Queensmen

Chapter 62

~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."