They rode for five whole days, with only small breaks for drinking, eating and walking around and slightly longer breaks for sleeping. Lavinia had deemed herself exhausted before. What a fool she had been! The trivial exhaustion of a single day was like a mosquito bite, compared to the monotonous ride that felt more like being trampled by a lot of animals, without anything ever happening to distract her from her body’s screams for help. The Queen was silent during most of the days, doing little to help her situation, though she was a solid wall behind her, catching her when she fell asleep while on the road, her broadness providing warmth and protection from either wind or sun, depending on the state of the sun. It was still summer, and around noon it was hot, yet the nights already whispered of fall, cold and death. Then again, they needn’t have whispered, because everything else around her screamed of death. From the heavy boots, plated with iron, as she now knew, to the gleaming weapons and the red, washing everyones faces into one stream of blood and crowning their hair with decay.

Lavinia was uncomfortable. Not in the physical sense, in which she was close to decaying herself, but in the atmosphere around her. Finally, after five days they had reached a river that Lavinia had never heard of, where they made camp. She was sure that erecting the tents was, once again, incredibly fast and efficient but she was too tired to participate. As soon as they stopped, she slumped in the saddle, registering vaguely that Kebé carefully pulled her from the animals back and placed her on the ground. She could see her back, covered in bronze as the world closed in on her.

From this point on, a new phase of conquest was starting. Zoya, who still visited her, though not as frequently as she used to had excitedly announced that, instead of securing the border and returning to the fourth kingdom to recover their strength they were now forced to deal with other issues: The first kingdoms inhabitants had, presumably helped by their troops, been making several forays into their territory, killing or expelling the locals and looting villages and towns. So instead of getting to sit in a palace, reading, Lavinia would become a witness to even more destruction. She wanted to scream in frustration, but doubted Zoya would have taken it well, so she stayed silent. Thankfully they seemed to be as close to the action as they wanted to be, and rather than moving forward with their whole caravan, single units or even cohorts were sent out, to explore and estimate their enemy’s capacities, and, Lavinia assumed, to kill whoever stood in their way.

For her part, she was not able to spend the days lazing around in her tent anymore. She had not spoken to the Queen personally, since they had arrived, but the Commander had brought her her orders with a bitter grin. To get to know the troops better, she was supposed to now spend the day with a different group of soldiers everyday. She did not have to practice fighting, or go out of the camp, obviously, but she did have to get up, shower and have breakfast with the warrior women, attend their unit meetings and stand in the sun for hours watching them, while they trained. And when the sun went down, she was supposed to go sit between them in the meal tent, eating the same stale cereal mix they ate.

It was not the activity that bothered her, since a day in the Farantes house had hardly been less exhausting. If the soldiers had only been a bit more like the other maids. They had been friendly to her, respecting her, trying their best to find happiness in their grim reality, winking whenever they passed each other and spending evenings together, giggling and gossiping. This was different.

The soldiers were stoic and serious for a living, and even of they had appreciated Lavinias jokes she would have been way too scared to tell them any. They would never speak a bad word about their Queen, or criticize her judgement openly. Still, they distrusted Lavinia and thought the Queen was wrong about her. They did not say it, but she could feel it in every look they gave her, every instruction they explained to her and every glass of water they silently passed her. She did not belong here, and they were determined to remind her of that. To make matters worse, while the units changed daily, different faces covering the same minds, to keep it exciting, one thing stayed the same: Commander Akosua had been ordered to be her supervisor, and while she was clearly angry about the quasi demotion, she complied without resistance. Without resistance against the orders, that is. She did do her best to resist all of Lavinias attempts to fit in, or engage in conversation with her, and she did it with lots of enthusiasm. There had not been a day yet where she had not indirectly accused Lavinia of being an imposter, mocked her fragility or straight up told her to suck it up, when she was feeling weak or dizzy.

Zoya was her only sun ray in the dark, and she was the one who, when Lavinia started to feel constantly tired, and her skin turned pale and shiny, found the courage to ask Commander Akosua, to give her a day of rest, lest she would be sick.

The Commander laughed in her face, and told her that she had not yet seen Lavinia in a state other than tired and pale, and that what she needed, was not coddling, but discipline. Zoya returned to her tent that evening, shaking with frustration, bitter and ultimately powerless. And somehow, Lavinia was able to smile at her, and tell her it would be fine.

Let me tell you, dear reader: She was wrong.

She continued every day, as if nothing was wrong, and while her limbs became clumsier and her breath became shorter, and face was glowing she told herself that she had always been like this. Her cheeks had always been red, especially when getting so much sun, and she did sweat easily, so it was not wonder she did, and it did get cold sometimes that was why she shivered. She continued on and on, until Zoya, one evening, entered her tent to check on her and found her, facedown on the ground, unresponsive and burning up with fever.

