Chapter 218

Appointing the last round of new nobility took most of the day, and when it was finally done, Queen Calca rose to her feet. "Empty the damn hall." She said with icy calm, her radiant beauty, once seen as so very soft and demure, was now likened to a radiant vampire.

She then leveled her finger at Remedios Custodio in the corner. "My private council hall, with the- them. Now." Calca hissed the command and did not wait for the obedience to which she was entitled. She walked with long strides, her feet clicking over cold stone as Kelart fell in behind her with a very lowered gaze and only a darted look at Remedios to ensure the woman was following orders.

That she looked was enough to snap Remedios' head back in dismay as if she had suffered a physical blow, her mouth dropping open, 'What did I do wrong?!' She wondered as she left the room, grabbed the two she'd kept under guard just outside the hall, and dragged them stumbling behind her. Their chains were short at wrists and ankles, making long steps all but impossible, but Remedios found no room in her heart to give a damn.

'If they birthed a traitorous monster, what does that say about who they are? I never did like his eyes anyway…' She thought as the pair grunted and pulled back on the gray metal chains to try to buy time to keep up.

Fortunately for Neia's mother and father, they did not have far to go.

Remedios entered the room beyond the heavy oaken door and yanked the chain so that the pair stumbled in and nearly toppled, avoiding it only because Neia's mother hit the side wall instead. Remedios closed the door and turned to face her Queen, only to find, to her dismay, a mask of wrath.

"You idiot!" Calca yelled and pointed at the pair that was struggling to rise upright. "Are those who I think they are?!"

"My Queen?" Remedios asked, furrowing her brow, "These are the parents of the traitor, Neia Baraja. They tried to interfere in the execution of the criminal, to help her escape."

"They're her parents, you idiot!" Calca shrieked in outrage, "Of course they tried to save their child's life! How could you be so… I don't even know where to begin!" Calca's voice became exasperated and she flung herself down in the leather seat at the head of the short table and began to rub her forehead.

The older couple looked at Calca with silent questioning faces, they were rough looking folk, the male of the pair having a threatening expression that Calca might have taken offense to if not for her foreknowledge of who he was and how he naturally looked.

"Undo their chains at once!" She commanded, and a stunned Remedios began to fumble through her belt for the set of keys, the human prisoners held their wrists up, but still remained silent.

"I'm… sorry about your poor treatment. That was never my intention. I ordered that you be brought to me, nothing more." Calca said, and the couple looked down as their chains fell away.

"Well?! Your Queen has spoken! Aren't you going to say you're grateful?!" Remedios demanded.

Kelart, however, interjected. "Remedios… shut up." She hissed. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

Her sister snapped her mouth closed for a moment while the chains fell away to clatter on the floor. "I-I just… I don't understand?"

Calca rubbed her forehead as if her head hurt a great deal. "Lord and Lady Baraja, please, sit." While the couple, who shared a brief glance of uncertainty with one another, obeyed, Calca could only give out a groan of frustration.

"Alright, I will help you understand, Remedios." Calca replied. "First, your trial of the woman, Neia Baraja, was corrupt. I know it. Kelart knows it. Gustav knows it. As it turns out, most people knew those trials couldn't be trusted… except me for the longest time. You taking her to trial intending to kill her, that is bad enough. It will take years of work to undo the corruption you had a hand in spreading."

"Majesty, it was all for you!" Remedios protested, "I saw the guilty get away with crimes, they got in the way of Your Majesty's justice so I-" She pursed her lips, then finished through gritted teeth, "made sure they didn't anymore."

"You framed our daughter and then tried to kill her!" Pabel roared a father's outrage, his features twisted with anger, it was only his wife who held him back, her hand grasping at his wrist before he could leap to attack the Paladin.

Remedios did not flinch from the accusation. Instead she said, "Your daughter was guilty. She spared a dragon, she spared demihumans, she spared the enemies of humanity. She had to die."

"And you failed to kill her." Calca pointed out with such sharpness that both fell silent. "Now, thanks to you she has become the Queen of Frost, and has united the entire Abelion Hills into the Kingdom of Demalbion."

Remedios began to tremble, dense as she knew herself to be, a united Abelion Hills was a worst case scenario. "I-"

"I'm not finished!" Calca hissed. Caught off-guard by the Queen's statement, Neia's parents sat mute.

"Yes. Your daughter is alive. The dragon who took her was the one she saved, but… she is changed." Calca emphasized.

"A human… in charge of demihumans… how can this be…?" Pabel asked while his wife shook her head in denial even while her eyes welled up with contradicting relief.

"She is no longer completely human. Dragon's blood has changed her, and evidently…" Calca briefly hesitated about whether to say it, given the myriad of ways knowledge came her way, but resolve settled in her heart, and she began to explain to them, and to Remedios, what she knew of the events beyond the wall.

The rise of the Frost Queen, her partnership with the dragon, the conquest and consolidation of power might have been vague, but it was like a shadow, they knew the shape and outline, if not the details of the events as they happened.

Remedios turned white as a sheet.

"And that brings us to the envoy." Calca snapped.

"I-I-I…" Remedios began to repeat.

