79: A Day In the Life Of Maiya (Part One) (Patreon)

NOTE: Got two Maiya chaps back to back, the 2nd of which has some pretty important revelations about the magic system, so I'd def recommend reading tomorrow's if you're the type to skip alt pov chaps :-)

Also, here's an image of Daha's palace, which I forgot to upload prev chap:

Maiya’s eyes fluttered open at the crack of dawn atop her bed that was more comfortable than it had any right to be.

She had been condemned to the Ash.

The weeks since she’d arrived at Sonam had been the most grueling days of her life, and after surviving Riyan’s tutelage, she thought there could be nothing worse.

She was wrong.

It had all begun with the handmaiden exam. The test had quickly broken down into pure chaos as the dozen handmaiden candidates all dueled each other.

Even now, Maiya could scarcely believe what a ludicrous exam that was. Handmaidens battling each other, charring entire rooms—which had wisely been cleared of furniture—or freezing everything over. It was entirely in style for the battle-crazed Kin’jals, and apparently, Princess Ira herself had designed the test.

The very same princess that was supposed to be frail, sickly, and confined to her bed at all hours of the day. Docile and utterly reliant on her staff to keep her alive.

So much for that image.

Soon after the exam began, Maiya had understood that there would be no way to succeed if she played it straight. Forget beating out the other competitors at bed making, tea preparation, plate setting, and etiquette—the others actively broke their competitors’ plates whenever someone tried.

The only way through that gauntlet was to eliminate the competition. And so she had.

The vast majority of the handmaidens had either lesser affinities or none at all, making them fodder for the multitude of C rank Icicles and Wind Blades she fired off. The issue wasn’t winning—that was easy—it was beating them in a way that didn’t kill or permanently maim them. Even if the princess allowed it, Maiya couldn’t live with herself if she had to lop her fellow candidates’ arms off to win.

So, more often than not, she’d resorted to her Kalari arts, stunning or distracting her foes with her magic before closing to melee distance and knocking them out.

It had come down to her and just one other girl, who possessed a greater affinity for Lightning and knew how to use it. They’d been an especially poor match. Lightning orbs were nearly unavoidable owing to their ludicrous speed, and Maiya had nearly lost after underestimating her opponent’s Arc spells. But Lightning also had the shortest range of all the affinities. Maiya’s Ice affinity had the second longest, so she’d been able to keep the girl at bay, but it’d never been enough to finish her.

In the end, they had called a truce. May the best handmaiden win.

Yeah, right, Maiya thought. She’d known she would lose in a fair fight. But pressing the duel had been taxing for both of them. They’d flung so many spells at each other—leaving the courtyard of their battle a scorched and frozen wasteland—that they’d both begun to saturate with prana.

Maiya had completed her tasks as best she could, and she honestly felt like she did a decent job at most of them.

That was, until the time came for the etiquette exam.

One glance at her opponent told her she wouldn’t win. Even with the burn marks and cuts on her face, the girl carried herself with a grace that screamed Sawai ‘risto. Both Tanya and Riyan had trained Maiya in the ways of etiquette, but Maiya had been a village girl until a year ago. Some habits died hard, and she knew there would be no way she could compete.

So Maiya played dirty. She’d feigned the best etiquette she could, then, when the other girl was animatedly conversing with the proctor, Maiya snuck up from behind and took her to the ground, straddling over her shocked competitor in a ground grapple. After a brief struggle, she’d choked her opponent out, sending her into the land of the unconscious.

And that was how Maiya won. By default.

Fortunately… or perhaps not, given the torture her life had recently become, her superiors hadn’t thrown her out when she was terrible at the finer points of acting like a ‘proper lady’.

It just meant they were triply strict with her.

Maiya jumped out of her four coaster bed and hurried across the silk rug to her carved mahogany wardrobe, grabbing her frilly handmaiden dress, hopping on one foot to put her white pantyhose on, followed by the garter belt, the frock, the apron, and the half dozen other accessories that completed the dress.

It was the most beautiful outfit Maiya had ever worn, and she’d fallen in love with it at first sight.

It was a short-lived love. The dang dress had taken her nearly an hour to don the first time, earning her ten hours of hard labor chores for being so slow.

Swearing to never again endure that horrible experience, she’d practiced putting it on and taking it off hundreds of times in front of her mirror. Now, she could don it in just under five minutes. Which was barely passable, according to the head handmaiden.

