~Through The Mirror~

Oris wasn't able to react to the body that had thrown itself onto the bed to engulf her in an embrace so warm that shocked into the present. . .again.

She sat there, stunned and in disbelief, despite having watched the young girl run across the room to get to her.

"Andrea," she whispered the moment she was attacked by the scents of lavender, honey and rainwater. Without meaning to, she thought of her sisters and felt a prick in her heart.

Slowly, her hand reached up to sink into the girl's soft hair. She pressed her lips to the curly strands and let out a quiet laugh.

She never liked to think about things she had put behind her but this all would have been the past if she died. Bren could have been the past if Fate had chosen to be cruel—if Hermes had chosen to be cruel.

It all still felt like a dream, a separate reality where things happened so fast and changed too soon.

One moment, she had been laughing with her maids and the next she had been whisked to the dungeons to face certain death. Then she escaped to find that her former lover was about to die.

That was when she realized that it wasn't a dream. It was nightmare whose ending she was forced to dictate.

The thought that she had made the wrong decision still haunted her yet now everything was back where it started—and at the same time it wasn't.

For certain, everything had changed. She could feel it in her heart and soul and bones. Something was different, as though everything she had ever set her eyes on had been altered while she had been sleeping.

"I have missed you, Mistress," Andrea said, tears in her hazel eyes. She raised her head so their gazes met, and smiled weakly. "Have you been well?"

Oris parted her lips, about to answer, then remembered that the maid she had sent to get Keziah and Mayree was still in the room.

And I promised to reward her well.

She lowered her gaze from the fidgeting maid to Andrea, and in a low voice asked, "Do you have a few coins to spare?"

Andrea shook her head, but before Oris could begin to overthink and worry, added, "I already handled that, Mistress. You need not worry. I paid her well."

Then, still clinging to her mistress, Andrea turned and asked the maid to leave.

The young woman curtsied and did so, shutting the door gently behind her.

"Andrea, why are you here?" Oris wasted no time questioning the girl. "Why is Keziah in the kitchens? Why did she leave the Weaving Department? How are the others? And where did you get money from?"

Andrea dabbed her tears away with her sleeve. She was not in a maid's uniform but a peach dress embroidered with flowers.

Oris' eyes drifted to the girl's hairstyle, one too eye-catching for a servant to be allowed to wear—an updo filled with hairpins and pearls. "Andrea, you..."

Andrea shuffled back on her knees and kowtowed, pressing her forehead to the mattress. "Mistress, I can explain. But there isn't any time. We need to save Seline."

Oris grabbed Andrea by the arm and helped her up. "What happened to Seline?"

"After Keziah and Seline came back, Mayree told them what had happened. . . about you being poisoned. Keziah said that we had to shift attention to the Empress and the injustice that had been done to you."

"What did you all do?" Oris was almost afraid to ask but it was necessary. "Why did the maid get you instead of Seline and Keziah?"

"Mistress, I will explain everything," Andrea took Oris' hand, "but there isn't time. Come."

Oris let the girl pull her out of the bed despite her growing confusion. "Why?"

"In less than an hour, you will be summoned to the Great Hall. We have to prepare."

"For what? The selection?"

"No. You have already missed today's event," Andrea said with a slight shake of her head. "Three events now, since you were imprisoned."

"Only?"

"The tests are taken in group. There are over hundred women competing for a position in the harem and you are the very last."

That was news to Oris, though she supposed the number made sense if all the fiefs had gifted a beauty each to Hermes. "Which tests were they?"

"Prearing tea, arranging flowers and riding horses—polo."

Oris nodded as Andrea undid the strings that held up the bodice of the yellow gown she wore. "I would not have done particularly well in those."

She might have done well at the latest event but the others were lost to her. Those delicate activities were not ones needed by a matriarch. She had never been expected to win a man's heart. If anything, it had been the other way around.

If Orse had remained prosperous, she would have been the one to have a harem of fine men arranging flowers to please her.

The reversal of roles was slightly jarring.

