Queensmen

Chapter 76

~Letter~

"One hour has long passed," Hermes said. He held his tea in his hand but didn't drink it, instead he watched Oris. Watched her with cold, calculative eyes.

She felt his agitation, felt it match hers. There was this pressing need for them to part ways before something regrettable happened.

He needed to analyze the information the ring had given him, and the information that swirled around her head now needed to be processed.

Whatever had happened in those last moments of their conversation had changed both of their plans drastically enough that neither of them could keep up this facade of ignorance any longer.

They had shaken each other but were not fully aware of what exactly it was they did to shake their counterpart.

Oris knew that Hermes knew that his words had changed something in her, just as she knew that the ring cutting her had changed something in him.

In a matter of seconds, they had become different people. Their main goals hadn't changed but the little details had, and life was all about the details.

Oris pulled the wet cloth from her nose and used it to wipe the blood that remained on her face and hands. "Your ministers must worry, sire. As much as I wish for our conversation to continue, I know it can't."

Hermes nodded, his voice filled with innocent honesty. "I wish for our conversation to continue as well..."

Oh, how she wished she could continue prodding this man's mind for answers while delicately sifting out the whole truth contained in his carefully constructed replies. But it wasn't possible for dangerous discourse like this one to continue.

He feared her. She feared him. Or better put, they feared themselves.

There was a brittle uncertainty between them now, as though the next word that left their lips would seal their fate. The feeling permeated all through Oris, her fingers twitched for the needles she knew were on the table, so close yet so far away.

She watched his muscles tense but did not let her eyes betray her thoughts. Though he carried no weapons, with brute strength he could easily restrain her before she could reach the medicine case.

One wrong word from him and she would have the impulse to kill him. Whether she would succeed or not was another matter but the trigger would be pulled.

She knew that Hermes was mulling over the same thoughts in his mind. Looking back, she could tell the exact moment he had wanted to kill her-he still wished her dead, in fact.

It was when he had left using the excuse that he would take care of her wound. At that moment, he had radiated killing intent for the briefest moments before concealing it with expert control, but she had been aware enough to catch it in its infancy.

All because of that ring, she had been perceived as a threat but this uncertainty, this air of terror, enclosing them had little to do with what happened in this room. It was formed by the secrets they guarded: the secret of the ring, the secret of identity, the secret of why this Empire was made, the secret of why Orse needed to be revived.

While Hermes had just now confirmed that she was hiding something, she had been aware of him for over two years.

In this regard, she was more prepared than him. How to overpower his strength played out in her mind, in the soft folds of her dress. A simple tear and she had herself a garrote. The needles were only a distraction but...

Stop thinking ahead, Oris, she warned herself and forced her body to relax.

If this change had happened before she had taken off the veil, before they had made an alliance, before Hermes had offered to be as sincere as he could afford, one of them would have had to die today. That much was clear.