“Hello, Leveria.” Yavara said. I could still see my reflection in the mirror, and though I’d just peed myself a little, my face remained remarkably impassive. I tucked my chin to hide the fact that I had just swallowed bile, and smiled to hide the way my jaw was clenching.
“Field Marshal Shordian, you look different.” I said casually, “Whoever barbers your hair made you look like a stupid cunt today.”
Yavara smiled. “Not even an errant blink. Bravo, Leveria.”
“Should I have reacted differently?”
“Considering that I routed your army ten days ago, and am now holding your field marshal’s personal mirror, I’d hoped for more of a reaction. How do you keep such composure? Even when I sabotaged your wedding dress, I didn’t get so much as a gasp.”
“So that was you after all.” I inclined my head, “Where is the good Lord Peter Shordian? If you killed my uncle-in-law, Eric will be very upset.”
“Huh. You know, it didn’t even occur to me that he’s my uncle by marriage.”
“The only relative you have of that age since Father is dead.” I said coolly.
Yavara blinked, trying admirably to keep her face impassive. “Should I be sorry for your loss?” She finally asked.
“He was your father too.”
“But he wasn’t my lover.” She narrowed her eyes at me, “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“He died doing what he loved. Now, where is Shordian?”
“Up there, no doubt watching me from his spyglass.” Yavara said, and angled the mirror over her shoulder. The battlements along the rift were still there, and Mid Fort was still standing. I let out a long slow breath through my nostrils, and felt some of the terror leave me.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” I asked.
“Oh, I just wanted to catch up with my dearest sister, see how you’ve been doing.” She grinned, sitting on the grass, “It must be very stressful to be on the losing end of a war you started.”
I snorted, and began drawing patterns on the edge of the glass.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“Disconnecting your mirror from the relay.”
“What?!”
“Did I stutter?” I smirked at her, “We have nothing to discuss.”
“We have nothing to discuss?!”
“Unless you’ve called to announce your unconditional surrender, the forfeiture of your lands, and to turn yourself in to face Highland justice.”
“I beat you, Leveria!” She snarled, “I’ve driven your army back to its border! I’m on the very footstep of your kingdom with the largest horde on Tenvalia! With just one word I could end you, and you think we have nothing to discuss?!”
“It sounds like you just want to gloat. Well, go on, little sister, now’s your moment.”
Her jaw twitched, the words locked in her mouth.
I smiled with faux sympathy. “This didn’t go quite as planned, did it? I’m sure you had a thousand lines carefully practiced in the mirror, but I just don’t care. It was nice talking to you. Now, goodbye.”
“Where’s Elena?”
My finger hovered over the final sigil. “Elena is many places. Some of her is in the furnace of Castle Thorum. Some of her is on the floor of the dog kennels. Some of her is probably in the Bentius Bay by now, but the rest of her is in the dungeon.” I sneered, “There will be a bit less of her there after tonight. I could send you some of her if you want.”
Yavara smiled back. “You’re lying, Leveria. Adrianna told me about the mirror call.”
“Adrianna saw Elena from the neck up. I was hoping you’d be there so that I could show you what she looked like from the neck down.”
“I confirmed the information with my Lowland ambassador. Elena is operating within your court. You used her to legitimize your invasion.”
“And now I’m disposing of her.”
“Well then, let me see her. Surely you’d take great pleasure in causing me such pain.”
I didn’t answer her. There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to wheel the mirror into the next room and show Yavara what I’d done to her lover. But Elena would not forgive me for it, and in the end, I knew her love for Yavara was still greater than her love for me. That knowledge dealt me a very unique kind of pain, and I wished I could delude myself with my heart, but my rational mind was always at the forefront of my being. I was terrified of Elena seeing Yavara once again, but it would happen inevitably. My only chance at controlling the situation was to facilitate the reunion myself.
I stood up from the chair and walked away.
“Leveria!” Yavara snapped.
I looked over my shoulder at her, and said, “I will inform the ambassador that you are waiting for her.”
YAVARA
I waited for agonizing minutes. When ten minutes passed, I wondered if Leveria had left her mirror on just to torment me. When twenty minutes passed, I was certain of it. It was easy in that time span to fill my mind with terrible thoughts. Maybe Adrianna had been lying? Maybe Leveria had been telling me the truth, and what would come from that door at the back of the room would be a disfigured horror of torture. Would it break me to see that? Would the combination of Leveria’s smug smile and the monstrosity she’d made of Elena drive me to madness? What if she—the door opened. A figure wearing a red satin dress stood in the threshold, her platinum hair tied in a bun. I wondered for a moment if Leveria had simply changed her outfit, for I recognized the dress as one of hers. Then the figure stepped from the shadows, and her flesh did not lighten in the candlelight; it was bronze and rich, and canvased a face I’d loved all my life.
