Regina had to admit she was slightly jealous of Tim and the others. They got to go on an adventure while she was stuck here dealing with ‘court’ business.

Granted, it wasn’t much of an adventure, probably. Just a dangerous trip combined with some scouting tasks to establish a safer route through the mountains. That was semantics, though. They’d still get to travel, fight monsters, probably build bonds on the road or whatever, and visit foreign lands.

Anytime she wanted to visit other countries in the future would be a huge occasion with lots of preparation, and she probably wouldn’t get to travel more than a few hundred kilometers from her capital at all. Possibly ever. Not when her current location determined the range of the hive’s psychic link. Traveling across the sea or to another continent? She could probably forget that.

Regina was pleased with what she’d managed to set up, though. The elves had been relatively easy to convince to participate in a joint venture, but it was still a diplomatic win. And the dark elves — there had only been so many of them coming to the Empire at all, that they got two of their highest leveled people to participate in this was quite surprising. Especially since, strictly speaking, they probably didn’t need any route to Italy. They were from even further to the southeast, closer to the Caucasus, after all.

Maybe it was part of some agreement with the elves? she wondered. That might be it. On the other hand, maybe they just want trade to be increased generally, which would also open more markets or routes to them considering the follow-on effects.

She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth on this occasion. Instead, Regina just made sure the expeditionary group didn’t run into anything they couldn’t handle — for as long as she could, anyway. They were going to move out of her range eventually.

To delay that time, Regina had already moved back to the main hive base. For a time, at least. She’d have to return to Cera sooner or later, but she had the excuse of the expedition and of checking on the developments made under the hive’s auspices.

Of course, it also made it slightly harder to coordinate everything, with the war, and most of the new departments and ministries being either founded in Cera or scattered around, and various other issues that cropped up. Under the circumstances, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that it took her a little while to realize that one particular problem was apparently trying to make itself scarce in a different way than she’d have preferred.

“So, when was John Cern last seen?” she asked, sighing and sinking back into her couch. A few drones had had a competition about who could make the most comfortable sofas and she was enjoying one of the winners, even if using monster fur as padding might be a bit unconventional. Soft, though.

The man she was currently talking to was still standing, seeming uncomfortable. They were in one room in a building aboveground connected to the hive base that Regina occasionally used as an office, but which was large enough for other drones to occupy as well. A few were currently here.

“Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but we’re not exactly sure,” he admitted. “Some peasants or travelers have probably seen him, but haven’t said. They might come forward if we start officially marking him as wanted and searching for him, though, if that is what Your Majesty decides.”

Regina considered it for a moment. “No, not yet,” she said. “Tell me, what do we know? Perhaps you’ve confirmed which direction he absconded in?”

She had tried to look for Cern before, but finding one single mind, and of a person she barely remembered, among so many was a challenge at the best of times. It was likely he was already outside her range.

“Northwest, My Empress,” he replied.

“That is the largest trade route out of the city of Cera,” she noted.

Lord Feronet didn’t quite seem to have an answer to that. She glanced up at him. She wouldn’t be surprised if Giles Feronet held a bit of a grudge. He’d been one of the first Nerlian lords she’d defeated back in the day (as in, last year), and she’d interrogated him and held him prisoner in his own castle for a bit. But he was also one of the Nerlians who’d been under the administration of the hive for the longest time and the most familiar with them, best able to work with them. She wasn’t entirely sure why or how he’d ended up working with Lord Daine and the new intelligence branch, but she was hardly going to complain. It was always good to have a nice mix of Nerlian and Cernlian people.

“And his possible targets?”

“We have conducted deeper inquiries into his background and recent associates, Your Majesty,” he said, then handed over a sheet of paper. “Our analysis. There are several candidates. Beside some Cernlian lords and merchants near the border, or Nerlian ones near the northern part of the country, there are several who have been tentatively marked as potential foreign agents.”

“Mostly based on this, I take it,” Regina murmured, reading through the list. Not that she disagreed, but it was a shame they didn’t have more information.

“Intensify your efforts to find him,” she ordered after a moment. “Feel free to approach hive drones for help if it may be of aid. I will be talking to Queen Kiara and will prepare to issue an official warrant for his presence should it prove necessary. However, we’d rather avoid that.”

“We will do our best, Your Majesty,” he acknowledged with a bow.

Regina hummed and gestured him into his chair, which he finally took. She waited for a moment, deliberating what she should talk about, what to prioritize. Affairs were growing increasingly complicated. Or maybe it just felt like that. Discussing the setup of the agencies with him probably wasn’t the best choice, there were others more involved in that aspect. A quick briefing for the rest of it might be good, though.