"We would have taught you," Andrea said bitterly and helped Oris out of the dress. "Failing would have been better than not attending at all. Now you are at the bottom of the rankings."

"What is the next event?"

"Hunting, Mistress."

"Hunting?" Oris asked again, just to be sure. Her hand went up behind her ear where she had been accidentally hit with a stone when she and her brothers had been chasing rabbits in the fields behind their farmhouse.

Hunting. . .was something she could do.

"Hunting." Andrea confirmed with a stiff nod, shifting her gaze to avoid her mistress' bare back.

She stopped in the front of Oris to undo the little ribbons holding the dress together. "You have lost weight, Mistress."

"That is to be expected. You all were starving me after all," Oris said with a quiet laugh, a little excited to be in a forest again.

She couldn't help but wonder what they were hunting. It would obviously be a competition.

She could hardly imagine all those nicely preened girls mucking around in the dirt to track animals. She didn't imagine that they would be able to hunt a thing, not by themselves anyway.

"Did they..." Andrea began, her voice thick with emotion, "treat you badly?"

"Don't worry." Oris patted the girl's head, purposefully tangling her fingers in the soft locks and tugging Andrea into a one-armed hug. "I came back, did I not?"

Andrea sniffled, her eyes watery again. "Let me get you a robe," she said then pulled away, leaving Oris to hold the gown to her body.

After a few minutes of standing, Oris decided to go after the girl.

She walked into what she hoped was the bathroom and found Andrea kneeling in front of a massive pool full of steaming water.

"This." Oris walked to the girl's side, her eyes sweeping over the golden walls and decorations all over the humid room. "This is the bathroom?"

Andrea noticed her now and rose to her feet, smiling giddily. "Mistress, it's bigger than our old quarters by two!"

"Yes," Oris said but frowned, letting the gown drop to her feet. She wasn't comforted be the sudden luxury. It might have been years since she had seen a bath this big but she was more than sure that she did nothing to deserve it.

"Do you know why I was given this room, Andrea?"

Andrea hummed before answering. "For saving the Emperor, of course."

"For saving..."

When Oris took her eyes off the murals of female gods on the walls, she found that Andrea had stripped to her chemise.

"Let's get in," the girl said, dipping a toe into the pool then shivering.

She turned back and beamed at her mistress. "It iss so warm."

"Yes," Oris allowed Andrea push her to sit at the edge of the pool, "but I do not understand."

"You saved the Emperor so you were rewarded with this gorgeous chamber."

"The court agreed that I saved the Emperor? The Empress Dowager didn't say that I was part of assassination or hindering justice?"

"No," Andrea lowered the cloth in her hand. "From what I know, the Empress Dowager was very agreeable. She even withdrew her edict, saying that investigations had proven your innocence."

"That..." Oris didn't know what to say. Taking back a decree was the equivalent of ridiculing your own commands. Royalty is never wrong after all.

To admit that was worse than blasphemy, though she supposed the Empress Dowager didn't really take it back. The edict had been phrased vaguely in the first place to provide leeway in case it all backfired.

"Does it hurt, Mistress?"

Oris looked down and found Andrea staring at angry red scab that had formed over the wound on her side. This was the first time that she had seen it, the result of her choices, but it made her smile. "For now, no."

"It will scar."

"Maybe." She stared at her reflection in Andrea's eyes and touched the one already forming on her neck, sure that that was what the girl would think about next. "Maybe not."

Andrea looked away.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Andrea." Oris grabbed her by the chin and repeated the words. "Do you understand?"

Andrea blushed and nodded. "Yes. . . Sister."

Oris smiled at that.

"I need to wash your back now," Andrea said, sounding much better. "The scars will fade, and if the Emperor wishes he can make them disappear."

For the first time in years, Oris snorted. She imagined her propriety tutors rolling in their graves.

Andrea snorted too then slapped her hands over her mouth and looked around in panic.

The moment she dropped her hands, the two of them laughed, their voices reflecting off the mirror formed by the water.

~

Such a fun chapter to write. What do you guys think? Was it worth the wait?