It was like I was in the room with her. We stared at each other from across it, not moving for an eternal moment. She took a tentative step forward, then another, then another. She eased herself slowly into the chair. She wore ruby lipstick, blush, and dark liner around her eyes. I’d never seen her in makeup before, and she was so beautiful that she almost didn’t seem real. She wore the dress like she’d been born in it, and it hugged her curves generously, the satin fabric moving like liquid across her toned shoulders.
“Yavara?” She asked. I never thought I’d hear that voice again. In my nightmares it was shrieking in the throes of agony, and somehow that horrific fabrication seemed more real than the soft query she’d uttered. Just a question after all this time, like she’d caught me daydreaming, and everything that had transpired since that fateful day had been but the transient machinations of my mind.
“Elena?” I asked back.
She reached out, and touched the mirror. “You’ve put on a few pounds.”
“I uh… I guess I haven’t had the best diet. Orcs don’t really eat vegetables. Not a lot of exercise either. When you can fly everywhere, walking seems kind of pointless, so my only workouts have been sex, and you know… I go to bed earlier than usual these days. I’ve uh… I’ve also been drinking a lot. Not recently, I quit, but I… I was drinking… quite a lot. They say stress leads to weight gain, but you know… I’ve been trying to, uh, keep everything chill. So… uh… yeah… Wait, did you just call me fat?”
She bit her lip. “Not fat, just… puffy.”
“Puffy.”
“Like someone stuck an air-hose up your ass and gave it a few pumps.”
I broke into a smile, and that smile turned into a laugh, and that laugh turned into a sob. Before I knew it, I was weeping, and so was she. The tension melted away from us, and the month of hell I’d gone through seemed to seep from me. I didn’t know how long we laughed and cried, but my voice was horse by the end of it.
“Oh…” I groaned, wiping a tear away, “you’re still such a cheeky bitch.”
“My mouth has gotten me into some trouble over here.” She grinned impishly.
“When Prince Matthew told me—”
“Prince Matthew? As in Prince Matthew Dreus?!”
“The very same. He’s the ambassador to Alkandra, and—”
“You have an ambassador from the Lowlands?”
“Well, we had to put someone in that massive embassy Alexa Jenania built, plus the—”
“You have an embassy?!” Elena exclaimed, “And you said Sergeant Alexa Jenania built it?!”
“Ok, pause.” I laughed, “We obviously have some catching up to do.”
The following two hours were spent taking turns recounting our stories. I told Elena how I’d recruited the nymphs to take Castle Thorum, and how Zander had freed Arbor from Elena’s enslavement. Elena asked about her slaves, and I had a runner fetch them for me. Elena recounted how Prestira had been triggered by Adarian’s whistle, and we both wept over the tragedy that followed. I sat with a clenched jaw as she told me about how Leveria had tortured her in the catacombs, then ceased the torment because she needed to use Elena as a diplomatic tool. I told her about how I’d captured Adarian and changed him at the ceremony of the Froktora, and she stopped me.
“You’re skipping a part, Yavara.” She said, her face solemn.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t just capture Adarian. His mirror was on.”
My face fell. “You saw that?”
She nodded.
My heart slowly sank into my chest. “I really wish you hadn’t.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“There’s nothing I can say. I knew what I was doing. I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since, but I won’t lie to you, I’ve done terrible things along the way. I’ll do more terrible things.”
“Why?”
A tear rolled down my wet cheek. “Sometimes I have to. Sometimes all the choices I have are all terrible. Sometimes I just make the wrong choice because it feels better, but I’m trying to be the queen you thought I could be.” I brought April onto my lap, and showed Elena the kitsune fox, “I’m trying to make it better, but it was really hard without you.”
Elena chewed on her lip, then took two consecutive breaths, and let them both out as she said, “I’m fucking your sister.”
I blinked. “What?”
“It’s just sex, it doesn’t mean anything, but… it’s happening.”
I raised my finger, then slowly pointed it at her. “Did you just try to guilt me into preemptively forgiving you for cheating on me?”
Elena shrugged guiltily. “You did rape and torture someone.”
“Because of you!”
“Oh, so it’s my fault?”
“Don’t try to spin this, Ambassador!”
Elena gave me a frank frown. “How many men did you fuck since we last saw each other? Should you give me the actual number, or would it be easier just go by percentages at this point?”
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