Chapter 1772: Misbehaving Boys |
"Ohh..." Myrasyn was quiet for a moment.
Then understanding settled over her features, gentle and unhurried, because of course a girl who had been saved from that would know the exact hour it happened.
"I see," she said. "I’m glad you found your home."
Eira’s composure held for exactly one more breath before her eyes went glassy, and she returned to the braids with hands that trembled for an entirely different reason than before.
"Thank you..."
Myrasyn’s ears twitched upward, and the smile that crossed her face had sharpened into curiosity.
She leaned toward Isveth, who sat beside her with Beatrice managing her hair, and the two elves settled in.
"Tell us about life here," Myrasyn chirped, crossing one leg over the other. "What does your master feed you? Where do you sleep?"
"How does he treat his people?" Isveth added from beside her, and the quiet intensity behind the question said she’d been waiting to ask it since stepping through the gate.
"We want to hear everything," Myrasyn’s eyes sparkled.
Eira glanced at Emily, received a subtle nod, and the shyness fell away faster than the braids she was undoing, and the choir of endless praise began flowing from the maid’s lips.
A few chairs over, Felicity was bouncing in her seat while Clarisse worked on her purple hair with hands steady enough to manage both excitable princesses and squirming toddlers without breaking rhythm.
"Father, this kind lady is Clarisse!" Felicity announced, waving toward the eldest maid. "She’s the only proper career maid in the whole household! All the others were trained by her!"
Alexios glanced at the woman, observed for a long second, then... "A fine young lady," he remarked.
Clarisse’s eyes narrowed just enough to make her position clear. "His Majesty seems to be enjoying his time away from the palace."
Alexios quickly caught himself. "My apologies. Must be the adrenaline."
Clarisse offered a small curtsy toward the king, accepting the apology.
"Finally looking for a new wife, old man?" Quinlan called over without looking up. "Good on you, but stop chatting up my maids. They deserve better."
Two glares hit him from opposite directions.
Morgana’s came from beneath a mask of mud and wounded fury, because she was standing right there.
Clarisse’s was quieter, but no less lethal, the career maid turning her narrowed eyes on her own master.
"Master Quinlan." Clarisse’s tone could have frozen the heated streets below. "I’m happy to see that you found a male friend after all these months of being surrounded exclusively by women, but I’d hope you will continue behaving as a proper adult I can be proud to serve."
Quinlan raised both hands. "My apologies. Must be the adrenaline."
"Master Quinlan..." Clarisse didn’t seem entertained.
And just like that, the two most powerful men on the continent exchanged a glance after being scolded like misbehaving boys by their strict mother.
At the end of the line, Cecile approached Morgana with a brush and a fresh set of commoner clothes.
The Queen of Vraven sat in her chair like a woman who had been buried alive, dragged out of the earth, ignored by her husband, and was now being asked to cooperate with a teenager holding a brush.
Because that was exactly what had happened.
Cecile studied Morgana’s mud-caked face, her filth-matted hair, her gown that looked like it had been pulled through a quarry, and tilted her head.
"Actually, your makeup is already perfect!"
Morgana’s left eye twitched. "I beg your pardon?"
"You’re ready to go as is!" Cecile chirped.
Morgana couldn’t believe her ears. "You will clean me properly, maid."
"Nope~ My duty today is to help everyone blend in with the common folk," Cecile explained cheerfully, gesturing at the settlement below. "And you already look like you’ve been working in the fields all day! You’re perfect as you are! If anyone asks, tell them you slipped and fell face first into the mud and no one will question your cover!"
"Clean. Me."
Cecile shook her head with genuine sympathy. "I’m sorry, but my orders are to help you blend in, not make you pretty. You blend in beautifully!"
"I AM COVERED IN DIRT!"
"Exactly!"
Morgana’s hands gripped the arms of the chair hard enough to crack the wood, and the eruption building in her lungs was probably audible from the settlement when Jasmine’s voice cut across from two seats over.
"Behave, Your Majesty." The Tyrant of Commerce didn’t look up from the clipboard she’d produced. "Or I’ll have you whipped."
The Queen of Vraven turned her blazing gaze on the brunette who had just given her an order. A lowborn merchant girl. Telling a queen. To behave. Or else.
Morgana’s fury short-circuited into speechless offense.
Jasmine continued writing.
Beside Dorothy, Elisabeth had been watching her assigned maid work with genuine appreciation.
"You’re very skilled," she said, and the warmth in her voice carried none of the venom she reserved for the maid’s master. "Your hands are steady."
"Thank you, Your Holiness." Dorothy smiled. "We practice every day."
