I was born 26 years ago, and received the name Iridia from my parents. They owned a store at a relatively small city on the mountains, but I managed to get my first job working as a maid at the capital after my 18th birthday. That wouldn’t have been possible if not by some connections I had made through our church. After that, I started working for the Cygnus household almost a year before the Lord married Madame Dragonroot. I was meant to serve as her personal attendant, so I received special training from the head maid, Carmila. During those months, we became really close; I would even dare to call us friends.

It was a bit disappointing when I was informed the Madame was bringing one attendant with her, and refused to change our roles. I could understand her though, Sophie had worked for her for a long time; she was almost part of her family while we were strangers. Still, Carmila was not one to bend the rules, and tried to integrate Sophie with the rest of the maids, and sending me to take care of the Madame. I think it was her way to make the Madame open her heart to us. But more often than not, the Madame would sent me back and ask for Sophie instead. I wasn’t going to give up so easily. If I couldn’t be her personal attendant, at least I would get in her good graces.

—Good afternoon, Madame. I brought you a cup of tea —I said.

She was reading a book in her room, and she didn’t acknowledge my presence until I was right in front of her, placing the cup on the table. She raised her cold stare from the book and looked straight at me. I felt a chill running through my back.

—Thanks —she said, and returned to her reading as if I was already not there.

I smiled and give a slight bow, even when I was sure she wasn’t watching me. I left the room and walked a bit away from the door before I had to support my back against the wall. My heart was beating really fast and my hands were shaking. The Dragonroot were said to be descendants of the goddess Lilith, and at that moment I was sure it was true. I was really glad to have the opportunity to work for someone like her. From that day, I kept trying my best to earn her approval and not disappoint her. I also tried to stop the attendants that were spreading the nasty rumors that had been made up to smear our Madame’s reputation.

After our Lord died, a few of them quit their jobs rather than to work for our Madame, and others were fired by Carmila after they became negligent with their jobs. Then, our Madame found out she was pregnant, and she… changed. At first, she was still distant and cold, but started to spend less time secluded in her room. She became more willing to listen to what Carmila would say, or rather, she wouldn’t ignore her like before. She became a bit more docile, I suppose. We also heard her singing when she though nobody would be listening. Once, I caught the doctor listening to her through the door, mesmerized by her voice.

—Doctor Conrad? Is something wrong? —I asked.

He was obviously startled by my sudden interruption, but he managed to hide it pretty well.

—No, no, I just forgot something in the room —he whispered—, but I didn’t wanted to interrupt.

I got closer to the door and was about to knock, but it was too much of a waste to cut short her singing just like that. So I closed my eyes and waited until she had finished.

—Madame, the Doctor came to retrieve something that he left behind. Could he come in?

—W-wait a moment! —A voice came from the room.

That was definitively our Madame’s voice, but it also wasn’t, somehow. The cadence and attitude behind it wasn’t the same. After a couple of seconds, her usual voice came through and gave the doctor the go-ahead to enter her room. I also went inside, acting as if I was there to clean up a bit. My true intentions were far from that, though.

—Madame, that was a beautiful song you were singing —I said.

—I-I don’t know what you are talking about. Escort the Doctor and make sure he isn’t forgetting anything else! —she said, scowling and pouting a bit.

I smiled, barely avoiding giggling in front of her. This aspect of her was also… interesting to observe. Once she gave birth to young lady Violett, our Madame suddenly became more talkative and expressive, as if the wall surrounding her heart had collapsed all in one move. Seeing her take care of her baby really pulled the strings from my heart. Nothing would have made me happier if those days of gently calm would have continued for ever, but someone had to ruin it. They attacked our Madame, they DARED to attack her. Thankfully, the Nymph intervened and the idiot ran away. Eve, as our Madame choose to call her, had my gratitude, and I made sure to always give her an extra cookie. If it hadn’t been for her… I don’t even want to think about it.

There was a big investigation the next morning, and everyone who had grown to like our Madame came to visit to make sure she and the young lady were fine. The Queen had brought her elite team of investigators, dressed as simple guards so that our Madame wouldn’t worry about it. It was determined that the attacker had take advantage of a weakness in the barrier’s settings, so the investigation focused on finding the technician who had set it up.

Time kept passing, and while the Queen and the doctor came to visit and give updates of the situation to our Madame, they couldn’t reveal everything yet. Our Madame kept telling us she was fine, but for someone who watched her as closely as I did, it was obvious she was still worried about the whole incident. Even if the barrier was fixed, she probably feared that someone could come for her or the young lady at any time. I caught her awake very late at night in several occasions.

