***
As long as she became a servant in the Imperial palace, she had to live there as a maid for the rest of her life.
If she wanted to stop being a maidservant, she had to pay a contract fee, but since it was a large sum of money that could only be obtained by working as a maidservant for ten years, it was practically impossible for her to quit.
The maidservants of the palace were not slaves who did not get paid, but Rachel was not very happy with the pay.
Most of the maids sent their hard-earned wages to their families. Then, when they got married, they would pay again for the rest of their lives for their new families.
Even so, not everyone could work as a servant in the imperial palace, so the servants lived contentedly with their lives.
However, it was questionable whether Rachel, who was only seven years old, was satisfied with the life she was about to live, a child who desperately needed the warmth of her parents.
Rachel may have been young, but she was as witty as anyone.
Like small animals that usually look around, the young and powerless Rachel always looked around.
She knew that her mother was having a hard time, that she was sighing all the time every day, and that her language towards little Rachel was becoming increasingly rough. She never forgot her mother’s harsh words and expression.
“We don’t have enough money………. “
“Tsk, your clothes are already getting smaller.”
“Are you still hungry?”
I could tell everything about her and how she looked when she talked like that.
Even though she was very young, Rachel did the best she could.
When her mother went to work, she cleaned the little house by herself, and when she was a little older, she even ate dinner while waiting for her mother.
She never begged her mother to buy her anything, and she always stayed quiet because she didn’t want to bother her mother. Like her mother told her.
“If it wasn’t for you, I didn’t have to suffer like this!”
“What’s wrong with my life…….”
“You’re useless!”
But even so, her mom got angry easily.The more she did, the smaller Rachel became, and she always watched out for her mood.
Then one day, her mother grabbed the young Rachel on the shoulders and delivered the cruel news. Rachel wanted to cry that day. For the first time in her life, she wanted to whine.
“You’re going to live in the palace now. There will be more food, more clean clothes, more friends for you. Isn’t that nice?”
Rachel knew that her mother would not be there, but she did not dare to say it. She bit her lip and held back the tears, as her mother did.
She wanted to tell her mother that she didn’t need clean clothes and she would eat only a little, but little Rachel stayed quiet.
Maybe she was afraid that her mother would abandon her I’d she said too much, or maybe she just couldn’t hold back her tears to speak, and the child just watched her mother leave like that.
As Rachel stared at her mother’s back as she left, she knew she would never see her again, but she just bit her lip harder.
And so, at the age of seven, Rachel became the maid of the imperial palace.
She spent her days doing small chores, sleeping and eating with friends her age.
After a few months of learning the manners of a maidservant at the palace, Rachel was sent to be a maid to a young prince.
She was the maid of the third Prince of her age, but that didn’t mean that Rachel spent much time with him.
She only served as an errand girl for the third Prince’s personal attendants, and for the servants who were larger than Rachel, and that was it. The young servants of the Imperial Palace never met the Princes.
So after three months of spending her days as an errand girl, Rachel was ordered by the head maid to enter the Prince’s room.
The head maid thought that the third Prince might be bored, so she put in some playthings for him. However, Rachel had never exchanged a single word with the Prince for the whole three months.
The third Prince was never bored and preferred to read alone rather than talk to Rachel.
So all Rachel had to do was to stand quietly beside him while he read. Standing still was as hard as being punished, and she had to endure an eternity by moving her feet little by little so that the Prince would not find out.
Then one day long ago, the first time Rachel spoke to the third Pince, the first time he looked straight at Rachel, was one day in a terribly cold winter. The third Prince had finished his sword fighting class as usual and returned to his room and read his book.
At that moment, the 1st and 2nd Princes came into his room and started beating the 3rd Prince. Rachel wasn’t sure if it was something that happened during the sword fighting class or if the 1st and 2nd Princes were just in a bad mood that day, but the 3rd Prince just let himself be punched by his brothers’ fists without any resistance as if he was used to it.
Rather, only Rachel, who was standing in that room, turned pale and with her eyes and mouth wide open.
“My Prince! Please stop!”
Rachel was startled and hurriedly jumped at the two Princes. All she could think of was that she had to stop them for the sake of the third little Prince.
