Regina felt irritated with Kiara, despite herself. She knew she was probably overreacting, since Kiara was right about the obstacles and challenges in communication they faced. The reliability of eye witness accounts was always questionable, and the lands south of Cernlia, between them and the Gnomish Confederation proper, were barely less than wild. It wouldn’t exactly be surprising to see lone gnomish scouts there even if they were entirely focused on the western front against the hive.

Still, she was a bit irritated. And the distraction and thinking about all the ways the war could go wrong only made the summit feel more like an anchor weighing her down.

There was really nothing left to talk about, it should be over. So she ended the summit.

A lot of delegates had already left, anyway. The emissaries from the new Western Confederation were preparing to head home now that they’d announced their new league. The elves had let her know they would be leaving almost immediately, too. Which mostly just left the people from her new Empire.

She could have them stay to turn this into an Imperial-only conference and discuss the many things they could still plan and organize. And she did want to have such a conference, but it was better not to do it right now. Be better to give everyone some time to go home, gather themselves and prepare.

Tim was mostly staying because Janis and the Delvers were here, she supposed, but Ben had fully turned his attention back to the war against the gnomes, and Mia had already departed to start overseeing the construction of schools, academies and several logistical projects they’d drawn up, including preparations for the new capital’s construction. Tia was keeping things together back in the hive’s territory, but she’d be glad for a change, too. Max was starting to fret, a little, about the new tasks he had in trying to keep Regina and the rest of them safe. Relocating wouldn’t make that easier for him, but at least he’d get a change of scenery and could stop worrying about security measures for this place.

Although, Regina could finally start ramping up her production of new drones like she wanted. She was still feeling a bit uncomfortable, but she suspected it was just psychosomatic. Either way, an international summit was not the best place for new sapient hive members to be born. They’d moved eggs, of course, but it was still a pain. And Regina generally preferred to be there, at least to regularly check the nursery.

She couldn’t be the first face to greet every new drone, not anymore, just for practical reasons. If she wanted to oversee their integration into the hive personally, she wouldn’t have time for anything else and it would still be too little. But she could at least show that she wasn’t entirely ignoring or forgetting about them.

Once she had a free minute with a bit of privacy, Regina reached out to them. The newest, sapient hive drones were sorted into ‘classes’ of sorts, although those were variable and the borders weren’t clearly defined. They usually included several ‘batches’ of hatchlings hatched at the same time, though. Regina had usually staggered it a bit, instead of using big clutches, so they didn’t all hatch at the exact same time the same day, though.

She’d taken Mia’s request into account. Currently, the new groups included quite a few Workers, but also some magic-users, which they definitely needed, as well as a few Keepers and a few of the other Templates here and there.

Regina focused on the newest additions to the hive, letting them know without words that she was paying attention to them. She sensed the excitement the drones felt in response, but didn’t actually start talking until she was sure they weren’t doing something they shouldn’t be distracted from.

Are you all doing alright? she asked.

In return, she got several variations of Yes, Mother, Yes, my Queen, and Of course! back. Regina smiled and transmitted her feelings of warmth and affection back. It would have been better to talk to them in person, but this was at least something. And she wouldn’t have to wait long until she could see them if she wanted, now, anyway.

I hope you’re settling in okay. Are your mentors doing enough?

She was answered with several excited streams of words. Clearly, the new drones hadn’t figured out how best to use the psychic link yet, how it would best allow them to coordinate answers to questions like this. But they learned fast, and sorted themselves out so she could hear several short answers quickly. The gist was that yes, the mentors were cool and they were all adjusting, although not everyone knew what they wanted to do yet.

That was fine, of course. Regina wasn’t interested in pressing her drones into certain roles, at least unless the hive really, truly needed it. She was also glad the mentorship system they’d put in place what seemed like ages ago was working well. They’d refined it a bit since then, but the general gist was still the same — drones who’d been alive for longer and who had some experience volunteering to guide newly hatched siblings, generally forming close bonds and the start of a support network as well. They were all family, but there were too many people for everyone to know everyone, and she didn’t want anyone to fall through the cracks with no one to help.

Of course, not everyone could or wanted to participate. Especially drones who moved around because of their work or changed tasks. It was an unfortunate consequence that many of her senior drones and those she was closer to didn’t have the time or didn’t consider themselves suitable to take a mentor role. I should probably encourage them to consider it more, Regina reflected. She didn’t want there to be too much of a disconnect or for ‘sides’ to form.

She wasn’t about to participate herself, though, even if that wouldn’t be a blatant show of favoritism for someone, so maybe she had no room to talk.

For now, Regina just made sure everyone was alright and then reluctantly moved on. She always enjoyed spending a bit of time with the younger members of her hive — fine, her younger children — but she was also kind of glad she wasn’t around them all the time. Today, she checked in with the Keepers afterwards, and then talked to Ada and a few of the other senior drones. There was still a lot to prepare and organize, and she liked to at least keep informed of what was going on, even if she couldn’t be involved in everything. There was just too much going on.

Jem was restructuring the ‘area’ of the psychic link they were trying to turn into a kind of mental library, or at least repository for information, again. Regina had her doubts about if it would work any better, but she left him to it. At least he wasn’t likely to make it harder to use. Although she still could barely wrap her mind around how he and the rest of the Keepers did this at all. In comparison, talking to Kit was easier. She was overseeing the distribution of new Swarm Drones and some restructuring going on with the army. That was mostly Ben’s domain, but since it related to how the War Drones operated in the context of the hive in general, she was interested. After that talk, Regina got another scouting report, this time focused on the eastern part of the Gnomish Confederation, what little they could get on it, instead of just the front and the area near it. She was still a little more nervous about that than she probably should be.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Finally, Regina opened her eyes again, cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders with a sigh. She rustled her wings a little, glancing back longingly at them. Maybe when we leave … Max wasn’t going to like it and he had a point, regarding her safety. But once they’d already traveled for a ways, she could take off on her own and stretch her wings. After all, it only made sense to keep in shape and make sure she could fly away herself if she was in danger with no other recourse, right?

