This is set in a fictitious version of Japan, during the Feudal Era. I do not own Inuyasha.

One

It was the scream that woke Kagome up, along with the entire castle. One moment she was sleeping soundly, the next she was jolting up, startled. She met the lost and confused eyes of Eri. By the time she got out of bed, Ayumi and Yuka were also standing, all looking worried. The scream just wasn't stopping. It was loud, high-pitched, and the more it went on, the more unpleasant it became. Without a word, the four maids slipped into their clothing and looked out in the corridor. They were far from being the only ones. In addition to the servants trying to see what was happening, many soldiers were running, all in the same direction.

"Hojo!" Kagome called as she recognized one of them.

The young, brown-haired man turned toward her and gave her a nod as a form of salutation. He wasn't smiling like he always did when he saw her.

"Hojo, what's…"

"It's the princess!" he simply answered before running away.

Kagome and the other girls exchanged glances. They still had no idea what was happening, but there was no doubt it was terrible.

The scream stopped abruptly, and the silence that followed was deafening. It sent a shiver down Kagome's spine, and she rubbed her arms, trying to gain some warmth from the friction. She felt the first rays of the sun on her body. Dawn was just breaking.

The shivers had nothing to do with cold.

They didn't get any news before noon. After the event in the morning, maids and servants had been sent to do the work they always did. Whispers were exchanged, despite supervisors doing their best to hush any form of gossip.

Yuka soon managed to find out that Nazuna, the princess' personal housemaid, was missing. She told Eri, who told Ayumi, who told Kagome. The black-haired young woman tried to process the information, but there was nothing she could make out of this. She knew Yuka was probably expecting her conclusions, her theories, which she usually pulled out of her prolific imagination, but today, nothing came to her.

In the afternoon, though, all servants and housemaids were called, one by one, for a meeting with the captain of the guards. The common room was slowly emptying, and no one was returning. Ayumi was the first to go in, and there were tears in the young girl's eyes when she left. She was terrified. She had no idea what was happening, but she needed this job. She couldn't lose it. She couldn't. All her friends could do was quickly squeeze her hand before she was escorted out by a soldier.

Next was Eri. She stood straight when she was called, refusing to take the guard's hand, and she held her head up when she walked out. There was a crack in her mask at the last second, and she cast a desperate look in her friends' direction.

Kagome and Yuka remained silent while they waited for their turn.

"Still no idea what's happening?" Yuka whispered.

Gears were turning in Kagome's head, but there was nothing she could come up with.

Well. Nothing reasonable, at least. Nothing possible. With the level of precautions that were taken and the morning's commotion, something was starting to emerge in her fertile mind but… No. Not here. Not with the security that was guaranteed inside the castle. Not with the princess' personal…

"Kagome," a stern voice called.

She quickly stood up, and Yuka gave her a nod as a form of comfort. Kagome took a deep breath and slowly followed the man who was standing in front of her. Sadly, it wasn't Hojo. She was sure the boy would have been nice to her, and possibly would even have told her what exactly was happening. Instead, though, she was rather roughly dragged down the corridor and practically thrown into a small room.

She sent an outraged look at the now closed door, but didn't say anything, keeping her teeth firmly clenched. She was used to this treatment by now. Most soldiers didn't care for you, didn't show any form of sympathy unless you were royalty — nobility at the very least. Hojo was truly an exception. She turned to look at the people in the room, unable to help her curiosity, and instantly understood her mistake when she saw the man who was sitting there, watching her with cold eyes.

She threw herself on her knees, bowing deeply in front of master Ungai. She started to mumble an apology, but he dismissed it, clearly annoyed.

"We do not have time for that, hurry now, girl. You are—"

"It ain't her," a voice spat from another point in the room.

Kagome knew she shouldn't look up. She knew it. She knew this was against the etiquette, and that as a maid, she had no right to even look at people who were that much above her rank. Despite that, though, she risked a quick glance in that direction. All she saw were shining, golden orbs and threads of silver hair in the darkness of the room's corner. She didn't need any more, so she fixated her eyes on the ground again, silently cursing the blood she could tell was rushing to her cheeks.

Master Ungai clicked his tongue with annoyance and turned towards the man.

"Let me conduct my investigation, half-breed. You requested that I let you here and I obliged, on Lady Kaede's order, but we wouldn't be here if you hadn't miserably failed in your duty."

The man visibly flinched at that — not that Kagome saw it, because she shouldn't have been looking at him, and she certainly shouldn't be stealing short, discreet glances at him.

"Keh. Think you'd have done better?" Despite his mockery, it was obvious in his tone that the older man's harsh remark had gotten to him. There was guilt, possibly even sadness in his voice.

What's going on?

"I know I would have died before I let anything happen to the princess," Ungai answered through gritted teeth. "Now stay silent. I will not trust you any longer and I need to—"

"I told you, that girl has nothing to do with it," the man in the corner snapped. "I didn't smell her, and I don't think I smelled anything familiar. This is a waste of time. We should be out looking for Kikyo by now and…"

"Don't you dare disrespecting her like that ever again!" the man shouted, his face turning red with anger and his head violently turning towards him. "You have no right to even pronounce her name! Someone as low as you should feel grateful for even breathing the same air as her."

With those words, the man's shoulders sagged, and the pointy, white ears on his head flattened. Once again, of course, Kagome definitely didn't see any of that.

Master Ungai turned to face her once again, muttering under his breath that 'he didn't know what the princess, bless her kind heart, was thinking when she had taken this into the castle'. His eyes focused on the girl, whose posture was impeccable and whose eyes were on the floor, where they should be until he gave her an authorization to do otherwise.

"Please sit, girl," he said roughly. "I have questions for you."

