While the push against the Esemen started, slowly and cautiously, Regina went to visit Zephyr. She checked on the progress of her drones briefly, but there wasn’t much to see, yet. They hadn’t even come close to any real fighting. Instead, she focused on the prisoner she was going to see.

Zephyr was held in a hut the hive had erected outside the village, a short distance from other structures they’d raised for their purposes, like storage and crafting spaces. The Workers had reinforced it with steel bars and concrete. Even a good mage should have trouble blasting his way out, although she wasn’t sure it would hold Zephyr for long. Regina focused on the minds inside and paused before she stepped through the door.

Ira had already arrived before her, and she looked up as Regina entered. “My Queen,” she said with a nod. “I was going to wake him up. He’s already half-awake, and I don’t think it’s doing him any favors.”

Regina nodded, grimacing slightly. “Yeah. He’s having some bad dreams, to put it lightly.”

It was interesting from an academic standpoint. Zephyr felt a bit like he was dozing, although she suspected it had more to do with sedation. He was struggling against it, though, not just because of the dark whirlpool in his thoughts. It was causing him quite a bit of strain and she wasn’t surprised there were physical symptoms.

Regina crouched down and laid a hand on his head, calling on her magic for a bit of healing. She stood up and took a step back before she intensified her focus on his mind. It didn’t take long for him to struggle towards waiting, and Regina helped it along, careful to stay subtle and not too rough. She also took the opportunity to look into his mind, of course. What she saw was mostly disjointed and hard to make a lot of sense of, but it was still useful.

“Derrek Zephyr?” she asked softly as soon as she sensed that he was awake and coherent enough.

His eyes blinked open. They swam around, then narrowed. His body tensed, as his mind snapped into focus. Or tried to make a good effort at it, anyway. “Hive Queen Regina,” he rasped.

Regina smiled, not having to fake the pleasure at his quick recognition. “Yes,” she agreed. “Take your time. How are you feeling?”

He stared at her for a moment. “I’ll live,” he said drily. Then a shadow went across his face and she didn’t have to look at his mind to know he was wondering if he really would.

“I don’t intend to kill you,” she assured him. It was true, too. That would be a waste. It might be something she couldn’t avoid — he was dangerous — but she was going to try.

“I see,” he said after a short pause, still sounding uncertain. His eyes drifted around the room, lingering on the other drones present. He sighed and then sat up, scuttling back a little to lean against the wall of the hut. “Why did you wake me up?”

“I have questions,” Regina said. If he wasn’t affected, he would have known that without her needing to explain it.

He blinked again. “Of course,” he said then. “Well, I might answer a few. Or maybe not. I have little interest in treason, you understand.”

Regina sighed. “There is one thing you should know, before we get into this.” She paused, wondering how to say this, then decided that a blunt approach would be best. “Your king is dead. Nicholas the Third and most of his core supporters were captured by Lyns, and he was killed in a fight in his camp.”

If she’d expected rage or regret, she would have been disappointed. Zephyr didn’t seem particularly emotional. “I see,” he simply said after a short pause, although his frown deepened.

“You don’t seem particularly broken up about it,” she observed. “At least on a personal level?”

Zephyr shrugged. “You know the man — or, well, I suppose you didn’t. But you must have known his reputation. King Nicholas was not good at making friends, and he had few enough of those with him. He also had a poorly hidden, if admittedly not particularly deep, disdain for mages, and high expectations. Of course his death is a tragedy, but I will not pretend to have liked the king.”

So much for not speaking ill of the dead, Regina thought. “And what about Marquis Lyns?” she asked. “Is he better liked? He is now unquestionably the man who stands to inherit his throne, if you don’t consider him king already.”

“I never knew the marquis on a personal level,” Zephyr admitted. “His reputation is what you would expect for a man in his circumstances.”

“And his status and claim? Would you accept him as Cernlia’s new king?”

“Would you send me to him if I did?” Zephyr asked drily. Then he winced and tried to grab at his head. “Or if I didn’t?”

Regina almost reached out a hand to check on him more closely again, but decided to wait on that. Instead, she considered his question for a moment. She hadn’t made any firm plans on what to do with him, because she wasn’t sure how it would turn out.

“It would depend on how cooperative you’re being,” she said. “And, to be honest, on how the relationship between him and me develops. I’m sure you’re smart enough to know that while we are allies, that doesn’t necessarily mean I want him to have all the powerful fighters.”

Zephyr snorted. “At least you’re honest about it,” he muttered. Then he coughed again and shook his head. It took a while until he raised it and fixed her with a stare again. “Have you poisoned me, Hive Queen?”

“No,” Regina replied. She took half a step closer and laid a hand on his forearm.

He really wasn’t poisoned, as far as she could tell. A second check didn’t show anything, either. She supposed it was possible he might have been faking. Of course, he wasn’t in the best physical condition, but the stress of the war along with being captured and then kept asleep for long periods would explain that. He also suffered from a few chronic health problems, which she fixed after a short consideration. He was clearly holding off the infection she could sense on his own, but it seemed something that would stay around, and while his parasites weren’t particularly concerning she might as well get rid of them. It did indicate he’d probably traveled, but she could have guessed as much.

“So I’m not dying?” he asked.

Regina blinked, her focus pulled from her contemplation of his health. “No, you’re not,” she responded absently. “Now be quiet, I need to give you a thorough check-up.”

He fell silent, and she returned her focus to his health, checking his general condition and specific problem areas. She also branched out a bit and turned her attention to his mind, trying to assess his mental state and any damage that might have come from recent experiences. It was a bit hard to distinguish those from any other mental health issues, especially since she didn’t want to dig too deep.

