“I’m not happy about this plan.”
Li fumed, knocking back a drink as he sat in his throne. He wasn’t happy about the throne either, but couldn’t really refuse it as it was a gift from the people. So he reserved sitting in it for when he wanted to drink and brood for a while. I was just happy cultivation reverted any serious damage his habit might otherwise have caused, since he was doing both very often of late.
“We need to take our lands back, Li. People are starving outside, and I’m tired of going without food just because I’m one of the few people who can live entirely off qi. Plus keeping the Vermilion Queen’s forces engaged and distracting the other two in the event they’re in the field will make it easier for Kaoru and the relief forces to evacuate the Vermilion Palace and take out the queen. We’re not just a militia rabble trained in secret anymore. It’s time to step into the open.”
Li poured himself a second drink, but sipped it slowly this time.
“That all worries me, to be sure. But I’m confident enough that three armies of ten thousand cultivators each, none below Expert rank, can easily outmanuver and defeat anything short of an Elder, and you’ll make sure the Dragon and Tiger Kings are too distracted to rout our forces.”
“So you’re worried about Kaoru, then.”
“I’m worried about who she’s using as support.”
“Who-”
“Her children. Ours too, by the way.”
My ears flattened, and I would’ve shifted and rushed that fox if I weren’t about to pop. The only saving grace Kaoru had at this point was that each of our pregnancies was timed to end around the time the Vermilion Queen’s would.
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She was already in place, having been “captured” along with a small retinue of others as spoils of war, where she’d be treated as the queen’s personal entourage until she could return to her palace to give birth and replace them with more “fitting” subjects, since the ones she’d left with had gone missing.
Wait.
“I ordered every spy that went with Kaoru to go in pregnant.”
Li nodded. “And the ones the Vermilion Queen will see all are. Even Kaoru knows better than to let a child enter that part of the plan.” He downed the remains of the liquor, and poured another glass. I stole it from him and knocked it back myself.
“Bleh. This stuff’s total poison.”
“Our cultivations grant us an uncomfortable amount of alcohol resistance. And you can’t even get drunk off it, so stop stealing mine. I only get a small keg of the stuff a month, and times are too hard to ask for more.”
Hence our need to go with this plan. But still…
“Don’t worry, Xiang. The kids are going to be the support and relief end. Haul supplies, dig the tunnel system for evacuation, set up camps and kitchens. And Mistress Fu is supervising them while they head for the Vermilion Palace ahead of the Queen’s private court.”
Alright. Deep breaths. I’d had to lift Chang and Chen’s ban on mining when they reminded me they were half-rabbit, and proved it by digging out a cave-in quickly and safely to save a group of coal miners, then explained where the group had erred in their digging. They were naturals at warren construction, and any of my younger kids who could wield a shovel had the same knack.
They’d even made a game of it, building complex mazes and challenging the other children to play tag inside of them. I had to stop that one, because it worried everyone that one of the kids would get lost underground and that we wouldn’t find them. Didn’t bother my little half-buns, but I had to remind them that knowing exactly where you were in a warren wasn’t a human instinct.
So as long as they were under supervision and kept in a supporting role, I couldn’t disapprove of their plan. But I didn’t like it either.
“Bleh. Can’t even really drink while I’m pregnant like this, or I’d go for my own personal keg.”
Li smiled. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to distract ourselves with other forms of stress relief then.”
My smile matched his, and we used his throne the way I liked to.