Chapter 2

Six months later, news came from the kingdom afar that Leopold's life was in danger from a strange hex, and Maxine went crazy over it. She summoned all the renowned physicians in the kingdom to find an antidote to cure his hex.

However, the ingredients for the antidote were extremely powerful, and a slight mistake in the measurement was fatal. She needed someone to test the antidote, and I was chosen.

Two powerful guards pressed me down, and Maxine forced my mouth open to feed me the dark, lethal liquid.

My insides were burning, and my veins throbbed from the intense pain coursing through my body. I clenched my teeth and did not utter a sound, but the tiles were left with ten bloody scratches on them.

All Maxine did was watch me in pain. She wiped her hands with her white handkerchief and looked coldly at me. "It's your honor to be able to test the antidote for Leo."

To hell with honor.

Would you want honor like this?

That incident caused me to lie sick in bed for two weeks. It was also then that I no longer harbored any hope for Maxine's promise to me. I no longer wanted her protection. All I wanted was money.

So, I negotiated with her, and we agreed that every time I tested the antidote, my salary would be tripled. If poison was involved, my salary would be increased tenfold.

Over the next five years, the amount of black-colored blood I threw up would be enough to fill up the ponds in her garden, but the gold coins in my bag increased as well.

The poison residue in her body was cleared, and I had earned enough. We were even.

"I'll be leaving the palace to attend a ritual tomorrow," Maxine interrupted my thoughts.

I bowed and replied calmly, "Yes, Your Highness."

If she thought I was going to clean the medicine furnace, she was wrong. I would be leaving early the next morning, as I had been bestowed the grace of being released from the palace, and I would be leaving this godforsaken place forever.

I never wanted to see her again.

Besides working at the palace, I also took up side jobs.

After all, despite having a healthy income for testing the antidote, it was not every day I could make that money. My goal was to earn a lot of money and buy myself a big house when I left the palace, so I set my sights on the Outer Keep, where punished royals were sent.

The blind ninth princess, Helena Somerset, was banished there. She also had to survive multiple assassinations. She had many enemies, and an old servant of a noble person gave me a bag of silver to deliver rancid meals to Helena in the dark night and to check if she had died.

I was very efficient because of the payment.

It was winter the first time I visited the Outer Keep. There was no coal in Helena's room to make a fire for warmth, and she was shivering in a corner in thin clothes, turning purple from the cold.

She was highly defensive, like a prickly porcupine. When she heard my footsteps, she picked up some shards on the ground and threw them in my direction aimlessly.

"Get lost!" Her voice was hoarse and filled with malice.

However, I ignored her. I put her rancid meal onto the floor and turned to leave, but she suddenly quivered violently and curled into a ball. It was so bad that she could hardly hold onto the shard. She was about to freeze to death.

If she died, my long-term income from spying on her would be gone.

I sighed and walked over to grab the shard in her hand. I flung it away and took out a small piece of coal I had stolen from the Crown Princess' private quarters to light it up. Flames began to spark, and the entire room was filled with warmth.

Helena felt the heat, and she stopped struggling. She followed the source of the heat and slowly moved closer to me. She buried her head in my arms and hugged me tightly around the waist, absorbing the warmth from my body.

I did not push her away. I had nothing better to do anyway, and thought of it as hugging an ice pack.

Since then, I would visit the Outer Keep often for many nights. I would chase away the palace servants who took advantage of her and bullied her. I would hide clean, hot food under the rancid ones for her.

During the coldest months, I would let her cling to me like an octopus to warm her cold limbs with my body. She could not see, but she remembered my scent.

Every time I got up to leave, she would clutch at my sleeve, as if I was the only thing she had in the world. Her blind eyes were filled with fear as she called out hoarsely to me, "Don't go. Stay with me."