The Queen's Absence

The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished.

That was not the strangest part of the day. One of the Queen's handmaidens was a daughter of the sea-god, after all, and water reacted to her emotions. Pelegia - all of the Royal handmaidens, really - got twitchy when the Queen was endangered.

It could have been far worse. Pelagia's lover, daughter of the Smith-God, was undoubtedly equally furious, but no-one had reported fires burning out of control. Ghosts - unquiet spirits of the departed - roamed the marketplace, raised from their rest by Zoe, daughter of the god of Death. Skeletons had risen, too, but quickly fallen back to lifeless bone. Zoe's wife, Althea, was the daughter of the god of Healing, Music and Truth, but if she'd had any part in raising the dead, at least it wasn't a true ressurection.

The last thing the kingdom needed, on top of a missing queen and an usurper on her throne, was a Zombie Apocalypse.

Rumours began to spread, circulating out from the capitol.

There had been an attempt to kill the Queen. Not from the usual assassins, which meant little more than a day of street theatre as the Queen's Blade hand-delivered the would-be assassins back to their masters... but from mercenaries, intent on killing the entire royal bloodline.

The King-Consort was dead, murdered while protecting the Queen and the Heir.

The Queen was dead, and her head bodyguard with her.

The Queen and her bodyguard had fled, leading the rest of the Queen's handmaidens to flee elsewhere.

The fleeing Queen had been a decoy, the Queen's sister and her lover risking their lives to protect the true Queen and Heir, who were fomenting a rebellion to re-take the throne.

Kyrios, General of the Army, had much preferred his service under the Queen's father, the Conqueror of the World, to that of the Peacemaker Queen. It hadn't been so bad when she was still a princess, her quiet presence encouraging the War Room to actually listen to each other. Her insistance on consolidating the territory they had instead of expanding further had been less appreciated, but deploying troops for civil works instead of wars was still better than answering to the idiot who currently occupied the throne.

He called together the rest of the operational staff. They needed to work out what to do before they recieved any official orders. "I won't pretend that this isn't the closest our Queen has come to handing us a shit-show to deal with, or that we aren't dancing the edge of Treason by even having this conversation, but you will face no repercussions from me for your opinions."

His lover scoffed, earning a side eye from Kyrios's wife, who was serving refreshments. "As opposed to her father, who asked the impossible every other week? As some of you may know, I have a grand-niece among her handmaidens, who has reached out to say that she and the Queen are well."

For all of Aleksandros's finer qualities, he tended to forget that his tendency to achieve the impossible was not a universal trait. Another General nodded. "One of my daughters married one of the Queen's foreign suitors. They have also received word that she lives, and Arete wants to know what the Dorion Army has planned before her husband is asked to commit to anything, in regards to their alliance, which is explicitly with Queen Alexandra, not the Usurper."

There was a general murmur of relief, which Kyrios happened to agree with. The concern that any uprising would be met with the external might of one of the largest Peace and Mutual Defence Treaties in history had been a considerable one. "Any word on the Queen's sister, Thalia, and her lover, Agathe?"

Kyrios had helped raise both little girls from the day their divine mothers delivered them to their rather startled father. He would disagree with them as readily as he had Aleksandros, but if they were dead, the parties responsible would pay... His lover shook his head. "Nothing definitive. No word that they're alive, but no confirmation of their death, either. Anthea only said that Her Majesty wants the offenders' heads on a pike."

Queen Alexandra knew how dangerous blank statements could be in the ears of bored soldiers, and if she didn't know that her handmaidens talked to their families, then she'd forgotten everything Kyrios had ever taught her about intelligence. That was unlikely, given how deftly she's handled her disappointed suitors, and how the recently-married handmaidens had suddenly become far more diplomatic in their letters home. Another General, this one in charge of Army Intellignece, indicated for attention. Kyrios nodded at him. "Go ahead."

The man nodded gratitude. "There have been sightings of someone who could be the Queen, from all over. It's kept the Usurper's forces running all over the place, when I faithfully report them as demanded. Lady Thalia is too sensible to lead them straight back to her Royal sister."

Kyrios could worry about reassuring his Queen when there was solid proof of her sister's survival. "Keep an eye on the situation. So, until the Queen reaches out to us-"

Another General cut him off. "Will she? What can she offer her allies in exchange for support, without breaking off bits of the Empire? We should stage our own coup and get rid of the Usurper while we can."

Queen Alexandra had never been one to go down without a fight, even when she was four years old and trying to convince the Queen of the Gods (and Goddess of Marriage and Aleksandros's divine step-mother) that her father had done nothing wrong via sacrificing her favourite jewelry to the goddess. Aleksandros hadn't been the only one to nearly suffer a heart-attack that day... "Queen Alexandra is young enough to re-marry, and she's got the True Heir to the throne, who is old enough to start considering betrothal negotiations."

His lover agreed. "Besides, she's the Conqueror's Heiress. She didn't survive this long without having her father's twisty way of thinking, and a far better communication style."

Kyrios's wife chimed in, ignoring the scorching look from his lover. "As in, actually telling you why she wants something, rather than ordering a crack squad to paraglide down a mountain into a fortress?"

Kyrios had been one of the aforementioned paragliders. His wife had been displeased when he returned having lost three toes to frostbite. "Yes, that. She'll need the army even if she does call in her allies. Until she contacts us, we'll follow orders as inefficiently as possible. I'm sure you all know the sort of thing."

When the Queen called them from her exile, they would be ready...