"Remedios… shut up." Kelart rebuked her sister while the parents of Neia Baraja sat mute, their mouths opening and closing like fish underwater.

"The envoy you killed was from a now united Abelion Hills, do you get it, you killed a state envoy!" Kelart snapped, "The Queen put you there so you couldn't cause any more trouble while you recovered! What were you thinking?!" Kelart yelled at the pale paladin.

Remedios put her left hand over her armored chest and leaned forward toward her Queen, "They were orcs! Demihuman monsters! I was following the law! Demihumans are to be killed on sight! Those are standing orders!"

"It was a marked envoy, identified as such and allowed through our gates, it contained an offer of peace. By killing them, you may have dragged us into a war with the entire Demihuman population." Calca rested her hands one over the other on the table, her fingernails dug into the wood hard enough to scratch it. "Do you have no sense whatsoever? How could you think I would have encouraged you to do that?! I could have had them killed myself if I wanted! You should have sent them on their way, maybe with an escort, but still! You don't kill messengers!" Calca snapped.

Remedios' hand fell away and her head bowed. "I'm… I'm sorry. I just did what I thought you would have wanted… Demihumans are evil… traitors are evil…"

Calca ignored the apology, "The Queen of Frost sent word that she would not be satisfied by anything less than putting your head on a spike on the wall where she could see it. She stated that if I refused, we would have a war on our hands. Now tell me, Remedios… can we win… can we win against the entire Abelion Hills, led by the Huntress of the Wilds who knows our country like the back of her hand?"

Remedios opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Then opened it again. "My Queen, I was only trying-"

"Can we win?!" Calca screamed at the Paladin, and Remedio became utterly still.

"I-I don't know." She replied, "I'm sorry…"

Calca pursed her lips and spoke in a soft, icy voice, "I sent Gustav to negotiate with her, offering to have you whipped to within an inch of your life and stripped of all your honors, status, and position instead. If the gods are willing, I can save your life."

Remedios' head snapped up, "My Queen-"

Calca's small fist pounded on the table, rattling it from one end to the other. "This is for all your past service and devotion, but it's also because if I give you up, I might as well abdicate right now. I can't just kill my own people on the orders of a foreigner or a… I don't even know if I can call her a traitor. Not after everything."

"Is that why we are here, Your Majesty?" Pabel asked and put his arm around his wife to draw her closer to himself. "To be hostages against our child? Or… or are we to be simply killed…?"

"If we're hostages so that you can finally kill her… you might as well kill us both now… I'll never, we'll never cooperate… not with that!" The soft voiced defiance of the mother of the Queen of Frost offered no hint of compromise, and at last Calca relaxed, at least a little.

"Hostages… maybe. If it will work, if I can spare my people by trading you to her… I'm sorry, but yes, I will do that. I don't want a war, I hate war." Queen Calca said with disgust that twisted her mouth as if she were about to retch for a moment.

"But for now you can consider that you're here for your own safety. It won't be long before Gustav either succeeds or fails, maybe he already has, and when he does, it won't be long before people know who the invader is, assuming she attacks. What will be done to you then?" Calca asked the question rhetorically, but their drawn faces showed they understood her meaning. Someone would kill them just for being Neia's parents.

"Besides, I can't be sure you won't betray us to her, I can't kill you, I can't punish you, I can't let you go, and you have some use alive." Calca snorted, "It's a problem... One I can only solve by confining you here in Hoburns for now. I'll see that you're well treated, and if things end well with your daughter… perhaps I can send you to her. For what it's worth… I meant what I said. I'm sorry. I truly am." Queen Calca said, closing her bright and fury filled eyes.

Pabel set his jaw and clung to his wife just a little more tightly, "We were loyal… this is our reward?"

"No." Calca said, her eyes welling up, "Are you going to force me to say it…?"

The elder of the Baraja's remained quiet.

"This is how it has to be!" Calca finally answered with a half shout. "I don't want things to be this way! I just wanted a just Kingdom of happy subjects where nobody would cry! But this…!" She shot to her feet and slapped her hands down on the table, "This is what I have! It isn't fair. It isn't right! But it is how things are for now at least. After it's over… if I'm alive, if we all are… I will make things as right as I can. You have my word!" Calca said and raised her arm to be level with Remedios.

"And you… are confined to your quarters in this palace until I call for you again. If you want to make up for what you've done, if the Queen of Frost does come into our lands, you had better be prepared to die fighting to protect our people… because a lot of them are going to die first to protect you entirely because of you! Now get out!" Calca snarled the words out, and with Remedios' heart swelling with outrage and shame in equal measure, the disgraced paladin slunk out of the door.

"Kelart… Provide suitable quarters for the Barajas, set them under 'gentle' guard. And get them a change of clothes." Calca said with a calmer air, and unable to think of anything more to add, Kelart, who felt the rebuke of her sister as if it had been on her as well, could only say…

"If you two would please come with me…" And then headed for the door on slow steps that allowed time for the couple, lost in their own thoughts about the course their child's life now took, to follow on slow and heavy steps.

Thus leaving Queen Calca alone with her thoughts at last.