Now, she only had to wait for everyone to be ready and everything to be packed and prepared to go. They were going to leave most of what they’d built here intact, so they could use it for another occasion or, if nothing else, for the people of the town to have additional defensive structures. Maybe eventually it would turn into the local headquarters of a government district or department. Regina was also leaving a few drones behind to make sure that everyone’s departure went smoothly and their guests didn’t leave any issues to deal with.

Feeling a bit bored as she was waiting, Regina opened her status screen again, looking at numbers she knew hadn’t changed since the last time, even if she was undoubtedly getting close to her next level.

Regina Hive Queen Level: 61 Mana: 17163/29700 Hive: 1120/1816, 20 Swarm: 112867/13010000, 8000 Con: 17 Str: 16 Dex: 17 End: 19 Int: 35 Wis: 33

Regina blinked at the screen. Wait, level sixty-one? When did that happen?

She groaned and put her face in her hands. She must have missed a level-up notification. It made sense when she thought about it, she’d gained four stat points for reaching level 60 and the small increase in the next level would be easy to miss, especially since she hadn’t checked her status screen lately. Most likely, it was when she’d been deeply submerged using her psychic abilities, those did do funny things to her concentration and awareness. There was one time she’d been half-asleep coming out of her training and barely stumbled into bed, but she thought there was something, maybe she’d just waved away the System notification without really seeing it.

Shaking her head at herself and resolving never to mention this to anyone, especially not Max or Ira, Regina returned her attention to the screen. She frowned at the rather large numbers. Well, I do have very large limits given my Skills now. With a baseline of a million at level sixty, considering the exponential increase, I guess, then it would be a factor of - eight? - for Swarm Strength, and an additional sixty percent at that level, I had … twelve million eight hundred thousand at level sixty, right. A bit more now, but not much. Not that I’m anywhere close to actually having that many drones.

Regina ran a hand through her hair absently. The war was still a constant drain on her Swarm Drone numbers, especially since she was going with a strategy of throwing them into the grinder to protect her sapient drones. At least it was successful in that regard. Her Inner Hive had also grown quite a bit, but not as much as it could have considering how reduced the numbers she could add currently were, and it had been rather irregular during the war, too. The numbers were enough to still give her a vast supply of mana, although there were clearly diminishing returns involved. Not that she was going to complain. Her stats were fine, not much change since the last level, obviously, except a point in End, which was fine.

Despite herself, she found her eyes drifting to the uppermost row of the character screen. Her first name; just her first name. She didn’t have ‘Starlit’ as a last name like had appeared for Janis, and her real name hadn’t shown up, either, after she’d uncovered it. She supposed that was fine as well. And her Class still read ‘Hive Queen’, despite her passing yet another Tier where she would ordinarily have received a Class Evolution. Or maybe just Evolution, she wasn’t entirely sure of the terminology, especially considering Hivekind seemed to be special monsters. She’d just have to be an empress with the Hive Queen Class.

It was possible Leian just didn’t want to bother, or maybe there just wasn’t anything better she could get in a new Class. Regina was definitely the only Hive Queen on the planet, so it wouldn’t make sense to make an entire system of Classes and paths for it.

Still, it was yet another thing that made her sigh in frustration. I really hate not understanding why the gods do anything. Regina shook her head, then stood and grabbed her jacket.

Hey, Janis, she called her. You’re familiar with Cernlia, right?

Sure, Janis answered hesitantly. She was currently in her own room, checking on all the books she’d taken along in her bag. If there’s something I don’t know, I can always ask Kiara. Why, what do you need?

Are there any temples close by that would be good choices to go to?

Janis straightened up in surprise, and Regina sensed her eye the door, in Regina’s direction, with a suspicious glance. I’m sure there are, but … may I ask why you want to know?

Regina opened the door and stepped into the corridor. “Well, I wanted to go visit,” she said lightly. “Someone did say it might be the best way to get the attention of Alianais. I can’t think of anything better, certainly. It’s worth a try.”

Janis opened her own door and approached. She was frowning. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to do that? Seems like a risk.”

Regina shrugged. “We have some questions, especially given what we’ve learned recently,” she said quietly. “It seems to me it might be best to just go and try to get some answers.”

Janis nodded slowly, clearly considering her words and seeing some sense in them.

“Do you have to go in person?” Max interrupted, stepping up to them. “It could just be one of us visiting a temple.”

“I’m still apparently her Champion, or at least marked by Alianais in some way,” Regina reminded him. “She’s not going to hurt me. Hell, if she wanted to, I’m not sure if she couldn’t just do that remotely anywhere, anyway.” She shook her head. “And if I am marked, it stands to reason I might need to come personally. Maybe I can call her or request a personal visit or something.”

Max frowned, but he conceded reluctantly. “Fine, but only with appropriate security precautions. You’re not going alone and not to a place we can expect danger.”

“That’s fine,” she dismissed.

“I’ll go check some texts and ask Kiara,” Janis offered. “I’m sure we can find the best temple that’s a bit out of the way, close to the hive and not crawling with people. And we can just have it closed to other visitors while we’re there.”

Regina noted the ‘we’ but didn’t argue, only nodded. “It won’t hurt to be seen visiting a temple, I suppose.”

Janis smiled slightly. Regina knew she was thinking about people’s piety, something she herself rather preferred not to think about usually. But demonstrating a connection that did exist really wouldn’t be the worst political thing she’d done.