Queensmen

Chapter 52

"No." Despite the warmth flooding her cheeks, Oris refused. She glanced back at their parents. "If you leave, what will become of them?"

"Children," drying her tears with the back of her sleeve, their mother hobbled towards them and took both their hands in hers. "I would feel safer if you two were together. Your father and I just talked about this. Oris, it is best if Bren goes with you. We will feel better knowing that he would protect you. Always."

Oris woke up to a wet cloth on her forehead and a hand around her wrist. When she tried to sit up, the hand moved to her chest to push her down. Disorientated, she begin to struggle but stilled to a stop when she heard the commanding tone of a voice she had grown familiar with.

"Don't move," it said and the hand grew stronger, pushing her back until she was once again lying down.

Beneath her fingers, Oris felt hay. She folded her fists over it as pain made its way through her body.

She knew now that she was on the metal bed in the cell, but she didn't remember getting there. When she tried to open her eyes, she discovered that she didn't have the strength to. She let them stayed closed.

"What. . .happened?" she croaked. Her throat hurt badly and it itched. She coughed a few times, hoping to clear her throat but that only made pain flare through her chest.

"You passed out," her cellmate explained. Her voice had a different quality to it now. It was softer, less damaged, more feminine.

"You. . .are out of your chains?" Oris was yet to hear any of the familiar rattling and last she saw the shackles kept a prisoner's wrist fixed together. There was no way they were still on right now if only one hand was holding her down.

"You didn't expect me to help you whilst being chained to the farthest side of the room, did you?"

"How?" Oris was answered by the sound of keys jostling against each other. Her mind immediately conjured an image of a rusty keyring in loose grip. "You could have escaped all along."

"I wouldn't have made it far," the hand returned to Oris' wrist and she felt two fingers press gently against her pulse. "I stole these keys from a guard two years ago. I was beaten everyday for a week but I never spoke a word about it. When they searched my cell top to bottom and couldn't find it, the guards had no choice to move me. This was the only free cell back then."

"Why," Oris shifted her shoulders against the hay. There was no position she could put her body in that didn't result in pain, "are you telling me all this?"

"The fact that we are in this cell together means something," the cloth was taken off her forehead and replaced with a cooler one. "I do not believe in coincidences."

"Neither do I."

"Then you know that all this must have been preordained. We have met for a reason. Even if the reason is to die together."

"We will not die," Oris shook her head, worsening the throbbing ache beneath her skull. She gritted her teeth and hissed her next words with what she hoped was a smile on her lips. "But if we do, it will be fitting."

Two queens forced from their kingdoms and locked away by a stubborn Empress Dowager. It would be a good plot for a song.

Maybe a legend would spread after their deaths and everyone would know their story. In Oris' opinion, that was a much better end than being set up to slay a dragon that did not exist.

"Girl, why did you come to the palace?"

"To save a life."

"Is that all?"