Chapter 1

I became the most insignificant maid in the Cold Palace, spending each day throwing sharp stones into a dry well alongside the others. They said the well held the deposed queen, a woman with a venomous heart who had plunged the court into chaos, and that this was her just punishment. Yet every time I held those jagged stones, my heart tightened painfully.

One afternoon, when no one was around, I quietly lowered a few pieces of bread I had secretly saved into the well, using a battered basket and carefully lowering it down the rope. From the depths below, a hoarse, frail man's voice called out, "Who are you?"

That was when I realized it wasn't the deposed queen trapped down there, but a man.

*****

My name's Zora Ralph. I had been in the palace for three years when the matron in charge gave me this name on a whim. She always said that girls like us, bought during the famine years, were nothing but rootless duckweed drifting in the water, undeserving of real names.

My job in the Cold Palace was tossing stones into a well, day after day.

The courtyard was choked with wild grass, waist-high and swaying in the wind, like a dead, green ocean. Right in the middle stood the well, its mouth locked tight with thick iron bars, leaving only a narrow slit.

Every morning and evening, we lowest-ranking maids would line up to get a small basket of stones from Sally, the matron in charge. Then, one by one, we'd walk to the well and drop the stones through the gap.

The stones weren't big, but each one was sharp and jagged, broken on purpose to make them extra cruel.

Sally said the well held the deposed queen, a venomous woman who once ruled the court and brought ruin to countless loyal officials. The king, out of mercy, spared her life so she could spend her remaining days repenting in the darkness below. We threw stones to ensure she never found peace, so she would never forget the weight of her crimes.

The other maids around me stared blankly, their eyes vacant and their movements mechanical. They would grab a stone, shuffle to the well, and toss it in. The stones rattled against the walls before falling with a heavy, muffled thud, as if dropping into an endless void.

But I kept feeling like something wasn't right.

The sound didn't really seem like it was hitting water; it was more like it was hitting flesh, or something alive. Every time I heard that dull thud, my heart would skip a beat.

Today was my turn. I grabbed a stone from the basket, its jagged edge biting painfully into my palm. Stepping up to the well, I leaned over the edge and stared into the pitch-black slit below.

Nothing but darkness. A gust of air, thick with the stench of mold and rot, drifted up from the depths, sending a chill through me.

The maid behind me nudged me forward and urge to do my job.

I closed my eyes and dropped the stone.

The sound of clang and thud came again. A chill ran through my fingertips.

Sally sat under the porch nearby, watching us with sharp, hawk-like eyes. She was plump, and when she smiled, her cheeks squished her eyes into thin slits. But when she wasn't smiling, those eyes were cold and piercing.

After work, we lined up for our daily rations: two pieces of tough, dry bread made from coarse flour, and a bowl of watery vegetable soup so clear that my reflection was visible.

I went back to the damp, shadowy woodshed where I slept, squeezed onto a cramped sleeping mat with three other maids. They devoured their food, but I had no appetite at all.

I tucked the bread inside my shirt, keeping it hidden close to me.

That night, I couldn't sleep. That heavy thud from tossing stones kept ringing in my ears all night.

I couldn't help but picture the scene at the bottom of that well—a woman curled up in some dark, damp corner, maybe her body covered in wounds. Cold stones raining down from above, smashing into her back, her legs, over and over.

I wondered if she felt pain, if she cried down there, or if she had already gone numb to it all.

I rolled over and buried my face in the musty blanket. I was just a maid barely managing to survive, yet here I was, feeling sorry for the so-called deposed queen. Sally always said she was getting exactly what she deserved.

But I couldn't get my father's words out of my head. He was a scholar, and he always said, "You shouldn't tell someone to be good unless you've tasted their suffering yourself."

The next day, I hid another bread.

And the day after that, I did the same.

I never ate much anyway, so saving a few pieces of bread didn't really leave me starving. But at night, my stomach would rumble loud enough for the other maids to hear. They'd snicker and say, "Zora, got worms in your belly or what?"

I just smiled and didn't say a word.

I wrapped the three tough pieces of bread in a scrap of cloth and tucked them deep into a ragged hole at the far end of my bedding.