—M-madame, might you still be worrying about what happened? —I boldly asked once.

—Hmmm? About what? —she said with a careless smile—, Ah! About THAT? No, of course not. We are safe here.

She looked away, through the window of her room.

—I have always been a light sleeper, and I think there has been small earthquakes as of lately, haven’t you felt them?

—I… I can’t say I have, but things are slightly moved from where they were every morning. Gabby was complaining someone moved the things in her pantry.

—There you have it. We might need to ask someone to give a proper check to the house, but I don’t remember anything about a big earthquake, so…

—Madame?

—Ah, never mind that, please don’t worry about it. I’ll go to sleep in a moment.

—Then, please excuse me.

I left the room, but I couldn’t just stop ignore her. I have been staying in contact with Father Elias, a priest from our church that I had met when I was just a kid, and who I considered a second father. In my next letter to him, I expressed what I thought of the situation, and hoped to get advice from him. In less than a week, I received a reply from him with a pretty good idea.

—Madame, this might help you sleep a bit better —I told her, presenting her a pillow cover, in which I had knitted the “sleep” rune on.

Runes were not as powerful as conventional magic, and some even thought they didn’t work at all. But our church had been teaching them to commoners, since everyone could make use of them, even if they couldn’t use magic otherwise.

—Thank you very much —our Madame said with a big smile.

I was going to explain to her that it was an actual magic item and not just a gift from a concern employee, but… well, she was happy thinking it was just a pillow cover, maybe I should let her believe it was just that. And the rune did help her to sleep more, but I still found her awake late at night every now and then.

Eventually we reached the end of the year. Our Madame came up with a peculiar celebration, exchanging gifts among ourselves. There was a price limit, and we didn’t know who we were giving gifts to, only a list of things they liked. I knew from the list of my “Secret Santa”, as our Madame called it, that I was not hers. Still, I bought her a small pendant, just a little detail. I wasn’t the only one who got that idea, and our Madame got like seven extra presents.

The Doctor came to visit her a few days after that, and he looked pretty distraught from the moment he arrived, though he tried to hide it. It had been snowing, so our Madame met up with him at the mansion’s drawing room. I was attending them, while Sophie was playing with the young lady on a nearby couch. Our Madame asked me to bring a present she had gotten for him, a beautifully made scarf, although the colors and patterns were a bit lacking. I suppose it fit him well enough.

—T-Thanks —the Doctor muttered dryly, before clearing his throat and speaking more clearly— I mean, thank you. It is a pretty considerate detail.

—Don’t mind it —our Madame said with a smile —, I would feel bad if I didn’t give you anything after all you have done for us this year.

—You wouldn’t happen to have gone to the city to buy these, right?

—Of course not, I sent my request to a textile shop. I don’t even feel comfortable leaving the house —our Madame said, and immediately caught on what had escaped from her mouth—, please don’t pay attention to that…

—I’m afraid I can’t do that —the doctor said—, but if it helps in any way, I got news about the investigation. Not all are good, though, but I think you would want to know regardless…

Our Madame nodded.

—First of all, Victor found out the substance coating the dart was a paralyzing toxin. The weird thing, or actually, weird things about it, is that it is really powerful even in small doses; it is usually used only to incapacitate huge beasts. It can be diluted, but the sample from the dart was not. For someone of your size, it might have stopped your heart with just a scratch. It is also something rarely found on this part of the world, it can only be extracted by a marine plant monster that lives near the Equator. Victor also said it would be next to impossible to make one survive outside of its ecosystem, they are pretty delicate. And the toxin breaks down really quickly; it can only barely survive the trip from there to here. However managed to get it here in time needs to have the funds to do so.

—I… I see —our Madame said, firmly holding her cup of tea.

—And about the suspect, we found him…

—Oh! Y-you did? —our Madame said, surprised.

—Well, her Majesty guards did, but…

—But?

The doctor took a deep breath.

—He was already dead. It seems like he killed himself. But he was just a farmer from the countryside, nothing seems to point to him having even met you before, or that he could obtain the toxin in any way, or that he would know about the weakness on the barrier.

—Someone must have hired him…

—That seems to be the case. We suspect it must have been another noble, but our only lead is the technician that installed your barrier. He has been detained already, but he denies having told anyone about it or even had been aware of what he did. He said he was a rookie at that point, and must have made a mistake. The records of the employees agree with his declaration, and even when bounded by a truth spell, he continues saying that he didn’t do anything.