Chapter 333

The suicides stopped just as the elder elf said they would, right after the fourth day.

The rest endured. Queen Draudillon's routine went on as it had for what felt like a lifetime… with one change. She carried the wood to the fireplace in the women's quarters of the estate and stacked it neatly into place. The heavy wood was a burden she was now well used to, having hauled water and wood and the limp bodies of elf and human alike since the day of her capture.

The elves around her, seemingly taking pity on her as a human child, helped her often, taking most of the wood and letting her pretend to struggle more than she did so that if the elf king saw her, he wouldn't think her to be very useful. 'Small favors.' She told herself as she crouched down in front of the stone fireplace and taking up the spark stones, she cracked them together near the tinder.

A little spark jumped out, caught, and roared to life, which she then crouched over and gave her breath to in order to make it stronger. It rose as she expected, and she cast the tinder into the wood. Her pulse raced and goosebumps rose on her skin.

'If one of them figures it out…' She thought that a thousand times. Thankfully, no one had, not yet. They lay about, mostly listless, occasionally looking over a book they found somewhere, though most seemed disinterested as it was written in a language they couldn't read.

She reached for the chain that hung down at the fireplace and gave it a pull. 'Thank… you… Solution!' The Queen praised the monster to the stars as she pulled… and released… and pulled again.

Though she couldn't see it, the Draconic Queen knew that her crude signal was rising in a steady pattern… -.. .-. .- -.-. - -. .. -.-. -.- ..- . . -.

Or if it were written, 'DraconicQueen'.

'If they see it, they'll know I'm here, there's no way they're not wondering where I am by now, it's just not possible!' Draudillon told herself while sweat sprang to her brow and ran down her face. She wiped it clean and pretended to tend to the fire, casting more tinder from the bin, and then poking at the logs, sparks flew up from the burning wood and the fire danced around like mad.

This much, sweating and weary, filthy and broken as the Queen felt, with her frequently on edge nerves, her pounding heart, when she watched the flames at work, she had one thought occur again and again.

'Maybe I'm going crazy. Maybe I'm just desperate, but when I see the fire move… It's like the flames are dancing just for me.'

Illyana looked at the document in her hand, her eyes of blue scanning it several times in a row. "This is very strange." She said in her lyrical way, it prompted Skana to look up, her ears flicked up and down for a moment.

"You broke my rhythm, you know that once I get started, it's hard for me to stop, and harder to get going again when I can." Skana said, a little tic jerked back on the left corner of her mouth.

"I know, but I'm not sure what to make of this or how to sort it, here, take a look." The elf slid the paper across the table to her lover and partner, and Skana set her own aside to take it up and read for herself. Her eyes moved across the page, and the tic stopped as her annoyance did.

"That is strange. Funeral pyres in the middle of Arwintar? And what the hell are smoke dots?" Skana asked, her incredulous stare found a blank faced audience in Illyana.

"Maybe they mean 'smoke signals' I suppose?" Illyana suggested, "The doppels intelligence is random, and we don't have our best ones in Arwintar now… barely anything, really. It could be that some enemy has moved in. They've pinpointed the source but…" She rolled her eyes, "As you can see, the doppel who submitted this one… they aren't the smartest. They didn't write the pattern down, so if it really is smoke signals like they use in the Draconic Kingdom, we've got nothing to compare it to."

Skana slid the paper back across the table and crossed her arms, she looked down, her chin pressed against her chest as her brow furrowed in deep thought. "Almost everything we have is either helping rebuild the Holy Kingdom… helping influence the Kingdom of Demalbion, or scouring the Slane Theocracy for the Draconic Queen… we just don't have the intelligence resources to work in Arwintar…"

"So you think we should do nothing?" Illyana asked, her vibrant blue eyes were blinking rapidly as she waited for an answer.

"No, no we shouldn't just ignore it. They pinpointed the place, that's a good start. I guess we can take two or three doppels away from their assignments just for a little while. Just till we find out who is there, and have them record these 'smoke dots' and see if there is anything to it. In the worst case scenario all we lose is a few doppels for a few days, in the best case scenario… maybe some threat has moved in and we catch it early." Skana suggested, and Illyana nodded along.

"I'll… get on that right away." Illyana said and snatched a blank piece of paper to write up the orders and make the request of the Allmother for the reassignments.

"Illyana." Skana spoke softly and leaned forward on the table, stretching out her hand across the divide, her lover instinctively reached out and took the offered hand. "Stop worrying. Lady Albedo is good to all those who work hard for the Allfather, if you're doing your best, everything will be fine."

"You're right… I worry too much." Illyana said, squeezed the loving hand, then pulled it away, picked up the quill and began to write again, albeit slower this time.

"Is Raymond insane?!" Cardinal Dominic roared in outrage as he waved the papers in his hand while standing around the table with the rest of them.

