Aloud, she said only, “You’re the first Queen. The original, from the Wax Forest.”
The vord Queen turned to give her an oblique look. Then she said, “Yes. Do you know why I am here?”
“To destroy us,” Isana said.
The vord Queen smiled. It was not a human expression. There was nothing pleasant in it, no emotion associated with it—only a movement of muscles, something performed in imitation rather than truly understood. “I have questions. You will answer them.”
Isana returned her smile with as blank and calm an expression as she could find. “I fail to see why I should do so.”
“If you do not,” the vord Queen said, “I will cause you pain.”
Isana lifted her chin. She found herself smiling, very slightly. “It would not be the first time I have felt pain.”
“No,” the Queen said. “It would not.”
Then she turned, took two long strides, seized Araris by the front of his mail coat, and lifted him into the air. With a motion of perfectly unfiltered speed and violence, she spun and slammed his back against the croach-covered wall. Isana’s heart caught in her throat, and she waited for the Queen to strike him, or rake him with her gleaming, green-black nails.
But instead, the vord Queen simply leaned into the unconscious man.
Araris’s shoulders slowly began to sink into the glowing croach.
Isana’s throat tightened. She had read reports, spoken to holders who had seen their family or loved ones trapped beneath the croach in a similar fashion. Those so entombed did not die. They simply lay passively, as if they had drifted into a light sleep in a warm bath. And, as they drowsed, the croach slowly, painlessly ate them down to bones.
“No,” Isana said, shifting forward into a crouch, lifting one hand out. “Araris!”
“I will ask questions,” the vord Queen said slowly, as if chewing the words to test them for flavor, while Araris sank into the gelatinous substance. She released him after a few moments, though he continued to be drawn slowly into it, until only his lips and nose remained free of the croach. She turned, and her alien eyes glittered with something that Isana could sense as a kind of raw, uncaring fury. “You will speak with me. Or I will cause him pain you cannot imagine. I will take him away from you, little by little. I will feed his flesh to my children before your eyes.”
Isana stared at the vord Queen and shuddered, before lowering her eyes.
“You are a momentary curiosity,” the vord Queen continued. “I have other concerns. But understand that your fate is mine to decide. I will destroy you. Or I will allow you to live out your days in peace with those other Alerans who have already seen reason. Live it with your intended mate—or without him. It means little to me.”
Isana was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “If what you say is true, young lady, then I cannot help but wonder why you are so angry.”
She saw the vord Queen move—a blur of motion that she did not register in time to allow her to so much as flinch before the blow fell across her face. Isana fell back to the floor, fire burning her forehead, and wet, hot blood flowed down over her face, into one eye, half-blinding her. She did not cry out—at first because she was simply too startled to respond to the sheer speed of the assault, then because she forced herself to remain silent, to show no sign of pain or weakness before the alien being before her. She ground her teeth as fire spread over her forehead and face, and she made no sound.
“I will ask the questions,” the vord Queen said. “Not you. As long as you answer them, your mate will remain whole. If you refuse, he will suffer. It is that simple.”
She turned away from Isana, and a radiant green glow filled the chamber. Isana hunched her body uselessly against the agony as she lifted her hand to her forehead. A single cut perhaps four inches long ran along her brow, in an almost precisely straight line. The cut was open nearly all the way to her skull and bled freely.
Isana drew several deep breaths, focusing her effort through the pain, and called upon Rill. The work was harder, much harder than it would have been with even a modest basin of water, but she was able to watercraft the wound closed. A few moments later, she was able to reduce the pain somewhat, and between that and the cessation of bleeding, she felt dizzy, mildly euphoric, her thoughts clogged into muddled clumps. She must have looked a horror, half her face a sheet of red. Her dress was ruined. There was no reason not to use the sleeve to try to wipe some of the blood away, though her skin was tender, and she thought she probably succeeded in nothing but smearing it around a little more.
Isana swallowed. Her throat burned with thirst. She had to focus, to find a way to survive, for Araris to survive. But what could she do, here, with this creature facing her?
She looked up to find the cavern transformed.
Green light swirled and danced through the croach covering the cavern’s ceiling. Bright pinpoints of light, many of them, stood in slowly swaying ranks. Other lights darted and flowed. Others pulsed at varying rates of speed. Waves of color, subtle variations of shades, washed across the ceiling, while the vord Queen stared up at it, utterly motionless, her alien eyes reflecting pinpoints of green like black jewels.
Isana felt slightly nauseated by the seething, organic motion of the luminous display, but was struck by the impression that there was something about it, a kind of link between the luminosity and the vord Queen that she could not fathom.
Perhaps, she thought, her eyes simply were not complex enough to see what the vord Queen saw.
“The attack progresses well,” the vord Queen said, her tone distracted. “Gaius Attis, if that is what he is to be called now, is a conventional commander. An able one, but he shows me nothing more than I have seen already.”
“He’s killing your forces, then,” Isana said quietly.
The vord Queen smiled. “Yes. He has increased the efficiency of the Legions remarkably. The soldiers who escaped me last year are blooded now. He spends their lives well.” The vord Queen watched for a moment more before asking, calmly, “Would you give your life for him?”
Isana’s stomach twisted as she thought of Aquitaine wearing the First Lord’s crown. She remembered the friends of the entirety of her adult life she had buried because of his machinations.
“If necessary,” she said.
The vord Queen looked at her, and said, “Why?”
“Our people need him,” Isana said.
The vord Queen’s head tilted slowly to one side. Then she said, “You would not do it for his sake.”
“I…” Isana shook her head. “I don’t think so. No.”
“But you would do it for them. For those who need him.”
“Yes.”
“But you would be dead. How would that serve the attainment of your goals?”
“There are things more important than my goals,” Isana said.
“Such as the survival of your people.”
“Yes.”
“And that of your son.”
Isana swallowed. She said, “Yes.”
The vord Queen considered that for a time. Then she returned her eyes to the ceiling, and said, “You answered me clearly and promptly. As a reward, you may go to your male. Assure yourself of his health. See that I have not yet taken his life. If you attempt to escape or attack me, I will prevent you. And tear off his lips as punishment. Do you understand?”
Isana ground her teeth, staring at the Queen. Then she rose and walked to Araris. “I understand.”
The Queen’s glittering eyes flicked to her once more, then turned back to the ceiling. “Excellent,” she said. “I am glad that we have begun learning to speak to each other. Grandmother.”