They call my part of the palace the quiet wing.
It is not.
It is full of silk and bitterness.
I am Shaashgaz, eunuch of the second house of women — the ones who’ve had their moment and returned without favor.
The concubines.
The beautiful, forgotten.
I oversee a place built not on hope, but on the fading scent of it.
The Afterthoughts of the Empire
Here, the laughter is forced.
The perfume hangs heavy.
Every hallway echoes with stories that will never be told.
These women once dreamt of crowns.
Some held them in their imagination long before they ever touched the king’s robe.
They had one night.
Then they came back here.
They are still adorned.
Still called by their titles.
Still served with silver and silk.
But we all know what they are:
Not wives. Not mistresses. Not prisoners. Just echoes.
And Then Came Esther
I only saw her twice.
The first time was before she went to the king —
Passing through the long marbled corridor, flanked by her attendants and the eunuch Hegai.
She did not walk like the others.
She didn’t look around, sizing up rivals or glancing at gilded ceilings.
She walked as if she carried something within her no crown could touch.
Some girls sparkle.
She… glowed.
I remember thinking, She will not return to my wing.
The Day the Crown Was Placed
The second time I saw her, she was no longer just a girl.
She was Queen Esther.
The coronation day should’ve been celebration for all.
But here, in the second house, the mood changed.
The women murmured behind their fans.
Some were angry.
“She wasn’t even Persian.”
“She didn’t even ask for extra jewelry.”
“She did nothing — why her?”
But others were quiet.
They had seen what I had seen.
And in their silence, I recognized the truth:
She didn’t need to play the palace game… because she never played to lose.
What Her Victory Meant for Us
Her rise was not our downfall.
But it reminded us what we were —
A room full of almosts.
A collection of footnotes in another woman’s story.
Some of the women adjusted.
Some never recovered.
Some wept quietly at night when they thought no one listened.
I did. I listened to everything.
I do not resent Esther.
She did nothing to gloat.
She never looked down on those who remained.
She never came back to see them, either.
But I understood.
It would have hurt more if she had.
I Still Tend the Forgotten
They say she saved a nation.
I believe it.
But before she was a savior, she was a girl who passed through my corridor with silent fire in her bones.
I tend to the ones who were left behind, who now decorate their rooms with what-could-have-beens.
And when I see them watching the palace balconies…
I know exactly who they’re hoping to see.
Esther.
The queen who never needed to return… because she already left something behind in every room she walked through — the quiet proof that favor does not always follow beauty… but it never forgets dignity.
