The Royal Acolyte

Chapter One

Gwyndolyn had never been perfectly content to live a perfectly ordinary life. Something within her knew somehow that she was destined for greater things than being a kitchen maid in the palace all her life. However, there were few opportunities for someone like her in Hecatia. She'd grown up there in the palace, never knowing a mother or father. As a girl, she'd been taught basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and the manners needed to properly serve in the palace. Beyond that, she had little formal education except what she read in books occasionally discarded from the castle library. From them, she learned history, science, a bit of music, among other things. The books that had always fascinated her most were about the stars and planets. She longed to one day view the heavens from the palace observatory, said to be the best in the world. Those dreams, however, were not ones that a servant could fulfill. Gwyn, as she liked to be called, knew nothing of her roots. As a young child, she'd looked for someone who might share her wavy brown hair, interspersed with random streaks of light brown, close to blonde, and dark brown, close to black; her bright green eyes, a shade which she'd never seen on anyone else; her seemingly infinite freckles, which many had but none shared her more distinctive features. She'd searched everywhere she went, to no avail. By the age of ten, she had resigned herself to never knowing her history. And now, at sixteen, she never thought of her mysterious parents.

The King had passed away just yesterday, and the entire kingdom had now entered a period of mourning. Everyone assumed that Princess Waverly, niece to the King, would be named heir to the throne as the King had no wife or children.

The King's will, which would name the next heir to the kingdom, was traditionally read the day after his death, while for a Queen an entire week stretched by before the reading of the will. The old myths had it that it had taken Tryena only a day to create the first King of Hecatia, but for the first Queen she has labored for a week, trying to make her creation as perfect as she could. 

In the depths of the palace, Gwyn stood in the kitchen before a large sink, scrubbing pots and pans that had been used to cook the mourning feast, held in the evening after the will was read. A throat was cleared behind her. Gwyn turned around to see a well-dressed butler.

"Are you the kitchen maid called Gwyndolyn?" he asked in a nasally voice. Gwyn nodded, unsure what an upstairs servant might want with her. Upstairs servants, like butlers and maids, worked upstairs and were seen by the public. Downstairs servants, like Gywn, toiled in the kitchens, the laundry, the stables - anywhere out of sight from the royals and their guests. Downstairs servants were deemed unfit for public eye - whether that be because of looks, education, manners, or just tradition. Upstairs servants had a higher rank in the hierarchy of the palace, and such positions were highly coveted. As an orphan with little education and no connections, attaining such a position would be close to impossible for Gwyn. The butler spoke to her again. "Excellent. I'll be needing you to come with me then, miss." Gwyn didn't miss the lack of a please - this was an order, something she had no choice but to comply with.

"But why?" Gwyn asked, finding her voice after a moment's shock.

"You've been named in the King's will," the butler replied. "I don't know why His Majesty, my he rest in peace, has included you, but it was requested that you be there for the reading. The King's brother and niece have already gathered. Now, please come with me."

Gwyn followed mutely, shocked by the butler's words. She quickly hung her apron on a peg as she hurried out of the kitchen, doing her best to smooth the plain gray dress she wore. The butler led her up a hidden set of stairs she'd never noticed before and through a confusing maze of opulent rooms. They came to a stop outside a door inlaid with pearls in the design of a lily, the symbol of Hecatia and Tryena's sacred flower.