Oris stepped out of her room with Mayree and Keziah silent on either side of her, their hands grasping one of hers as though they were afraid that the moment they let go she would keel over.

She smiled wryly, finding their grim expressions amusing. They made her feel all the more like a lamb being led to the slaughter.

Here goes nothing.

"Mistress," Andrea frowned, as though sensing her mistress' darkening thoughts, and tilted her head slightly in her direction.

Her eyes scanned Oris from top to bottom as she chewed habitually on her lower lip. The mere sight of the dress her mistress had chosen made her uncomfortable, and she knew Mayree felt the same about the unique hairstyle that had been forced onto the usually untamable red locks.

She and Selene stood farther down the hallway, watching Oris proceed onward with the other two maids, their gazes judging how pitiful the entourage looked with each step that was traversed.

Selene had an equally distressed frown perched on her red-stained lips.

Everything looked too simple. There was not one hint of gold or silver, no hair pins, no flamboyant layers to the dress, no elegantly wide sleeves or elaborate ornaments.

Maybe it was only Keziah that had managed to exercise her talents in this situation, having been ordered to make Oris' wound look as morbid as possible, as if it wasn't already.

Now, it stood like a beacon on their mistress' pale skin, and though most of it was covered by the neck of the dress, the part that sat above her collar bone was ghastly enough to elicit gasps of shock from whoever saw it.

"Oh, why are you two looking so glum?" Oris laughed at the two girls, but stopped abruptly after breaking down into a series of harsh coughs.

Her brows furrowed with concern when she heard the grating sound coming from her own lungs but she didn't let go of either of her maids just yet, in fact her grip only tightened.

Maybe they weren't wrong about me keeling over, she thought, her vision going hazy for a brief moment.

Mayree shot Oris a worried look which she waved away, detaching herself from the oldest maid to take the handkerchief that Keziah had stretched out to her.

"You are clearly sick, Mistress." Andrea said with a deep frown that seemed out of place on her youthful face. "You should have at least allowed Keziah to add powder to your cheeks and Kohl to your eyes. Some red on your lips wouldn't hurt either."

"Our Mistress has a fever," Mayree told the young girl quietly, her own rosy lips pressed into a thin line. "And a cold. Who knows what caking her face in cosmetics would do to her health."

"We could have tried at least," Selene muttered bitterly. "It is hard enough to garner attention with no jewelry to work with."

"Alright, I admit it," Oris announced suddenly, the green in her eyes twinkling, "I should not have chased you all over the room."

"Mistress!" Andrea was about to get down on her knees and start apologizing for her earlier behavior but before she could, Oris had started laughing again.

"Mistress," Keziah voiced her worry in her usual, quiet tone when Oris' shoulders started shaking and she coughed again. "You should stop laughing."

"I can't help it," Oris said slyly, through the handkerchief she kept pressed against her mouth. "After today I might be dead, it is best that I am as happy as a lark before then. Don't you think?"

Selene shook her head, speechless, and helped Andrea get to her feet again before pulling a folded veil out from her sleeve.

"This servant managed to sneak this out of the laundry halls," she said and walked towards Oris.

She reached up and expertly fixed the veil over her mistress' face, hiding the knot she tied within the braids her fingers encountered. Unlike the others Oris usually wore, this veil sat on the bridge of her nose, leaving her eyes and everything above them exposed.

"How do I look?" Oris smiled despite knowing that they couldn't see it. For now the veil would conceal how sick she looked, but she knew that eventually she would be forced to take it off. That was the moment she was waiting for.

Seline took a step back with a deadpan expression, "Pale."

"Andrea, what do you think?" Oris turned to the usually bubbly girl.

"The others will laugh at us for dressing our mistress up so shabbily," she whined, staring mournfully at the floor-length white gown Oris wore. "Even our dresses look better than yours."

It was true. They all wore light pink dresses with floral designs spanning their length. Even their hair had been decorated with ornamental hair pins made out of varnished wood. Each having a carved and exquisitely painted Sakura blossom on its ends.

Compared to her maids, Oris looked like a pauper on her way to burn incense for the dearly departed, but she only smiled beneath her veil.

