Chapter 213

"An envoy from the Holy Kingdom?" Neia asked the messenger, her brow furrowed and she leaned forward. Her back itched, she reached behind her to scratch the protrusions that were beginning. 'Just like with the horns… how much of 'me' will be left by the end?' It was a half held thought of no real consequence to the Queen of Frost. The messenger was a bafolk, one of the survivors after killing the Grand King Buser. 'I suppose there is something to be said for the demihuman reverence for strength. Killing him solidified my reputation… they have no idea that when I was human, I was nowhere near as strong as everybody thought.'

She let out an exhale that cast out the fog of her breath, a cool autumn air wafted over some of her exposed skin as she contemplated what to do.

"Yes, My Queen. And he says you know him." The bafolk knelt in the fashion of his people, with a hoof always moving and ready to jump. They were fantastic jumpers, a thing she kept in mind for when she went for the walls. His statement however, caught her ear.

"I do? Did he give a name?" Neia's ears pricked up.

"He says, "Gustav Montagnés, Commander of the Paladin Order."" The Bafolk huffed, a sign of contempt at the long title.

Neia however, shot to her feet with such force that she nearly toppled her throne. "Gustav?! Are they mad?!" She snapped. While not well known to her as a person, she knew what he used to be. And she would never forget the moment when last they saw one another.

When he saw her sentenced to the sword and the stake.

'They're either insane, or this is an insult… or an offering. Is that what this is?' Neia wondered, 'Could they be offering his life in exchange for Remedios Custodio?' That thought made more sense than simple madness.

Regardless, she had to respond. It had been some time, even knowing it would take a fair bit for Duke Astraka to deliver his message, and even more time for him to get home and start his own rebellion, so if nothing else… 'Sending him is legitimate, one way or the other.' Neia reasoned, when she'd shot to her feet the guards lining the wall stared at her, their weapons tensed, but she shook her head. "Call for Olasird'arc, it's time we make an impression on the Holy Kingdom."

The bafolk rushed to obey, and Neia clenched her sharp talon tipped fingers, clicking the ends together as she took a slow walk out of what was rapidly becoming a growing palace. The wall was nearly complete, with one marvelous design feature she insisted upon that would be the last one to be added. A magicine mechanism that would open the roof to allow Olasird'arc to join her. 'A home isn't a home if your friends can't come in.' She reflected as she turned her eye toward the distant horizon as soon as she passed through the doors guarded by both a spriggan and a nagina.

'It's still strange to think of having a dragon as a friend, for that matter, having 'any' friends is a novelty.' She mused and cracked a smile at the slow rising sun. It was a nice feeling, some of the chiefs of the demihumans, she'd come to like more than she was willing to admit. They had a directness to them that made their company enjoyable. They said what they meant and meant what they said, and as long as she treated them with respect and was willing to risk herself for them, they were loyal.

'I can't ever go back.' Neia came to understand, there was nowhere else in the world she could belong, not really. 'Humans would never welcome me as I am, and didn't even want me when I was one of them. What are the odds of any other monarchs ever really giving a damn about a demihuman, unless they're one themselves?' She asked the question rhetorically and half snorted, the rumors carrying her way about the distant Kingdom of Nazarick tickled at her brain, but it was difficult to credit those very much.

Even if it were true, they were far away, and it was unlikely she would ever meet the ruler there.

'I have enough to think about right here, right now.' Neia thought as the shadow of Olasird'arc covered her body when he passed over her and began to circle closer and closer to the ground near where she stood.

"Neia." He said, and then let out a rumble of amusement, "Or should I say, 'Frost Queen'?" He asked.

Neia put a hand on his massive snout by the nostril, she stood just to the side of it, in full view of his single, giant eye, "Just call me your friend, that's good enough." She said and tapped his nose, "And also call me ready to go, the envoy will be at the old outrider posting, I'm sure of it."

"Outrider posting?" Olasird'arc asked.

Neia nodded, "Yes, for all our enmity, some trade has always taken place between the wall and the demihumans, not a lot, mind you. But those scouts that were there did come out this way to find out what was going on sometimes, and they built up some good relations at least. Good enough that they have a few designated areas where they could generally rest without being immediately killed. I've never been there, but I know what to look for from word of mouth."

