the Darkling and the sun summoner. They noticed these changes, the dark sheets once stained with tears now reeking of alcohol each night in the Darkling's chambers.

Yet it seemed the grisha did not, perhaps it was because grisha were rarely in the Grand Palace, if it was for an event. Perhaps it was that the moon summoner and the Darkling still appeared at breakfast and dinner together.

However if one were to really look into it they would not see the usual love struck puppy looking at Aruna as if she put the moon in the sky, and only for him. Casual brushes of skin, and sweet nothings whispered in ears.

No, instead they would see a kind Aruna and a hurt Darkling. Craving back the brushes of skin and desperately wanting to whisper sweet nothings into Aruna's ears. Wanting to serve her cake, just because she loved it, wanting to go on walks around the gardens and have her place the flower crown she was making onto his head. Instead he gave her space, because that's the number one thing she wanted and he had lost his place at number one, all due to his foolishness and ambition.

After all the night needed the moon to glow, displaying the night's vast power and stretch, and the night had a plan to get the moon back to its full glow.