"May I ask something? Has he..." Elisabeth chose the word carefully. "Enslaved you?"
Dorothy’s face lit up like a lantern.
"Yes!"
The word came out so bright, so proud, so thoroughly delighted that Elisabeth physically leaned back in her chair.
"W-what do you mean? Why are you happy?"
"It’s the greatest honor," Dorothy continued, pressing both hands together. "Being one of Master’s slaves means he trusts you completely!"
Elisabeth’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Being his slave... is a sign of his trust?"
"Yes!!" Dorothy beamed, and there was nothing in her voice but absolute, unblemished sincerity.
Elisabeth turned to look at Quinlan.
She didn’t understand.
These women weren’t just happy to have respectable work. Being a maid in a lord’s household was already a boon for lowborn women, a giant step up from the fields and the slums, and gratitude alone could explain steady hands and polished manners.
But that wasn’t what Elisabeth was seeing.
Every few seconds, one of them would steal a glance at Quinlan.
Each look lingered too long to be professional, a woman soaking in his presence while she had the chance, as if being near him was the reward and the work was just the excuse.
Eira’s eyes kept drifting toward him between braids. Dorothy smiled to herself while adjusting a buckle, and the smile had nothing to do with the buckle. Even Clarisse, the one who carried herself like she answered to no one, stood a little differently when he spoke up.
They weren’t mere hired servants.
Elisabeth could hear it in the way they talked about him, not "the lord" or "our employer" but "Master," spoken with the same reverence her priestesses used for the Goddess.
These women shared a history with Quinlan that went deeper than employment, deeper than loyalty, and she could not make it fit inside her head.
Then, after a few minutes of the maids working diligently, Jasmine clapped her hands and rose from her chair. "Time to move."
The maids finished their last adjustments with practiced speed.
Cloaks and robes materialized from the remaining bundles, plain wool and roughspun in muted browns and greys, draped over golden armor and royal gowns until every king, queen, and priestess on the hill looked like a group of travelers who had seen better decades.
Myrasyn ran her fingers along the coarse fabric of her cloak and smiled as though she’d been handed a new toy, but before she could pull the hood up, Quinlan stepped in front of her.
"May I?"
Myrasyn blinked, the four-thousand-year-old queen suddenly unsure what she’d just been asked, but she nodded. "Y-yes?"
Quinlan’s fingers reached for her ears.
Long, elegant, unmistakably elven ears that would give her away the moment anyone on the street got a proper look.
He gathered her hair around them with practiced ease, tucking the pointed tips beneath blonde strands until they disappeared, then adjusted a few loose sections to keep them covered.
"I’ve done this for Seraphiel a few times," he explained casually, smoothing a strand into place. "Though she usually just pretended to be my elven sex slave. Made disguises a lot simpler."
Myrasyn’s face went crimson from her collarbones to the tips of the ears he was currently hiding. "I... see..."
"There." He pulled the hood up over her hair and stepped back. "Should hold, hopefully."
Myrasyn nodded quickly, not trusting her voice, and busied herself adjusting her cloak while her ears burned beneath it.
A few steps away, Isveth had already pulled her hood up and tucked her own ears with practiced efficiency.
She stood like that for about three seconds.
Then she reached up, pulled the hood back down, and carefully untucked both ears, letting them spring free.
She turned toward Quinlan, hands clasped in front of her, and trembling desperation warped her expression, her dignity as head shrine maiden at war with the fact that the Holy Son’s fingers had just been in another elf’s hair and not hers.
"H-Holy Son..."
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t dare to.
Quinlan glanced at her, then shook his head with a grin he couldn’t fight down. "Come here."
Isveth crossed the distance so fast her composure didn’t survive the first step.
She planted herself in front of him and tilted her head, offering both ears with her eyes squeezed shut and her clasped hands shaking, as if the Holy Son tucking her ears beneath her hair was a sacred rite she had been waiting her entire life to receive.
Quinlan tucked them in the same way he’d done for Myrasyn, and Isveth trembled through every second of it.
"There you go," he said, pulling her hood up. "Let me know if you feel it coming loose."
Isveth didn’t move.
"Thank you..." Eyes still closed, fingers still clasped, the bliss radiating from her so thick it was almost visible.
"...You can open your eyes."
"Yes..." she did so, and big, happy tears rushed down her cheeks.
"Come on... Must you shrine maidens always be so dramatic?" Quinlan sighed, reaching up to clean her eyes with a finger.
Isveth nearly died on the spot.
And just like that, it was time to showcase what living under Quinlan’s rule looked like!
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