~The Great Hall~

"The Lady Of Inqa and her lady-in-waiting, Lady Varehir," two eunuchs announced Oris' arrival, their voices overlapping perfectly so that the sound was amplified and carried through the thick grand doors of the Great Hall.

This was the first time Oris had been announced since arriving in Heshera but she did not dwell on it. Instead, she turned to Andrea—her lady-in-waiting—a fact the girl had glossed over all this while.

All the changes to Andrea's wardrobe now made sense; she was no longer a maid.

If a lady-in-waiting had been needed to be picked urgently she would have been the most suitable choice. Out of all the four girls, she had the highest level of training and the best qualifications, being of a noble family.

The fact that Oris now needed one for whatever reason was even more baffling. She was happy that Andrea had risen to her former status but wondered how Mayree, Keziah and Seline had taken the news when they found out.

In the end, she decided that it didn't matter. She was going to make them all her ladies-in-waiting no matter what it took.

They were all more than her maids, they were companions, friends, and deserved to be treated as such regardless of how they were born, more so now after everything they had risked to get her out of the dungeons.

The moment the doors to the Great Hall peeled open, Andrea grabbed Oris' hand in a gentle hold and supported her as she walked.

It was hardly necessary this time around—they had both decided that she would not wear those impossibly high shoes even if it got her punished—but it was comforting to cling to each other in a merciless place like this.

The last time they were summoned here, things had gone terribly.

They had been accused of being traitors and almost died as a result.

Back then, they had been the topic of discussion among all the women in selection, and even worse, Oris had been thrown into the dungeon because of it.

Now, they were dressed prettily with freshly polished titles to match, but that didn't change who sat on the dais above them—the Emperor and his mother, the two royals who could have them killed if they wished.

Oris and Andrea strode to the center of the hall and curtsied.

"This lowly servant servant greets The Emperor, greets The Empress Dowager, wishing for them to live for tens and thousands of years," Oris said while Andrea kept her head bowed.

Till now, she had not gotten to 'learn' palace customs so she let her knees drop to the ground and kowtowed. Andrea followed suit.

Faeradaigh made a disgruntled sound and ran to their side. When he extended his hand to help Oris rise she shifted away and bowed her head to him as well.

"Head Eunuch, I am greeting the Emperor and Empress Dowager. Please do not interfere."

He pulled away awkwardly. "Yes. Yes."

"Rise," Hermes commanded, his voice deep yet soft. "Forgo the formalities."

"Thank you, Your Majesties." Oris got to her feet again, Andrea's hand still in hers.

Oris allowed herself to stare at Hermes. He looked much better than he did when he had been bleeding from Bren's blade and much more calm since she last saw him on his throne.

He still wore a white so pure that it made his skin stand out, and because of it, everyone else was merely a backdrop of paleness.

The ministers still wore black robes embroidered with gold thread, and had their hair up in top knots secured with red ribbons that fell down their waists.

Hermes' hair was no longer in braids, and Oris couldn't take her eyes off it. The best she could describe it as was a lion's mane. It was tightly curled and thick, tied back with white ribbons that seemed to be strain from the force that the shiny strands exerted on them.

She imagined that if he stood, it would reach his lower back.

Aella's hair had been shorter, much shorter.

She hadn't expected him to keep his uncut.

The ribbons looked like they would snap if someone so much as touched them.

"Your Majesty," one of the ministers broke out of their file to stand some steps ahead of her.

He cupped his hands and bent his waist in greeting. When he straightened up, he began to speak. "Now that the Lady Of Inqa is here, we cannot delay this any further."

Another minster stepped out. "Please pass the order for us to move out, Your Majesty. Preparations for the Selection are what cannot be delayed."

"The injustice done over these weeks must be redressed," the first minister interjected loudly with a half-bow in Hermes' direction.

"The injustice must be redressed," over half the room chanted in sync after him.

"That is my father," Andrea whispered, a hint of pride in her voice.

Oris took note of the man.

Hermes held up his hand and the hall was silenced.

"This is why this meeting is being held," he said, his head resting on the knuckles of the arm propped up on armrest of the throne. He was the image of a ruler who didn't care for his subjects' childish squabbles. "Someone was imprisoned unfairly and that must be addressed."

"The Lady Of Inqa also saved your life," Andrea's father pointed out.

"I don't dare," Oris shouted, forcing her voice to tremble. She clasped her hands and bowed, willing her shoulders to shake. "This servant should be punished for hindering the Emperor's capture of the assassins, and for escaping the dungeons... defying the Empress Dowager's grace."

"Mistress." Andrea immediately moved to hold her mistress, giving the impression that Oris had almost fallen.

"My mistress is still frail," she addressed the rest of the court in an apologetic tone, tears in her eyes. "When we were getting ready, she... She...."

"Spit it out, girl," a minister snapped.

Andrea said nothing and only passed an handkerchief to Faeradaigh while looking away.

The eunuch opened it and gasped. "This."

"Your Majesty," Andrea got on her knees, "my mistress has been poisoned. Please allow her to be treated."

"Dai?" Hermes asked.

"There is fresh blood on the handkerchief, Your Majesty."

Oris pushed her hand underneath her veil and coughed into it. Andrea looked at her worriedly.

It was true. Just when they had gotten out of the room, she had felt an ache in her chest. Filled with discomfort, she had coughed into her handkerchief as a lady ought to, but when she pulled it away from her mouth, it had been flecked with blood.

She had schooled her expression, wary of the guards and eunuchs escorting them, and discreetly passed it to Andrea while they walked.

