Regina stared down at the letter she’d just been sent. She’d crinkled it in her fist angrily, but stopped before she actually threw it away, so now she was smoothing it out again absentmindedly.

Well, it hasn’t taken Lyns long to react, she considered. Kiara hadn’t been here all that long, and he had already sent this, delivered by some kind of tamed bird, and summoned Via to him for an audience.

Regina focused on her. It was probably just a coincidence that the letter arrived just as he was having Via taken to him. At least, if he’d timed this to happen at the same time, he was a lot more petty and possibly optimistic than she’d thought.

She wondered if Lyns’ people had watched Kiara flying off on a hive drone, or followed her tracks another way. The letter didn’t really say one way or another. He sounded like he was assuming Kiara was here, but the certainty might be a bluff, and to be fair, where else would she be? If Kiara wasn’t with Lyns’ army or at home, there weren’t many other places to turn to, at least not where he couldn’t find her, and Regina as leader of the hive was obviously her closest ally.

He’d sent a few men to escort Via, which made it even clearer that his polite summons was not much of a request. Via went along easily enough. Regina was watching closely, ready to Summon her out of trouble. The other healers she’d sent to Lyns were all gathered in their part of the camp, with several mounts close by and other Swarm Drones prepared to fight to the death to allow them to escape. It wasn’t ideal, but she still judged it better to be open with him if pressed. Better that than let Lyns think they’d betrayed him — at least more than he already did — and have him do something stupid.

When Via finally caught sight of the man, Regina smiled a bit vindictively. He looked worse than he had just yesterday. His skin was sallow and there were dark shadows under his eyes, inexpertly covered up with some makeup. She wondered for a moment if he’d gone into Kiara’s supplies and had to suppress a laugh at the thought. Either way, this definitely spelled trouble on the home front for him, probably among his political supporters, which was pretty obvious. And maybe a guilty conscience, but I’m not holding my breath in that regard.

“Lady Via,” Lyns greeted her curtly.

“Marquis Lyns,” she replied with a short incline of her head, projecting calm. On the inside, Regina could feel her faint amusement.

"I have called you here,” he began, clearly not beating around the bush, “because I desire my daughter, Kiara, back.”

“I see,” Via said, not actually telling him anything.

“Is that all you have to say, Lady Via?” he asked, obviously irritated.

Via raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t offered her a seat, and there was currently no other chair in the room, although at least Lyns wasn’t sitting right now either, but she didn’t let that bother her.

“Considering recent events and sentiments that seem to have been spread,” she began carefully, “one might have reason to wonder if Kiara would be safe with you, lord Marquis.”

He frowned, his eyes narrowing. “I assure you, she is perfectly safe in my care,” he said curtly. “I am her father, after all. She belongs with me.”

Via tilted her head. “Perhaps,” she said. “She is an adult who can make her own decisions. Not to mention, she was recently hurt here. I hope you are aware?”

He looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “A regrettable accident,” he said.

Via gave him a look. Regina felt she was doing very well, and let her know with an encouraging feeling in the psychic link.

“She is my heir,” Lyns said. “It is my place to assure her safety.”

“Oh, is she?” Via smiled. “And also to arrange a marriage for her, I take it? Unfortunately, Kiara does not wish to follow your arrangements in this matter, and as mentioned, she is an adult.”

“She is still my daughter,” he grit out. “Her place —“

“Is as an independent person capable of making her own decision,” Via interrupted. “The hive does not condone the use of force or coercion in such matters. Personal freedom is a good we value highly.”

Lyns exhaled heavily, his expression becoming more controlled. “So, you admit that the Hive has Kiara?”

“Have I?” Via looked surprised, almost baffled. You’ve become a good actor, Regina praised.

“Lady Via,” Lyns glowered at her. “Enough of these word games. You are not leaving here until you have given me a straight answer. I insist on it.”

Via bristled, and Regina considered. She had half-expected something like this, and she didn’t really want to risk Via for something Lyns would probably learn soon enough, anyway.

“Lady Kiara Lyns has sought asylum with The Starlit Hive, and the Hive, in the person of Hive Queen Regina, has granted it,” Via told him stiffly, following Regina’s push. “I assume you are not aware of the cultural importance of this, but be assured that we will not extradite her to a country where she is still at imminent risk, and no manner of threats or inducements will change this.”

