In all of their preparations, a room to keep prisoners securely hadn’t really occurred to them. In hindsight, that was probably an oversight. After all, something like this happening or at least some delegate making trouble shouldn’t be too unexpected. Maybe Max had made some preparations, but Regina didn’t honestly know. She just let him arrange things now while she watched the prisoners and coordinated with everyone else.

Her drones hadn’t taken her instructions too strictly and let Janis in as well as June with Kiara. That was a good thing, Regina didn’t want to be chasing after them right now. The younger women looked a bit shocked, and Kiara’s hand drifted to where she’d been shot once before she stopped it. Janis mostly looked angry, but Regina could sense her emotional reaction and it wasn’t that different from everyone else’s.

“Are we sure they don’t have any other conspirators ready to strike?” June asked anxiously.

“That’s what I’ll be looking for,” Regina answered, trying to moderate her tone. Having to deal with everyone’s worry was not her idea of a fun time. “I doubt they’ll try anything right now if there are others, now that we’ve been alerted.”

For a moment, she closed her eyes and focused on her psychic senses, spreading them out through the town. If there were any other assassins or helpers, they at least knew to keep their emotions under control. No one stood out with any emotional spikes they shouldn’t have been feeling compared to everyone else. At least not in a way that would make her suspicious. She’d have to do a more thorough sweep soon, but interrogating the prisoners they had should probably take priority.

“Can we help in any other way?” Janis asked.

Regina opened her eyes and glanced at them. “We need to keep everyone else from going crazy about this and assure them that everything’s under control. Kiara, are you prepared to do that?”

“Of course,” Kiara agreed. “You won’t be there, Your Majesty?”

“For a bit,” Regina answered. “I’ll focus on interrogating the prisoners. They have some training, but maybe I can get something out of them. I need to know who is behind this, and what other plans they may have made.”

That assumed, of course, that the people she’d captured knew anything about that, but Regina would just have to hope. They were clearly at least somewhat competent, and had pretty high positions, so they weren’t just hired grunts. Unless those are actually shape-stealing doppelgangers or something. Regina paused, then gave them another once-over. The three still showed the same Classes and levels in the System. She didn’t know if it was at all possible to fake those, but it probably wouldn’t be easy.

Shaking her head, she turned away and focused on the other people who’d come. It was time to show that she was still alive and unhurt, and to assure them that the situation was under control.

The Nerlian prince and princess were closest, and took to it the best, keeping their composure very well. Regina was glad for that, even though she could tell they were still anxious. At least they took their duty seriously and started to reassure their countrymen.

In the end, it took what felt like hours, although she knew it wasn’t, until they could get the prisoners moved to a more secure room. Kiara departed quickly, taking charge of her people and reassuring the other delegates. No one seemed ready to argue with the newly-minted Queen of Cernlia, so they got back to a semblance of normal proceedings quickly. Regina even asked Janis and Kiara to sit in on a meeting for her that she would have attended herself with some of the courtiers from the Empire.

Meanwhile, she was standing in a dimly lit basement room in a stone house across from the one they were using as the headquarters for the summit. The owners had vacated it previously and the hive had made a few upgrades. Currently, enough drones were inside and around that no other assassin would get within meters of Regina. Or that was Max’s intention, apparently.

“Thank you, Max,” Regina told him once they had some privacy, giving him a brief hug.

Max smiled at her, but it was strained. “I’m glad you’re not injured, Regina, but I should have protected you better.”

“You did enough,” she shook her head. “And it’s irrelevant now. Let’s find out if there are any other surprises hidden here, alright?”

The prisoners had clearly been listening to their short conversation, but didn’t show any reaction. Now that she turned to them, Regina could still see them tense up a bit, though. She was irritated at not being able to read them better, but at least her senses of hearing and smell hadn’t deserted her, and she could hear the two men’s rapid breathing.

“I’ll give you a chance to answer before we get down to any unpleasantness. Who sent you?”

Silence. Of course. Regina hadn’t really expected a response, but it didn’t hurt to try.

“If you cooperate now, it will be taken into account at your trial,” she tried next.

This time, she got a few weird looks, but they still didn’t say anything.

“They’ll have a trial?” Max asked quietly.

