Queensmen

Chapter 67

~The Wish~

Hermes stood almost two heads taller than Oris, a fact that she noticed the moment her focus shifted from his eyes. It felt odd to only be aware of that now when she was walking quietly behind him.

It was something she ought to have known—she hadn't spent year studying the man for nothing—and there were more important things she should have been thinking about at this moment, but no, her mind was fixated on tbe enigma before her.

Since she came of age, she had not met anyone who she had to crane her neck to look up at.

She and Bren were the same height, for one, and she imagined that Mikeal was only slightly taller than her.

Hermes, on the other hand, made her feel like a dwarf, which didn't make sense because she still came up way past his shoulders.

It was only now that she had her gaze pinned on his back that she remembered that Bren had cut so deep into his arm that the entire sleeve of his robe had turned red.

She supposed she should have remembered sooner but he hid his pain well. When he had been sitting on his throne, he looked nothing like the man Bren had been about to cut down, and with other things to worry about the event had been deemed unimportant and pushed to the back of her mind.

It didn't matter that that day, Hermes had looked like he was on his last legs. Today, he didn't, and if someone had told her that some days ago he had been battling assassins, she wouldn't have believed it.

Though, the same could be said for herself. She barely felt a thing now apart from the occasional flare of pain in her chest. She suspected that she had been given something to keep the pain she should be feeling to a minimum.

Once it wore off, she would no doubt be in agony, but that only served as a testament to how good Hermes' Deádim was at healing.

Thinking back to the elusive woman who had eyes that seemed to be able to pierce through souls was something she did not want to do, so her thoughts drifted to Mikeal who she hadn't seen since he had rushed to help Hermes and Magnus.

Magnus? The name of the royal advisor caused a hiccup in her train of thought but it was a necessary one. He had been injured fighting Bren as well and she hadn't seen him in the Great Hall today. What happened to him? Is he sick. . .or worse?

If he had been around, she was sure that the ministers would have been less unruly. He was the one person she thought would be her enemy but ended up being an ally. If he was permanently taken out of court, there would be one less person to oppose the Empress Dowager.

And that would make things a lot more tricky.

Hermes paused, and Oris managed to stop herself just before she bumped into him. Her eyes flitted up to his hand when he pressed it against the wall in front of them and pushed.

It caved in to reveal a dim, torchlit hallway, and Oris had to clamp her lips shut to stifle the sound of surprise that would have escaped.

A secret passage? she wondered, but Hermes had already started moving and she knew that she needed to keep up with him.

He didn't walk fast, but he wasn't slow either. He seemed to be gliding along the cold stone beneath their feet, but Oris could see the tension he kept in his back.

It didn't take long for her to realize that he was compensating for something, like a cripple who did their best to hide their limp.

He must still be in pain, she thought and began to observe him closely.