However, there was no way that Rachel, the youngest girl among them, could properly stop them.
Rather, she was just beaten badly by the two Princes who were furious that something so lowly had gotten her hands on their bodies.
“This vile thing!”
“Is she your friend? It suits you very well.”
The first Prince, who was too fat to see clearly, and the second Prince, whose teeth were missing with bad pronunciation, giggled and moved their hands.
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“Your mother was also a servant. It suits you well.” (They talked to the third Prince)
“I’m ashamed that you have this silver hair, the symbol of royalty!”
The second Prince pulled the third Prince’s silver hair, his mouth agape with nastiness.
However, the third Prince didn’t complain that it was hurt, nor did he raise his voice to ask for forgiveness. He just squeezed his lips shut and held back.
“Please don’t! Please don’t hit him!”
Rather, Rachel wailed and prayed, grabbing the second Prince’s pants, and that made him even angrier and he kicked little Rachel.
Perhaps the 2nd and 1st Princes found it more amusing to tease the young servant who was begging and wailing than the 3rd prince who had no response, or if they were just unhappy that the vulgar one touched their bodies, but they changed target.
The third Prince stared at his brothers and the foolish servant with an expressionless face.
The intruders who had unleashed their anger with all their might like that left, leaving only the young Rachel and the 3rd Prince in the room again.
“Are you stupid?”
Ian, the third young Prince, asked, looking at Rachel in a daze, who was lying still and bleeding from her nose, unable to wake up.
“Did you really think they wouldn’t hit me if you asked them not to?”
“….”
Rachel cried aloud, probably because she was sad or hurt. The young Ian looked at Rachel, opened the door, went outside, and brought the big maid in.
“Take her and give her treatment.”
The big maid was very unhappy with the fact that she had to hold Rache, but the Prince had told her to do it, so she had no choice but to walk out of the room with the bloodied Rachel in her arms.
However, as soon as the door to the room was closed, the big maid handed Rachel to another servant and dusted her clothes as if they were dirty.
“Take her and treat her. Then educate her again. Don’t make me even more tired.”
Rachel was called in by the head maid. Not only did she not receive any treatment, she was punished harshly by being confined in a small room for two days without food.
The reason why young Rachel was scolded and punished was because she interfered in the work of the royal family without permission.
So she was punished for two days, and when she returned to the third Prince, Ian asked.
“Did you get treatment?”
“Yes….”
Of course, that was all of the conversation.
Ian poked his head into his book again and concentrated quietly.
Rachel went silent again, standing still, leaning close to the wall so as not to defy Ian’s nerves.
And so she was back to her normal routine again. The wounds had healed and nothing had changed, except that some of the third prince’s attendants were replaced.
***
Something bubbled up in her chest at the memory she didn’t want to remember.
“…”
Rachel closed her eyes, not wanting to recall any more memories of Ian who was in front of her. After slumping for a while, Rachel finally turned her head to look out the window.
Now, the sky seen from the window of the carriage was tinged with a red orange color. A moment passed and the red sky turned black.
At that moment, Ian suddenly started pounding on the carriage wall. Rachel looked at him in surprise. The carriage slowed down and came to a stop. Rachel hurried to look out the window. Outside the window, she could see a dense forest of trees.
Feeling anxious that this would somehow be the last place of her life, Rachel bit her lips slightly and looked at Ian.
“You said you were going to the capital, didn’t you?”
Indeed, Ian had said that they were going to the capital. However, the carriage stopped in front of a forest.
Could it be?
Rachel wondered if Ian had lied to her in order to drag her here. Was this the final destination of the carriage, to dump her body somewhere in this dense forest? She was afraid, but defiance would make things more violent.
‘Obviously he said the capital…’
“Stay here and wait.”
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“What?”
“Wait, I’ll be right back.”
However, Rachel’s worries didn’t last very long. Because Ian left, leaving Rachel alone.
After a short wait, he returned. And soon the carriage was moving again.
Darkness had already descended outside the window, but the carriage did not stop and moved forward through the jet-black darkness, relying solely on the lamp that emitted orange light.