Queensmen

Chapter 60

~Holy One~

"The Emperor is sleeping in his Deádim's quarters," was the first thing Oris heard when she woke up. The words tickled the corners of her ears first then vanished before she could make sense of their meaning and the outrage that fueled their speaker.

Hermes? she thought groggily, the image of the Emperor and the holy Priestess in bed together appeared in her mind though she knew it was impossible. Oh.

Forcing her eyes to remain shut, she stifled the gasp of breath her lungs had been starving for and listened patiently to see if the reason the two most religious people in the capital were sharing a room would be discussed.

A veil clung to her lips as air filtered through them to help her breathe, too soft and velvety to be the one she had been wearing before she passed out.

Already, she could tell that she had been changed. She was no longer in the makeshift top and bottom she had constructed from her dress.

The gown on her now was much finer, just like the veil, it smooth on her skin and swaddled her with warmth. It was silk, she was sure of it.

"Is such not...taboo?" another petite voice asked, and Oris concluded from all the other chatter around her that she was in a room full of maids—well educated ones, from the way they spoke.

"I heard Mathilda from the kitchens say that it was necessary for the Emperor's health."

"The Priestess is healing the Emperor," someone agreed firmly. "Our Mistress is holy. The Emperor is not immoral."

"But—" another maid began, and that was when Oris tuned out the rest of the conversation and decided that it was time to show them that she was awake.

She hadn't recognize the voices and was now sure that they were simply gossiping. The maids didn't know the true reason why Hermes was no longer sleeping in his quarters, they were only speculating to pass the time as most maids did to entertain themselves.

Besides, that wasn't the sort of information Oris needed or cared about right now. She had lost count of how many days of the selection she had missed. Was she disqualified? Would she be thrown out of the palace or be designated as a maid?

In all honesty, she no longer cared for the competition, but she had to remain in the palace until Bren sent her a message. She knew that she was the only trustworthy informant he had in the palace.

Despite not knowing how he managed to even break into the palace in the first place, simply knowing Bren was enough. He had been prepared to die so he burnt every bridge he had so no one would be implicated.

If his sources and patrons weren't loyal, they would begin to panic now. Bren was not dead, the Emperor was not dead, they would certainly fear being discovered and quickly switch sides to save their households and authority.

Right now, Oris had to start rebellion from scratch. Though she did not know how much of her army had been killed off this time, she knew that resources had been depleted.

Usually, it was Bren that worried about funding but he was injured and he might have killed all their supply chains before attempting to kill Hermes.

She had to think of a way to make money in the palace, lots of it. It was something that she needed to do anyway if she wanted to secure a good position in the harem after the selection.

She also needed to revise her plan to kill Hermes.

As it stood, she was in-between doing it herself and leaving it to Bren.