Soon after, strong arms picked her up, and she was laid with her face up on the softest pillows, in the only tent that had the option of heating, tended to by her friend and several servants. And yet she stayed unconscious for three days. Field doctors were called, to wash her with healing oils, and cook herbs for her to smell before they made them into medicine for her to drink. Plans were changed, to have General Isu lead most of the operation in stead of her Queen. And if she had woken up during the first two days, she would have heard the unrestrained shouting match between the Queen and one of her Commanders, far away from the camp to not disturb the soldiers, whose noise echoed far beyond their camp, striking fear into the hearts of surrounding villages.

But all this was already over when she finally awoke on the evening of the third day, just as the sun was calling her Goodbyes. When she awoke, there was no noise, neither doctors nor friends, and definitely no Commanders. In fact, someone walking past the tent would have probably thought, it was empty. There was really nothing, except her, soft pillows and the silhouette of a sleeping Queen on the ground next to them.

She tried to sit up, only to feel a sharp pain peek out from under her forehead. So, she laid back down, not moving, except to sneak the occasional glance at the Queen, looking so unqueenly with her eyes closed in the midst of thick rings and her hair brushing the dirt.

The second time Lavinia awoke, the Queen was also awake, sitting in the exact same position she had been sleeping in. She was more composed now. More alert. Her war paint covered the circles under her eyes and her hair was pulled back, the dirt at the top seeming almost like a crown. She greeted Lavinia with as smile. „You are awake! Finally. I was starting to think you would just stay sleeping for the next hundred years.“ Lavinia tried to smile back, or nod, but even listing her head was too much effort, and the corners of her mouth felt, like they might rip open up until her ears, if she moved them even a little bit.

„Oh, no, don’t move! Just stay where you are, I’ll get you some tea.” She disappeared from Lavinia’s view for a moment and returned with a mug of steaming blue liquid. „Here, drink that. The medics have brewed it for you. It should help against any pain you might be feeling. She leaned in and blew across the drinks surface a few times. Lavinia watched the little ripples she created, before the mug was lifted to her lips and tilted slightly, to allow her better access. It cost a lot of effort, to take a tentative sip, but she instantly felt better.

The tea was hot, and sweet and it soothed her dry, aching throat, even relaxing her mouth a bit. She drank the rest eagerly, ignoring that some of it missed her mouth and ran down her chin instead. The Queen watched her drink, carefully drying her face with her sleeve every now and then. When the cup was empty, she set it aside and tried to rearrange Lavinias pillows, to make her more comfortable. When that turned out to be difficult, she went about moving Lavinia. The moment her limbs were forced into a new position it hurt, and she whimpered pathetically, but the Queen was not deterred. She turned her on her side, with her arms extended forward, two pillows under her head and the rest supporting her arms and legs. „That hurt didn’t it? I apologize. But you have spent a lot of time without moving now, and the longer you stay like that, the more your muscles will cramp, and the more painful it will get. “

Lavinia accepted the explanation, pain already fading into the tea-induced numbness and slipped seamlessly into a new dream.

The next morning, she was joined in her misery by Zoya, who changed her blanket, made her some more weirdly colored tea and even managed to feed her a bit of bread with honey, insisting that she needed to eat. She was clearly feeling guilty about not seeing the seriousness of Lavinias condition at first, but at the same time, she was also clearly hiding something else, and Lavinia could tell that it was not an easy feat to keep whatever it was to herself. Her face was nearly bursting with contained emotion, and she could not keep her legs still for even a moment.

There was one time, at the end of her visit, when it seemed like she was going to slip up, looking around stealthily and turning to Lavinia, as if to whisper in her ear. Just as she was getting close, they both heard a clatter of armor being dropped outside, indicating the Queen was returning. The entrance opened up, and the opportunity used slight breeze to escape into the fresh air outside.

Zoya instantly straightened, bowing deeply and recounting their meal.

„She ate something? Excellent. Thank you, Officer.“ Zoya blushed with pride and dismissed herself, only shrugging sheepishly when Lavinia mouthed „Officer?“ in her general direction.

The Queen sat down across the room, pulling a rug from a leather bag, and starting to carefully wipe the blades of her weapons, an endless array of them spread out in front of her. Most of them were stained a reddish brown. She noticed Lavinia watching her, and grinned reassuringly. „Don’t worry. Most of it is rust. “

She wasn’t sure whether she could believe that, but she tried her best, swallowing down the bile that had risen up in her throat at the sight, and instead tried to focus on the Queen‘s face, twisted in concentration while she worked. It was funny how quickly she had gotten used to her, when she thought back to how afraid she had been during her first days.

She looked on silently for a while, before speaking up: „So I hear Zoya is an officer now? “

The Queen nodded. „Yes, Kaja was promoted to Commander, so there was a vacancy in the ranks, and Zoya has done good work lately. “

„So, this has nothing to do with her bringing me here, against Commander Akosua’s will? “

„No. “Was the reply, giving without even a hint of embarrassment. „Major Akosua’s failure has nothing to do with it. “

Lavinia giggled slightly at the absurdity of this statement, though she regretted when her head started hurting again in response.

„What? “, asked the Queen. „Oh nothing. “, she pressed out. „You’re just a pretty good liar.“

Kebé’s smile showed all of her teeth. „I get that often. “