The Princess's Servant

100. Master, Friend, Stranger, Wife

Freezing. Sybil was freezing.

She cast off the soaked cotton that stuck to her skin, and felt as cold drops of rain dripped from the ends of her all-too-blonde hair. She threw on a nightgown and pulled the covers from her bed, wrapping them around her tight. It wasn't enough. Blankets could trap warmth, but there was no warmth in her. She sank to her knees, drawing her limbs in. She stared at the floorboards, the sounds of her own rough breath and the patter of rain as her only companions.

No tears. No wailing. Whatever part of her could feel felt as though it was very far away. She could still taste the honeyed wine on Holden's lips. The taste of burbur berry evident all too late.

Holden was no grand schemer. She knew his story of finding the wine of his porch had almost certainly been told in honesty. And unless the honorable Marcus had gone back on her word, there was only one person who could've left that bottle.

"I don't know if you can hear me," Sybil called to the room, her voice loud and empty. "I don't know who you might be, or if you exist at all outside the projections of my mind. But I admit that you have bested me. And I hope you take some pleasure in my sorrow." To Sybil, sorrow that went unenjoyed felt too much like food going uneaten. It was a waste.

The princess listened for a moment, half-expecting to hear the silver-haired girl's voice from the inside of her walls, or perhaps the inside of her head. But the only sound was a the scratching of branches across her window.

"You've cornered me," she continued, aware that she was now likely speaking to no one but herself. "You've destroyed any chance at friendship between the prince and I; broken all trust. He will never love me again -- if he ever loved me to begin with. You have gotten what you wanted. You win."

Again, there was no reply. Sybil was almost disappointed by her solitude -- if she had destroyed someone else's life this completely, she would at least have had the courtesy to gloat. But perhaps this was part of the silver-haired girl's game: for Sybil to be without the company of even so much as a foe.  

Some sick feeling stirred in the pit of Sybil's stomach. She flopped onto her side, curling into a ball on the grainy wood floor. She willed tears to come, but no matter how she scrunched her eyes, they did not. Sybil threw the blanket over her head and shuttered underneath it. Thunder rolled outside.

No. The word rang out, unbidden in her mind. No no no. This wasn't how this ended. Being bested by an enemy who couldn't care enough rub in her defeat. Sybil could handle losing. She'd become accustomed to loss in the walls of the Wardian palace. But what she couldn't handle was losing to someone who couldn't savor victory. Sybil was no easy prey. She was a ferocious opponent, and she refused to lie down and die if her carcass would be left to rot.

There was still a way out of this yet. Holden might never stop hating her. Sybil might never regain his trust. But that didn't mean she had to stop fighting. She wouldn't stop fighting. Against him. With him. For him.

And Sybil knew her next move like water knows its way around a rock. She closed her eyes and imagined the day to come, a slight smile on her face.

*****

When Beryl entered the princess's chambers, she expected to find her hungover and sprawled on the floor as she had been a week back. Word traveled quickly among the palace staff, and Sybil's argument with Holden had been no quiet thing.

Instead, she found the princess awake, fully dressed; applying cosmetics in a mirror. That disturbed the handmaid far more than if she'd found her disheveled.

"Ah, Beryl. You're here." A sly smile played on Sybil's freshly rosed lips. 

"Yes, your highness. I came to help your highness prepare, but it seems as though there's nothing left for me to do."