Minerva batted her eyelashes at me and pushed her shoulders back. "Do I look lonely?" she said.
She looked like someone I wanted to push onto her back right then and there. Like someone I wanted to kiss until we were both dizzy. But there were things you didn't say to a princess, not when your station was so far below hers.
***
On her first day working as a maid, Eve finds the king dead on his throne. His murder kicks off a cascade of intrigue, and as the plots of the nobility come crashing down around her, Eve is torn between hungry princes, the ever-watching eyes of the royal court, and a mad princess who seems to know far more than she lets on. Complicating everything further is the Imperative, a magical curse through which the Andan nobles have bent the world to their whims. If she is to survive, Eve must learn what it means to find strength in the face of overwhelming power.
The Maid and the Monarch is created by EOK Gifford-Smith, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

The Maid and the Monarch

I sat on the edge of Minerva's bed, trying to comprehend the potential implications of what we had discovered. The princess sat beside me, intently inspecting the empty glass in her hand. Periodically, she would set in on the floor, lean away, and order it to jump to her.


And each time, the cup would break my understanding of the world by leaping up to her outstretched hand.


"So... this is new, right?" I asked, after a long, long time.


"Cup, come here." Minerva reached down and the glass shot upward into her grasp.


I shook my head in disbelief and rubbed my eyes.


"It is new." She said. "I've never been able to do this before. And I've definitely given orders to inanimate objects."


"So the Imperative is..." I swallowed nervously and trailed off.


Minerva picked up the sentence for me. "Getting stronger. But why? And for just me or for Leon too?"


"And your half-brother, wherever he is." I added.


Chapter 45: Powers to Behold