The journey back to her hive’s main base would take considerably less time than getting to the guarded door in the first place. After all, their route wouldn’t be as circuitous and they wouldn’t be exploring an underground, ruined city in the process. It still left quite a bit of time for the group to wait and think.

Regina was a little surprised to realize that the others appeared to feel resentful toward Galatea. Max especially, when she took a closer peek at his mind in the psychic link, was almost exasperated. His attitude basically expressed the old phrase, ‘with friends like these …’, so much she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him actually muttering the words.

He also noticed her attention, since she hadn’t bothered trying to hide it. My Queen, he said, clearly choosing his words carefully. I know you consider Galatea a friend, and that she’s the only one with a similar background to you. But she admitted that she might have truly endangered you with this.

I know, Regina replied. She shook her head and found herself chuckling mentally. Max sent her a questioning gaze and she returned a mental shrug. I was just thinking, it turns out that having the thousand-year-old entity with very little socialization travel the world on her own might not have been the smartest or most careful choice. Who would have thought?

Max stared at her. After a moment, his lips twitched as he suppressed a smile, and she could sense that he found the humor in her thought as well. Put that way, it’s remarkable she’s managed this well at all, he acknowledged.

I’m probably not as concerned about this as I should be, Regina admitted after a moment, the amusement fading. But I suppose I was kind of expecting the other shoe to drop ever since the elves told me news of our existence was starting to get out. This doesn’t seem like a very heavy shoe so far.

Max groaned theatrically over the psychic link. Please don’t jinx us now.

Regina smiled, and the conversation died there.

She only spoke up again once they reached a specific intersecting tunnel. It was hidden behind a small rock outcropping, in actuality probably a part of the concrete wall that had fallen down at some point, and must have been dug by Tunnelers or other monsters. It would be a tight fit, but she knew from previous exploration that her drones would fit through it. And it wasn’t like they were prone to claustrophobia or anything.

“Galatea.” She nodded at the tunnel. “Let’s take that one. I’m already calling some Winged Drone Mounts over. We can get around more quickly in the air.”

“Alright,” Galatea agreed readily.

They turned into the tunnel and followed it for a while. Tia walked ahead of Regina, with Max squeezing in between her and Galatea. It was dark and cramped, as expected, and Regina caught Max mentally cursing several times. At least she wasn’t as big as him, so she didn’t risk getting stuck.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up and they started to breathe fresh air. There was also a small light in the distance getting gradually brighter. Everyone breathed a quiet sigh of relief and they continued towards it.

“Regina.” Galatea moved beside her, once the tunnel allowed it. “To continue our earlier conversation. Do you agree with the sentiments I expressed at the end? Would you want it?”

Regina hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Yes,” she then answered. With complete honesty, she realized. “If it could be done without greater loss of life — No.” She shook her head. “Let’s be honest here. Even with some loss of life, which is objectively likely, yes, I would.”

They kept walking, moving into the sunlight shining from the end of the tunnel. Regina blinked trying to adjust to the increase in brightness. The sounds of the wildlife around them, mostly birdsong, contrasted with the silence of the tunnels. Around her, the other drones were talking silently to each other, conversations picking up in a flurry of psychic activity. She knew they discussed what they’d just heard, and she could even sense Max reaching out to Tim. She didn’t intrude.

A cluster of familiar minds, led by a single bright spot, approached as the flock of Winged Drones she’d called descended around them. Thor had taken along more of them than she’d initially called, forming a proper escort of combat-focused drones for the Mounts.

Thor himself touched down just beside her, close enough to ruffle her wings if she’d extended them. Regina smiled and stepped forward to pat his shoulder, sending him a mental thanks. He replied with an unspoken request, barely not a demand, and Regina chuckled and prepared to mount up.

Around her, the others were exchanging greetings as well and sorting out who would be carried by which drone. Regina paused before she hopped onto Thor’s back and looked at Galatea. The AI-slash-mana-form was rising into the air slowly, floating like she wasn’t tethered to the ground. Considering she didn’t seem to have a very physical body, Regina probably should have expected gravity wouldn’t have much of a hold on her.

