A Whisper of Night

13.1 || ASTNORDEN 💫

Long time no update! I've been busy splitting my other chapters (it's actually a LOT of work, since the perfectionist in me insists on doing full revisions of all of them too), but I promise that I'll be getting new chapters up ASAP.

Just a brief recap (since it's been a while): Astna has just taken the Unfallen Cities (Ormina, Gofrae, and Nyclein). She's just gotten her hydra, Rasla, from Valchtnalla. Elsking's still banished (although we saw him a few chapters earlier) ;). Ellac Denling, one of Astna's close followers (he was the one who led the fleet to take Nyclein), is still by her side. So...I hope you enjoy!

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"You faithless bitch! The gods will kill you first, if the Lion Queen doesn't."

Although her knuckles were white around her handrests, Astna forced herself to keep a straight face as the guards seized Bevayra.

"Women aren't meant to conquer!" the girl shrieked, as the guards dragged her from the hall. "You're unnatural, that's what you are! Godless and hell-bound!"

As soon as the peasant girl disappeared out the door, Astna let out a breath of relief.

Bevayra - one of the most prominant voices against Astna's conquest of Ormina - had fully used all ten of her allocated audience minutes to spew expletives at her feet. Astna could do little more than interrupt as the girl mocked everything from her mother's suicide to the impossibility of a girl conqueror to Astna's utter lack of religion.

I would have her killed, Astna thought bitterly, but then the people of Gofrae and Ormina would see her as a martyr.

The amount of people opposed to her rule was staggering. Two weeks ago, when she'd entered the Unfallen Cities with her hydra on her shoulder, she'd expected cheers, laughter, any show of happiness. Instead, she'd received sullen stares and dark whispers, as if she'd come to enslave their people.

And she might as well have come to enslave them, by the way her opposition was talking. Bevayra was only one of them - several others were also preaching against Astna's rule, always under the cover of night. Astna didn't dare round them up and execute them, for fear that the people would riot.

Even Ormina Hall seemed to oppose her arrival - the building was gloomy and dark, the great hall nowhere near as beautiful or big as Valchtnallan. The skies constantly seemed to cry.

Rasla hissed from her shoulder. The hydra had stayed silent during Bevayra's audience, but her claws had dug painfully into Astna's skin. Kora was sleeping, her head folded back on her body. Gemina was snapping her jaws in irritation, a telltale sign of hunger.

Rasla had grown quite a bit since Astna had left her. She now consumed twice her body mass in meat, and her wings had strengthened considerably. Now she could manage brief spurts of flight - if her heads were coordinated correctly - and she'd started gliding.

But you still can't speak, Astna thought. Rasla blinked up at her, her eyelids clicking. Kora snored softly.

"Your Majesty," said Ellac. He was positioned at the foot her throne, holding a scroll of parchment with a list of her petitioners. "Next comes - "

"Is it one of my opposition?" she interrupted. "I won't be able to stand - "

"No," he said. "They come...they come from home."

"Oh?" she said, leaning forwards. And what home is that? "Bring them in."

Ellac nodded at the guards, who reached forwards and pulled open the doors.

In strode about a dozen men, all wearing the violet garb of Skeynvald.

"Your Majesty!" shouted one of them, kneeling before her. The rest followed suit.