I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 499: Night of Talking part three

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Now, she walked between two lines of soldiers. They watched her with the wary hostility men reserved for things that did not fit their training. They were used to enemies charging, envoys sweating, and servants bowing. They were not used to a woman in a plain cloak, without any aura... strolling through their camp with a royal token; as if she were looking for a bakery in the streets.

Her status profile, if they bothered to read it, would tell them she was unranked.

Their instincts told them to keep hands on spears, dagger, other weapons and their mouths were shut.

"Where are you leading me?" She asked the young officer walking just ahead of her.

"To General Vorak camp," he said. "He asked to see you."

"Asked," she repeated, amused. "That is one word for it. You people dragged me out of a perfectly good perimeter and it looked like you threatened to poke me if I did not cooperate. How amusing!!!"

"You walked into an army camp at night," he said, a little faintly. "Who knows if your token is real or not? Even if it’s real it could be a stolen property. We need to verify it. What did you expect?"

"A welcome mat," she said. "Perhaps some tea."

He did not have an answer for that.

As they approached the command pavilion, the air changed. Authority had its own taste. Vorak’s was not like Kai’s. Kai’s felt like a wall who had only recently realized he could walk. Vorak’s felt like a ledger with legs. Steady. Heavy. Very aware of columns and entries.

She pushed back her hood as the officer held the flap aside. She had no aura. Even if someone saw her previously from far away they couldn’t identify her. She was someone who always hid her face from others. Except for some high class novelty, nobody saw her face in the scarlet ant kingdom. People used to recognise her by her aura. But now... that is gone.

The general inside was exactly where she expected him to be. Not sitting. Standing over a map that showed the mountain like a patient on a slab. He was broader than Kai, with plates the deep red of baked clay and a set of scars along his left forearm that suggested someone had once tried very hard to take that arm off and failed.

The old woman in the corner watched her with eyes that were too bright to belong to someone who looked that frail.

"Ikea," the general said, testing the familiar name on his tongue. Yet it was beyond his imagination to know her true identity. Even in his dreams he couldn’t imagine that.. the person with the same name he knows is standing in front of him without any aura.

She smiled. Not the coy one. The sharp one.

"You are very well informed for a man whose wards I just told to heel," she said. "Do all your scouts run with their tongues out."

The officer who had led her in flinched. Vorak did not.

"Names are cheap," Vorak said. "Information is what costs. You are... aura less and unranked. And yet you have just told my wards to sit as if they were misbehaving dogs. That is expensive behavior."

"Only if you pay for it," she said. "You could also take it as a free demonstration of your security being inadequate."

The old woman made a small sound like a smothered laugh.

Vorak studied Ikea for a long moment.

"You are not from the mountain," he said at last. "You came from the forest side. The men on watch say the wild itself shifted around you."

"It likes me," she said. "I am good with things that bite."

"I have noticed," he said dryly. "You are not part of the Scarlet kingdom... not amongst royals. I know everyone. I never saw you or heard about anyone with no aura in the castle. You used a command phrase on the wards, but your sigil it’s real. This is very confusing."

He tilted his head.

"Who are you, exactly," he asked.

Ikea considered telling him.

It would be the easiest way. Names and titles had weight in this kingdom. Hers could crush anything in the surrounding areas. She could throw it on the ground between them and watch the entire camp recalibrate around it.

It was tempting.

"It was also," she decided, "not yet time."

"For tonight," she said, "I am someone who walked through a desert because the Scarlet Kingdom picked the wrong ant hill to kick. That is the only part of my identity you need to care about."

Vorak’s fingers tapped once on the table.

"And what do you want," he asked.

She stepped closer to the map.

Up close, she could see the lines he had drawn. The teeth in the ground. The planned rotations. The way he had marked Kai’s ramp with small notations in neat script. Efficient. Careful.

"Stop," she said.

The old woman’s chalk stilled again.

"Stop?!!!??" Vorak repeated.

"The war," Ikea said. "This little one, at least. I am not here to fix the kingdom’s habit of chewing on its own tail. I am here because someone asked me, in a very indirect, very annoying way, not to involve myself. As if I am very bad at doing what I am capable of."

Vorak’s eyes narrowed.

"You are a friend of the Lord on the hill," he said. "Are you talking about the white hair?"

"Something like that," she said. "We have... shared experiences. I met him once."

The old woman coughed quietly and looked down at her slate as if she had just decided a particular crack in it was fascinating.

"You are aware," Vorak said slowly, "that I am not here on my own whim. I carry a commission. There are orders. There is politics. There is a noble whose patience with that man’s continued existence is limited."

"I am aware that the Scarlet court is a nest of knives," Ikea said. "Some of which you are holding. Some of which you are not. I am also aware that if you continue this war as planned, you will lose more men than your ledger can justify and you may still fail to take that mountain. Kai is... inconvenient that way."

"You have seen him fight?" Vorak said.

"No, But... I have seen him do other things that required similar stamina," she said blandly. "Yes. He is very hard to stop once he has decided to throw himself at a problem. I am one hundred percent sure about that."

The old woman made an undignified noise that might have been a choked cough or might have been laughter strangled halfway.

Vorak’s mouth twitched, then flattened again.

"Assume I listen," he said. "Assume I agree that this war, as it stands, is... mispriced. What do you propose I tell my employers... That an unknown rankless woman walked into my camp with a royal token and suggested we all go home because she is friends with the target of our banners."

"I propose you tell them that continuing will incur costs beyond what they have calculated," Ikea said. "Including attention from places they do not wish to wake."

Vorak’s gaze sharpened.

"Are you threatening the Scarlet Kingdom," he asked.

She met his eyes without flinching.

"I am reminding it that it is not the only thing in this world with teeth," she said. "And that some of the old contracts it relies on are not as dormant as it thinks."

The old woman’s fingers tightened on her chalk.

"Which contracts," she asked quietly.

Ikea glanced at her.

"The ones written in rooms with no witnesses and signed with blood that never dried," she said. "You know the type."

Vorak looked between them.

"Seer," he said mildly. "Is there something you would like to share."

The old woman inhaled slowly.

"There are stories," she said. "About certain... pacts. Made when the Scarlet Kingdom was very young and very hungry. It sent its banners out into the wild and met things that were older and hungrier still. Some of those meetings ended in blood. Some ended in agreements. Tributes. Boundaries."

She frowned at Ikea. "Those stories usually involve... queens," she said.

Ikea’s smile thinned. "Stories rarely get the details right," she said. "But they sometimes remember the tone." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Vorak folded his arms.

"Let us say I am willing to believe you have some... standing," he said. "You still have not given me something I can take to the capital. They do not respond well to hints. They respond to specific threats and specific promises."

"I can give you one of each," she said. "The threat is this. If you push this war to the point where that mountain breaks and that Lord falls, the balance you enjoy in the royal court will not hold. Things that have tolerated Scarlet banners politics on the edge of their mind will step forward. Not because they care about him. Because they care that your reach has grown too long."

"And the promise," Vorak asked.

She smiled, slow and predatory.