“Say,” Regina began as she settled onto Thor’s back. “What you said — How much of this is because of our friendship, and how much because you screwed around with your definitions or policy function or whatever?”

“I don’t have a policy function.” Galatea sniffed like an artist at the suggestion that they should just use normal printer paper instead of canvas. “To answer your question, though …” she paused and cocked her head, then admitted, “I don’t know. Some of both, most likely.”

Regina nodded. Then Thor and the other drones jumped into the air and beat their wings, carrying them upwards, which put the conversation on pause for now.

Regina leaned over Thor’s side and looked down, watching as the entrance of the tunnel disappeared beneath them. Then turned and focused on the course ahead of them. The day was a bit cloudy, but reasonably nice, with moderate wind and no chance of rain. She had to suppress the urge to go spread her own wings and fly on her own power. That seemed like it would be kind of rude to Thor and the others.

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The rushing wind made conversation without the aid of the psychic link harder, and none of them was feeling very chatty right now, so they mostly traveled in silence. Regina watched the terrain pass by below and thought about what she was going to do. She glanced at Galatea, then paused.

It had only been a few minutes, so they hadn’t gotten very far yet, but being this high up was providing a very good vantage point. Galatea was clearly taking advantage of this, examining the terrain and looking for clusters of Hive drones. Regina also caught some wisps of magic from her. Something to help her see things, or is she scrying more conventionally? Not surprising, I guess.

“Regina —“ Galatea sounded surprised as she turned abruptly to look at her. She clearly started to speak, then paused. “I don’t see as many of your drones as I expected around,” she finally said.

“We did lose quite a few of them in the war against the gnomes and have been redeploying to meet the Cernlians,” Regina said, but she couldn’t suppress a slight smirk.

“I’m aware of that, and that’s not what I meant,” Galatea replied. She gave her a small scowl as she saw her expression, but Regina could tell there was no heat behind it. “I would have expected more War and Winged Drones around your hive’s center, especially. I also looked at your territory’s borders to the northeast and east, close to Cernlia, but there aren’t enough drones assembling there to account for the discrepancy overall.”

“Have you looked at other directions? Say, the rest of the northern border?” Regina asked innocently.

“I was just doing that,” Galatea muttered.

Then she paused for a few seconds longer and Regina noticed her repeat what she’d been doing before. Now she was pretty sure Galatea was using her magic to scry. They shouldn’t be able to see anything important from here, considering the terrain.

“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Galatea asked. But when she lifted her head to look at Regina again, there was a slight smile growing on her face. “You’ve been gathering forces where the Cernlian king is unlikely to expect them, poised to attack not him, but his allies.”

“Yes,” Regina agreed with a smile. “I’ve started preparations to invade Nerlia.”

Regina caught hints of Max chuckling over the wind, and she faintly sensed the amusement from the other drones. Of course, all of them had known what she was doing; it wasn’t exactly something she could easily hide, not with the psychic link.

“Actually, maybe we should head there?” Tia suggested. Regina couldn’t see her, but she knew she was giving a concerned look at Galatea. “We can see it for ourselves, and if we have to worry about foreign Delvers coming to get information on Regina, maybe it’s better if she’s not at the main base?”

“I was just going to suggest that,” Regina agreed. She paused and cocked her head at Galatea. “What do you think?”

“Sure. I’d be curious to see what you’ve been up to, anyway.”

“You don’t think it’s a bad idea, with what you’ve just told us about outside actors?”

Galatea frowned. “I don’t know, but it’s probably a bad idea to let indecision and hesitation rule your decisions. You would have had to take a more active role in the war, anyway, or risk other consequences. Taking you further away from the current hot spot might be the best option. Still, their attention is going to be drawn there eventually, for obvious reasons, so you should probably not be there personally when that happens.”

Regina nodded. “Alright, that makes sense.”

