210 Chapter 210

Queen Calca listened to the words of the Duke who knelt before the throne. "Say that again." She whispered the order as soon as he finished speaking.

"The Queen of Frost, first Queen of the Kingdom of Demalbion, ruler of all the tribes of the Abelion Hills, demands the immediate beheading of Remedios Custodio of the Roble Holy Kingdom as punishment for the execution of the peaceful trade envoy. If this demand is not met, she promises to come over the wall and claim the head herself."

"Who the hell is this Queen of Frost?!" Queen Calca gasped out the question with a rising pitch.

"She is a dragonid, once a human." Astraka explained, while keeping his head bowed before the royal throne and swallowed hard. "After I was captured from my estate and taken east, I met her. She was named 'Neia Baraja' and said that when she was still human she was referred to as the 'Huntress of the Wilds'."

That had the attention of Calca, Kelart, and Gustav all at once, they stiffened as if they had all been turned to stone. Gustav's armor clinked once and then made not a sound.

"She's alive." Gustav whispered.

"My Queen," Kelart said, brushing back her long brown hair and glancing down at the seated royal in her vibrant white and blue gown, "this could be a trick."

"A trick?! You can't be serious! I was there. I saw what happened. A dragon took her away, and went into the Abelion Hills! It only makes sense that the creature did something and…" Gustav clenched a fist, "this is the result."

Calca remained quiet. Pensive. Her face was flint. She looked at neither Gustav nor at Kelart, only down at the kneeling Southern nobleman.

"How," the Queen finally asked, "did she come to be 'Queen'?"

"Understand, I was only a captive, taken with the intent that I gain knowledge and convey her words to you as someone that would be heeded." Astraka said, adapting and improving upon the lie the Frost Queen suggested to him, "But I did hear that she used her fame among the orcs as her foundation, and then expanded from there. She brought her knowledge of our home with her when she went east, and that was enough to let her make a new Kingdom."

"You admire her, don't you?" Queen Calca demanded, her advisors gasped at the suggestion.

Duke Astraka didn't deny it. "I am from a warrior line. I admire those who win when they have no business even living."

Gustav gave a reluctant grunt of acknowledgement, though his fists behind his back tensed enough to make his burnished steel armor clink a little and the noise of his leather gloves tensing was impossible not to notice.

"My Queen… she's my sister." Kelart said, her eyes blinking, "If what he says is so…"

"You know it is. Even if we knew nothing else about what happened, you know it is." Queen Calca said and turned her head to glare up at the woman, "Your sister has cost us again, badly. What am I supposed to do, go to war for her after she executes the peaceful trade envoy of a sovereign nation?"

"But-" Kelart began, and Calca balled up a fist and slammed it down on the armrest of the throne.

"Be silent." The hardened Queen's beautiful face was rendered more beautiful in her anger. Her lips tight and eyes flashed with fury. "You thought nothing of ignoring the plea from the Mad Eyed Archer, a member of the Nine Colors for his daughter's life, and now the one you were so quick to suggest be left to die, has an army at our gates, or nearly! And you want me to spare your sister for yet another violation of customs?! We stuck her out there so she could do nothing else to make things worse, and now… now she's got us on the brink of war!" Calca roared the words with anger she didn't know herself capable of.

The months and months of trouble, corruption, destruction, the evacuation and reclamation of her capital, and realizing how much was the fault of her own naive belief that others held the same ideals she did… Calca closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath, forcing herself to calm down and looked away from Kelart.

The toll it all took on her soul was almost beyond measure, and yet she could not stop now. "Obviously we can't go handing over our citizens' lives at the demand of a foreign power, even if it risks war. But… if Remedios did do this… and she did, I don't doubt it, we have to take some kind of action. If we don't, even if they were demihumans, we don't want the reputation of killing off envoys left and right. No nation will be comfortable dealing with us then, and who knows how that will hurt trade?" Calca asked the rhetorical question, and though Gustav relaxed, Kelart did not. Not fully.

"My Queen, what do you suggest?" Kelart asked, barely restraining herself from panicked breathing.

"We send an envoy over the wall, someone the Queen of Frost won't kill. Buy time, offer to have Remedios whipped on the wall or something… something that will satisfy diplomacy without leading us to war, and that will leave her with her life." Queen Calca's face tensed further.

"I don't like this. No more than you do." Calca said and reached out to take Kelart Custodio's hand. "But how many more have to die?"

"My Queen, what about your beliefs… your dream… a Kingdom where nobody will be sad or cry…" Kelart whispered the words like they were to a dying relative.

"You know the answer to that." Calca said, her head hanging as if in mourning, "Maybe it died before it was born, and I was clinging to a corpse with all of you humoring me. Maybe it died on the wall when we tried to execute a hero for the crime of mercy. Maybe it died when my Kingdom became so rife with corruption that my city drove me from its walls. Whatever the hour of its death… it is dead. I have to do the best I can with the Kingdom I live in, not the one I wish I had."

She raised her head and faced the kneeling Duke. "Return to the Southern Holy Kingdom, take my brother with you. If this fails, I want to ensure he is safe."

"My Queen." Duke Astraka said and rose to his feet, he began to back away, fully ignored now that his business was done and the Queen turned her attention elsewhere.

"Gustav, you will go beyond the wall as my envoy to the Queen of Frost. Plead for peace, make the offer to her in person, perhaps she will not kill you at least." The Queen suggested.

"I was the judge at her trial, it seems more likely she would kill me than not." He frowned and bit his tongue. "No, I'll go. I can think of no one better for this than myself, I will pack my things and leave at once… and if I perish… I perish." He said, and privately thought, 'And it will be no less than what I deserve for my part in what happened… not stopping that sham of a trial will be a regret that will not let go, not till I'm gone from this world… if she kills me… that is just the gods rewarding me for my cowardice.'

He gave a slow nod of resolve and smacked his fist against his armored chest.

"Wish me well, My Queen." He said.

"Come back safe, Gustav. That is an order." The Queen said and he could not keep back a smile from her, even if her own was tiny and forced, she remained a golden and radiant beauty that naturally drew out his every protective wish.

"I will do my best, My Queen." He replied and lowered his salute.

"As will we all." Kelart added with an anxious swallow.

"So will we all." The Queen added, and watched the Paladin Commander's back as he left them alone.