"They would laugh at us regardless of what we we do," she said softly and began to walk again, balancing precariously on her platform shoes with each step forward. "We have no clothes and we are late. From the start, we were set up to be disadvantaged. Regardless, no matter what straits I find myself in, I would never let you four beg in order for me to survive."

Mayree forced a smile and looked at her mistress. "But it is our duty to serve you. What is it to beg for some clothes?"

"I think you and Selene did well with the embroidery," Oris tactfully ignored the question, choosing instead to stare intently at the character that had been stitched into the hem of both her sleeves with blue thread.

The character for rebirth.

"Thank you, Mistress," the two maids said together, their expressions strained as they said the words.

"Andrea," Oris called the attention of the sulking girl, "what do you think the others would say about my outfit?"

Andrea turned to her mistress, her nose wrinkling as she thought hard about it. "They would say that your clothes were inappropriate and that your hair was vulgar."

Oris nodded and said nothing more as they all rounded a corner, the foggy details of her plan slowing taking a more solid shape.

"Halt!"

Wrenched from her thoughts, Oris found herself faced with the point of two spears. Slowly, she let her gaze wonder to the blank faces of the guards who held them.

A second later, they drew back their weapons.

At the sight of the two men, Andrea and Seline stopped leading the procession and fell into formation behind Mayree and Keziah.

From this point of the hallway, guards lined the walls on either side with only a gap the size of a person between the men who stood next to each other.

Because the corner obstructed her view Oris had noticed this a little bit too late and would have stumbled if not for the fact that she was being supported by Mayree and Keziah. Stopping was not such an easy feat when her feet were so high off the floor.

She let out a quiet sigh. Back in Orse she never had to wear anything other than slippers for the sake of convenience, and seeing as she didn't have a harem filled with beautiful women trying to outdo each other t win her love, she had never asked for anyone to wear them in her presence.

It was only after getting to Asharath that she had begun to wear the uncomfortable yet classy tall shoes at Mayree's request. If she hadn't started practicing then, she supposed that she would have fallen flat on her face by now and completely ruined her chances at looking dignified.

She had gone through them all. From flower-pot shoes to chopines to platform mules, all to be able to stand steadily when the occasion would call for it.

Walking gracefully was still a problem for her though. It was easier when she had someone holding her hand but if she was left alone it was comparable to leaving her in the middle of the ocean. . .when she couldn't swim.

"What business do you have here?" the guard to her right asked, his baritone voice momentarily reminding her of Rodholf.

Oris blinked to clear her thoughts, the edges of her lips quirky up slightly as she took a few dainty steps towards the guard. Time to have some fun.

"Is this corridor out of bounds? I have been looking for someone to ask directions. I might be lost," she spoke in the soft, gentle way that was sure to get his heart thumping, mixing just the right amount of lies with the truth. "I just woke up. I'm here for the selection but I got sick and overslept."

Oris continue to explain her situation in hopes of winning some sympathy, despite already knowing that the powers that be wanted her to fail the selection. She just needed to know whose orders the guards were under.

Talking to Mikeal had cleared her head somewhat; he had reminded her that there was no such thing as transparency in the Royal Palace. There was no such thing as friendship. Only opportunistic relationships existed here.

She should not put all her jewels in one chest. Compared to the outside world, the palace provided her with an assured roof over her head, clothes and frequent meals, but it also had just as many dangers as any forest or desert.

If things in the palace didn't work out in the end, she needed a way to contact Rodholf; she needed a means of connecting with the outside world and securing a safe way out of the palace just in case.

She needed influence, and more importantly wealth.

Nothing in life moved without the aid of gold and silver, but at the moment she had neither. All she could use now was what she had been given at birth, her enchanting voice, and the acting skills she had been developing for nearly four years now.

"My Lord," she called the guard on her left, her words quiet and wispy. "Am I too late?"

She forced tears into her eyes and released Mayree's hand again to dab them dry with the handkerchief. "If I do not make it to the selection, what will happen to my fief? Where would I be able to go to?"

She looked into his eyes, very clear about the amount of discomfort he felt. "Will you take care of me?"

She let more tears fall as her maids caught on to her act and began to comfort her with quiet, but loud enough, words of encouragement.

~