"Then let's not keep them waiting, perhaps their surrender will be brief." Olasird'arc said with such a serious voice that Neia almost took it seriously until she realized it was his way of joking.

Her face split in laughter and she smacked his nose with her palm again, "Oh come on, you!" She quipped and rushed past his head and bounded from the ground, off of his foreleg, and up onto the back of his neck.

The broad white wings of the frost dragon battered the air, causing nearby trees to sway, rock and threaten to come up by the roots before the dragon's rising body grew too distant.

Soon they were well aloft and soaring through the air, the wings beat and tail lashed until the great dragon could simply glide ahead on the currents of the air.

Neia pointed to a little cluster of trees covered with white petals native to the Abelion Hills, they were long, slender things at the trunk, but burgeoned at the top like mushroom heads, broad around, and always grew in threes. The great white flowers gave off a powerful smell, and from them hung white vines of exceptional thickness, with length enough for several paces worth of length to coil on the ground.

"Land there." Neia said, and Olasird'arc looked behind him to see where she pointed.

"I smell nothing." He said, "Even from here, I should detect some hint of human."

"You wouldn't." Neia said, "Those trees hide everything within them. Goodness knows why, but it makes a perfect hiding spot for wayward humans. Or at least a few of them." She answered, and understanding her reason, Olasird'arc began his slow corkscrew descent to the ground again until Neia dismounted with a flourishing leap.

She wasted no time, stepping ahead of the dragon so that she was in his field of fire if he should use a breath weapon. "Gustav Montagnés! You wanted the Frost Queen! I am here! Come out!"

Silence.

She called out again. "Gustav, I promise I am not here to kill you! The gods wouldn't blame me if I did! Nobody who knew what you did would hold me to blame for killing you! But I swear on the lives of my parents, I am not here for that! You wanted a meeting, you came to me! What is it you want?!"

Gustav rested his back against the slender brown tree trunk and rubbed his forehead, "I don't want to die." He said, his heart quivering in his breast when he heard her call out the second time. Shame swept over him as he recalled the screams of the woman out there, how easily he condemned her to an agonizing end, and that even the traditional 'chance' was denied to her.

He swallowed and rubbed the sweat out of his brown beard. "I'm not armed!" He shouted from within the cluster. "I came alone to parley on behalf of Her Majesty!"

Silence met him. 'Of course she said nothing, she already knows.' He realized.

"Please, come sit beneath the Peace Trees! I promise I mean no harm!" He shouted again.

"This time! You mean no harm 'this time'! I have not forgotten the last time we met, Gustav Montagnés!" Neia retorted.

"I'm sorry!" She heard him shout. And that brought her up short, her suspicion, her doubts, even the slow burning hatred, all stilled. "I'm sorry for what I did! Please! Sit with me and let me say it in person!"

"He won't come out?" Olasird'arc asked, bringing his head close enough to Neia to whisper to her.

"The tribes also consider those sacred, they won't damage them because the flowers are so useful in alchemy… if I'm truly 'one of them' a truce is always honored beneath the Peace Trees." Neia explained with a backward glance.

"I'm coming in!" She shouted. "Remain seated, human." She spat the last word to make a point, and trod forward over the space between herself and the white curtain of flowery vines, her taloned hand reached out with agonizing slowness and began to push them aside, against all reason, her heart was pounding in her breast. 'Get over yourself, he's no match for you anymore. You can handle him even if he ambushes you.' Neia told herself and swallowed the lump in her throat, her body braced for a sudden attack, instead…

There he was. He was kowtowing, on his knees, his forehead pressed to the grass and hands by his head. "I am truly sorry for what I did! I… the trial… the trial was a sham. A sham. I was blind, and when I could see, I was too afraid to challenge it."

"If you want forgiveness… forget it." Neia said and walked past him to sit at another tree, her back pressed to it, her legs crossed in front of her, and her palms sat upturned on the sides of her knees.

The scent of the flowers was thick, and everything swayed back and forth lightly in the breeze, as if the trees were waving goodbye to some distant and retreating friend.

