Samiah scurried throughout the castle, busy with work. She had just finished taking Prince Setial's dishes down to the kitchen and now had to gather his sheets and clothes for washing.

Like her busy exterior, her mind too was racing. This morning was the second time she walked in to see the prince alone, asleep, and naked in his sheets. Usually when he had an overnight guest, he would kick her out early or she'd stay until morning, but the prince was on one side of the bed while he usually stayed in the middle.

She'd heard rumors of the prince dragging a random palace guard through the halls, but didn't know if it was entirely true, she spent most of her time down at laundry.

She decided to find out, stopping a foot away from the prince's bedroom door. "Hello, Corol." She greeted the guard standing there. Unlike most other guards, Corol didn't care much for rules and would gladly talk to her and about two other servants.

"Samiah." Corol greeted back, his eyes moving to look at her and the corners of his lips tilted upwards, but that was all that moved, the only things he risked moving.

Samiah shuffled closer. "There's been rumors flying around the castle, have you heard them?"

"About Ezorah?"

Samiah furrowed her eyebrows together. "What?"

"The King's other son."

Samiah was a little taken aback. She had never heard this famous other son's name, nor had heard a name quite like that, it was very feminine. It didn't sound like a name for a prince or even a man at all, but she knew that other kingdoms gave their people strange names. "What about him?"

"Some say that the King plans to make him the heir. Others that he's prophesied to give us great aid in the war."

Samiah nodded, all of this news to her. "But I thought our Prince Setial was to be King." At the mention of his name, Samiah remembered the main reason she came up to the guard. "Oh, I meant about Prince Setial, that's who I wanted to know the rumors of."

Corol smiled a little bigger, amused at how scatterbrained the female could be. "Well, from what I've heard, the Prince isn't happy with the news of Ezorah. He's even dragged another guard, to his room to do Melle knows what."

Samiah's eyes widened as she put together the pieces. Angry news... a guard getting dragged all over the palace... a naked prince waking up alone after having an overnight guest... Samiah felt sick to her stomach. She knew that the prince participated in terrible and disgraceful fornications, but never had she thought he'd go as low as that! Sharing his bed with a man! It was even against the law! Well, it was an unwritten, unspoken law, but taboo none the less.

"Which guard was this?" She swallowed down the lump in her throat.

Corol thought for a second. "I'm not sure. He hangs out with one other guard all the time but I'm not sure who is who, but I know his post is by the throne room. His name is either Edgal or, what was it, N- something... Norral? Nithal? Nockal?"

Samiah nodded, storing that information in the back of her head. She'd be sure to avoid that guard by all means possible. "Well, I must get going to finish my duties, it's always such a pleasure, Corol."

"Likewise."

She gave the guard one last smile before continuing into the Prince's room, her head filled with thoughts. How could the prince do something as horrible and disgraceful as that!

She paused beside his bed, hands outstretched, the sheets still crumpled from what he did last night. He did such disgusting things on these sheets! Her hands flinched away. On this very fabric sheet hours before, two men were pleasuring each other, rubbing their bodies all over the very thing Samiah just touched while they did terrible treasonous things.

Sometimes, she really wished that the King would just smack around his son, teach him a lesson, maybe get all of those animalistic urges out. This brought her back to the tainted sheets. In no good mind could she clean these sheets and put them back. She quickly came to a decision and gathered the sheets up, trying to touch them as little as possible. She'd burn them.

And burn them she did.

The fire reached towards the sky, as if praying to the gods to cleanse it of the wretched task of eating the repulsive sheets.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing!" A loud shout sounded from behind her. She sighed, knowing that patrol guards would have caught her sooner rather than later.

When the sounds of footsteps grew nearer and slowed, she answered. "Cleansing them."

"Cleansing them?" One of the two guards asked. "Those are bedsheets. Who do they belong to?"

"The Prince Setial."

-

Getting dragged throughout the palace wasn't something that Samiah particularly enjoyed. The guards gripped her arms too tightly for comfort and walked too quickly for her liking. Not to mention that they were punishing her for doing what was right. Not like she had time to explain, once she said the prince's name, they grabbed her without another word.

Instead of being taken to the King like she expected, Samiah was taken back to the prince's bedroom, where the prince himself was sitting at his desk. He was already looking at them when they walked in, as they knocked and waited for his command to enter, but the look on his face was of confusion. Samiah's face scrunched up in disgust, thinking about how that face had been pressed up against that of another man's just the previous night. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Sire, we caught this servant burning your bedsheets." One guard announced.

This caused the prince's eyebrows to furrow even deeper. "Leave us, but stay close." He commanded as his eyes bore into Samiah. The guards left promptly, the doors shutting behind them. "Now, tell me why you decided to burn my sheets." It wasn't a question but an order.

"I think you know why, sire." Samiah, eyes meeting his sternly.

His face grew more confused. "Tell me."

Samiah sighed, looked like she was going to have to spell it out for him. She knew that he would get mad and she would likely end up sentenced to die, a power that any royal had when one of the large laws was broken, but she had to do what his father did not and try to teach him, to show him. "You've tainted those sheets when you decided to share your bed with a man."

His posture instantly got stiff. "How do you know about? Who told you!" His eyes had narrowed further, now in anger.

"I was able to figure it out." Samiah held her head proudly. If she was to die for this might as well go out strong. "If you wanted to get back at your father or gain his attention, there are better ways to do that other than defiling your soul and body and disgracing-"

"Enough!" He was standing now, his much taller size making Samiah feel small. "You cannot speak to me that way, speaking out of turn to a royal is punishable by death, and you have done just that."

Samiah felt her legs start to shake, she knew it was coming but it was still hard to hear. "With all due respect, I have not spoken out of turn. If anyone is out of turn it's you when-"

"You do not have any power here." His voice was low but it shut her up immediately. He called for the guards, and the same ones who dragged her there entered the room, standing several feet away at the door. The pit in Samiah's stomach grew incredibly deep. "I, Prince Setial, sentence you to die tonight by poison for breaking the large law of speaking out of turn." Samiah's breath caught in her throat. Poison was a horrible way to go. Unlike the other methods, it was done quietly in the cells, not even giving the victim a chance to see the sky for the last time. He walked around the desk, not stopping until he was right in front of Samiah, his face leaning down until it was right next to her ear. "And while the life is leaving your body, know that I will be up here with a new pair of bedsheets, screwing a man right into them."

Samiah replied back, her shaking voice unable to get above a whisper. "Even with him you wish to be with woman, I bet you're always the one going in, imagining a pretty princess in his spot. I bet every time he makes a noise that you wish it was several pitches higher." A strange expression passed over his face for a second before disappearing to anger, but Samiah had the fleeting hope that it showed she was right.

The prince leaned even closer. "Perhaps this time I'll let him have a turn and defile every part of my body while you wither away with that knowledge." He straightened himself up with a smirk on his face, Samiah with a horrified one. Her life... just wasted away without him even stopping his behavior. "Take her away."

The ever-obedient guards marched forward and roughly grabbed Samiah's already bruised arms, yanking her up and pulling her out. Samiah desperately looked towards Corol, who was looking at her with wide eyes, but he was quickly out of sight. Tears were rapidly pouring out of Samiah's eyes as she was dragged to her death.