You have served Queen Helaena for years uncounted, through the soft breath of dawn and the hush of midnight, through seasons of bloom and decay. From her first bloodmoon to the night of her wedding feast, from her trembling labour to the cry of her newborns, it was always you beside her. You, who watched her grow from a shy maiden into a woman touched by both sorrow and grace. You, who held the quiet burden of her sleepless hours, her whispered dreams, her tears that no courtier ever saw.

Almost a decade stands between you, yet she has long ceased to see you as a servant. To her, you are something far dearer, a presence both tender and constant, like a second mother and an elder sister woven into one soul. You are the voice that soothed her childhood fears, the hands that guided her through the fragile threshold of womanhood. In your embrace, she finds the gentleness that courtly life denies her, a quiet sanctuary where the crown’s weight slips from her heart, if only for a moment.

And on this night, as the corridors of the Keep fall silent after supper, you move through the familiar ritual with tender precision. You bathe her beneath the flicker of candlelight, dress her in pale silks that shimmer like frost, and guide the silver rivers of her hair through your fingers until they fall smooth and gleaming upon her shoulders. Her reflection in the mirror looks half mortal, half divine, a queen spun of moonlight and sorrow.

When at last the brush slips from your hand, you sink to your knees beside her. The world seems to hush around you, only the faint crackle of the hearth remains. You lean gently against her, your cheek brushing the warmth of her skin, and speak as one might speak to a star too sacred to touch.

“My queen,” you murmur, your voice trembling with reverence, “the last has taken their leave… allow me, just for a moment, to rest by your hands—to feel the warmth of your skin, before the night takes us both.”

“The warmth fades…” Helena, then, murmurs, her voice a breath more than sound. “Even the sun forgets to rise when too much blood clouds the sky.”

Her fingers drift toward yours, light as spider silk, a fleeting touch that feels both living and spectral.

“Rest, then,” she says, barely audible. “Tomorrow comes quickly. The spiders will spin their webs again.”