To Love, Once Again

Chapter 90

Things didn't go wrong, but they weren't going right, either.

Sera had spoken too early.

"Your Majesty, please be careful!"

Lucy watches Sera with tightly clasped hands, standing at a distance from Sera. The maid's hands trembled watching the Queen deftly climb up the tree with an easy grace. As if to reassure the maid, the waxy green leaves seemed to wave back at her as she stared open-mouthed at the high branches, at the fearless Queen gleefully climbing a tree like any young servant boy.

If something happened to Her Majesty, the (unofficial, but everyone in the castle knew was official) Queen....Lucy gulps..she was dead..

With all the rumors she heard about the Red King, if the Queen were to be injured...Lucy blinks her eyes, hard, to keep them from drying out. She wouldn't let the Queen escape her sight.

She shouldn't have taken the job taking care of the young Prince, no matter the high pay and easy working environment..It was supposed to be the best job of all. 'Caring' for the Prince by letting him play while the maids played their cards while Bea was away. Now that had been the life...The Queen's return had thrown her for a huge loop that she didn't know if she could recover from.

Sera on the other hand, ignores the cries of the maid standing at a distance beneath her. That maid, Lucy's face was as pale as a sheaf of paper.

Biting her lip in frustration, Sera wedges her foot in the knot of the tree, climbing even higher. The leather of the belt around her waist dug into her hips. Unable to find a proper pair of trousers to cover her legs, Sera had resorted to pulling up her skirt and tucking them into the waistband of her belt.

The tree stretched high into the sky, like the large sakura trees in Sera's old world. And at the uppermost branch, waving precariously in the wind, was a large round beehive.

After saying goodbye to Leo, things hadn't gone as quickly as Sera had hoped. The beehive from her last harvest was gone, and the other spots she'd spotted a beehive more than 5 years ago were long gone. There were few spots to begin with. With the garden dead after the War, the bees were long in returning.

It was pure luck Sera had found the last beehive before. But what joy it had brought her when she found it. She almost didn't mind the long lecture from the previous Head of the maids that followed after that stunt. Or the long lecture for Lucien.

Listening for the distinct buzzing sound, Sera had followed the first bee she could find. The fluffy yellow and black dot buzzed through flower patches, between the wisteria trees, and past the Rose Maze. It had forced Sera, and Lucy following behind her, to hike up their skirts over flowerbeds, crawl under and through bright green bushes, and suck in their breath to slip between tightly grown decorative trees.

The wagon had to be ditched early on when the bee first buzzed straight through a large area dotted with flowerbeds in picturesque patterns. An insect didn't follow the cobblestone and dirt paths laid down by human hands. It forced Sera and Lucy to carry the equipment in their arms, while Sera tied the veils around her waist for easy movement.

The bee took them in circles and figure-eights around the large Queen's Garden, showing Sera sights along the way that Sera knew had been added after her departure. The entire garden was magnificent. Everywhere she went, there were flowers.

They'd finally reached an open clearing dotted with individual white flowers, a carpet of green before them. It was a location where upon which a noblewoman might hold a genteel picnic. The large tree in the center of the clearing even had a wood rope swing attached to it, the painted white plank waving ever so gently in the breeze.