~Paradox~

"Sire, forgive my carelessness," Oris piped up when Hermes returned to her side, ready to play the eager bride and return a sense of normalcy to the situation.

He said nothing as he knelt before her her, dropping a wooden case beside the tea set and cradling her hand carefully in his.

She could not imagine what had come over him but allowed the silence in favor of diving deeper into her thoughts. What is that ring?

Somehow, she felt that she had made a mistake but exactly what it was eluded her because the required information had not been made available to her. What is that ring?

It was magical, had healing properties, and had spilled her blood yet Hermes had worn it all morning without incident.

His surprise meant that it wasn't a defense mechanism of some sort. It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't sharp. Yet it had wounded her.

What is that ring?

Did it alert Hermes to the presence of those who had intentions to harm him? A subtle kiss of death before the enemy could notice?

A sharp sting in her finger made her pull her hand away. Hermes' fingers trapped hers before she could.

She looked at him, flushing a little when she considered the degree of her absentmindedness. He might as well think I am embarrassed, she thought, her gaze drifting to the box on the table, to the needles laying innocently within them.

Is this some sort of test? Is he tempting me with an opportunity so soon?

"Sire," she let her eyes snap back to him, "you should let a servant do this."

"I am your servant," she added.

"You are my woman," he corrected her, his voice the complete antithesis of his touch, hard and unyielding, "and my women do not have scars."

For a moment, Oris was speechless. Implications. Implications. She had scars everywhere.

"Then I am not worthy," she replied softly.

"You will be."

"Sire," she couldn't hold the question in any longer, "what is that rin-"

Her questions was cut off by the ache she felt when he tied the bandage tightly around her finger.

"It hurts," she announced, pitifully, because it was not strange for a woman to fear pain.

Hermes leaned back on his heels and stared at her, clearly amused. "Just days ago you were shot with an arrow yet you look more aggrieved now."

"Sire, don't you know? Wounds are more painful when someone else shows concern over them. Seeing the expression on their face sometimes aches more than the hurt."

Inevitably, her thoughts strayed to Bren. Bren, who had drugged her and run away. He hated seeing her in pain too, especially when he could do nothing about it.

"You are surprisingly insightful." He got to his feet and smoothened his robe out first before sinking into his chair. "It is surprisingly refreshing."

She thought about how gently this same man had held her hand, held her fingers as though her skin was paper and her bones were porcelain. And somehow, she knew that he would have treated any other woman the same, injured or not, ally or not.

Despite the woman's ruthlessness, Wei Wei had not raised her son as a beast. It was commendable, more than commendable it was a marvel, knowing how much of a brute his father was.

"You respect women," she said, as opposed to: You treat me well or I am undeserving of sire's kindness.

Hermes was already aware of how observant she was. Acting any less would only arouse his suspicions.

He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "Is that surprising?"

"A lot of women have died by your hands," she said, in a tone that made it clear that common people were excluded from the generalization. She meant royalty.

"No one has died by my sword without being given a choice for things to be resolved peacefully," he replied, bitterness tinging his otherwise emotionless voice.

"That is not what the rumors say."

"Have you ever had faith in rumors?"

That silenced any other question she could ask. Mentioning Orse while still sharing a resemblance to the State's dead queen would be a death wish. No matter how badly she wanted to know what happened that day, she could only seal her lips and put it off for a better day-if there ever was one.

What happened at Orse? Now, she began to doubt the people that had been around her in the weeks preceding the attack on her castle. Why? Because she knew of enough Hermes to trust him not to lie and that was more than she could say about her ministers.

She had been told that Hermes had been coming to kill her, yet here he was implying that he had been on his way to a negotiation.

Did someone betray me? If they wanted her dead, there were so many ways and opportunities to do it in the three years of her reign. Why borrow another man's knife?

Unless...

Her heart grew cold.

"I am really curious about how you built this empire, sire. You are ruling more States than I have fingers and toes."

"You sound worried."

"Is it strange for me to worry for my husband?"

He looked at her strangely and she met his gaze head on. Yes, suspect me as much as you wish. We are still due to be married and I have no shame.

"Ministers from all the States attend my court," he explained. "Under my direction, the States become fiefs and Dukes are appointed to rule in place of Kings."

Meaning that there should be ministers from Orse at his court. But she had not seen any. She had not expected there to be so she never looked deeper into, but that was before she considered this degree of betrayal.

Orse was an isolated matriarchy with stiff relations with the other major States. Any man that sat on the throne would die in a matter of months, either via assassination or some mystic force that couldn't be explained.

Because of this, a Duke could not be placed as a ruler and no man of this time would volunteer a woman to rule over him in his stead, even if she was nothing more than a puppet. Her ministers had to remain in Orse to rule in a Queen's place and Hermes could only regulate them from Heshera.

That was natural.

The real mystery laid in where those same ministers had been the day that he had captured her castle. They had fled and left her defenseless and under directives from the state's strategist Orse's Generals had surrendered without much of a fight.

A tactic to catch Hermes off guard and route more soldiers numbers to the army's rearguard had been sound on paper and a coward's move in reality. Yet when the critical moment arrived, she realized that only she remained in the castle and only her guards stood between her and Hermes.

Until now, she had not allowed herself to think that she had been betrayed by her own council, consisting of four women and three men, but it was clear enough now.

If the Queen Of Orse had lived, she would have had to marry Hermes to prove the State's allegiance to the Empire. Orse's ministers would be at the Emperor's court, no different from the other ministers here, because her bloodline remained.