“We did just write into law that every person has the right to a trial,” Regina murmured. She shrugged. “Of course, we don’t have any courts set up yet, so I’ll probably judge them myself. I’d recuse myself, but I don’t think there’s anyone else who’d be a suitable choice.”

She watched the captives as she spoke, but they didn’t show any reaction. Regina nodded slowly, then took a step forward. “Would we have the means to torture them for information?” she asked.

Max shrugged. “Well, we have a lot of blades. We could use fire either from torches or magic. I’m sure there are some lightning-themed Skills or magic that could be repurposed for electrical shocks. And there’s always the option of crushing digits or limbs.”

Regina nodded. She wasn’t going to actually torture them. But she didn’t feel very bothered by the idea. If anything, she was bothered she wasn’t more bothered. Maybe she was more angry than she thought. She knew, intellectually, that most others — if she gave them to Kiara or the Nerlian court to judge — would probably sentence them to some horrible, painful death. Regicide was not taken lightly here, even the attempt. Still, she knew even if she was willing to, it probably wouldn’t help much to use torture, there were no answers they could coerce out and verify immediately. Regina shook her head and dispelled the thoughts. Instead, she stepped closer to the captured attackers and crouched down slightly, looking at them as she reached out with her psychic senses.

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At first, she bounced off their mental shields again. Regina hadn’t expected anything else. She focused harder, trying to visualize this. She had no Class Skill or Spell that could help here, but she had been learning from Madris’ tutelage. And she knew, even if she couldn’t sense it, that these people had to be tired, scared, in pain. There would be gaps to exploit. Their defenses couldn’t be that good.

She reached out more carefully, probing at them, mapping out what she could feel. It was unnatural to have minds this closed off, and she could vaguely sense how they were doing it. There might have been magic involved or some psychic skill; it didn’t seem to just be a defense formed by focusing on something when they were under threat from a psychic. There were ways for that, meditative skills, but they depended on the person’s awareness and focus. It would probably also show differently than this.

Regina reached out and poked the more injured man, hard. He didn’t even twitch, which confirmed her suspicion. Her mental probe hadn’t been gentle, and she hadn’t even found one thing he was thinking about or a visualization working as a defense, at least not like it should have been. This might still be some kind of visualization, a less metaphorical wall. Still, it did give her some hints.

Regina took a moment to breathe, looking more closely at the prisoners once more. They were watching her warily. She decided to focus on the same guy, since it stood to reason that as the most injured, he’d be the most vulnerable. Blood loss would make him dizzy and sap his concentration if nothing else.

In ten seconds, create a distraction for me, she told Max.

He sent back an acknowledgment, uninterested in the details of what she was doing but ready to carry out any orders she had. Regina focused back on her target.

She started another attack and then ramped it up suddenly just as a loud bang echoed through the room. It was still a bit distracting, but she’d expected it, so she was ready to deal with it.

This time, she’d tried to weave a little bit of her magic into what she was doing. It was an advanced skill and one she certainly hadn’t mastered, and she had the vague impression that most of it dissipated uselessly. She couldn’t exactly sense fine details of it, which was part of the problem. But she managed it — whether it was the magic or her skill or determination, she felt the first cracks in his wall.

Regina ignored the pounding headache she was vaguely aware of and mentally slammed into it again, wedging her mind into the cracks of her victim’s defenses and prying them apart. It was the equivalent of trying to carry a boulder up a hill with one hand, but she persevered. She started to get erratic, flickering readings of his emotions and surface thoughts.

Now he seemed aware that she was trying to attack his mind and having some success, and she could sense his increasing panic. It spurred her on. Regina focused on the glimpses she got, grasping them and tugging at them. At the same time, she kept pushing through the resistance.

And finally, just as she was starting to sway and doubt began to creep in about her ability to keep it up, it worked. His defense fell, enough that she could make the jump and fully get into his head. It was chaotic at first, his panic-stricken mind flailing and trying to throw her out with wild abandon. He clearly wasn’t much of a psychic, though, if he was one at all, and she quickly managed to gather herself and enforce some order on what she sensed.

