A Maid's Secret

News of the attack spread through the palace by sunrise, twisted a dozen different ways by the time it reached the outer halls.

By breakfast, the story had become an assassin nearly killing the Third Prince single-handedly, with Lin Yue's role reduced to something closer to

"screaming maid who fainted." By midday, the servants' quarters buzzed with a different version entirely — one where she'd apparently defeated five armed men with her bare hands.

Lin Yue ignored all of it, focusing instead on arranging Yichen's study exactly as it had been before wooden pillars started collecting throwing blades.

"You're doing that wrong," Yichen said from the doorway, watching her stack scrolls in a pile that made no logical sense whatsoever.

"I'm doing it exactly how it looked before everything got destroyed, Your Highness."

"It looked destroyed before too. You've simply rearranged the destruction."

Lin Yue turned, scroll still in hand, unable to fully hide her exasperation.

"With respect, perhaps Your Highness would prefer to organize his own scrolls, given how particular he apparently is about their chaos."

Yichen's mouth twitched — the closest thing to a smile he'd allowed all morning. "I prefer my new attendant not to question every instruction with her hands on her hips."

"I wasn't aware attendants weren't permitted opinions."

"They aren't. Officially."

"Then I suppose it's fortunate," Lin Yue said, setting the scroll down with more force than necessary, "that I only became your attendant yesterday, and haven't yet learned all the official rules."

He studied her for a long moment, something unreadable behind his calm expression. She held his gaze longer than any proper servant should have, then seemed to catch herself, dropping into a hurried bow.

"Forgive me, Your Highness. I spoke out of turn."

"You did," Yichen agreed. Then, quieter: "Don't stop."

She glanced up, uncertain she'd heard correctly.

"I've spent twenty-one years surrounded by people who only tell me what they think I want to hear," he continued, moving further into the study. "It's exhausting. At least when you speak, I know it's the truth."

Something in Lin Yue's expression flickered — guilt, maybe, or something closer to it — there and gone before he could name it.

"The truth isn't always comfortable, Highness."

"No," he agreed. "But it's rare enough in this palace that I've learned to value it regardless."

***

Across the capital, within the Phoenix Garden's private quarters, Empress Shen Rui met privately with two of the Emperor's senior concubines — a rare gathering, tense with unspoken rivalry.

"Your son survived an assassination attempt," Consort Mei said carefully, sipping her tea with deliberate calm. "How fortunate."

"Fortune had little to do with it," the Empress replied evenly. "Skill did."

"The maid's skill, from what I hear." Consort Bai's smile didn't reach her eyes. "One wonders where a simple kitchen girl learned to fight like a trained warrior."

"One wonders many things in this palace," the Empress said. "Rarely does wandering lead anywhere productive."

The underlying threat in her tone wasn't subtle. Both consorts fell silent, exchanging a brief glance before Consort Mei changed course entirely.

"My son asked me to relay his concerns about the trials' fairness," she said instead. "Given that Third Prince Yichen now has extra protection, the rest do not."

"Extra protection because someone tried to murder him inside his own chambers," the Empress said, voice sharpening. "If your son wishes similar protection, perhaps he should worry less about fairness and more about who might be sending assassins in the first place."

Consort Mei's composure cracked slightly before she recovered. "Are you suggesting my son is involved, Empress?"

"I'm suggesting," Shen Rui said, rising smoothly to leave, "that everyone in this palace should worry less about who benefits from suspicion, and more about who benefits from chaos. They are rarely the same person."

She left both consorts sitting in uncomfortable silence, their tea growing cold.

***

That evening, Lin Yue found herself alone in the servants' quarters, unpacking the few belongings she'd brought with her into White Jade Palace.

Beneath a false bottom in her small wooden chest, wrapped carefully in cloth, sat a collection of medical texts far too advanced for any ordinary kitchen maid to own — alongside a single faded portrait of a woman in physician's robes.

Her mother.

Lin Yue traced the portrait's edge gently, memories surfacing she usually kept carefully buried.

*Trust no one within those walls,* her mother had warned her, years ago, voice weak with the same illness that would eventually take her. *The palace remembers nothing except who serves it and who threatens it. Choose which one you become very, very carefully.*

She'd chosen neither, once. She'd simply tried to survive.

But watching Yichen fight beside her last night — watching him place himself between her and a blade meant for him — something in that careful calculation had shifted, whether she wanted it to or not.

A soft knock startled her back to the present.

"Lin Yue?" Yichen's voice, uncertain, through the door. "Are you—may I come in?"

She quickly closed the chest, tucking it back beneath her sleeping mat. "Your Highness, it's improper for—"

"I know." The door opened anyway, and he stepped inside, looking distinctly out of place among the servants' modest quarters. "I wanted to thank you properly. Without an audience."

"You already thanked me, Highness."

"I thanked you for saving my life. I haven't thanked you for choosing to stay, despite my mother essentially forcing your hand." He hesitated, jade eyes searching hers with unexpected sincerity. "You could have requested reassignment. Somewhere safer. Instead you're still here."

Lin Yue's throat tightened unexpectedly. "Where else would I go, Highness? Apparently I'm rather good at protecting difficult princes who can't organize their own scrolls."

He laughed — genuinely, briefly, a sound that seemed to surprise even him.

"I suppose you are," he said, quieter now. "Goodnight, Lin Yue."

"Goodnight, Your Highness."

He left, and she sat alone in the darkness afterward, staring at the closed door, wondering how a man raised inside a palace built on lies had somehow remained so completely, dangerously honest.

She didn't notice the shadow pausing briefly outside her window before melting silently back into the night — Chief Minister Han Zheng's informant, already composing his report on the maid who fought like a trained assassin and hid secrets even the palace hadn't yet uncovered.

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