One never showed fear to the vord Queen.

Invidia turned to face the young woman and inclined her head politely. The young Queen looked almost like an Aleran. She was quite exotically lovely, with an aquiline nose and a wide mouth. She wore a simple, tattered gown of green silk that left her shoulders bare, displaying smooth muscle and smoother skin. Her hair was long, fine, and white, falling in a gently waving sheet to the backs of her thighs.

Only small details betrayed her true origins. Her long fingernails were green-black talons, made of the same steel-hard vord chitin that armored her warriors. Her skin had an odd, rigid appearance, and almost seemed to reflect the distant ambient light of the croach, showing the faint green tracings of veins beneath its surface.

Her eyes were what frightened Invidia, even after months in her presence. Her eyes were canted up slightly at the corners, like those of the Marat barbarians to the northeast, and they were completely black. They shone with thousands of faceted lenses, insectlike, and watched the world with calm, unblinking indifference.

“Yes, I suppose I do,” Invidia replied to her. “I told you that this place represents a risk. You seem unwilling to listen to my advice. So I have taken it upon myself to monitor it and ensure that it is not being used as a base or hiding place for infiltrators.”

The Queen shrugged a shoulder, unconcerned. The movement was smooth but somehow awkward—it was a mannerism she had copied but clearly did not understand. “This place is guarded ceaselessly. They could not enter it undetected.”

“Others have said as much and been mistaken,” Invidia warned her. “Consider what Countess Amara and Count Bernard did to us last winter.”

“That area had not been consolidated,” the Queen replied calmly. “This one has.” She turned her eyes to the little houses and tilted her head. “They gather together for food at the same time every night.”

“Yes,” Invidia said. The Aleran holders who dwelt in the little steadholt in cobbled-together households had been working the fields and going about the business of a steadholt as if they were not the only ones of their kind living within a month’s hard march.

They had no choice but to work the fields. The vord Queen had told them that if they did not, they would die.

Invidia sighed. “Yes, at the same time. It’s called ‘dinner’ or ‘supper.’ ”

“Which?” the Queen asked.

“In practice, the words are generally interchangeable.”

The vord Queen frowned. “Why?”

She shook her head. “I do not know. Partly because our ancestors spoke a number of different tongues and—”