Queen Yavara Ch. 36

Elena took two long breaths, then let them out through her nose. "If you won't grant me any powers, I can't operate here."

"I thought we were enemies? Why should I help you at all?" I smirked at her.

"Because I can end this war peacefully!" She snapped, and took another deep breath, "Yavara, at least get me the funds to secure Lord Huntiata. He is key to all of this. If I have him, I have the largest paramilitary force in Bentius."

"And you'll use it to supplant Leveria. Excellent."

She screwed up her lips. "No, I just want to keep it out of Leveria or Ternias's hands."

I scoffed. "Then the answer is 'no.' Elena, the path to victory is clear for you; why don't you take it?"

"Huntiata would never use the city watch to help you; he hates Alkandra." Elena said, scowling, "And I would never do that either; I love my country." She narrowed her eyes, "I used to think you did too." And she palmed the screen before I could reply.

"That judgmental cunt." I muttered.

LEVERIA

Elena was visibly flustered when she left my office. I grinned at her. "Lover's quarrel?"

"You Tiadoa bitches are the most stubborn people on the planet."

"That's because we know it's only a matter of time before we get what we want."

"Spoiled princesses." She grumbled.

"Guilty." I snickered, flicking the ash casually from my cigarette. "What did Lady Droughtius want?"

Elena froze for a moment, then gave me a dark look. "Spying on me?"

"Of course."

She sat down across from me, and ran her hands through her hair. "Well, it doesn't matter now. What she wants, I can't give."

"Lying always works for me."

"Until you get called on it, and then your reputation is destroyed."

"You simply kill the person you lied to before the lie comes to light." I smiled around my cigarette, "Sofia Droughtius is hardly a major noble anyway. I doubt there would be much uproar if she were to be the victim of a tragic equestrian accident."

"Don't you ever get sick of being an evil bitch?"

"Not even a little." I pushed out my cigarette, "Wanna fuck?"

Thirty minutes later, I was panting atop Elena, our bodies hot and slick with sweat. We kissed tenderly, enjoying the flavor of the other as her hard cock squelched within my cum-filled pussy. Hot rivulets of her nectar spilled from my ruined slit and ran down my taint to pool against my gaping anus.

As I watched her get dressed, I was nearly overwhelmed with the need to ask her to stay, but I knew she wouldn't, and it hurt more than I thought possible.

"I love you." I said.

She looked over her shoulder at me, and beamed so brightly that it seemed to light up the room. "Are you trying to get me back in bed?"

"I just want to hear you say it."

"I love you, Leveria." She said, then kissed me goodbye, and closed the door behind her. My smile stayed glued on my face for a moment, then faded away. A unique silence fell over the room, the kind of silence that occurs when joy has walked out the door, and leaves only you. I had not realized how alone I was until Elena started living in her mother's estate. I had not known loneliness all my life, even when I was by myself for days on end. Now it felt like weeks were being stretched into years, and I counted time not by the minutes or hours, but by the precious moments I was with her. Then she would leave me, and the light dimmed, and a shadow would fall over my mind as I faced the cold and bleak realities of the world.

What was the path to victory? How could I save my country? "Peace," Elena would say naively, but she couldn't see that there was no such thing. That even if temporary peace was achieved, it would result in a long defeat. It seemed so simple to her because she was half Alkandran and half Highlander, but the line that had been blurred within her was stark and uncrossable for the rest of us. This was the Highlands only chance. If we gave up now, we were dooming ourselves. It would take decades, maybe centuries for the final nail to be struck, but it would be inevitable. And me? If I sued for peace, and admitted defeat in a war I had started, I would be voted out the next day, then hung in the square the day after. That was, if they didn't hand me over to Yavara to placate her. The very idea was enough to keep me up all night.

ZANDER

I cleaned the old crown that adorned the skull on my staff. Once Alkandi was nice and pretty again, I carefully dried out her eye-sockets and brushed her teeth. This far south along the rift, the tundra gave way to short trees, the perimeter markers of the Great Forest.

"You called for me?" Gorlok growled.

"I did." I said idly, not looking up from my chore.

"Speak, wizard."

I looked up at him then. "You've proven yourself to be an extremely effective battle commander, Gorlok."

"You mean I'm just hard to kill."

"Being alive is a prerequisite to leadership."

"Martyrs would say differently."

"Martyrs aren't leaders, they're symbols. This army has enough symbols, but a shortage of capable commanders."

"You killed all the capable commanders." He snarled.

"I suppose we did." I chuckled, folding away the towel. Gorlok had fresh wounds all over his body. He'd been scarred before, but now he was disfigured nearly to the point of mutilation. Orcs always thought they were invincible up until their death, but Gorlok was about the toughest sonofabitch I'd ever met. "I won't ask you to go up on the wall anymore." I said.

"Because you're going to kill me right here."

I smiled at him. "Gorlok, if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. I sent you up on the wall so much because you and your warg-riders are uniquely brutal, and I want the Highlanders to know horror." I stepped out of the stream, and onto the grass, "I'd like to speak to you in confidence now."

"Who would believe what I say anyway? I'm a nameless, disgraced general."

"Indeed." I said, and stopped before him, staring up at that terrible face. "The queen is not going to invade the Highlands. Your raids aren't to test the rift for weaknesses; they're to break the enemy's will, as well as your own."

"Our own?"

"If orcs want to fight, there's not much that can be done to stop them. Like letting an unruly child act out until he realizes his foolishness, the queen has decided to give her army an outlet for bloodshed."

The revelation didn't surprise him. He just grinned, and snorted. "Some of us will never be satisfied, wizard. If the queen wants this war to last forever, then I will not complain."

"She wants the Highlands to capitulate, but they are taking their time. I want you to expedite the process." I looked to the south, "There are no more rangers to guard the banks of the Knife River. You and a small company of warg-riders could cross it at night."

"And once I'm in the Highlands, what do I do?"

"Whatever you want."

He narrowed his black eyes. "The queen sanctioned this?"

"You're officially going rogue, Gorlok. The queen would never sanction this. If you come back with a beating heart, you will be tried and executed as a traitor."

He thought about it for a moment, then his scarred face opened into a grotesque grin. "Alright then. I'll tell the boys it's time to have some fun."