“What about the rest of the court and the nobility?” she asked. “Or those with political influence? Is anyone making moves against us, or protesting against the Empire’s founding?”

“Not openly, Your Majesty,” he reported right away. “Not that we can find, at least. There will likely be some that are protesting quietly. We have found several minor plots, but nothing that should concern the Empress personally. I will make sure reports are delivered to your staff. There is also the possible issue of corruption; we have been trying to assess how widespread bribery might be. Results of the assessment are still pending, but additional resources would be appreciated.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Regina said. Once again, she couldn’t help but think of the idea of regular psychic screenings. They would probably do a lot to help weed out those kinds of problems. “Give me the details of our current status, if you please.”

He did, starting to give her a briefing that was clearly at least partly prepared beforehand. Regina listened intently, noting names and details. She even focused and put a few in the psychic link. It was really very convenient for things like that, and with every day and every new Keeper working on it, it grew and became more detailed, facilitating peripheral uses more easily.

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Once he was done, she dismissed the courtier and leaned back with a sigh. She knew without having to check that she had a bit of a break in her schedule before her next scheduled appointment. It allowed her to spend a bit of time diving into the psychic link, something she often did when she had a few free minutes. She’d had to start clearing space for ‘free time’ to socialize and destress in the evenings.

But while the pressure could be a lot, it was also nice in a way. Regina assumed she wasn’t new to having her day planned out or to pressure to perform. After all, she’d completed a degree in medicine at what had to be a rather young age, while struggling with mental issues, that might, admittedly, have been connected. She didn’t have much time to practice as a doctor currently, but it was still important to her. Maybe my previous job was a better preparation for my job as Hive Queen than I thought?

She was interrupted by the door opening again, pulling her from her thoughts. Regina sat up and frowned, then quickly turned it into a smile.

“Master.” June hesitated close to the entrance for a moment, before she bowed deeply and stepped further into the room.

Regina dipped her head in response. “June, welcome back. Good to see you again. How was your trip?”

“Interesting, as always. The establishment of the schools I visited is going well and the locomotives seem to be coming along nicely. I even talked to Zephyr and he had some interesting input. But I’m curious, you alluded to something about learning new magic?”

Regina’s smile widened as she stood up and went to join her. “It’s Galatea, she’s currently staying here for a while,” she explained. “She suggested a new lesson, and I wanted you to join in. We haven’t focused much on casting magic together before, anyway.”

June lit up. “That sounds great!”

She followed enthusiastically as Regina led the way to a set of workshops Galatea had commandeered for the time being. She knew the mana-form didn’t really need personal quarters or anything, since she didn’t need to sleep or eat, but that didn’t mean she should be denied the comfort of having them. Galatea seemed more interested in setting up labs or workspaces than comfy furniture, though, obviously.

“Scrying,” she stated as soon as Regina and June showed up, not bothering with a long introduction. “You both know the basics, and Regina has made good progress. But there are less conventional forms of scrying, too — and yes, I’m aware we’re already talking about unstructured magic. Seer Alix’s abilities would be one example.”

“There are rituals, too, right?” June asked, watching her raptly. “I talked to Zephyr, he knows quite a bit about rituals, and he mentioned some.”

Galatea didn’t seem surprised. “Yes, for a Cernlian, he’s open-minded when it comes to magic. We could certainly try some.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps a good exercise for you. Personally, I’m more interested in another area of applications at the moment. June, why don’t you get the book from my office?”

June walked off, and Regina raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Other applications?”

Galatea lowered her voice as she replied. “Say, across dimensional boundaries. Scrying into the Celestial Home, even.”

“Oh.” Regina blinked. Well, that would certainly be useful. Assuming we don’t get found out and smitten for the offense.

June came back with the book Galatea asked for and Regina didn’t offer further comments. Instead, she watched Galatea pointed out a few passages and then fielded a few questions from June together with Galatea. Luckily, she had at least learned a little about ritual magic before, even if she was certainly no expert.

“I should be able to Conjure all the materials we would need for a test easily enough,” Regina finally offered.

June grinned. “I was thinking that using ritual magic more intensively might be a good idea for the Empire, given the ability to Conjure materials, Your Majesty.”

“That’s a good thought,” Regina praised her, then reached out to pat her on the head, which June dodged with a playful glare. Of course, there was a lot of demand for their ability to Conjure things, and she was pretty certain that it rested on their understanding of the natural world, particularly physics and chemistry, so the capability wasn’t something they could build up that easily. Still, in some circumstances it was definitely a good option to have.

