She can feel how the other maids bore holes into her back when she turns away, how they look at her in disdain sometimes and whisper to each other and they think she doesn’t notice but she always does. 

Still, they treat me well enough, no longer can these girls gang up on me, not when the king himself put me in this position and watches over me like his own little sister. They respect me enough and do as I say but sometimes it is still hard. 

But over time, it starts to get better, less lonely and I fall into a routine of serving the new king and when he’s not busy we sit together and talk and laugh and I cherish this time because the king demands nothing of me and they just laugh and talk and the king savours the goodness that runs through her veins, her unyielding loyalty to those who do good.

And the princes come and visit when they can. Most of them still treat her as Hae Soo, the girl that they played with before she entered the palace and when I serve the tea and snacks and they always force me to join and I do, because it reminds me of better times. 

And the fourth prince, well it’s like he sees deep into my soul, so deep that I cannot even see for myself, and sees that there is something more brewing deep below, long before I even dared to admit it to myself. He drops by almost every day when he’s not away on missions as the king’s ri