Don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip.

I clutched the tray of food tightly in my hands as I wove through the labyrinth of the palace, keeping my eyes trained on the ground. With each step I took, with each rattle of the gold-trimmed plates and silver chalice, my heart gave a fearful kick in my chest.

My princess had asked me personally to fetch her midnight snack. To be addressed by her, to be offered such an important responsibility, was an honor I never thought I’d receive. I held the golden tray in my sweaty hands and stared at every groove in the limestone floor with paranoia.

My back was still tender from the last time I’d failed my princess—showing up to her rooms with a stain on the thin linen dress that was my uniform—and I’d be damned to the Underworld’s Trench before I let her down again.

Two guards came around the corner, and I quickly ducked into one of the many divots in the wall created for the exact purpose of making sure slaves could get out of the way.

I moved too fast. My heart stopped beating as the chalice of water tipped. If it spilled, I’d get so much more than a whipping.

There was such little water in Ashorah, the gods would surely strike me down if I allowed a cupful to splash across the ground.

But then the chalice settled, only a trickle of water falling over the lip. I swiped it away with my finger, pushed a wayward grape back in place, and was able to breathe again.

As the guards came closer, I bowed my head and sank farther into the shadows of the divot, pressing my back into the warm stone wall and biting my lip as my cheap linen shift scratched the barely healed lash wounds.

They hardly spared me a passing glance, and I let out a sigh of relief before I scurried down the hall, grateful that the several hanging lanterns hadn’t yet been doused.