Page 8 of Maid for the Alien Prince

I hated them. Every last one.

Reaching back through the ages, as far as the history books had been written, Alwon was a name to be reckoned with. My ancestors had conquered, killed, maimed, and taken what was not rightfully theirs. And until very recently—in fact, in less than the past two years—I had not known they were part of my lineage.

My father had always insisted I came from noble blood—not his, but from my mother’s line. My father had been as common as griash and as I smiled at his memory, I knew he was the richer for it.

He raised me as my mother had died when I was very young. He had a quiet way about him—a Creator-fearing man, who never did anyone wrong.

I shook my head of his memory, fearing that if my anger were to fully control my actions, I would simply burn the entire palace to the ground.

I still might.

My heart was already made up, but my mind was still split. As divided as my blood.

Three days after my father’s funeral, when I returned to our shared hovel in the poorest street in the city, I was greeted by a visitor. We never got visitors, so I was immediately suspicious.

He introduced himself as Ges, a guard for His Highness, Pluwitz the Third. During one of the royal’s drunken rantings, Ges had learned that Pluwitz shouldn’t have been eighth in line to the throne at all—but ninth. Usually, Ges would have ignored his ramblings, but this time Pluwitz shared something he never had before:

The royal bloodline had been diluted by a cousin of the Emperor, who had fallen in love with a commoner and had a child, and that child, in fact, was the eighth heir to the throne.

“It’s taken me some time to track you down,” Ges had told me, “but now that I have, I come with great news.”

He informed me that there was a palace with my name on it, that was my birthright by inheritance, and that this royal fool he was serving was nothing more than a ziizzi (a ziizzi was a creature that occupied the nests of others).

I listened to his story calmly, quietly, not believing a word of it. If someone was going to claim this fantastic story was true, they were going to have to come up with hard evidence. When I put that to the guardsman, he leaned back and smiled at me.

“The proof is right there,” he said, gesturing toward me.

For a moment, I thought he was motioning to the stained coffee table between us.

“What?” I’d said.

“You. It’s in your veins. Your blood. We can run a test, trace your origins, and I guarantee it will show you are of royal descent.”

Royal descent.

Me.

Ha!

Anyone used to working backbreaking labor in the factories had long since learned not to believe in fairytales and make-believe.

“Why are you telling me this?” I’d asked.

Ges leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and spoke conspiratorially: “Because my master is a fool. Because I know you will not be one and you will see talent when it sits before you.”

I leaned back. “You want a job in the palace?”

“Not a job. The job. I want to be the manager. I want to look after your palace and the surrounding estate. All I expect in return is fair remuneration, a suite of my choosing, and as much food as I want.”

It seemed fair enough. I appreciated his honesty and opportunism. After all, with the royal fools in charge, there was little chance of scaling the slippery ladder of success without their blessing.

So, we went to the DNA research facility, where it was proven that, in fact, I did have royal blood. It came as such a shock that I insisted on taking the test again—and not just once, but twice.

Each result came back the same.

Over lunch, Ges told me the story again, only this time, I paid a lot more attention.

“You are the royal family’s dirty little secret. They hid it as best they could, but it was always going to come out eventually. Better it come out when you are young and able to enjoy it rather than dead and gone, which is what they want to happen.”

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