Now that she was dead, they could rule directly. They had sold her head to Hermes, given him a clear path to her castle, and gotten rid of all possible witnesses, in one fell swoop.

How long had they spent planning this? Was this the reason they aggravated her at every step, not caring for repercussions? Because they knew that they only had to wait three years and they'd be rid of her?

Oris felt herself shake with rage. Anger, hot anger, burned in the pit of her gut. Her family, her sister, had lived among these vipers for so long. If someone told her that their deaths were natural and just, would she be able to believe it?

She could almost see the plan that had been her undoing. Kill the Queen, her mother, and the Queen's lover, her father. Make the perfect sister mad and the once-perfect heir turns into an illegitimate royal. Find the illegitimate twin, the weak one, and put her on the throne. So easily disposable but to allay suspicions lead her to a war that would kill her cleanly.

Their hands, stained with so much blood, but bloodless without evidence. They now rule Orse without care for bloodline.

How dare they? How dare they?!

Her head ached, pain stung at her eyes as the pressure built up behind them. She wished it not to be true, but deep down she knew. All this time...

Liquid dripped to her lips, she felt its warm, crawling path along her skin and tasted iron and pain and sadness when she brushed the slow flow with the tip of her tongue. She cupped bleeding her nose and tilted her head back, feeling her eyes water.

How dare they?

"It must be due to foresight that I knew to bring the entire medical case with me." Hermes languid voice drifted to Oris' ears.

"Apologies, sire," she heard herself say, "I don't feel quite well."

She didn't know how much to hate him. Hate him for making a deal with her ministers and sparing her State the bloodshed that she had feared?

How could she? How could she?

If her ministers were not greedy, if everyone in her court had been completely trustworthy, would they not have fought to the last man to keep her safe?

How many people would have died then?

It had been her life in exchange for many others, and as a ruler she understood. Killing her would have been the most logical thing for Hermes to do, because he did not know her or care for her, but he cared for the people

Her ministers had to have been the ones to raise the proposal. Marrying a stranger or killing them, she knew that it made no difference to him. That was proven by the fact that there were many queens in the Selection, many princesses, many women of power like her, yet unlike her because men ruled them while no man ruled her.

It was Hermes' destiny to have his marriage used as a political tool, just as her womb was nothing but a tool to craft progeny with a more suitable bloodline for the throne.

Now, she could imagine the moment when he had ridden up to her castle gates and found Risa standing there.

What did he tell her? Why did he kill her?

She didn't doubt that Risa had tried to kill him, her sister was the violent sort of mad, but she had not been there, she had not seen it with her own eyes.

The answer to these things, she feared, were only known by him.

When a cold cloth was placed on her hand, she opened her eyes and found herself staring up at Hermes. She pressed the cloth to her nose and leaned forward, feeling her coils bounce against her shoulders.

Hermes moved to the teapot and filled the empty cups. "You should not have tilted your head back."

"I did not wish for sire to see me in such a state." She had wanted to hide her tears from him, tears she had not heart to explain, or even fake an explanation for.

He smiled at her and she smiled back, feeling utterly, utterly disarmed, yet filled with a dreadful sense of purpose.

He handed her a cup of warm tea. "This is mostly a fault of the palace, allowing your condition to decline this far."

"The physician already said that I don't have long. Nothing can change that."

"You already know that I will not let you die." Hermes chuckled and she nodded at his words.

"There is little an Emperor cannot do," her voice said, but her mind was in turmoil.

I really have to hurt this man one day, there is no way around it.

It was their destiny, and she could only succumb to it. For now she knew that he was both the kindest and cruelest man she had ever know, a paradox she never expected to see in a moral-desolate place like Heshera. A paradox that made it so hard for her to show the same ruthlessness, and yet, she had to.

Without my bloodline, my State will crumble, but in the end, here, I must remain.

Orse could not part of the Empire.

~

I'm so freaking proud of the chapter, so I'm posting early! I'm also glad to say that Book One: A Court Of War will be concluded after the hunting test of the Selection.

As you know, I have only two parts of Queensmen in my mind but writing this one has shown me that it can't all be put onto one book. So part one is a trilogy, and part two is a trilogy. Six books! I'm sure you're curious about what I've been thinking of that'll fill all that blank space, well, you'll see... I think.

This chapter revealed a conspiracy that Oris might have only suspected before, all fueled by Hermes' words. You see, I've gotten comments like "It's unrealistic to have Risa die for Oris because they are both heirs" and "Why did she pay Old Man Ducan to work for him when she could have bought an inn and run it herself?"

First off, in Orse the order of succession is important, crazy people are automatically ruled out because guess what? That shit is genetic and no one wants the next ruler to be a psycho. So if your crazy, you're still royal, but only in name.

Second off, Oris was a puppet queen (and still it was mentioned in this chapter that no man of theses times would let a woman rule of him). She doesn't have a whole lot of connections, or some secret organization that'll help her out in times of need. Old Man Ducan's greed is what kept her alive.

Ah, just imagine working for the guy without paying him anything, he would have either sold her long ago or reported her to some authority if he found her suspicious.

Problem was, he was too greedy. Sigh.

Back to the chapter. There is a reason Hermes captured the entire world, and there is a reason Oris is set on freeing Orse even though she sees that her people are safe. They both know things that they aren't telling each other and you guys, and it's so fun!