Lyns visibly hesitated. She assumed he was considering her declaration, but he controlled his expression well and she wasn’t able to read much off him.

“So, you refuse to send her back where she belongs?”

“I believe our answer is clear, Lord Lyns. No, we will not send her back unless she wishes to leave.”

Lyns nodded slowly. “Your words have been noted. You may go.”

Via inclined her head shallowly, out of politeness, and then turned on her heel and left. Regina watched with a frown. She didn’t have an entirely good feeling about this, although she supposed it was good Lyns hadn’t exploded into a tantrum or tried to detain Via. Maybe a little of what she’d said had actually gotten through to him.

Mentally sending a bit of assurance and pride to Via to let her know she’d done well, Regina turned her attention away from Cernlia and back to considering the hive as a whole. Unfortunately, this little discussion hadn’t given her a lot of insight into how to react here, but there were still preparations to be made. Not to mention the war with the gnomes, which was no longer ‘heating up’ but had clearly reached high temperatures.

To distract herself, Regina went through a detailed report of the war, pausing to check on current events and troop dispositions as she went. It was going pretty favorably, overall, she concluded.

Tia was almost ready to start their plan of flooding some tunnels. At least the first phase.

Regina was kind of looking forward to it. At least she’d know if the idea had merit or would backfire horribly, and besides, anything to break up the rhythm of the war would be a nice change. It was slightly ridiculous since they’d only just started really fighting in the tunnels, but she was almost growing bored with it, finding it monotonous. Well, Regina would never give it anything less than the focus it deserved. Not even her tenth or her hundredth war (though she dearly hoped she wouldn’t have to fight so many in her lifetime). You could only be anxious about something for so long, though, eventually the emotion would just kind of drain and balance out. Especially if she wasn’t in physical danger.

Which reminded her to check the defenses of the main Hive base again. She’d at least temporarily moved that designation to the base near Forest’s Haunt. Well, it wasn’t like Regina released official paperwork, so nothing really indicated if it was temporary or permanent. But it was both farther from the gnomes, closer to Cernlia, closer to their new territory, and currently a bigger industrial node. The other base was still important, especially for troop movements to the south, but she liked it here. It felt less like hiding away in the wilderness. Besides, June and the other humans were here.

More importantly in terms of tactical considerations, the base in its current state was newer than the other one, and they’d included some of the things they’d learned about that one’s defenses in its plans. The gnomes had attacked the central base once, and while their attack had never even gotten close to being dangerous to her, it did give the hive some valuable information. Right now, they had a mix of defenses, ranging from different magical wards (including some made by Nerlian mages, who were quite good at it), to an underground maze of tunnels in three dimensions, to moats and an underground lake, to some siege weaponry Tia had designed, and a few cannons they’d adapted from field use. As well as a large stockpile of explosives of all sorts, guns and the largest garrison of Swarm Drones. They’d even increased the defenses of Neralt’s village quite a bit, since Max had pointed out it could be a possible entry point, and besides, she’d rather have it well protected than not.

Regina closed her eyes and focused on the base around her. She didn’t lean heavily on the psychic link, this time. Instead, she concentrated on her mana senses first, trying to feel the magic in the structures around her, the people with it and the defenses they had been erecting. It was frustrating, since she didn’t have much practice with sensing like this, but it would hopefully be worth trying. Madris had mentioned she might want to practice it.

Then, Regina shifted her attention to her psychic senses. Again, following an exercise Madris had given her, she tried not to rely on her psychic link, but to sense nearby minds on her own. She’d already noticed that a large collection of her drones in one area with her using the psychic link tended to drown out other minds in the vicinity to her. Instead, she focused on the smaller minds now, the occasional rat under the village, a few underground creatures and birds above. She watched their movements for a while, trying to track them without paying attention to her hive.

After a while of that, Regina exhaled, breathing evenly, and stretched out her attention further. She lost some fine detail, but now she looked for minds in the core part of her territory, outside of her drones. There were a lot more humans, animals and even some monsters. She focused on the birds for a moment, watching them travel through the sky.

