Chapter 181: Royal Betrayal
"Is your mistress’s order more important than the Emperor’s order?" Tribal Princess Sylvia said, her voice firm.
"I haven’t heard about the Emperor giving you such an order," the head maid replied, her eyes narrowed. "How can I believe you, when you clearly dislike my mistress?"
"Who said I don’t like your mistress?" Princess Sylvia countered, her chin raised. "Have I ever made any such comment regarding this issue? Have I ever said anything nasty about her? Has anyone seen me speaking disrespectfully to your mistress? If not, then how did you come to the conclusion that I hate her? You must have made your own unfounded assumption."
"You may not have made explicit remarks," the head maid conceded, "but it’s evident that you see her as a rival. She’s carrying the heir to the throne, after all."
"You seem to be living in a fantasy," Princess Sylvia scoffed. "No one can definitively determine the embryo’s gender before birth. It’s all speculation, based on outdated beliefs about food cravings and nature. Unless your mistress has somehow magically predicted the sex of her child, such pronouncements are meaningless."
"You cannot speak to the mistress in such a way," the head maid hissed.
"You!" the princess spat, her eyes blazing. "Do you think you have the right to speak to me like that? You are beneath me, remember? How dare you answer back to the First Princess of this empire! Have you forgotten your place? Or are you so eager to remind me just where that is?"
She glared down at the head maid, her voice a dangerous whisper. "Kneel! I command you!"
With a shove, the princess forced the woman to her knees, shivering on the cold stone floor. "I’ve tolerated your insolence for long enough, but I won’t anymore. You are a mere maid, and I am the princess. You have no right to speak to me with such disrespect, someone so far beneath me in station."
Turning away, the princess marched forward. "Open the cloth! I want to see the concubine, Feng Mei!"
The handmaidens exchanged nervous glances. "But Your Highness," one stammered, "it is not fitting to view a woman in labor."
The princess whipped around, her anger flaring. "Did I ask for your opinion? Are you all deaf and blind to your own stations?"