190: The Queen's Knight

190: The Queen's Knight
\[Athony\]

The universe can be cruel. Sometimes the mate she chooses for you is a dream. Sometimes she is your nightmare. Often she is both.

Eleanora keeps me around because I am useful. She is very stubborn with a willpower of steel--excellent qualities in a queen, but terrible ones in a mate. 

But she is loyal to those she finds useful.

Why else would she still keep Segundus' corpse rotting in a vat of amber fluid?

We thought it had been lost to the fire, but the universe isn't just cruel but capricious. She saw fit in her infinite wisdom to hide his corpse below several layers of earth, down a long lost tunnel leading to tracks that go to the sea. We found it a moon cycle earlier, and the joy in Eleanora's eyes was only overshadowed by her smile of victory.

"We must have the Technician," she insists. "When that beast is in our grasp, we will win this battle and reclaim our rightful places."

"You deserve to be Queen of us all," I bowed before her. As she touched my shoulder to release me from my bow, she thanked me  for my service as her faithful companion, "Above all others."

I keep her secrets. All of them. Especially the ones brewing inside of her that I smell every time she walks past. 5 children, all of them mine. She lies and says they are of the Majere line, but they are only noble because of their royal mother.

But my fidelity is unending. I will never betray her. I will protect my mate in the only way I know how.

With my silence.

Traveling west, I saw firsthand the destruction left by the Solar Rebellion. They are moving east at a breakneck speed, most likely drawn by the lure of the Queen herself, so close to going broody, a vulnerable state for any drakaina. My instincts tell me I should be by her side, protecting our brood, but her orders send me away, and so away I go. It is only two days. I might be gone a week at the most, and if I am successful, my usefulness will know no bounds.

It is good that she sent me. What awaited me on the beach was beyond question the work of the technician.

The colossus that had attacked the beach, devastating our troops, was a giant mechanical kraken. The size of a mountain, it was designed to be controlled by two dragons within a chamber situated in the skull of the beast. It was an interesting combination of pieces both mechanical and organic powered by the energy of those miraculous blue crystals. They must have a source for them nearby, one that the crown has not found to mine. I will look into that later, once Undersea has been reclaimed.

Which will be difficult considering what is left of their Council. 8 of the 11 lay dead in the waters, their charred corpses only recognizable by what remains of the necklaces bearing their insignia. They burned to death while standing waist-high in water. Whatever fueled that fire was unquenchable and burned slowly, because it lasted long enough to kill and disfigure, but roasted slowly enough to make them suffer, their corpses covered in giant blisters where the flesh remains in singed chunks.

The smell is terrible. Briny and pestilent, even the fish will not eat the remnants of whatever substance had set them aflame, but the mechanism is fascinating. I could spend weeks studying it and never understand it completely. This looks like the work of the great sea king himself, Tritus. But he is no longer alive to operate this monstrosity. The Technician must be behind it somehow. Maybe he is her mate?

The Undersea palace can be accessed by those who do not breathe water by air on a small island a day's flight from here. After learning what I can, I continue with my mission, reaching Undersea's entrance the next day.

The guards were a little hesitant to allow me passage. I convinced one of them with gold and the other with talon when his guardmate betrayed him. Of course, neither of them could live after I learned everything I could about breeching Undersea's defenses. Cloaking myself as one of them, I used the conveyances they have for land dwellers to enter their domain.

The Undersea Palace is a marvel of technology and nature. As it stands now, it was redesigned by Tritus himself, who reshaped the original structure grown from deep sea coral using the gifts of his earth and fire-wielding siblings. Because of their collaboration, the palace was able to expand, growing into a metropolis of coral, steel, and glass that houses several hundred of the greatest minds our planet has ever known. A city of scholars it calls to the brilliant minds from every continent who came in droves to study under Tritus during his time as ruler. Those geniuses settled, many mated, and started families beneath the sea, creating the true strength of undersea.

Which is the only requirement I needed to enter was proof of citizenship. A token of trust pulled from the body of the drake whose cloak I stole shortly after my talon pierced his key artery, leaving him bleeding on the beach.

"Welcome home Maester Crane," the automated voice welcomed me as it scanned the eyes of the soldier I held in my hands before my own. Passing through the gate, I discarded them discretely as I entered the last tunnel. From here I wouldn't need any more proof of who I am. The Undersea citizens are so arrogant in their superiority and the loyalty of their well-trained staff, that they have grown soft over time.

As a people, they have forgotten the cunning desperation of struggle.

The palace itself at the heart of the city, is open for citizens to receive the guidance of the Undersea Council every afternoon. With most of the council floating on the surface a day's flight from here, the remaining 3 members along with the Queen and her consort sit atop the high dias.

Standing in the back, I spent the entire afternoon watching her give advice and pass judgment as needed or desired by the citizens. Two things became very clear within those hours I observed. First, she is a fair queen, just in her decisions and swift in her actions--the kind of monarch that makes those who serve them both loyal and secure in the knowledge that their hard work will be honored and rewarded. If I were not already in the service of another, I would apply to be in hers knowing my gifts would be well received and appreciated without bias.

I also learned that there is no way her mate could be the Technician. Prince Orion lacks the natural cunning and subtle subservient arrogance that Eleanora appreciated in her advisor. He is too direct, too fearless, and far too cocky. Nor is he just her stud, there to provide the queen with royal heirs. It is clear that she respects him and is devoted to him alone. Moreover, he is every inch a Majere male--there is no way he'd allow himself to be the cuckold.

No. There is only one clear answer. The Queen herself, Tritus' daughter, controlled that mechanical monstrosity. She is the Technician.

My Queen is wise. Even if she did not understand the truth in her words, Orion is the key to everything. He is not the Technician, but as her faithful mate and lover, she would do anything for him. She might even betray her nation to work for Eleanora in exchange for his safety.

Eleanora expected results within a week. I need to move swiftly or face her wrath. For a creature of air, my Queen is pure fire when her temper is ignited. And the bigger her clutch grows, the faster she is to anger.

Thinking of her growing ripe with our children makes my heart beat faster. I need to get back to her. I need to prove my worth as her mate.

Standing behind the Queen is a small court of maids, daughters of the previous council, learning the trade of their disgraced and deceased parents. My plan grows as I watch their faces and see one amongst the group I might be able to sway. The look on her face, as she turns towards the queen, is one of pure contempt and the elegant angle of her ears and wings show her to have a mixture of air within her Kraken blood. Perhaps she will be swayed by the kinship of our kind to make the right choice for our Queen.

As the council room slowly empties, I make my way forward.

"Milady," I call to the target. The drakaina turns and smiles when she sees I am a young drake with feathered wings, bowing as graciously as any courtier to a member of the highest court. "I believe you may have dropped this?"

Her seduction is easy. I feel no guilt as I take her virtue and use her desperation for affection to lead me to the royal chambers once the guards are asleep. This is all in service to my queen.

Besides, there will be no offspring. I had no choice. She couldn't live after knowing my plans.

Taking the prince was harder. I drugged the queen and collared him before he could wake fully, but even with the collar I placed on his sleeping neck, he was a formidable opponent. Possessed with the fire of a drake defending his mate, and trained to be battle-ready in any circumstance, even trapped in human form he almost bested me.

It's a shame he is my enemy. He'd have made an excellent ally.

"Your Queen is waiting," I announced as I extracted his near lifeless body from the chamber as the Queen of Undersea rested in her unnatural sleep.