Path of the Hive Queen-Chapter 419: Doing Well

Path of the Hive Queen-Chapter 419: Doing Well

The wind howled outside and the rain drummed on the window, creating a steady background noise that drowned out everyone’s heartbeats and breathing. The dark sky occasionally sent lightning flashing past the window, providing mood lighting for the room. It would have been a nice sort of scene to do some proper scheming and plotting in. Regina supposed what she and the few people gathered here in the parlor were doing might technically qualify, but probably not.
She stared down at the she held, then tossed it aside, raised a hand to ruffle her hair — she’d worn it in an updo today and that always left her feeling itchy — and leaned back in her comfy armchair. Then she looked at the person opposite.
“Kiara, when did your sister become a spymaster?”
“Regina, when did your
apprentice
become a spymaster?” Kiara shot back pointedly.
Max chuckled softly. For once, he was lounging carelessly, sprawling across a sofa. Though he was big enough that his feet were peeking over the edge and his blade-arms dragged on the ground. “I think the real question is, when and how did June become an
effective
spymaster?”
They paused for a moment, before Regina and Kiara shrugged almost at the same time. “I did train her as a psychic, and she’s smart,” Regina said.
“So you would agree that she is effective?” Kiara asked. She smiled slightly, and Regina could sense a bit of pride from her. “As terrible as it is that June was spied on by this infiltrator, at least she caught him, and she seems to be doing very well at weeding out any other problems in the army.”
Max nodded. “She’s a bit more ruthless than I’d given her credit for,” he said, sounding like he meant it positively. “There’s probably more to find, but this is a comprehensive story.”
Regina grimaced at the thought. She’d already worked past her initial anger at hearing about that spy. At least it was pretty clear he’d been a spy and not meant as an assassin; not that that made things much better.
Stan had been hired relatively recently, but he’d come with good qualifications and references and quickly gained people’s trust. He’d passed an initial mental check by Edmund, too. Something to consider; she would need to reassess their protocols. Then he had volunteered to accompany June and, since he wasn’t essential in the palace, had been accepted and acted as a gofer and secretary for her since.
Regina hoped he’d left because he’d known he’d be found out sooner or later if he stayed any longer, and not because Stan was confident in his disguise but had other goals.
Going by the interrogation transcripts, he’d been born in Esemen to a Cernlian mother and thus spoke a local dialect well enough to pass. He had only had very minor magical potential, and latent psychic potential, but it was enough for Sazatore and Helen. They’d given Stan crash courses in psychic hiding and information gathering, and had him power-leveled until he could choose a new Class; most of his actual psychic ‘skill’ seemed to have come from picking Class Skills from there.
Regina was quite annoyed about that and that she’d missed it, but in fairness, it would have been hard to know that there were two ‘versions’ of a Class called Recordkeeper, one of them psychic. She was fairly sure she’d seen others with that Class name before, with more typical scribal and secretarial stuff, even if it wasn’t as generic as it sounded. And being level 25 at his age wasn’t too surprising, either.
At least it seemed like Stan hadn’t been much of a danger on the offensive front. His teachers and Ability choices had clearly focused on infiltrating and blending in, not on trying to read or subvert others. That made some sense, Regina supposed; hiding was the most important thing for a mole like that, since using their psychic ability for spying wouldn’t be much use if they were found out immediately. And trained psychics like June would have a much easier time finding someone if they did try to use their power openly. Besides, his position had already made him an effective spy.
“I wonder how many other spies like that there are,” Regina muttered, sighing. “I’ll have to dedicate more time to running scans here in the palace.”
“We should also intensify our more mundane efforts,” Kiara said. “They will cover much more ground than you, even if you include all of your psychics.”
“True. Max, can you get to work on some proposals for updated security measures? Please coordinate with Daine, and whoever else is needed. We can roll out new protocols across the Empire one we’ve done some analysis and have confirmation that they work.”
“Of course, my Queen,” Max responded. “Personally, I think this case is likely to be an outlier. We should absolutely be more on guard, but few other potential moles are likely to have had this much success. And I assume the number of them our enemies could possibly recruit is limited?”
“Considering how much trouble we’ve had finding psychic recruits, I’d say so,” Regina snorted. “And they won’t want to throw them all away, so I doubt they could potentially have more than … I don’t know, a dozen or so?”