It was the first time she was really in someone else’s mind like this, not counting her brief meld with Madris, and the experience was amazing and breathtaking in probably all the wrong ways. Regina gave herself a moment to take it in. She had enough presence of mind to not try and change anything or really to act at all, yet. She started by sorting through what she got from his mind without prompting, what he was feeling and thinking about, vaguely echoing deeper-leading memories and beliefs.

She’d been sure these people knew what they were doing. They’d clearly had a plan and prepared for it. Even if this was their first political assassination, they probably weren’t unfamiliar with the concept. Still, what she found took her aback a bit. She’d been right; this guy — Alan, she couldn’t avoid using the name when immersed like this in his mind — had never done something like this before. He had fought, though, not just in the occasional battle (more like a skirmish) but also in hunting expeditions. Some of the monsters they’d hunted had been rather intelligent, and he’d occasionally used poison and guile to bring them down, together with Edwin, who’d used the needle-thrower against her. He was a minor noble and had risen in the court through judicious use of flattery, decent smarts, and a ruthless streak that didn’t care who got hurt.

She paused, considered it for a moment, then dove deeper, trying to search for answers for what she really needed to know. She wasn’t surprised this man wasn’t a fanatic who hated her on principle, but she still needed to know …

He didn’t even know who’d approached him. They’d kept their face covered. It was obvious, and not very surprising, but she was still disappointed. Still, Regina tried to call up the memories and go through them for as much detail as she could.

They’d come with a letter of introduction from a psychic friend of theirs who’d left over a decade ago. The letter might have been feigned, but it had woken Alan’s interest. Said friend had taught him and helped him shield his mind. The new contact promised to reinforce these defenses. He’d used a magical artifact of some kind, so it wasn’t clear whether he was a psychic himself or not. Regina suspected, although her current host didn’t know, that the same guy and the same artifact were responsible for the mental walls of the other two.

He took a kind of insane risk, trying to attack me like this, Regina considered. Even if he succeeded, getting away would have been quite the challenge. The confusion of my death might have helped, but it’s still awfully risky.

The mysterious contact had offered Alan a lot of money and influence in the Cernlian court. He’d provided enough good information as proof of his credibility that he probably could have pulled through with it. The man’s greed seemed to have won out. He’d only asked about this risk, somewhat indirectly, once, and the contact had assured him that the Hive Queen’s death would paralyze all of its drones completely.

That seemed to have been enough. Apparently. It was weird — Regina could almost see the hidden breaks where suspicion and further issues should have laid, but they’d practically been skipped over. Alan seemingly hadn’t thought too much about the risk at all, content in his skills and the reassurance, and it smelled fake. A man like him who’d thrived off intrigue and controlled danger would not have taken this so carelessly. Would he? It sent a shiver down Regina’s spine, contemplating what it could mean. Although she might be reading too much into it, seeing it as a greater threat than it was.

Taking a moment to gather herself, she went on seeking other information, but there wasn’t much to find. He’d been familiar with both of his compatriots already, worked together in the past, and they’d probably been approached the same but they hadn’t talked about the whys or wherefores with each other.

He was a semi-devoted worshiper of Deirianon. Nothing extraordinary. He hadn’t even spoken to a priest of the god’s in a while, at least as far as he was aware.

He wasn’t aware of anyone else bought by this contact or his associates in town.

Regina exhaled heavily and finally pulled her mind back from Alan. He whimpered pitifully. She gave him a critical glance and shook her head. She’d been careful and while he’d probably felt this, it shouldn’t be that bad. She’d done no permanent damage, she knew she could tell if she did. It would have been disconcerting, but the bastard had tried to kill her for some money and politics, she didn’t care too much about his comfort. Especially when she clearly had bigger worries.

Alright? Max asked softly.

It’s fine. Regina took a step back and rolled her shoulders. I’m going to need a rest before I can try the same with the others, she admitted, a bit ruefully. But it was true. She still had a headache and trying to break through more mental shields would have to wait. She wasn’t optimistic that she’d find much more, anyway.

We should be safe enough for now, she told Max after a moment. I need to get out of here for a minute.

Sleep well, Max offered.

Regina snorted. But she had to take back the sentiment as she reached her room and all but collapsed onto the bed. Maybe a short nap? Her eyes closed almost by themselves.