Queen of Nothing

Chapter 4

In the borders of the dark forest, a dark figure approached the blue Scorpius. It was Alvar. I dropped the rope ladder down. Alvar climbed, and a bunch of people approached Nua's giant figure. "Mila–I mean, Elle," Alvar said, reaching my position. "I brought company." He turned to his servants who were carrying bags and tools. The maidservants were carrying more bags than they should while the manservants carried the equipment and materials for the house. Or as Alvar would call it, mansion. We needed to start with a house to get Anua used to the weight first for the house before upgrading to a mansion.

While I was contemplating, Alvar was directing his servants to building as Nua settled down on the ground and moved her legs and tail so that her hard shell covered her whole body and taking the form of a big, blue hill. She wasn't big enough to be a mountain yet, as Nua told me.

It took the servants hours to build the mansion, which was expected. They were shadow Elves and were very quick in the daylight. Faster in the dark. If humans were to do it, it would take them until night. As I remembered, the Elves were all warriors whether or not they were civilians. All of them could fight because it was a requirement as an elf. If not, they were only a healer or Sages. Sages were rather rare.

Okay, I'm getting off-track here. I began to help with the building as I told Alvar of my plans with the house. Alvar suggested we use dimensional magic to create storage space to have a small shop on Anua's back to not weigh her down while through the back door in the shop would be the rest of the mansion. The door would be a portal into a storage space where they would have the rest of the mansion. The back door of the mansion would have another portal that lead to the outside of the store in the back.

And so we began to build the shop and I worked on the portals. Dina was simply making good food for the workers and us royals to help. It took us until evening to build the mansion and make enough rooms for all the servants. Of course some servants had to share rooms, but there were plenty of spaces. Alvar forced me to take a personal maid and to look for another in my journeys. The head maid recommended one of their best which I agreed upon, but that one lacked emotion. Alvar offered to be my personal knight, and immediately I refused.

"I'm no longer your queen!" I exclaimed helplessly. "I have no kingdom! I do not need this much and I can take care of myself!"

"I know, but I can be your eyes and ears in the shadows!" Alvar exclaimed back.

"When I go on quests, I'll pick a new maid and knights," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Then we shall see."

"Fine," Alvar said, crossing his arms. "But at least take one of my knights until you hire more."

I nodded. Then I remembered something. "Wait," I said. "My daughter, did she make it?"

Dina's eyes widened as she looked at me. "You had a daughter?" She asked. "How old?"

"Last I saw her, she was a few weeks old," I replied, shrugging. "2 weeks before the world ended."

I noticed Alvar's haunted look, and I frowned. "I'm sorry, milady," he got on his knees and bowed. "I failed you."

I frowned and touched his head, and immediately, I received a memory from him.

Alvar was walking towards the High Queen's chambers when he noticed dark footprints on the carpet. He followed it right up to the Queen's chambers and once he entered, he saw the crib. It was shattered, and some of its bars were torn off. He saw a trail of blood leading from beside the crib and leading under the bed. The window was open and a cold chill was in the room. Alvar ran and peeked under the bed, only to find an unrecognizable form with chunks of the bars of the crib stabbing into it. Something he recognized were hands and feet, one foot was missing a sock.