Chapter 1 — A Maid's Promise

Part 1

The morning began like any other. At least, that's what I told myself when I opened my eyes, not knowing that today would be different from every day before it.

I got up with the discipline I've spent years cultivating, almost a ritual I no longer have to think about to carry out. I put on my uniform, fixed my hair in front of the mirror... and there it was again, that thought that's been bothering me lately: I should cut it. Hair this long could become a liability if something happened. But well, I figured that was a problem for another day. Not today.

I left my room and walked toward the dining hall, greeting the other maids already moving through the corridors along the way. Everyone busy, everyone keeping that same quiet rhythm we've all learned to share in this house. When I arrived, I ran into one of my companions, who looked at me with a faint smile.

“You look calm today,” she remarked.

I'd only had one nightmare that time. Nothing new, really. But there was no need to say it in those exact words.

“I only had one nightmare this time,” I answered, brushing it off. “Nothing to worry about.”

And it wasn't entirely a lie. I've grown used to my nights not always being peaceful. That's the price of remembering, I suppose.

I picked up the knife with my usual steadiness and began cutting the vegetables. Thin, precise. Sometimes I think the motion resembles what Edric taught me with a sword more than anything I ever learned about cooking. Maybe that's why I'm so good at it.

Preparing breakfast for everyone who works in this house — and for my two masters, Edric and his wife Elira — has become as much a part of me as breathing. I don't mind it. In fact, there's something comforting about the routine. Something that, after everything I lost, I learned to value more than I ever imagined I would.

The kitchen's calm rhythm broke all at once when another maid burst in, flustered, shouting my name.

“Siena! The lady! It looks like the lady is finally giving birth!”

For an instant, the knife stopped in my hand.

Today. It was going to be today.

The news spread through the mansion like wildfire. All the maids, excited, dropped what they were doing and ran toward the main bedroom. I followed them, though my pace was different from theirs — more measured, more aware of every beat in my chest. I was finally about to meet my future master. Would it be a boy or a girl? Honestly, it hardly mattered. I had been preparing for this moment my whole life, long before that child had even existed.

When I arrived, Elira's cries and groans echoed through the whole room. The midwife, steady beside her, urged her on.

“Almost there, my lady! Just a little more!”

I caught a glimpse of her face, covered in sweat and determination. For a moment, when our eyes met, she gave me a tired smile before focusing again, pushing with everything she had.

And then, after what felt like an eternity of groaning, a new sound filled the room: the cry of a newborn.

There it was. He had been born.

I felt something strange in my chest, a mixture of relief and an emotion I couldn't quite name.

At that very moment, hurried footsteps came pounding up the stairs. Only one person in this house ran like that. It was Edric, who — having rushed back from his trip as fast as he could — was running straight for his newborn son's room. I saw him pass by me, and along with the other maids, I stepped aside at once, bowing in a manner befitting my lord. It was a gesture I made without thinking, as natural as breathing.

Edric came in and dropped to his knees beside the bed, his eyes fixed on the small bundle in his wife's arms. Elira, exhausted but radiant, smiled at him.

“It's a boy,” she said, her voice breaking with exhaustion and joy.

A murmur of happiness swept through all the maids around me. The family line would continue. I could understand why that meant so much to everyone there. But for me, in that moment, I could only think of one thing: that small bundle wrapped in Elira's arms was, in some way I still didn't fully understand, the reason I had trained my whole life.

But the happiness didn't last. Elira suddenly began to feel faint. Her eyes closed and her body went slack, the baby about to slip from her weakened arms.

My body tensed before my mind had even finished processing the danger.

But Edric's reflexes were faster still — as fast as a warrior's in the middle of battle. He lunged just in time to catch his son before anything could happen to him.

“Elira!” he cried out, worried, holding the baby with one arm while trying to rouse her with the other.

The midwife hurried over to examine her.

“She just seems very tired, my lord. She needs to rest, at least for the remainder of this hour.”

Edric nodded, though the worry didn't leave his face. He leaned over his wife and, in a whisper I barely caught, said:

“I'll wait for you. When you wake up, we'll name our son together.”

He then asked to be left alone with her.

Understanding the unspoken order — always understanding, always a step ahead, that's how I was trained — I raised my voice, firm and authoritative.

