A Familiar Void

Chapter 43

"Huh," Henrietta looked over the letter from Queen Hornet once more, the document that was meant to translate the Insect's language to her own lied beside it, and found a peculiar detail.

The rest of the letter wasn't anything special. It was just a reply to the invitation to her wedding, and that they would be honoured to attend it... At least that was she assumed with what she could translate.

But the odd part of it, was a... warning in the letter.

Luckily, she wasn't going to end up decoding some assassination plot after she read (and translated) the next few lines.

It wasn't a warning about an attack, or anything serious.

Apparently, in about a month's time, near about the time of her wedding, she and the rest of Hallownest are expecting some big event that could end up displacing their city. Nothing specific, just... displaced.

Henriette could not help but internally laugh at the irony of the Insects being afraid of an event that could displace their kingdom.

Despite that, she took the warning and wrote down a note to herself to prepare for refugee camps if the event were to ever turn up.

Once the wedding had concluded, and the alliance with Germania was set, the relationship between Tristain and Hallownest were to set to improve.

Hopefully.

[Scene]

The days went by, until it was time for the wedding.

High in the skies was the Albion Fleet, the Lexington at the forefront.

Once they were the premier fleet of Halkagenia, a marvel to behold as the Windstones of their country allowed them to forge as many airships as they could.

But that had not been the case for years now.

Meeting the Lexington and the Albion fleet was Tristain's own. While not a single ship could ever match up to the Lexington, their numbers did. Above La Rochelle, the Albion Fleet met with Tristain's.

Atop the bridge of the Lexington, Wardes stared at Tristain's fleet behind his mask.

They performed the greetings and cannon salute as they should, and they prepared their plans to frame the Tristain fleet.

When it was time for the Tristain fleet to fire their cannons, filled with nothing but gunpowder, two empty ships that were floating besides the Lexington burst into flames. The ship itself was filled with explosives set to explode.

It was all the pretences that they needed to start their war. Immediately they began moving around the ship, loading up the cannons as they waved flags of aggression towards the Tristain fleet over the treason.

Then the cannons were loaded, they had been upgraded by the man in robes. He had said that it had been fitted with a source of energy and designed so that it could not only blast its cannon farther, but it even held a surprise.

The Lexington shook as they fired their cannons, the cannonballs propelled with a blast of purple energy that send it flying farther than normally possible. And when the cannonball dropped, the purple energy kept going, and while the metal ball smashed through the wooden frame of the ship.