Regina made sure she understood the instructions correctly, then focused on producing the required quantities of materials. They included a fair amount of gold and other precious metals, as well as crystals, so she could see why it would normally be too expensive for regular use.

“Now, what should we scry?” Galatea asked.

“I don’t suppose we could cross dimensional boundaries already?” Regina muttered.

Her friend hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “Maybe if a certain ally covered for you, but I don’t think they’d just jump and do that right now,” she said quietly.

“Am I supposed to not know what you mean?” June asked. “Because I’m not sure if I do.”

Galatea ignored her, “I did meet with them again recently and we’ll hopefully have a chance again in the not-too-distant future.”

Regina raised an eyebrow, then shook her head and focused on the materials. “Perhaps we could check on the southern expedition, then?” she suggested.

It didn’t take long to get started with the ritual after that. Galatea kept out of it, since she wanted the other two to learn, but she did offer a few tips. Regina made sure everything was arranged correctly, then started pouring mana into the simple ritual circle she’d formed, making sure to moderate her output to mesh with June’s, who stood at the opposite side.

A few seconds later, an image started to form in the air above it, like a projector on a wall. It showed the group she’d been looking for, Tim accompanied by several drones, humans, elves and dark elves. Unfortunately, nothing interesting currently seemed to be happening. They were trudging through a tunnel, dimly lit by some bioluminescent moss the group had gathered, but they weren’t even talking at the moment. None of them seemed to notice the scrying in any way. Regina kept watching them silently for a few minutes, but nothing changed.

She sighed and flicked her fingers to dismiss the image. “Bad timing if we wanted adventure, I suppose. June, why don’t you set it up for the next try, and maybe we can look a bit further afield?”

June nodded and got to work, while Regina stepped away, closer to Galatea.

“You spoke with Leian?” she asked quietly, making sure no one else was around to hear.

The AI nodded slightly. “It was a more tense reunion than I had anticipated,” she admitted.

“Well, you did kind of deny being her friend to me, maybe she had seen things differently,” Regina said wryly.

“I —When did I say that to you?”

“You called me your only friend, which, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate the sentiment, but it said something about your relationship with Leian.”

Galatea didn’t visibly react, but Regina could sense her pause. She’d gotten better at reading her. “… I suppose,” she finally said, her voice expressionless.

“I think I’d like to be there and talk to her if it’s possible for the next opportunity,” Regina said.

Galatea shrugged slightly. “Maybe.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Various things. I actually learned a little more about her past and magical skills.” Galatea frowned. “It certainly sounds like she’s fighting with Alianais.”

Regina suppressed a sigh. “I was afraid of that,” she muttered. She wasn’t sure if she could trust either of the goddesses, but if they were having a row, or, heavens forbid, a real falling-out, it probably wouldn’t be good for her.

“She also said that Deirianon threatened her, so I’m not sure how much help she’s willing to give you,” Galatea warned her. Then she smiled a bit. “Although she didn’t seem very impressed. Something about ‘divinity that has been given can be taken away’, which is apparently an ironic threat to make to an Aishan. She did mention she had several notable ancestors who’ve killed gods before …”

Regina blinked again. “Do you think she could do that, kill gods?”

Galatea shrugged. “Probably, I mean, she is a goddess herself, even if she has less raw power. That doesn’t mean she’s not the most dangerous of them all. I think the more interesting question would be if she could do it without being a goddess or teach other people how to do it … in which case, I don’t know. She was leader of her Lineage for a time, even if it was a short time and there were only a few of them left, so she must have had access to their records and any secret power, but they lost a lot and she has no access to any resources from home or whatever they used to store mana in large quantities.”

Regina shook her head. “At least it’s good to know the gods can apparently be vanquished and killed, even if I’m not quite sure what I can do with that information …” She rubbed a hand across her eyes. “And the Aishan apparently created the Hivekind …”

“I doubt it’s just an innate ability, and even if it is, they probably wouldn’t have given it to their creations.”

“True.”

Regina sighed again and glanced away, only to freeze for a moment as she laid eyes on June, who was leaning against the desk uncomfortably close to them, her arms crossed. She grinned as she saw Regina’s look. “Don’t mind me,” she drawled. “Feel free to carry on talking about the gods’ power or whatever blasphemy I suppose this is …”

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose. “Talking is silver and silence is gold, my young apprentice.”

“Hey, I’m not that young!” June protested, straightening up.

Regina exchanged an amused glance with Galatea.