“Everyone, back to your duties.”

The others obeyed at once, dispersing in orderly fashion through the halls. As they left, they passed a middle-aged man, impeccably dressed as a butler, who greeted them with a brief gesture before turning his more serious gaze on me.

“You're already carving out a clear mark of authority among the other girls,” he remarked, with a restrained smile.

I wasn't sure whether to take that as a compliment or a warning. With him, you never quite know.

“I'm only doing it because the master told me to, Sebastian,” I answered, without giving it much weight. “If the master says so, then so it must be.”

“The master's inside, isn't he?” he asked, pointing toward the door.

I nodded.

“Then we should go in and congratulate him — our new young master was just born today, after all,” he said, with a kind smile.

Our new young master. Those words felt different now that they finally had a face, even if it was a tiny, wrinkled one I hadn't yet seen up close.

I peeked carefully through the door, catching sight of Edric holding his son in his arms, his gaze lost in that small face. I didn't want to interrupt the moment just yet. There was something about the way he looked at his son that didn't feel like mine to watch any longer than necessary. I closed the door gently and walked back to the kitchen alongside the butler.

“You've grown up a lot these past years,” Sebastian remarked as we walked. “You're no longer that timid little girl from before. I have to admit, I did a fine job training you.”

“It's not that big a deal,” I answered, with a faint smile. “After all, I have a promise to keep someday.”

I said it almost without thinking. But the moment the words left my mouth, I already knew exactly where my mind was about to go.

* * *

I remembered the exact moment I was saved. I could still feel the cold of that night if I focused hard enough.

Edric appeared before me amid blood and fire, asking my name, before dropping to his knees in front of me, exhausted. I, gripped by panic, ran toward him to see if he was alright. But before I could reach him, three voices rang out around me, ordering me to get back.

“Get away from him! This man is a criminal to our nation! If you get any closer to him, we'll have no choice but to kill you too!”

A criminal. I didn't understand any of it at the time. All I understood was that someone had bled for me without even knowing me.

Edric, barely able to stand, looked at me with a determination I would never forget.

“Run,” he told me. “I'll handle this now. I'll buy you as much time as I can to get away.”

Sword still in hand, he made a leap too fast for the eye to follow. In one instant he disabled one soldier; in the next, he beheaded the other without the slightest hesitation. Blood sprayed through the air as the last soldier standing, terrified, backed away.

“That... that's the strength of a hero,” he stammered, before fleeing at a speed even Edric, already exhausted, couldn't have matched.

That was when Edric collapsed to the ground, completely unconscious.

“Wait, please, answer me! Are you alright?” I screamed, tears streaming down my face.

He didn't answer. He only managed a faint smile before going still on the blood-soaked ground.

Through my tears, I understood in that instant what my duty would be from then on. It wasn't a decision I thought through. It was something I simply knew, with the same certainty with which one knows that fire burns.

“He saved me,” I whispered, holding him, trying to give him what warmth I could in that cold, silent night. “Now it's my turn to look after him.”

* * *

“Siena!”

Sebastian's voice pulled me sharply out of my memories. It took me a second to fully return to the kitchen, to that moment, to that present which already felt distant.

Master Edric was calling for me.

Without wasting a second, I ran to the main bedroom. When I entered, I found Edric holding his wife, now awake, in his arms. He greeted me with a warm smile, the kind I've only ever seen him save for the moments that truly matter to him.

I stepped closer and, with a sincere bow, congratulated them on the birth of their son.

“Even after all these years,” Edric said, his voice carrying an emotion he rarely lets show so openly, “everything I did in my youth was so I could witness this moment. Thank you for looking after me that day.”

He looked me straight in the eyes.

“His name is Ren,” he announced. “And from now on, I want you to be his maid in every matter concerning his life.”

Ren. So that was his name.

I nodded, filled with pride, but Edric continued, his expression turning more serious than I expected for a moment like this.

“Perhaps, from now on, I won't be able to protect him the way I'd like to. Everything I did in the past is behind me now, but it's likely that some ghosts from those days will come looking for revenge.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder. The weight of that gesture felt heavier than any armor I'd ever worn in training.

“From today, the promise you made me all those years ago passes to him.”

