“Wait, what?”

“Nearly 100 members of the swarm have disappeared, presumably under the command of Shemira and Joral.”

I sat bolt upright. My thoughts flew, immediately going to the conversation with Joral just hours ago while Sybil and Took looked on.

Spearhead a lot of change… it was tonight… I’m nervous… You’ll always be my Alpha…

“Dulvroc take the treasonous witch! Chreelkt!” It all set in.

Sybil looked at me. “You realize sometihng?”

“Joral has been spending most of his time around Shemira’s old subordinates. I didn’t think too hard about it since it wasn’t her.”

Sybil immediately caught on to what I implied. “The fangless, fork-tongued wench! I was too guarded against Farahlia to pay enough attention to whatever Shemira was stirring up among the malcontents. I was wrong to think that simply pushing them down for disobedience and rewarding submission would contain any rebellious elements.” She bowed her head. “I am sorry, it was my failure that led to the loss of one fifth of our forces. I am prepared to accept any–”

“That’s enough of that. I know what you’re going to say, and I can’t begin to blame you for this. I’ll guess even Joral doesn’t realize how they’ve betrayed us.”

Took cocked her head. “How do you mean? What do you think happened?”

“I think Shemira has somehow convinced Joral that this is approved by me. Last night he told me ‘You’ll always be my Alpha’, so I can’t imagine that he would have said something like that if he’d realized he was betraying me by leaving.”

“... He’s an idiot. She’s a treasonous gummy.”

“You’ve got the gist of it.”

“Do we follow them?”

“Immediately.”

I couldn’t help but hear the dream echoing in my head: Beware the forked tongue. The incredulous are the eternal foe of the progressives.

Shemira POV

What that damnable harlot had said to Ashlani was right: if you let a male rut you, he thought he was in control. The boy had never stood a chance once she’d set her eyes on him. At the moment he was proudly prancing at the head of HER swarm, acting like he was the one who had come up with this whole plan and was, in fact, their fearless leader.

Then again, that had been the whole point, so Shemira wasn’t too mad about the boy’s wrong impression. He’d been so sad at the thought that he would have to split off from Ashlani that she’d had to run the dangerous gambit of actually talking to Ashlani and getting him to convince the boy. Frankly, it had been a gamble, and if Ashlani weren’t so proud, self-assured, and trusting of his mate’s infallibility, then Shemira probably would have died that day.

Death would be preferable to continued servitude under that arrogant wench’s command, though. Shemira herself was at least her equal in every way, and far more beautiful and charismatic on top of that. At this point, Shemira didn’t particularly need to be Ashlani’s mate, it just grated on her that he had chosen an inferior creature to fill the spot. Yes, Shemira had wanted to be at his side to slowly usurp control from him, but his mate was doing that as well and was simply… a mediocre copy of herself.

Thus, she had seized Ashlani’s mediocre copy and began to twist him to her own path. Yes, he was inferior, but he was also passionate and enthusiastic. The only price she had to pay for this was simply to let him rut her every so often and take credit for the ideas that she subtly set in his head. Many of the swarm already knew that she was the leader in truth, and those that didn’t were fools just like the boy.

Ashlani was, of course, naive. He believed the stupid stories that the old fools told him about some glorious past and promised fortune to enjoy in the future. Instead, he should have grounded himself in the reality that there were thousands of enemies stronger, wiser, and more numerous than the swarm. And then fled to a safe location where he could survive as long as possible while siring as many of his impressive spawnlings as possible. That poor swarm was now stuck following this supposed visionary who “would become Zaaktif”. Shemira couldn’t hold back the scoff.

“Joral, you’re so brave to be willing to leave behind Ashlani’s guidance and become a true Alpha on your own.” The teeth-grindingly sweet flatterings of one of Shemira’s underlings floated over to her, and she sighed, happy that she hadn’t needed to be the spearhead of flattery. Instead, her role was simply that of the trusting beauty, the one who could subtly murmur and influence from the shadows.

Just then, a scout came sprinting. Panting, he spoke up, “Alpha, many warriors are following us! We don’t know them, and they are many and strong! What do we do?”

Now was Shemira’s time to shine.

“Alpha! They’re scary! We should run away!”

Joral began to shake his head. “No, we’re strong enough to protect ourselves. Gear up and ready for battle!”

“NO!” The declaration came out as a command instead of a plea, and Shemira calmed herself. “Ashlani and his swarm aren’t far behind us, and they will be going through this area much longer than us, since we’re going north, right?”

Joral slowly nodded. “We should leave diplomacy to him and his. Full speed ahead, get some distance from these unknown hostiles!”