Author's note: guess who messed up the chapter order and left out the one with important world-building like a big dummy? Meeeeeee! Go back and check out chapter 14. I uploaded it like I should have in the first place. It's useful. If you read chapter 14 after 9/10/21 you can ignore this note.

The queen arrived with a flourish.  She sent her servants in first and they pulled open the doors to the manor, letting sunlight stream in across the floor to where Olive and Cariun stood waiting.  The light illuminated the queen as she entered, a shining backdrop like a halo that wiped away all of her features.  She was nothing but a silhouette against the sunlight.  Olive was forced to avert her gaze, dropping it to stare at the floor instead and the shadow that stretched almost to where she and Cariun were waiting.

Then the queen entered, her shoes clicking on the polished stone floor, and the doors swung shut behind her.  After the brilliance that heralded her in, the resulting gloom felt like they were being entombed.

The queen was younger than Olive expected.  It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, Olive chided herself.  She wasn’t Cariun’s mother, after all.  The king did seem like the type to marry a younger woman.  Still, it was disconcerting to see someone that had perhaps not even a decade of age on her.  She was a beautiful woman, in that sharp, precise way that was meant to be admired but not approached.  Her poise was cold and distant.  She did not smile.  She seemed to float across the ground, her movements concealed under billowing skirts and layers of trailing sleeves.

And her jewelry!  Her crown was a gold diadem with spokes like a wheel, chained with fine gold filigree and adorned with pearls.  Her choker was of similar design, and her bracelets covered not only her wrist in fine gold designs, but also half of her hands as well.  Every finger was adorned with a ring and her earrings traveled from her lobe to the top of her ears.  Like every inch of exposed skin was covered in gold.  Gold dust even sparkled from the color applied around her eyes.

Was makeup in the middle ages poisonous, Olive suddenly wondered in dismay.  She honestly didn’t know.  She supposed it could have been, considering how many other dyes or paints were poisonous back then.

“Your Majesty,” Prince Cariun said, bowing, stirring Olive out of her sudden alarm.

She was quick to follow with a bow of her own - for there was no curtsey in this world, as she now knew - but watched Cariun out of the corner of her eye.  Even with Olive’s limited knowledge, she knew that it was a deliberately sloppy bow.  The queen’s expression did not change.

“Cariun, dear,” she said with fake cheerfulness.  “How many times have I told you - call me mother.”

She waited.  But Cariun only murmured ‘of course’ and did not correct his earlier greeting.  The queen’s attention then shifted to Olive.  It was a subtle thing, her head barely turned, and Olive only realized that the queen was waiting for her to speak when the silence grew awkward.

“Your Majesty,” Olive quickly said, repeating her earlier bow - just in case.  “It is an honor.”

Maybe Cariun had a reason to piss in the queen’s cereal, but Olive certainly didn’t feel like making an enemy of everyone here.  She just had to be inoffensive enough to be left alone until she could return to her home world.

“What is your name?” the queen asked.

“Olive,” Cariun replied instead, and Olive resisted the urge to give him a dirty look for answering for her.  “She’s under my protection.”

“A pity, that,” the queen sighed.

More awkward silence.

“We, uh, have tea prepared,” Olive said into the silence.  She wasn’t sure how Cariun and the queen could stand it.

“How good of you to be making an effort,” the queen purred.  “Cariun, you should learn from her example.”

Yep, Olive thought.  She hated the queen already.

While the queen did not comment on anything in particular, it was clear from her posture and expression that she disliked everything she saw.  She sat perched on the edge of her chair, as if she didn’t want to touch it overly much, and watched poor Miene bring in the tea with narrow disapproval.  The woman’s hands were shaking and one of the queen’s servants swept in and took the teapot from her before she could pour anything.  Miene couldn’t hide her expression of relief and fairly fled the room.  Olive envied her ability to escape.  She, unfortunately, was trapped here with the suffocating silence.  And she thought the hostility between Tiyrus and Cariun was bad.  That was nothing compared to this.

Anxiously, Olive struggled to recall what Cariun had said about the queen.  Her name was Ivalsa.  She came from a powerful family.  He’d called her indulgent but right now, she looked anything but.  The model of self-control.  Like she was carved from marble.

“Olive, was it?” the queen asked, sipping at her tea.  “Have you been in Antris very long?”

“I have not,” Olive replied.  “Perhaps a week.”

“Well, you don’t look foreign, but goodness, that accent!  Where are you from?”

“America,” Olive replied promptly.  “It’s a small province at the border of Krastin.”

She’d looked at a map and picked the smallest and farthest country she could find to claim as her origins.  She risked a glance at Cariun.  The prince seemed… impressed.  He stared at her over the rim of his teacup, his amber eyes wide with mock surprise.

Did he think she wasn’t going to make an effort?  

“Oh my, that is quite far,” the queen said. “What brought you here?”

“She’s a scholar,” Cariun said.  

Olive felt a brief moment of relief.  It wasn’t like they’d prepared a story, but it seemed he’d somehow been paying enough attention to her conversations with Miene to pick up on her cover.

“A scholar?” the queen asked, raising an eyebrow in deliberately feigned interest.

“Of…”

“Medicine,” Olive supplied.

If medical science was as bad as she remembered from history, then she could fake having advanced knowledge pretty easily.

“She has some interesting theories,” Cariun continued.

“About disease, specifically.  I call it… viral… theory,” Olive finished lamely.

“Fascinating,” Ivalsa replied in a tone that implied it was anything but.

“You see, I think diseases are caused by living organisms,” Olive continued, realizing this was her opportunity.  She only had to keep the conversation on mundane things.  Eventually Ivalsa would grow bored and leave, without asking her any questions she wasn’t prepared to answer.

She wasn’t that lucky.

“Olive, dear, I don’t really care,” Ivalsa sighed, setting her tea down.  “I’m sure your little theory isn’t the reason the king assigned the most wayward of my children as your guardian.”

Despite the cool interior, Olive felt a bead of sweat at her hairline.  She struggled to remain composed, but knew in her heart that her panic was showing on her face.  Ivalsa knew it too, for her gaze was fixed on Olive, waiting for an answer.  Olive’s thoughts raced.  What did she say now?  What did she do?

“Whoops,” Cariun said into the ensuing silence, and threw his tea cup on the floor.

Olive almost laughed.  She hastily raised her tea cup and pretended to take a drink, trying to buy time to regain control of her composure.  How the hell was keeping a straight face this hard?

“How careless of me,” he continued, standing and staring at the mess.  “I must still be hungover.  Olive, why isn’t your maid coming to clean this up?”

It took a few seconds of Cariun staring at her pointedly for Olive to take the hint.  She hastily stood, setting her tea cup down and spilling a bit as she did.  Ivalsa noticed.  She glanced at it and then up at Olive, her expression set in stark distaste.

“Oh, she’s, uh, not very well trained yet,” Olive stammered.  “I’ll go - yell at her.”

Olive hastily fled the room.  She’d hide with Miene for a while, she decided.  Maybe come out again when the queen was leaving to say goodbye.  As much as she hated to admit it, Cariun had saved her just then.

“Foreigners,” Cariun sighed from behind her as she left.  “They really don’t know how things work in Antris.  I let Olive do the hiring.  That was clearly a mistake.”

The last was pitched loud enough for Olive to hear, even as she exited the room.  She grit her teeth in frustration.  Clearly, the prince knew how to get the last word in as well.