Then Regina shifted her attention to the south. It was going well and she figured she might as well try and put her increased skill to use. After all, she’d already seen that finding enemy minds could be quite useful in war, and she didn’t want to let the limits of her range hinder her too much. So she had to work on it.

The gnomes were distinct even from humans. Not very much, certainly less than her drones, but she’d still be able to tell them apart, even from a larger distance, by now.

To her surprise, there was another type of mind she found — a few elves in the outskirts of the mountains. Regina hesitated, trying to get a quick grasp of their minds. They were probably adventurers, or maybe elvish soldiers sent as scouts to check on the situation. The elves had been pretty quiet recently, but she supposed it made sense that they wouldn’t just sit still behind their city walls.

She should probably send more diplomats to them, if she could spare them, and talk about her plans for the future. Regina made a mental note in the psychic link. Jem or one of the others could remind her or even make preparations if she forgot.

Putting the matter out of her mind, Regina moved on and focused on the gnomish territory. Her range had increased recently, and she was getting better at sensing things closer to its edges. It meant that she could have a proper look inside the borders of the Confederation. She’d always been careful, since there was no telling how many psychics the gnomes had or how powerful they were, but just general sensing would hopefully be okay.

It was a big country, at least in terms of population. Probably bigger than Nerlia. Parts of it were underground, parts weren’t, but she didn’t see much of a difference, at least in their minds. Gnomes were clearly well-adapted to these conditions. Regina tried to concentrate on them and figure out which accumulations of sapients might indicate military units, but it was pretty hard. She’d have to be pretty close to the minds in question to figure that out easily. And in addition to the distance between them, it was the kind of thing she really had to consider individual minds for, instead of looking at the larger distribution of them. And she could hardly go through the millions of gnomes she found, or even a decent sample size.

Still, Regina experimented with it. The first few times, she managed to figure out she was looking at random citizens. On the fourth try, she was pretty sure she’d found a soldier. She looked at a few other minds relatively close to it and confirmed that impression. At least, they most likely were.

Carefully, Regina considered their locations and tried to move on until she found the leaders. It took her a while, but she narrowed in on what she thought would be officers.

Actually reading their thoughts was pretty much impossible, especially at this distance, but she could get general impressions. She was confident she could figure out if they planned an imminent attack. At least with a bit more practice, she could probably do it.

Regina smiled and sat back, blinking her eyes and stretching a bit before she dove back into her psychic senses.

For now, she moved on to the gnomes closer to her current location, and to more isolated minds. These would be scouts. It was a bit easier to confirm this time. She felt like she was getting a handle on this.

Eventually, she found a gnome above ground, only a few kilometers from a staging point the hive’s army used, hidden in a small forest at the edge of the mountains. Regina considered it for a moment, then decided she could probably kill him with a few Winged Drones if this backfired catastrophically.

Carefully, she reached out and tried to influence his mind. He was a simple soldier without training in mental defense, and he appeared to have been up for a while with little sleep in the last week, his exhaustion making him an even easier target. Regina knew she probably wouldn’t be able to do a detailed illusion, but maybe …

The scout jumped as a sudden jolt of shock struck him. He looked around wildly, before focusing in on a part of the forest where something appeared to have rustled in the underbrush.

Regina increased his fear, so he stepped back instead of going to check it out. Madris had emphasized letting the target’s mind provide information and filling in the blanks themselves, making them see what they expected to see. She found a vague, hazy image of a Lionit in the forefront of his thoughts, clearly something he was quite afraid of.

Regina smiled and waited until a gust of wind moved the branches of the tree into the bush more loudly. A thud sounded in the forest and the hapless scout caught a glimpse of dark fur through the leaves, a flash of bared fangs.

He swallowed a scream and hurried from his post, only barely not running quickly enough to cause a racket.

Regina laughed as she opened her eyes and leaned back, relaxing in her seat. She’d consider that a success. It’s probably of limited use until I can get better. But it was still cool. Something new that she was sure she wouldn’t have been able to do before.

Maybe she could even use magic to make better illusions, in time. It would need some study and practice. Either way, she was in a good mood as she stood to make her way to the hatchery again.