The rest of the interrogation turned out to be very boring, and the man in the corner didn't speak again. Kagome felt relieved when she was allowed to get out. She was sent to the room where public hearings were held, and she immediately fell into Ayumi and Eri's arms.

"Are you okay?" Eri asked, her voice's pitch slightly higher than usual. "They weren't rude to you, were they?"

"It was fine," Kagome confirmed, even though her legs were still trembling slightly. "Just wanted to know where I was last night and if I had given anyone informations about the princess."

"Us too," Eri said. "I mean how could we? We never even saw the princess to begin with!"

"I guess we could have described the castle though," Kagome said slowly. "None of you talked about that to anyone, did you?"

Both shook their head, and Eri laughed joylessly.

"I haven't stepped foot out of the castle for more than a year, same for Ayumi, and it will be the same for Yuka. You arrived more recently, Kagome, but you didn't get out since then either. We didn't have the opportunity to do that, even if we wanted to."

It was true, although Kagome did wince at her friend's words. She didn't really need another reminder of how long it had been since she had last seen her family. She missed them more than enough without that.

"Did you see who was there too?" Eri added, lowering her voice. "The princess's bodyguard, the half-demon."

Her tone was excited, but Kagome only felt annoyance in regards to her attitude. She had discovered, mostly after arriving at the castle, that the education she had received from her mother, when it came to demons, was… unusual, to say the least. To everyone else, they were mindless, bloodthirsty monsters. Her mother had always talked about them as people, and that had become Kagome's mindset as well.

That was why, when she had first met the silver-haired man, her thoughts had stopped at how cute his ears looked. It was only later that she had realized how despised he was by everyone, simply for being what he was.

A half-demon.

She rarely saw him, but she at least learned his name rather quickly: Inuyasha. He was always by the princess' side, and she didn't work in that aisle of the castle. Still, it was hard not to notice him. Not only because of his peculiar appearance, but because… Well, he was a fine specimen. Tall, muscular, and very handsome.

She had been ashamed of her thoughts at first, before realizing that not only would no one ever know about them, but he would probably never find out either. She didn't hurt anyone by having a harmless crush on anyone. Even if he did find out, she had thought bitterly, he was probably in love with the princess. Some people cruelly mocked him for that, but Kagome thought it to be touching. She knew the princess had saved his life when he was just a child, and had kept him by her side since then, ignoring the criticism and the rumors.

There was no way Kagome could rival that, and she knew it. So she allowed herself to daydream about the man when her chores were too boring, and she kept her distances. She sometimes heard the other girls talking about him and giggling. He was an object of desire, and they seemed to fantasize about him as a strong, violent demon, reducing him to his race, which Kagome couldn't say she enjoyed seeing. She had wondered if she was the same, before deciding that it wasn't the case. Her interest in him had nothing to do with him being a half-demon, and she wasn't fetichizing him.

She realized she had been lost in her thoughts when Yuka appeared in front of her. She checked on her like Ayumi and Eri had done for her. Apparently, she had been a bit scared by master Ungai, but it had gone just fine in the end. Like the others, she hadn't had any opportunity to give away confidential informations on the castle.

They settled down, understanding that they would probably still be here for hours. They were far from having interrogated every workers. The girls vaguely joked about having a day off, but they couldn't shake the heavy atmosphere in the castle. They could feel it, creeping everywhere.

It did take hours before master Ungai was done. Once the interrogations were over, the room was packed. The four girls had to be standing, and even like that, there was barely room to breathe.

"How long are they going to keep us here?" Yuka protested. "They'd better not take a day off of our pay for that."

Kagome agreed whole-heartedly. No one here could afford having less money to send back to their family.

But then, the Queen came in, and the room went completely silent.

It was even rarer to see the Queen than the Princess. The elderly woman mostly stayed in her aisle of the castle, rarely coming out. The tragedy that had struck the royal family was said to have been particularly hard for her. After her husband's death, her son and his wife had started to reign on the country. They had, however, been murdered by demons, leaving their orphaned daughter, the Princess, behind them. The Queen had had no choice but to govern the kingdom again. She was said to be weak, but that was not what Kagome saw that day.

Yes, the Queen Kaede had a stoop, she was using a stick to stand straight, but she radiated strength and power. Her unique eye glared at the crowd who was looking up to her, speechless.

"As I am sure you all understood by now," she started slowly, "something happened to my granddaughter, princess Kikyou. She was abducted."

A rumor rumbled through the crowd, but with one glance she had them all silent again "You were all interrogated, and according to master Ungai, you were all telling the truth. None of you will be held responsible for the Princess disappearance." She waited a few seconds as relief washed over all the people reunited here. "I'm sure you can all understand, though, that this must not leave those walls. If we ever find out that you are responsible for spreading a rumor, you will be punished by death."

This time, her words were only met by silence, as fear spread through the assembly. Scared looks were exchanged, but no one spoke. It wasn't as if they could go against the Queen, but this was not good news. Of course this would end up being known outside the castle, and that would mean that head would fall then. The Queen waited until she felt her words had been understood before nodding.

"I thank you all for your help. You may return to your rooms for the night."

At her words, it was pretty obvious that they were all dismissed. Kagome walked slower than she needed to, unable to look away from the Queen. Inuyasha had joined her, and he was talking to her heatedly. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he kept getting angrier and angrier, while the Queen remained stoic.

She teared herself away from the sight. There was no use in paying too much attention to it all. She would never so much as talk to Inuyasha. She would play no part in the game of power, would never get to catch more than a glimpse of their lives.

Oh, how wrong she was…

There, first chapter's out. This will probably not be a very long story, but I've been thinking about it for a while now and I really wanted to write it. I hope you enjoyed it, please leave a review if you did, it would mean the world to me. I'll see you soon,

Dya.