I didn't need to think it over. I understood at once that this was the will of my master and savior, and no part of me wished to question it. I knelt before him without a moment's hesitation.

“I will not let any harm come to my precious young master,” I swore, with absolute determination.

It was then that Elira, now fully awake, saw me kneeling in honor of her small son. She smiled tenderly, a tenderness unlike anything I had seen in this house until now.

“I'm sure you will,” she said. “After all, this child carries the hero's blood. He's bound to get into all kinds of trouble.”

I raised my gaze, my eyes full of a loyalty that needed no words to be real.

“My life belongs to my young master, Ren, now.”

Part 2

Before anything else, there was white.

An absolute white, without edges or shape, as if I were floating inside a blank page waiting to be written on. I felt no cold, no warmth. I didn't feel anything, really, aside from a strange kind of calm — almost suspicious, considering the last thing I remembered was pieces of a truck coming down on top of me.

Then, something — or someone — began to take shape in front of me.

At first it was just a blurry silhouette, sitting in what looked like a chair in the middle of all that white nothingness. Little by little, the details came into focus: a boy with tousled hair, dressed in clothes that looked like they'd been pulled straight out of one of those fantasy stories I used to love reading before I died. Cloaks, dark fabrics, something that could have been a mage's robe or the garb of some legendary warrior.

He looked at me.

He said nothing. He just looked at me, with an expression I couldn't quite place — pity? amusement? both? — before all that white began to fade around me.

And then I was born.

Or at least, I assume that's what happened, because the next thing I felt was an intense cold, a crushing pressure over my entire tiny body, and an uncontrollable urge to scream with all the strength my lungs — new, minuscule, foreign — would allow.

“Ah... aaah!” was the only thing I managed to produce. It didn't even sound like a real cry. It sounded ridiculous.

I tried to make sense of what was happening around me, but everything was a blur. Fuzzy shapes, voices I couldn't quite make out, sounds blending together without any meaning to me. Out of the corner of my eye I caught two figures nearby — a man and a woman, I assumed they were my new parents, though at that moment I could barely process something as simple as that.

Everything sounded like noise. Pure formless static. Except for one word.

“Ren.”

That word — that sound — repeated several times among the confused voices around me. I had no idea what it meant. I didn't realize it probably referred to me. But for some reason, it was the only sound my mind managed to hold onto amid all that chaos.

Ren. Ren. Ren.

I still didn't understand anything. Not where I was, not who these people were, not why I suddenly had a body that wouldn't obey a single one of my commands. But before I could process much more, I heard a man's voice call out to someone firmly.

“Siena!”

And then, another figure appeared in my field of vision, this one clearer than the others.

A girl.

Even with my brand-new eyesight, blurry and imprecise, I could make out enough: dark hair, a serious gaze, a bearing that even through my newborn eyes felt... imposing. Strong.

She's pretty, I thought, with a clarity that surprised even me. Really pretty, actually.

I didn't fully understand what was happening. I didn't understand why a girl had come running in, or why everyone seemed to treat her with such respect, or why the man holding me — who I assumed was my new father — spoke to her in such a serious, solemn tone. But I did understand one thing, even through the confused fragments: whatever this place was, I seemed to be someone important here.

Wait. Wait, wait, wait.

Am I some kind of millionaire? The kind with enough money to have maids?

The thought hit me with an absurd force, almost euphoric. I had no proof of anything, I didn't understand the language everyone was speaking around me, I didn't even know what world I was in. But something in my tiny chest filled with a joy I couldn't contain.

Thank you so much, merciful heavens! Thank you for this new life!

And best of all — what made this feel even more surreal — was that my memories were still intact. I remembered my previous life, my death, the truck, my damn delivery package. All of it. I hadn't lost a thing.

This is going to be interesting, I thought, feeling the exhaustion of my newborn body starting to overtake even my excitement.

I caught one last glimpse, before sleep finally claimed me completely, of that girl — Siena, if I'd heard her name right through all the noise — kneeling before my father, with an expression so resolute that even I, understanding nothing of what was happening, could feel the weight of whatever it was she was saying.

Whatever awaits me in this new life, I thought, as my eyelids closed without my being able to stop them, I think big things are definitely going to happen alongside her.

And with that last thought, I fell into a deep sleep.