They all paused for a moment, considering. Having even ten somewhat-trained psychic infiltrators to contend with was not a wonderful prospect.
“Actually, that may be good for us,” Kiara said. She raised her eyebrows pointedly at seeing their expressions. “Come on, think about it. I wish
I
was a psychic, but we know how rare the talent seems to be. Maybe you can bring some other mages up to a mediocre standard, but not true psychic potential, right? But we don’t send them out half-trained on their own on dangerous missions. We’ve founded a real group, we raise and train up all the psychics that we find. In the long term, we’ll be much better off for it, won’t we?”
Regina leaned back. “Good point, Kiara.”
Kiara smiled. “I aim to please, my Empress.”
They shared a nice moment of understanding, but of course Max had to ruin it. “That’s assuming we survive long enough to make it to the long term, of course.”
Regina sighed, shooting him a look that said ‘you just had to ruin the mood?’. He shrugged and projected innocence.
“Details,” Kiara joked, still smiling slightly. Regina could tell she was trying, and she appreciated it.
She’d invited Kiara partly because she was trying to repair their relationship. It was obvious she had neglected it too much. So far, it seemed to be going well, although there was still a bit of distance between them, which had been growing recently — although in hindsight, that had been the case for a while, and it had started so slowly she’d barely noticed.
Regina had always known her own political goals weren’t a hundred percent identical with Kiara’s, and she had an idea of the political pressures the other woman was under; but she trusted her friend. Of course, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t do well by her on a personal level and generally try to be a good friend.
“So, June is doing well,” Regina began. “I think most of the people she’s arresting aren’t likely to be Esemen stooges, but she’s still cleaning up the Eastern army.”
“That can only help their effectiveness, at least after they’re finished,” Kiara nodded.
“Right. There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you, though. I wanted to make sure we were on the same wavelength regarding Janis.”
Kiara sat up straighter. She took the wineglass she’d previously discarded on a side table, clutching it a little tighter than before. “Go on. Are we finally bringing her back?”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss,” Regina said. “I’ve talked to Janis, using messages, but while she said she wanted to leave the southern base, she also said that she wasn’t going to insist on anything in particular. So …”
“But she’s well, right?” Kiara interrupted. “You said she’s been recovering well.”
Regina took a deep breath. “That’s what the healers say — but it doesn’t mean Janis is fully recovered. Apparently, there are lingering symptoms, even if they’re improving. She’s still occasionally short of breath, there’s some fatigue, possibly issues with regulating her temperature. And it’s worse when it comes to her magic. She has some issues with mana control, and judging by what they’ve seen, her effective mana pool seems to have shrunk. So overall, Janis needs some time and therapy, and it might be quite a while before she’s up to the level she used to be.”
Kiara nodded slowly. “And you’re concerned about bringing her here to the city, I assume?” she asked quietly.
"A little,” Regina admitted. “It’s going to be harder to assure her security, and I’m afraid that it will also increase the pressure she’s under. Everyone will know, and everyone will be watching her, gossiping about any improvements or setbacks … You know, things like that.”
“And it will also hurt people’s morale to see their crown princess visibly hurt, I suppose,” Kiara commented drily.
Regina shot her a sharp look. “Believe it or not, that’s not my first concern here. But yes,” she conceded, “it might have an effect, too.”
“So, we want to move Janis somewhere we can assure her security while not leaving any openings,” Max said briskly. “Having our enemies uncertain about her location is the first step; to that end, maybe we can circulate rumors that she’s coming back to New Anberg. There might be some estates we can consider instead.”
“Hang on a moment,” Kiara said. She started tapping her fingers on her thigh again. “We also want her to have what you would call emotional support. Personally, I want to be there for Janis. I’m not going to let her moulder away in some godsforsaken castle in the middle of nowhere without company.”
“Somewhere we can arrange visits, then,” Max countered calmly. “It can’t be too isolated anyway, we need good response time. And sending a company of Star Guard into the boonies would draw attention.”
Regina sighed. “I could just send her to the Hive base in the center of our original territory. It’s not too far from Forest’s Haunt, and not even that far from New Anberg.”
“It’s hardly close, either,” Kiara said, visibly not too happy about the prospect. “It might be easy for you to visit, Regina, but it’s not as easy for me.”
