Chapter 7

Ayla spent half of the morning in bed, reading until, to her shock, a maid brought her the breakfast. When she asked about King Rhobart or Milton, the maid said that Ayla had the entire day to rest and that the King would see her that evening at dinner.

The thought of dining with the King filled her with anxiety. But who said anything about her eating with the King. The maid said that Ayla would see King Rhobart at dinner. Most certainly to serve him. After all, Ayla wasn't sick anymore, and she was his slave. So if she must serve the cruel King, then that's what she would do.

Ayla was so nervous that she decided to skip breakfast and lunch. She was sure that if she ate anything, she would end up throwing up. Now she wished she hadn't eaten that fruit earlier.

She tried reading to calm herself, but she often found herself reading the same paragraph four or five times in a row. In the end, Ayla gave up reading entirely. Instead, she started pacing around the room. She felt like a trapped animal. If she was completely honest with herself, she was. Trapped, that is.

Kerra looked at Ayla like she was a madman. Woman. Woman. Maybe she had gone crazy.

Suddenly she stopped in front of Kerra, "Don't look at me like that! I bet you would be as nervous as me if you would have to serve the man that killed your father and took you as a slave!"

Not that she regretted that her father was dead. He could rot in the Eternal Darkness forever. For eternity and then some.

Kerra made a sound that was something between a snort and a hiss.

Ayla sighed and sat next to the snowcat and stroked her fur.

When even Kerra's purrs stopped calming her nerves, Ayla went in front of the mirror and started brushing her long hair. It was custom for Myrthana's women to keep their hair long. Hers almost reached her lower back. When she was done, she braided it.

It was later afternoon when two maids entered Ayla's room. One of them carried a blue dress. Both looked at Ayla like she was a deer, and they were shadowbeasts.

Kerra darted out of the room a second before the door got closed. The black tips of her tails almost got caught in the process.

'Leaving me alone with the enemy?' Ayla thought when she found herself alone with the maids.

The women bowed in front of Ayla, and one of them talked to her, "We are here to assist you with your bath and get ready for dinner."

Ayla blinked once, twice. A slave that gets to be helped by maids? She has never seen or heard of such a thing. The slaves from her father's castle were the ones to help everyone else. And even if, for Myrthana's slave,s bathing was a must, good food or medicine or a beautiful room was not something that a slave enjoyed. What made the King of Nordmar treat his slaves differently?

Ayla knew that if she would have been sick while being a slave in her father's castle, now her brother's castle, she would have died. But instead of being dead, she was about to get special treatment.

"I get ready by myself. You don't need to bother with me. I am sure you have a lot to do," Ayla said.

"The King has ordered us to assist you. Don't make this hard for us," one of them said in a cold tone.

Ayla clenched her teeth and thought, 'He really wants to show off his new slave,' and nodded.

One of the maids rushed into the bathroom and started preparing the bath while the other began unbraiding Ayla´s hair.

"You have soft and long hair," she said. "Too bad it looks so unhealthy. By the time I will finish with you, your hair will look amazing."

Ayla inhaled deeply and let the maids do their job.

When the bath was ready, the maids washed and scrubbed every inch of Ayla's body using oils and herbs until her skin felt like that of a newborn and her hair was shining and healthy once again.

When the maids finally let Ayla out of the bath, they made her stand in front of a wall that had some set of pipes. One of the maids pushed some buttons, and warm air blew out of the pipes, drying Ayla from head to toes.

Ayla was fascinated by those pipes. She had never seen something like that before. The whole bathroom was amazing. The stone floor was warm beneath her feet; in a corner, there was a bench, and under the bench, there were some magical stones. She wondered what those stones did. And there was the bathtub. By Adanoss, that bathtub. It was bigger than the one she had in Myrthana, and it had magical stones on the edge that sent vibrations into her body, helping her muscles relax.

The maids led her back into the room. They helped her put on clean undergarments and long soft socks that reached her calves. The last was the blue dress and a white belt around her waist. A long cape was attached to her shoulder. She touched the dress's fabric– it was so soft and warm.

"Made from the wool of a woolly rhino. Or several of them," a maid said.

Once dressed, Ayla was forced to sit on a chair while the maids worked on her hair. She had never had a maid before to help her style her hair. It was her mother that taught Ayla how to braid and do her hair. After her mother's death, her father said that she didn't need a maid, and that was that.

The hair was divided into three sections and then braided once again. Ayla saw the maids' hair; they also kept it braided. From what she could observe on the journey, even the men kept their hair in different types of braids. Some even dyed the braid or used oil and herbs. Maybe Nordmarians had a thing for braids and hair. Myrthanians had something for silks. Not that she had silk clothes before. Her mother did tho. She could still remember how her mother's dresses felt under her fingers. She doubted she would ever touch something as soft as those dresses ever again.

Once the hair was done, some light makeup was applied to her face to hide the dark circles and some pink on her cheeks to distract from her pale skin, which ended the maids' task.

"Come and look into the mirror," one of them said.

When she did, Ayla almost didn't recognize herself. She looked like a true princess—a slave princess. But even if she looked lovely, even beautiful, her eyes were still haunted.

"You look absolutely gorgeous," one maid said.

Ayla was still looking at her reflection when she saw that the maids were about to leave.

She spun fast, tripped with a rug, and lost her balance for a second but avoided the fall in the last second, "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Someone will come to escort you to the dining hall. Have a lovely evening."

When the maids closed the door behind them, Ayla snorted. Her evening will be anything but lovely.