"No, now sit down and shut up." Cardinal Berenice snapped at him with a glare. "The Draconic Queen is our ally. She went missing on our land. She probably went missing because you were so insistent that she had to take the long way, and that put her into danger. You just had to be petty, didn't you, Dominic?" She slapped her hand on the table like a mother angry at her child, and her comrade only glared back at her.

"She deserved worse than that. Aligning herself with the northern heretics…" He said and crossed his arms in front of himself.

"Not to interrupt, but regardless of his reasons, he did what he did and we can't undo it." Maximilian pointed out, and at his side, the wizened old Ginedine nodded in turn.

"Whether we like it or not, goblin riders and flying demihumans are roaming over our lands, and whether we like it or not, they are searching for someone who must be found. All we can do is use our soldiers and scriptures to help them in the search." Maximilian opened his arms as if to embrace the idea, and then they 'slumped' away. "I don't like it any more than the rest of you. If they would have only sent humans it would have been different, but… it is what it is. What do we do about it?"

"The real question is… what can we legally do about it?" Ginedine pointed out, at his right arm a law book floated in the air, and at a gesture of his hand it floated to his front. "There is simply no way they could have known that she went missing on our land without coming here themselves, and more importantly, they never sought permission to do so. Raymond himself acknowledged this must have been the case. We can't undo what's been done, but we can capitalize on how." The old man's crusty smile was enough to bring silence even to the fiery tempered Dominic, and the outraged Cardinal of wind sat back down to hear his colleague's words.

"We've ignored the Kingdom of Demalbion… or rather… not ignored, but… we haven't paid the mind to it that we should have. Who really thought those beasts could create an actual kingdom? I thought they'd fall apart in the first year after they stopped fighting the Holy Kingdom." Ginedine pointed out, and the other cardinals nodded along in sullen agreement.

"But they haven't, and their Queen seems dead set on continuing. They're putting a lot of work into 'helping' the blasphemers and heretics of the north. After Zesshi wins us the Baharuth Empire, we'll have enough resources to bring the pain to that upstart. If we ally with the Holy Queen, we can pinch the monsters between us, and… there are even humans there, perhaps we can turn it into a new human Kingdom." Ginedine pointed out.

"I see… learn how the monsters do things based on their searches, maybe start scouting their lands… disguise some as Re-Estize merchants, and use this time to prepare to destroy them after everything is settled down?" Maximilian guessed.

"You're forgetting one thing." Berenice pointed out, "The Holy Queen married the Allfather of Nazarick, she even bore him a child. Do you really think he won't take an interest in what happens? This could rapidly spiral out of control."

"So… what? We do nothing?!" Dominic snapped. "No matter what we do, it could go wrong."

"No, she has a point, what's more, there's questions about the Allfather's bloodline and history… Dominic your own Agante have reported as much." Ginedine asserted, and the Cardinal grumbled.

"Nonsense whispers." Dominic asserted.

"When has a dragon ever spoken of its own defeat, and we had it from Remedios' own lips what happened with that girl." Maximilian pointed out. "This may be another Godkin line. We still don't know enough about Lord Momon…" Maximilian answered his colleague, and Dominic became sullen, his frown deep set, and wrinkles appeared on his face.

"We're not saying do nothing, but the Queen of Frost can't simply be 'crusaded' against like we're doing with the elf King. She was smart enough to make a favorable peace with her enemies. I say we scout more, we learn what's going on there first hand and not just through one or two Agante disguised merchants, plant some humans in her territory… maybe even goad the dark elves into a war with her… it may take time, but we want to win, not just fight!" Berenice said and slammed her palm on the table making a sound like a thunderclap.

"That sounds like a lot of waiting." Dominic complained. "We shouldn't wait."

"Sometimes you have to wait to eat, or you get a cold, raw meal." Berenice said to him.

"We can do more when Zesshi hands us the empire, with another twenty-thousand soldiers, we can easily finish off the elves. The elf king will die, and we'll have all the slaves we need to expand our farms, and within a few years we'll have enough food to sustain a campaign and crush the Queen of Frost ourselves." Maximilian added and snapped his fingers as if it were already done.

"What if we launched an attack on the Queen of Frost while she was on her way back? She'll have only a few guards, and without her, the… creatures will fall apart." Dominic suggested, "We can still do the rest, but it will be a much easier campaign. With no friendly Queen on the throne, the Holy Kingdom and the Kingdom of Nazarick will not likely be willing to send people to die for the beasts and monsters.

"That… isn't so bad an idea… let's look into that one further." Ginedine gave a slow nod, "Her violating our borders is reason enough for retaliation… legally speaking. But we must not act too rashly. Or we could lose everything."

Dominic didn't need to be told they were talking to him with that, he knew it, but though he wore a sullen mask on his face, inside… he could only grin. 'I got my way after all.'