For a moment, she thought the Queen wasn’t going to answer. When she spoke, her voice was very small. “Because I have been changed. Because I do not function in the manner which their instincts tell them I should.”

A slow wave of sadness and genuine pain washed out of the vord Queen. Isana had to fight to remind herself of the destruction and death brought by this creature to all of Carna.

“That’s why you left Canea and returned here,” Isana said suddenly. “Your junior queens turned upon you, so you escaped them.”

As she sat beside the pool, the Queen drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I did not escape them,” she replied. “I merely postponed the confrontation.”

“I don’t understand,” Isana said.

“The continent across the sea called Canea has been overrun,” the Queen said in a quiet monotone. “But it will take decades, perhaps centuries, for my children to consolidate and fully exploit their new territory—to make it impregnable. Once that is done, and they have a secure base of operations, they will come here to destroy me and everything of my creation. Already their forces have grown to an order of magnitude beyond mine.”

The Queen turned her eyes to Isana. “That is why I am here. That is why I must destroy you. I must create my own stronghold if I am to survive. That, too, is a task requiring many years.” She rested her chin upon her knees, closed her eyes, and whispered, “I wish to live. I wish for my children to live.”

Isana stared down at the monstrous child’s genuine sorrow and fear, and fought against the pity the sight and sense of her evoked. She was a monster, nothing less—even if she might also be something more.

The Queen rocked back and forth, a tiny and distressed motion. “I wish to live, Isana. I wish for my children to live.”

Isana sighed and turned to walk back to her place beside Araris. “Who doesn’t, child,” she murmured. “Who doesn’t.”

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 35

From the beginning of the Vord War, the enemy had, time after time, attacked positions that were not ready to defend against a threat of the magnitude they represented. Despite the desperate attempts to warn Alera of what was coming, no one listened, and as a result, the vord had driven the Alerans from their fortresses and cities alike, one after the next. Time after time, the lightning-swift advance of the vord or the inhuman tactics they used had overwhelmed the insufficiently prepared defenders. Time after time, the light had dawned upon a world more and more thoroughly dominated by the invaders—but this dawn was different.

The Calderon Valley was ready to fight.

“There’s a dent in it somewhere,” growled Antillus Raucus, slapping one paw back at the ornate lorica covering his right shoulder. “It isn’t moving right.”