She hadn't expected Andrea to take the initiative to use it as a way to begin their plan to stack blame on the Empress Dowager.

It seemed that in the days she had spent in the dungeons, the girl had grown a lot. She was starting to think and plan more , and was resembling her former playful self less and less with each minute that passed.

That only made Oris worry. She fear that something drastic had forced the change. She couldn't wait to get all the girls together and learn the whole story of their escapades.

Hermes waved his hand again and Faeradaigh shouted for the imperial physician to be summoned.

Empress Dowager Wei Wei sat expressionlessly on her throne, beside her son. She hadn't said a thing since Oris had arrived.

That was also worrying.

The physician arrived in a few minutes, his box of medicine hanging heavily from a strap on his shoulder.

He bowed and greeted Hermes and his mother.

"You are the physician who attended to the Lady Of Inqa after she had been tended to by my Deádim, are you not?" Hermes asked. From his tone you could tell that he already knew the answer.

He was just going through the motions for everyone else.

"Yes, Your Majesty," the physician replied. "It was I who ascertained that the Lady Of Inqa had a no sequelae and was fit to participate in the Selection."

Another hand gesture from Hermes amd Faeradaigh handed the man the handkerchief.

"Explain this then," he said just as the physician's face was morphing into something undescribable.

"This. . ." The physician handed the handkerchief back to Faeradaigh and turned to Oris. "May I check your pulse, my Lady?"

Wordlessly, Oris held out her arm.

The physician fiddled with his box for a moment and got out a white cloth. He laid it on her wrist then placed three fingers over it.

They maintained this position for a while until physician suddenly fell to his knees. His head and box fell noisily to the floor as he bowed in the direction of the dais. "Forgive me, Your Majesty," he cried.

"What worries you?" Faeradaigh asked in concern. "You are a respected physician, if you were wrong before you can treat her now."

The physician seemed to ignore Faeradaigh entirely. "Your Majesty," he began in a sorrowful tone, "I formerly thought that the weakness of pulse was due to blood loss from the arrow wound and because of that I wasn't able to detect the poison. Now that it has tainted the heart, there is nothing I can do but... prolong life."

Hermes hit the armrest of the chair. "Impetuous."

Now, Wei Wei spoke. "You were told that she was poisoned, were you not? How could you commit such an massive error?"

"I administered the antidotes for those poisons. I do not understand..."

Oris decided that this was the right moment to speak up. "The gruel...from the dungeons. It is the only thing this servant ate for days... if it was poisoned," she coughed into her hand again, on purpose this time.

"Do not blame the physician," she said in the end, keeping her head low. "This servant was treated by the Holy One yet I still cannot be saved. It must be my time."

Those words seemed to wake up the rest of the court. The ministers started discussing among each other quietly.

"It would be inauspicious for this servant to participate in the Selection only to die," she added.

"You are not yet the Emperor's woman yet you dare speak over him," Wei Wei said from behind her wide sleeves. "You have gall."

"This servant doesn't dare," Oris said quietly and immediately averted her gaze, touching her veil lightly. "The last thing this servant wants is to attract the Emperor's attention, Your Majesty. This servant has learnt her lesson. A woman from the village should not aspire for such."

"You!" The Empress Dowager jabbed an angry finger forward but said nothing more. There was nothing to say, the ministers had already heard it.

Only idiots wouldn't be able to put together the fact that the poison in the dungeons was from the Empress Dowager's hand when it was common knowledge that she was the reason Oris had been in the dungeons in the first place. Even if some doubted, Wei Wei had doomed herself by commenting on the poison before Hermes.

Though it could argued that she was only showing concern for her future daughter-in-law, her later words dismissing Oris disproved that.

Now, that sentence only made her seem more like the culprit. Even if she wasn't, her fate had been sealed by public opinion.

Oris got on her knees to join the physician and Andrea on the floor.

Andrea grabbed her hand immediately and stared up in worry.

"Your Majesty, the women who participate in the Selection are beautiful and fair," Oris said, squeezing Andrea's hand reassuringly.

"This servant had been scarred, twice." She pulled her veil aside, exposing the jagged scab on her neck, less than half the full extent of the wound.

Whispers erupted from the ministers closest to her.

"I am not a beauty and I am inauspicious. Please remove me from the Selection," she begged then kowtowed.

"Ah, this." Faeradaigh walked round the physician to stand in front of her. "This... Scars can be treated and as long as you live, you can be treated. There is no need for you to think this way. Isn't that right, Your Majesty?"

Hermes didn't answer.

Wei Wei took this as her cue. "You are really desperate to leave this palace. Do you have a lover waiting for you outside?"

Oris forced Bren out of her mind and lifted her head to look at the woman. "Of course not."

"Then why do you wear a veil in front of the Emperor?"

The murmurs returned, and this time she could tell that they were not in her favor. It was obvious that the ministers would rather side with the all-powerful Empress Dowager than a woman who had to even enter the harem and was already causing problems.

Her earlier win had been a hard-earned one.

"This servant was a nun before entering the palace and has not yet had a Rite Of Cleansing. And... it is a tradition in my tribe that no man can see the face of an unwed woman but her father, brothers, and," Oris let her gaze flick to Hermes shyly, "husband."

The Hall descended into silence.

Queen: Three. Empress Dowager: One.

~

Ah, done. Wrote all these chapters today. I've been thinking about posting new chapters every two weeks instead of one. Queensmen is still a WIP so I don't have a store of chapters. I usually post the moment the chapter is ready (which is usually by Monday) but I'm getting burnt out.

If I increase the time I have to write each chapter, I can write more. :)