“You’re not going to literally move the center of your people’s communication network around if you leave the city, Kiara,” Regina countered.
Max flopped over, hand covering his face briefly. “Really? Please don’t get started on that. We can just move Janis there first —
if
she agrees. And once she’s settled down a bit and once she is up to it, she can move closer to the city. Maybe even go on a small tour or something as an excuse. And I will be visiting her, I need to check on this area’s defenses anyway. Mia and Tia probably will as well. We could even bring her aunt if we’re discreet.”
“Let’s not be too hasty with that,” Kiara said quickly. “Ask her first.” She sighed. “Otherwise, you’re right, Max. I apologize if I was too confrontational, Regina.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” Regina assured her quickly.
They were silent for a moment, and she listened to the sound of thunder rolling in from the west. The people still working on construction here in the city were probably cursing.
Yeah, we should probably wait for the weather to clear up a bit first,
she reflected.
On the other hand, it
’s a good time to move some troops around in the Empire’s center.
Regina reached out to the psychic link, sensing the distribution of the Hive’s minds within her range. They had shifted recently, in new deployments that were necessary because of the course of the war. But many drones were still working elsewhere, in their bases and the Empire’s cities. They couldn’t neglect their other projects just because of the war.
At least the economic disruption had so far been manageable. No Imperial fields had been burned, at least. People were still working on their trades. New schools opened, though their progress had slowed down. New hospitals were built, and the Delvers had pulled their weight in helping her government set up new institutions.
“Well,” Kiara spoke up again, “by the way, are you going to send June the reinforcements she asked for?”
Regina pulled at her mandibles. “We’ve shaken loose some additional funding and I plan to send a few more people,” she said. “I’d prefer to keep the psychic students here for now, though. Of the less senior ones, none of them really seems ready to go to war. I’d rather give them that final polish.”
Kiara nodded. “That makes sense. Though I suppose it’s not easy to balance the budget anyway?”
“Finances are tighter than I’d like,” Regina admitted. “We have a lot of balls in the air, and I can’t just inject gold without risking making everything much worse.”
“Understandable,” Kiara muttered. She shook her head. “Anyway. Enough matters of state. I was planning on a quiet dinner tomorrow, would you like to join? I could also invite my mother, and maybe a few friends, and you could invite a few of your drones or your students.”
Regina smiled. “Sounds good. I’ll be there. Max?”
“I’ll probably be traveling then, but you have fun.”
Kiara stood up, stretching, and Regina did the same. “It is getting late,” she noted.
“Yes. I still wanted to get some reading in, so I’ll call it a night, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, same here.”
Regina bade her goodbyes to Kiara, then paused and turned again to look at Max, who looked like he was considering going out into the storm.
“Well, that went well,” he said.
Regina shrugged, mentally poking him a bit. “Don’t stay out too late, and keep the water outside where it belongs.”
“Sure, I will, Mother,” he laughed.
Regina shook her head and left to head back to her personal rooms. To no one’s surprise, Max accompanied her to the door, trading nods with the Star Guard assigned to her detail for the evening on the way. She paused to say goodnight, then retreated, going to the bathroom before heading to the bedroom.
What she hadn’t told anyone so far was that she still felt an uncomfortable tightness in her core occasionally. There was a reason she liked to take hot baths.
I really need to make more time for the nursery,
Regina reflected. She should space the times she did out more regularly, and maybe schedule  fixed times every day.
But she also suspected that any irregularity of when she added to the Hive was only part of the problem. Even if she got more regular and didn’t switch around ‘batch sizes’ so much, it might not make it entirely better. Maybe it was a consequence of keeping the new growth of her Inner Hive so low for some time, before the war. Or it could even be the opposite and her body was finally showing signs of accumulated strain from creating so many drones over the last few years, since she’d hatched — even when she’d clearly still been growing or developing (not that she wasn’t still young) … Well, there was no Hivekind doctor around, except for her. It wasn’t really a problem yet, and she would just do her best.
Regina stood under the shower, letting the hot water rain down on her. She reached out with her mind, seeking the embrace of the psychic link to distract her.
There was a new Evolved Swarm Drone she should greet. And the bustle, connection and quiet conversation of her drones was always reassuring.

Chapter 419: Doing Well