Chapter 523: 1

Reubinon Palace, Pellarmus. One week after the attack. Britta sat at the head of the table; her palms pressed flat to the smooth wooden surface between us. Maps littered the tabletop, maps of Pellarmus, Haniver, Vayelle, and Erydia—the curling corners of them weighed down with stacks of handwritten letters and what appeared to be piles and piles of typed out transcripts. Little figurines and pins dotted each land mass and ocean, painstakingly marking each known ship or unit of troops. I hadn't expected to be allowed to see any of this, but Britta was in the middle of sorting through the day's messages when we arrived and she didn't seem worried about hiding them from us. It was refreshing, I thought. There was a casualness to the way she cleared boxes and rolled documents from the chairs around the table, before she beckoned us to sit with her. Footman stepped forward to help her but she shooed them away, muttering something about being a fully-grown woman. Once our places were cleared, she was back in her own seat, her expression turning focused again as she examined the letter she'd been reading. We'd only just taken our chairs on either side of the table when a maid came in and set a tray of tea and biscuits on the maps before the queen. Britta didn't even bother to look up, she was too immersed in the papers she held. The maid spoke quietly, her Erydian stilted and shaking. "The king said you must eat." Britta glanced up then, those blue eyes dancing with annoyance and another emotion, something softer. "I'll eat once I've finished here." The woman pursed her lips and said, "I—I am supposed to report to him if you don't eat something now. He says you...you cannot—" "Over do it, yes." She set her papers down on the map before her, nearly knocking over a few of the figurines as she snatched a biscuit from the tray. She made a show of adding butter and then some sort of jam. "See?" She lifted the pastry so the maid could see. "Eating." And with that, she took a bite and went back to reading. The maid bowed once more and retreated from the room without another word—off to report to her master. Heidi and I exchanged a look, but Nadia was only smiling to herself. "You know," my friend said to the queen, "he really is right, you need to—" Britta cut her off, her attention snapping up to us. "Sleep well?" Heidi shifted a little uncomfortably in her chair. Britta's tone with Nadia had been curt, dismissive, but not unkind. While it was clear that Heidi and me found this a little alarming, Nadia was still smiling, unphased, as she reached forward and fixed a cup of tea. Allies, I realized. Nadia and Britta were already allies—friends, even. "I slept well enough," I said. My gaze went to the transcripts nearest my elbow. I hesitated a moment before I picked up the small stack and riffled through them. Most of the smudged typing made little sense to me, but it was clearly some sort of radio communications between the rebels in Erydian and those here in Pellarmus. Nadia set the cup of tea in front of Britta, her lips pursed to keep her smile from turning wide as she said, "To your good health, your majesty." Britta snorted at that and set her biscuit down on the tray. "He's such a mother hen. He fusses over me constantly. It's enough to drive me crazy." "He loves you and wants you to rest." Britta sighed. "Yes, well, love and resting won't win this war, will it?" She took the cup of tea from Naida and said to her, "I don't think I can bare it if you start clucking over me too." She held up her hands, blackened fingertips on display as she said, "No clucking here, just friendly concern." Britta sipped the tea, hummed in appreciation, and then set it down, her posture turning businesslike as she leaned her elbows on the table and said, "What can I do for you ladies?" Everyone at the table turned to me and it was then I remembered that I was supposed to be leading this—or well, I'd been the one organize the meeting. I set the transcripts I'd been holding down and cleared my throat, the action a bit more nervous than I'd intended. "I wanted to talk with you about the coming war and our place in it." She blinked at me. "Anything in particular or are we just discussing the war?" I shrugged. "I didn't really plan anything to say. I just wanted to have a few minutes to talk with you about your plans and the rebellion, since it seems you're sort of the spearhead of the entire operation." "I can assure you," Britta said, leaning back in her chair. "There are dozens of spearheads in this operation, I am merely the person capable of aiming the bow." "Even so," I nodded to the marked maps between us. "You have all the information at your disposal and we know practically nothing." Britta nodded. "Well then, let's start with any questions you may have. What would you like to know?" "Will you let us fight?" Heidi asked. The queen nodded a smile spreading across her face. "I will never turn away anyone who is willing to fight alongside me. If you want to fight, then fight." Britta always looked a good deal like Viera, but when she smiled—they could be twins. She looked like the portraits lining the walls of Oredison Palace, except that there was a light to Britta that her mother had always seemed to lack. Even in the darkest moments of Britta's life, I doubted she'd ever truly been as drained and angry as Viera had been. Even so, it was sometimes difficult to look at her without that old terror seizing my heart. She is not Viera. And what was even more important—she was not Larkin. "How long have you been planning this?" Heidi asked. For someone who hadn't known about this meeting before thirty minutes ago, she sure had organized her list of questions. Britta rose to the challenge, unbothered. "Actively, a little over a year. But the rebels working for me—with me—have been organizing for years, some of them since after my mother was first crowned. I've been able to give them aid and direction, but their activism was prevalent in our country long before I joined the cause." Heidi opened her mouth to ask another question, but I cut her off. "And what is your stake in this? Did you only offer the rebellion help because you wanted to be queen?" I knew the answer—or I felt pretty confident I did. But I wanted my friends to hear her explain herself too.