Kintsugi

The library tower down in the undercity housed something between thirty and thirty-one thousand books. Okum, the crooked goblin who'd called it his home for so long that nobody called him by his birth name any more, had once told her the exact number in one of his rambles. She had let him finish, then with all due politeness asked for the books that interested her that day. 

He had delivered them to her, as always. 

Grumbling about everyone's lacking respect for his temple of wisdom, as always. 

Absolutely certain his head would roll if he didn't comply, as always. 

And as had become tradition, he also provided her with a single additional book from his collection, seemingly picked at random. She enjoyed these pieces of variety and made sure to spare a few minutes if her schedule gave her the opportunity. That day, it had been about the fauna of the overworld, specifically insects. She didn't remember everything about it, but what had stuck with her most was the section about bees. Every now and then, a passage came to her mind again, even all these years later. "Their colonies are established in swarms, consisting of a queen and several thousand workers."

In that way, her estate was the same. Her soldiers her worker bees, diligently making the pilgrimage from the undercity to her mansion every day they had something worth her time to report. Her the queen, enthroned on top of her hive. Only today, her petitioners would be met by closed doors. Her solar was left deserted, her teacups dry. She had far more important matters to attend to, regardless of the urgency of her underlings' proposals.

Since her return from the deepest Onyx in the bowels of Hathodrond, the Great and Mighty Skargarra hadn't left the infirmary. She hadn't slept, hadn't eaten more than a berry a day, had only signed off on the most important of documents brought to her by Hebruki. Her own injuries sustained in battle had been grave. The Stormsinger's magic had scorched her. The falling rocks had bruised her. The Sailor-witches' flames had burned her. Finally, her rogue champions had missed her organs by less than a finger's width multiple times. Yet none of these wounds were why she only left the room to relieve herself. 

When the Kudzhul led by old Steel had ambushed her convoy, his phalanx had been met by the only warrior in Hathodrond capable of stopping him one on one. Her sister had fought ferociously, taking command of most of her escort to secure Skargarra's rear, enabling her to collapse the tunnel behind her and carry out her part of the deal with the ancient stone heads. And she'd pushed him back all right. Held her own against the best the Kudzhul had to offer, with only a few dozen men at her disposal. Sustaining heavy losses, Steel's formation had eventually pulled back to avoid being wiped out by Skargarra's reinforcements. The extent of damage to Steel himself was unclear, but if it was bad enough to make him pull back, Vierre must have pulled quite a number on him.

Despite all this, Steel had only managed to seriously wound her twice. Once on her thigh, almost completely severing the muscle and once in her side, shattering two ribs and shredding the surrounding tissue, including parts of her lung, with the fragments. Vierre hadn't stopped until Steel's troops had fallen back into the tunnels, but eventually the blood-fury that propelled her in battle had subsided. 

Fear was another subject Skargarra devoted much thought to these days. With more and more strangers pouring into her city from the overworld, projecting the appropriate amount of fear was as important to control as the number of distributed berries. Too much, and the smallfolk might decide they better try their luck elsewhere. Too little, and there were riots in the streets. A tightrope act. 

But for now, the rope provided more than enough grip. And so her troops had carried the unconscious Vierre back to the city instead of finishing her off, where she was brought to the infirmary. Skargarra had long had a personal one under her mansion; it was decidedly unhealthy for the city's fear levels to have the common people see their great and mighty leader sprawled out on the operating table. They might get ideas. And free thinking reduced lifespans around here. 

No, Skargarra had a team of personal physicians that took care of her and Vierre only. They had immediately begun fixing her up when the remains of her guard had hauled her in here, and quickly reached the limits of their capability. The wounds were a known quantity: Complicated, yes, but manageable. The true conundrum was what lay below, burning in her bloodstream. Steel wasn't known to poison his blade, and for good reason: Most of the time, he struck down his foes too quickly for poison to ever take effect. So when he had laced his axe with what Skargarra's medics assumed was a complex concoction of Wurm poison, paste of the widow fungus and wyvern blood, it must have been in fear of Vierre that he did it. There it was again. Fear. 

Skargarra had long since burned her own out of her, back when she'd still been Cara. But she still held Vierre's hand when they were alone in the room, still read stories to her at night. They were children no longer, hadn't been for decades. But despite her unconsciousness the fables Skargarra read to her made the cramps subside, and so she read. It was all she could do. That, and stay by her side while Hebruki took care of the logistical side of things. Not out of fear, but love. 

And the Great and Mighty Skargarra did love her sister. She was very aware of all the rumors, but the smallfolk's murmurings could not be more irrelevant to her. She had loved her from the moment she'd come out of her mother's belly. She'd beaten men to death for their food at the age of ten, out of love. When she'd shoved her mother off the cliffs because she'd become a liability, she'd done it out of love. She'd slain the bandit lords ruling over bits and pieces of Karaz-a-Karak out of love. For how could there be safety for her baby sister with constant clan wars? Scheming nights, bloody days, brittle peace. All out of love.

Yes, she loved her sister. And the deal she struck with Seraphin might just be enough to permanently enforce the peace. But first, Vierre had to survive.

The healers had patched her up with an alien-looking kind of fabric they had grafted right onto her skin. It was of a matte grey, but where its edges met the frayed skin it was sown into, it shimmered golden in the light. It was supposed to act just like skin or stronger, even. It would naturally grow into Vierre's skin and remain there until the day she died, to forever remind her that what didn't kill her made her stronger. But first, Vierre had to heal.

After that, they could march down to the other cities, finally root out the other clans, purge the Wurm infestation in the mines, at the end even take Karaz Ankor and give Steel and Stone a taste of their own poison. Later. But first, Vierre had to wake up.

With great care, Skargarra stretched to reach the storybook on the nightstand. Her aching tendons alerted her that she'd been neglecting her own health over the past days, but pain was only her body telling her something. She could still choose to ignore it. 

"If you read me the dancing bear again, I swear I'll kick the bucket." 

Skargarra's eyes shot over to the bed. Vierre's lips had been shut for six bells, sealed so tight they hadn't even managed to feed her. Now they were distorted in a grimace of a smile. It was ugly, even for Vierre's standards. To her sister, it was of a beauty second to none.

In Skargarra's gut, a knot untied. The world tilted back into balance. 

Time for conquest.

Author's Note: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi