The waiting servant

The castle was quieter at night. The kind of quiet that carried weight. Only the soft crackle of fire from the stoves and the occasional clatter of a pot broke the stillness. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

Elysia’s hands were raw from scrubbing. The warm water had long gone cold, and the mixture of grease and ash stuck stubbornly to her skin. Her rough tunic plain brown, meant for the male servants was damp with soapwater. The sleeves clung to her arms, and every movement sent a faint ache through her shoulders. Her hair was bound tightly beneath a cap, and the shadows beneath her eyes made her face appear sharper, less delicate than it was.

To anyone watching, she was just another boy. A quiet kitchen hand who worked too much, was too skinnyand spoke too little.

And that was exactly what she wanted, she wanted to be unnoticed and unestimated.

No one here knew she was a woman. No one could. The Alpha’s rule was clear no female servants within the fortress walls. She had overheard that decree long before she arrived. The men whispered about it when they thought no one was listening. Some claimed it was because the Alpha “did not need women.” Others said he couldn’t stand their scent. There were rumours about strange appetites, darker ones about a curse. Honestly, she thought that maybe he had no interest in women, he wouldn't be the first royal with peculiar tastes.

Elysia didn’t care which story was true. The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that she stayed hidden long enough to finish what she came to do. If they found out who she was what she was she’d be thrown out before she even glimpsed her target.

So she kept her head down. Shoulders squared. Voice low and kept her mind calculating.

To them, she was Eli the quiet one who worked without complaint. It had been a week since she slipped into the fortress.

A week since she stopped being Elysia D’Argent, the last daughter of the fallen D’Argent coven, and became a servant in the Alpha’s castle.

Every morning she woke before dawn, joining the line of men who shoveled coal, scrubbed floors, and hauled water from the well. Every night, she washed pots until her fingers bled. She moved through the kitchens like a ghost, unnoticed and unimportant. The perfect disguise.

But the waiting was its own kind of torture.

As she scrubbed the blackened pan, her thoughts drifted to another fire, years ago. She could still hear it the clash of steel, the screams, the deep roar of something inhuman. Smoke had filled the sky then too. Her father’s voice shouting for her to run still echoed in her ears.

The sound of water splashing snapped her back. She clenched her jaw and blinked the memory away. Not now. Not here.

She could not afford to lose focus.

Revenge required patience, and patience required control.

She rinsed the pan clean and set it aside, staring at her reflection in the dull metal. She thought of the night she arrived.

A week ago, she had waited in the shadows near the servant’s gate until the guard appeared. Bren, they called him. A man with tired eyes and a soft voice. He had looked uneasy even before she spoke.

“I just need work,” she’d said, keeping her voice low, pressing a small pouch of coins into his hand.

He’d hesitated, glancing around. Then he pocketed the gold and nodded. “Fine. But keep your head down. The Alpha doesn’t like new faces.”

That was all it took.

At dawn, she slipped through the gate and became no one.

Now she belonged here hidden in plain sight among the clatter of pans and the smell of roasted meat. Waiting. Watching.

And she was good at waiting.

Rumour had it that the Alpha had gone to the borderlands to defend a burning town. The servants had been whispering about his victory all evening, their voices full of awe and fear. They spoke of his strength, how he cut through a pack of rogues single-handedly, how even death seemed to follow wherever he went.

Elysia listened but said nothing.

She didn’t know what he looked like. Only the name. Alaric Varyn. The cursed Alpha. The man whose soldiers had burned her home to ash. The man whose family’s war had ended hers.

They said he was cursed, that his touch brought death. That no woman lived to tell of him. But Elysia didn’t care about curses. Curses were her mother’s craft, not hers. What she cared about was vengeance.

Still, even vengeance required timing.

She finished the last pot and placed it on the rack to dry. Around her, the other servants laughed softly, cleaning up for the night. Their talk circled back to the Alpha how he’d saved another town, how he’d return before dawn.

Her heart quickened at the thought. He would be here soon.

She kept her head down as she spoke just above a whisper, a voice meant only for herself. “Let them laugh. They’ll see soon enough.”

When the kitchens finally emptied, she lingered behind. The silence felt thick, almost alive. The lantern light flickered across the stone walls, casting her shadow long and thin against the floor.

She blew out the flame.

Darkness swallowed the room. Only the faint glow from the hearth remained, painting her face in gold.

She stood there for a while, listening to the world breathe the distant drip of water, the echo of footsteps in the hall above, and beyond that, the soft sigh of the wind sweeping across the mountains outside the castle walls.

In that stillness, she could almost feel him. The man she had come to kill. The monster whose name had shaped her life.

Alaric Varyn. The thought of him made her pulse quicken. Hatred was a fire she had learned to bank carefully, but tonight it burned brighter, almost alive.

Soon, he would walk these halls again. And when he did, her patience would end.