Maiya had swiftly concluded the woman was a demon masquerading as a human. From her absurdly high standards to her draconian punishments when Maiya inevitably came short, one would think that some horrific tragedy had warped the woman to make her the person she was.

Maybe some Ash Beast ate her entire family alive or something…

Maiya got her dress on a handful of seconds before her Magic Clock pinged five minutes, allowing herself ten seconds for a once over in the mirror. If any of the folds were misplaced or buttons undone, that would be the end of her.

Safe! Now comes the hard part…

She rushed out of her room—but daintily, with small steps; proper handmaidens do not run—down the hall to the handmaidens’ kitchen.

These days, tea making was the most recent bane of Maiya’s existence.

She drew water from the Magic Tap, rushed up to the D grade utility orbs and activated them all—orbs, plural; a single orb was far too slow here in the castle. They used six.

Heat three cups of water for exactly thirteen counts, and while it warms, stuff three pinches of Jatan Forest Tea into the kettle. Shut off the orbs, pour the water into the kettle while agitating the leaves for forty-seven counts.

Pre-warm the mugs while the tea steeps, then finally pour in a swirling pattern before setting the mugs onto their coasters and placing it all onto the cart.

Maiya wheeled the cart to the next room and knocked thrice. “Your tea, madam,” she called.

“Enter,” her demonic examiner, the head handmaiden, replied.

Maiya wordlessly wheeled the cart in before placing the mug on the table at which the head handmaiden sat, tilting her head at just the right angle while curtseying.

The middle-aged woman stared judgingly at Maiya’s performance, her legs crossed in a distinctly unmaidenly fashion.

Maiya averted her eyes and awaited her evaluation. This was the worst part of her morning routine. If her mannerisms or her tea were unsatisfactory, she’d be assigned labor chores, which usually meant scrubbing an entire floor of the handmaidens’ dorm. There were a lot of handmaidens, so the task ended up taking the better part of her day. Of course, she’d have to complete all of her other work in addition.

It was borderline torture, and one she’d been doing more often than not in her time here.

“Passable, for now. The princess would spit this out, but it would barely pass muster for a low ranking Sawai,” the gray-haired woman said curtly.

Maiya nearly sighed in relief, but caught herself before committing that felony. She’d been punished for less.

“I am unworthy of such praise, madam. Now, if it pleases you, I shall take my leave to train my body, such that I might serve in the best interests of the empire.”

“Ensure that you do, trainee,” the woman said, dismissing Maiya.

Bowing, she backpedaled with the cart all the way to the entrance, closing the door behind her. Only then did she exhale and do a little victory dance—something that earned her looks from fellow handmaidens passing by.

Maiya didn’t care. No cleaning chores meant she wouldn’t be a walking corpse tomorrow, and that was all that mattered. It meant she’d have time to visit the largest pub in town—the meetup spot she’d written on her note to Vir.

On the days she couldn’t visit, she’d hired a trusted royal agent to keep an eye out for her. But while her new station granted her a surprising amount of privilege and wealth, even her newly enlarged coin purse had limits. Her eyes nearly popped out when she’d heard how much they charged.

So far, no luck, but she wasn’t worried. Vir was unlikely to complete his task in a few weeks… especially since Tanya expected hers to last a whole year.

Losing no time, Maiya ran through the hall in the most undignified manner. Since the day she was accepted as a handmaiden, she’d been training equally in her maidenly duties as combat.

The maidenly duties were all expected. Hard, perhaps, but expected. The combat portion? Les so. The training she received was on par with the most elite forces in Kin’jal.

Apparently, she wouldn’t be allowed to serve the princess directly until she’d completed all the basic training and had proved her worth in combat. Even then, they might not selected her—serving the princess was a privilege reserved for the most talented maidens.

All of this meant she’d be useless as Riyan’s spy for some time to come, but that suited her just fine. Once she’d gained some tenure, her annual compensation would be measured not in coppers or silvers, but in serics!

Maiya rushed into the open training yard that abutted the handmaidens’ dorm. The yard was a wide open space, bustling with handmaidens and Imperial knights dueling each other from dusk until dawn. Even at this early hour, sounds of combat and steel filled the yard, highlighted by the occasional flash of magic.

To her horror, she found the head handmaiden there, waiting.

“You are ten counts too late,” she said, wearing her characteristic stern expression.

How’d that witch get here so fast? I literally ran the entire way! A Talent? Did she use Blink or something!?

“You will fight an extra round today.”

Maiya swallowed the urge to talk back. “Yes, ma’am,” came her defeated reply.