She wasn’t sure what warned her. Maybe it was his muscles contracting, or maybe she saw something in his mind. Following instinct, Regina ducked and rolled away.

A spear of fire flashed through where her head had just been.

She was stunned for a moment, maybe because she’d impacted the ground harder than intended. Her hive had no such constraints, though. She heard and felt Max jumping to crouch protectively over her at the same time as Ira unleashed a wave of air, impacting Zephyr and stopping his attack.

Regina shook her head dazedly and scrambled away, pushing off the wall to get to her feet. She felt the shimmer of Max’s shield on her and then sensed the addition of several others, as the other drones he’d picked out for her security detail added their own Skills to it. Max must have prepared it before she went to talk to Zephyr, but while it would have stopped his attack, she wasn’t sure about follow-up strikes.

Instead of striking back right away, Regina focused on the psychic link to direct her drones. The back wall of the hut was already blowing away. In a radius of hundreds of meters, drones had stopped what they were doing and were instead rushing into the fray to defend her. Be careful, she impressed on them. If they were unlucky, Zephyr could kill them.

Max grabbed her and tried to pull her out of the building, but Regina stood her ground and stopped him. She didn’t think making for the door right now would be any safer. Instead, she focused on the fight.

Zephyr was showing them what fighting a high-level mage meant. He conjured whips of fire into existence, holding off half a dozen defense-focused warrior drones at the same time, while also erecting a shield of spinning air around himself and pelting Ira and the more exposed drones with a hail of stones. And then he started levitating, rising a few centimeters into the air.

Regina snarled a curse, echoing the anger she felt pulsing in the drones around her. She released a swarm of Magic Missiles, then switched her focus before they reached their target. Instead, the mentally homed in on his mind, grabbing it with her own.

Zephyr was a powerful warrior, he must have had some training, and now that he was in a fight with the adrenaline high of it sharpening his mind, it was harder to find purchase. But he had also been sedated for a while and was still fighting off the aftereffects of that and Madris’ actions. Regina eschewed finesse and bore down on him with her mind, trying to batter through his mental defenses.

Distantly, she saw him stagger, almost being caught by one of his own flames that Wen had redirected, before Zephyr flinched out of the way. One of his flaming whips winked out, but he swept the remainder in a large arc, forcing her drones to step back.

Regina didn’t let it bother her, but continued her psychic assault. She could tell she was getting through. The flashes and impressions she got from Zephyr’s mind let her know it hurt, and that he was starting to have trouble parsing what his senses were telling him correctly. Being cornered only made him more dangerous, though, so she broadcast an alert to stay back to the others before she dove into the cracks she’d made.

He almost exploded, and Ira and a few others threw up a shield to deflect the magic — some kind of nova attack — before it could reach them. Regina smelled burning hair. She reached her mental fingers through his defenses, grasped, and twisted.

Although the real world seemed distant, she still saw him flinch and stagger, all of his magic winking out. He fell down to his knees and twitched.

Regina quickly rushed forward, holding him in place with her mind. As soon as she reached him, she slapped a hand against his neck and used her magic, while letting up on her psychic assault.

His muscles strained, then relaxed. His eyes rolled around towards her before they slipped closed. “Can’t blame me for trying …” he groaned, before he fell to the ground, and she confirmed he was slipping into unconsciousness.

“I very much can,” she muttered. “What was that even supposed to accomplish?”

Well, she supposed he might have had a chance of fighting his way out through her hive if he’d succeeded, possibly. Maybe he’d hoped that killing her would disable the drones.

“Let’s burn him,” Max growled. “Or maybe toss him to a monster to get eaten. Or would you prefer a more drawn-out death?”

Regina laughed and shook her head. She then stared down at Zephyr and frowned. Should I kill him? He was her prisoner, sure, but he’d also just tried to escape and made a good showing of it. She was pretty sure they could contain him better now, after this, but was it worth the risk? He was a pretty powerful mage, though …

“Let’s not kill him,” she decided. “For now, anyway. Instead, we’ll move him to a more isolated facility. Underground, I think. That might be a good test for a new max security prison, anyway.”

She could sense that the others were still angry, and really didn’t like the idea of ‘letting him get away’ with this. “Are you sure, Regina?” Max asked, clearly making an effort to speak softly.

“Yes, I am,” she said firmly. “Don’t do anything without my approval, all of you.” She wasn’t really worried about that; their instinct was to defend the Hive Queen, but disobeying her would be even less acceptable to them.

Max raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. He was probably wondering about her reaction. For her part, Regina didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t like Zephyr was an assassin hired to kill her. They were at war, he’d been captured and taken prisoner, and he’d tried to escape, fighting her in the process. That was perfectly fair, from what she recalled of the old rules of war. Even here, it wasn’t like he’d sworn a parole oath or anything. Although that might be something worth looking into.

“He’s too useful an asset to let a sudden outbreak of stupidity take him,” she explained quietly.

Max nodded, then turned away and started talking to the others via the psychic link, giving brief orders to get the situation sorted out and the repairs to the hut started. Regina just wandered outside, checking on Zephyr again. She knew that her attack might have done some damage, and would probably delay his recovery. She didn’t think there would be permanent damage, but she’d need to check on him. Carefully. Or maybe, on second thought, rely on drone healers, and ask Madris to take a look if and when they met again.

For now, Regina felt like she’d actually learned something. This was the first time she’d done something that could be called psychic combat. It wasn’t much, and she’d probably made a lot of mistakes, but everyone had to start somewhere.

It made her a lot more confident in taking on people above her level, though. Especially if she had drones to act as meatshields. Hopefully Swarm Drones, in that case.