“It’s an interesting strategy,” Galatea mused. “It would strike where they don’t expect you to, but also weaken the king’s forces, by forcing his allies to try to cover their own vulnerable territory. That would take pressure off your rebel allies and allow them to face the Cernlian regime’s forces. And it would also mean you wouldn’t fight directly beside the humans.”

“That was my thinking,” Regina agreed. Besides logistical and strategic reasons, it would be a bonus to not have too many eyes too close to her hive’s direct military operations. Plus, there probably would be all sorts of pitfalls in trying to coordinate closely with human soldiers on the same battlefield, so some separation made sense. At least for now. She wasn’t under any illusions that the hive could stay out of the fighting in Cernlia until the war ended.

“So, was it your idea or Leian’s to simply send us into the ruins without explaining anything about what’s going on?” she asked casually.

Galatea froze visibly for a moment. Apparently, Regina had managed to take her off-guard.

“Mostly Leian’s,” she admitted after a moment. “She said that she didn’t want to risk you looking for this other psychic, even subconsciously, and alerting her, but I think she may have also just wanted to amuse herself. And I didn’t know exactly what she planned. She did say something about having an honest conversation with you.”

“Well, to be fair, I guess she did,” Regina replied with a sigh. The reminder of what Leian had revealed to her drained most, though not all, of her anger. She’d told Regina more about her new species than she’d learned from any other source, and giving her the information she had clearly didn’t come without risks to Leian.

“She Who Remains can be protective of her secrets,” Galatea commented, shrugging.

“Who?” Regina raised an eyebrow.

“Leian. It’s her Soul Name. I’m not really supposed to know about it, but it’s apparently a big deal that she has one. Not that I know what it even means.”

Regina frowned, then shook her head and decided to shelve that avenue of conversation.

They were moving further away from her hive’s main base now, and instead heading to the north, to the border to both Earl Whitor’s demesne and Nerlia. The route kept them close to the forest, and Regina looked at it, considering the geography. The elves had been unsurprisingly enthusiastic about her plan, and they might even offer some more tangible support.

Some units of her drones were also using the cover of the forest to move undetected. She sensed them below her, mostly large clumps of Swarm Drones with the occasional sapient drone coming along. Further off, at their destination, was a much larger gathering.

Hiding ten thousand drones wasn’t something easily accomplished, but the hive did their best. They had burrowed underground and also used tree cover as best they could. Many of the Swarm Drones were hibernating, so they didn’t move around and needed to consume less food and water.

Thor and the others descended to fly closer to the ground, and Regina couldn’t help a proud smile as they approached the staging area for this little army. She even caught a soft curse from Galatea. It figured that the mana-form had ways of detecting people - or monsters - nearby without relying on what she could see.

Then suddenly, she felt Galatea’s presence intensify in her magic senses as her mana spiked, showing a depth she hadn’t seen before, like someone tearing off a sheet to reveal a deep abyss beneath. She cursed again, longer and more strongly.

“What’s … up,” Regina trailed off and dug her fingers into the ridges of chitin on Thor’s shoulders as she sensed something else, too.

There was a presence waiting for them below. No, not waiting, she realized after a moment, moving. It was approaching quickly. The drones in the gathering army hadn’t noticed, although now that her alarm was passed through the psychic bond, they started to stir.

It was the first time Regina had actually felt another psychic with those senses, and she didn’t feel prepared for the experience. She felt that mind more strongly than any other, and yet not, because she couldn’t make out any details about it. It gave off an impression of strength, an unassailable bastion hiding dangerous weapons, and that was it. Anything her magical senses told her was almost lost in comparison.

While Thor tried to brake in midair, Regina leaned forward, squinting down. There, she found a figure standing in the open area outside the wood hiding most of her drones. Tall, clad in a dark cloak. She had several other people with her, as well, although none of them caught Regina’s attention nearly the same way.

So much for staying away, I guess. Regina gritted her teeth, biting down the urge to curse, and tried to fortify her mind against any psychic intrusion.