The smile on the Orcish face did not fade, but deepened a few more millimeters, stopping short of becoming a grin.
“People call me many names. But the moniker I find most fitting is simply ‘queen’. After all, I used to rule these lands.”
Valir shook his head. “There are no kings and queens in Wardenreach. And certainly no Orcish ones.” He hesitated shortly before adding, “Your Highness.” When he noticed Kraghtol looking at him quizzically, he whispered: “Better safe than sorry.”
The queen’s voice was friendly and patient when she answered. “As you have no doubt seen, I have been imprisoned here. The world might have forgotten me after the revolution, but an unseen queen without land and subjects is still a queen.”
“The revolution?” asked Dagna, and Kraghtol’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t mean the unification, do you? How… howoldare you?!”
The queen nodded, and her dress spit a reflection of countless colors into the room. “Yes, the unification. That was when the usurpers locked me in here.”
“But that was 370 years ago, Your Highness,” Valir exclaimed. “There is no food or water in here, and not even dwarves live that long. How are you still alive?”
The queen’s intense gaze seemed to pierce Kraghtol now, as if looking into his soul. “Perhaps you want to answer that in my stead, Kraghtol?”
He had an answer ready, and the queen’s reaction told him he had been right. “Alchemy. The real kind, not what we learned in school. Perhaps she brewed a potion sustaining her body with food and water. And she found a formula to stop aging. Maybe even made herself immortal. Are these things… possible? Can you really do that? Can you tell us how?” His voice had taken on more and more awe as he went on. This was the alchemy he had dreamed of as a child, not brewing the same three uninspiring potion recipes for the rest of his life.
“I can see your eagerness, young Kraghtol. And while I cannot teach you every secret of alchemy long forgotten since centuries past in just a few minutes, I can grant you a boon, a humble thank you for what you have done for me. It will serve as a starting point on your way to alchemical greatness. Step forward.”
The queen sounded sincere, and Kraghtol was already about to do so when he felt Dagna’s hand on his arm.
“Don’t!” she said, not being quiet. “She’s lying. Or at least not telling the truth.”
The queen cocked her head, and her voice was less friendly. “What do you mean, dwarf?”
“The unification,” Dagna said with a firm voice. “Something bothered me, and I have figured out what it is. If I’m not mistaken, the unification wasn’t called that, ‘the unification’, until a few decades later, when the guilds had finished negotiating between the three peoples of Wardenreach. If you had truly been imprisoned since then, you couldn’t have known the name of the event, but you immediately agreed when Kragh suggested it. Which means…” she drew breath, and Kraghtol realized she had said all this in one breath until now. “… either youdidn’tknow it was called the unification and just jumped onto the first thing anyone came up with or youknew, which means you can’t have been here for that long. In any case, you have not been honest.”
The smile returned to the queen’s face, and it conveyed true amusement. “Dagna was your name, wasn’t it? I am impressed with your sharp mind.”
“So you admit it?” the dwarf asked.
“No, keep thinking. I was right here in this very room for the last 370 years. And yet, I knew of the unification. I even knew Kraghtol’s name, although you watched him open the door for the first time. How is that possible?”
Dagna furrowed her brow. “It’s not. This place is in the middle of a deadly swamp, and the door was sealed. You had no way of collecting outside information.”
“Unless…” the queen encouraged, her voice gentle and patient, and Dagna picked up from there.
“Unless you had someone on the outside telling you all this. You could have talked through the walls. But who? Only Kragh could find this place, not to mention avoid these… demons.”
Now, the queen laughed, a short and friendly laugh with the clarity of a bell. “Isn’t it obvious? My servant, of course.”
“Your servant?” asked Valir.
“Yes, the very servant that guided you here. Where is he?” She looked around as if noticing for the first time that someone was missing, and a streak of annoyance crossed her face.
“Where is who? There was nobody guiding us; believe me, I’d have loved that,” the noble replied, but Kraghtol had a growing suspicion.
“Wyrdroot!” exclaimed the queen, loud enough to fill the hall. Her voice didn’t break.
“Yes, yes, I’m here, am I not?” muttered a voice, and Kraghtol didn’t need to turn around and see the dark silhouette of a gnarly figure approaching against the light of the entrance gate to know who it was.
“You?!” Kraghtol asked. “You’re the queen’s servant?!”
The Orcish queen ignored Kraghtol’s question. “Where have you been? You were supposed to escort Kraghtol through the swamp and keep him from all harm.” Her voice sounded harsh and annoyed suddenly, a stark contrast to the friendliness before.
The servant addressed as Wyrdroot shrugged, which looked painful, as if his joints were displaced. “It has not been my fault, it has not. The alchemist told me not to come, so I had to sneak behind. And behind these three, there were the red-clad ones who wanted to kill them, so I had to fall behind even more, did I not?”
The queen stared at the old man. “I specifically told you to guide him through the swamp. And now I hear they were not only left alone but also followed by enemies?”