Gustav got up, went to the tree closest to her, and sat in the same fashion as she.

"I do want forgiveness… Neia Baraja. But I don't deserve it. For what it's worth, what I did will haunt me until I die, which…" He raised an eyebrow, "I hope will not be in the next few minutes?"

The way he asked it was so… odd, that Neia laughed. A thick, rich laugh that made her slap her knee several times until she got herself under control and shook her head at his question. "No, you will not die today, Gustav Montagnés. But depending on how you answer, a great many may in the weeks ahead."

Her face became grave, serious, and his relief, though it swept through him like a wave, was short lived.

"Do you hate us all so much now… would you really turn on your Kingdom, your people… your parents, your home?" Gustav asked, or rather, implored, his back straight against the tree, he bowed his head, but kept his eyes roving over the dragonid Queen.

Her hair was as short as he recalled, but it had become an icy blue, while her skin was as pale as a corpse, but with little blue lines in spear shapes that suggested her flesh was now more like scales than skin. Her eyes were the same as he recalled, right down to the raw terror that seemed to hone in on him and command his bowels to loosen. The horns that jutted from her head thrust forward and up at a slight angle toward her forehead, and her ears had a distinct 'point' to the ends that were absent from humans, and the lobes were gone from them.

She was briefly quiet in response. But when she answered, it was slow and sonorous. "No. No I don't hate the Queen, or the Holy Kingdom, or the place of my birth. The gods know you all gave me reason enough. You sent me on a suicide mission, I gave my life to my kingdom!" She hissed and smacked her hand over the green scale armor at the breast, "I devoted myself to my duty! I hunted the wildlands and survived! Then I was killed for it! The gods know I have reason enough for hating you all. Not one of you gave a damn about me. Where was my relief?! Where was my resupply?!"

"I… I don't know." Gustav muttered, and was no longer able to meet her eyes.

"There was never any, not for me, or for anyone. That suicide mission was there to get rid of troublesome elements in the ranks in the most efficient way possible. If you had all just listened to me, then Olasird'arc might have been happy to rule the wall and could have been the greatest security our Kingdom had ever known! Instead…?" She jabbed her talon down at the space between them.

"Here we are! This isn't about hatred, Gustav." Neia emphasized. "Your stupid leaders killed To'Raven, one of my tribal chiefs, one of the first to submit to me. Someone whose life I personally spared. And he was a peaceful envoy!" She hissed the rebuke out at the human and closed her finger back into a fist.

"I could love you all to death, and nothing would change about the fact of what happened to him. You killed a Royal Envoy, a peace expedition, you know what that means! I know it was Remedios Custodio behind it. And I'm giving you a chance to avoid war because I know the Queen wasn't the one to give the order. I want Remedios's head on that wall!" Neia jabbed her arm out with her talon extended toward the direction of the divide between peoples.

"If it isn't, I will invade, take your wall, capture Remedios, and put her head up there myself!" Neia bared her fangs at her former superior officer, strangely enough, despite the fact that he was a fairly big man compared to her, she felt very much like she was looking down at him.

"The Queen," Gustav finally said, "is not willing to give up her loyal, if misguided servant. She offers a personal apology to you, and to have the former Paladin Commander publicly whipped atop the wall where you can see for yourself that she is punished."

That gave the Frost Queen pause.

But not for long.

"She killed an entire envoy, and you expect me to be satisfied with her continued life, and an apology after she receives the kind of pain we give to a soldier who shows up drunk to duty?" Neia furrowed her brow and gave a slow shake of her head.

"No, Gustav. No." Neia answered. "Think very carefully about this, the Northern Holy Kingdom has been decimated by demihumans before, but it has always triumphed because the demihumans did not work together. That has changed. I am forging a true nation out of them. I know my homeland intimately, I've been in some of the fortresses, don't think I can't or won't use that against you all to bring this to a quicker end. If I go over that wall, I won't be as destructive as the demihumans before me… but I promise you, the Roble Holy Kingdom will never be the same again."

Gustav raised his head.

Meeting the narrow, vicious eyes of the dragonid before him, he mustered his courage, and said only…

"If."