"Regina is going to flip out," Mia said. She sounded downright gleeful.

Owin shuffled a little on his feet. "Is that so?" he asked, sounding more tentative.

Dan tilted his head and looked more closely at what they had found — not that it was hidden or hard to find. It was slightly disconcerting to see Mia reacting in a way he would expect more from himself or maybe Tia, but he understood. It was kind of funny and he was looking forward to watching the fallout. Through the psychic link. Especially since he was safely away from court.

"It's going to be something," Dan agreed. Then he glanced around. But the village elder who had shown them had already left after he sent him away, which was probably for the better.

"Is it truly that bad?" Owin asked.

"Aren't you a Delver, Sir Owin?" Dan asked. "Why would you approve of this — religious nonsense, I guess?"

"Of course I am. It seems distasteful. But I suppose I struggle to see the importance. It seems … a little overzealous, perhaps, but is there much harm in it?"

"They," Dan said slowly, "Built a shrine. For our, very mortal, mother." Now he was the one sounding almost gleeful.

It was a gaudy shrine, too. At least considering the materials they must have access to. There was a lot of copper and bronze, burnished to a shine, with a bit of silver. Most of it used as a thin covering or in plating with symbols and pictures etched into it. There was a bust that looked like a half-decent woodcarver had seen her once from a distance. The main altar of the shrine seemed built into the structure, and the back part of it, whatever it was called, was tall, reaching into the sky. Dried flowers lay on it, and what might have been ashes of burnt things.

"Technically, it's not a religious shrine," Owin pointed out. "He spoke about civic engagement and patriotic feeling and what not, didn't he?"

"He also mentioned the Empress' spirit," Mia added. "It's technically not for Mother as a person. I think."

It had been a little hard to make out details. The poor old man had been nervous, clearly sensing they were less than entirely delighted by this revelation.

"I'm pretty sure that qualifies it as religious," Dan said.

"This reminds me of something," Mia mused. "Didn't they also have a cult for the emperor in the Roman Empire? Mother mentioned it once. They even dedicated it to his spirit instead of him."

"Right," Dan said, nodding. He knew he had started to smirk, but it was hard to stop. "I wonder who will point that little connection out to her first?"

Owin sighed, clearly a bit annoyed at their conversation. "You seem to find it amusing."

"It's just ironic," Mia shrugged. "Regina is, like, at best agnostic. She's sort of opposed to the local gods if you haven't noticed, and she's not really following any other religion, either."

Dan hummed, but nodded. "Isn't she observing lent this year? Religious fasting?"

"Yes, but that's different and you know it," Mia rolled her eyes. "She's clearly just doing it to make a point. Not that our enemies will know or care, but I guess that's not the point. It's just the easiest way to thumb her nose at the gods is to appropriate the rites or symbols of an older religion."

And their mother was being a bit petty about it. Mia didn't need to say it, they both thought so. Not that Dan would mind.

"Regardless," he finally said. "I don't think we'll accomplish much standing around here. Let's move on?"

"You didn't need to be here," Mia pointed out as they turned to leave.

Dan shrugged. "You're here, princess mine, and someone has to protect you. Especially since Jay left. The others may all be distracted with the war in the east, but that doesn't mean this area is suddenly not close to a hostile border."

And he wouldn't trust the Western Confederation to remain quiet.

"I have guards," she pointed out, nodding to the couple of Star Guard who were lingering a short distance away.

"And you all insisted on making me an officer, so now I can do officer stuff, like working on security arrangements." Besides, he was looking for an excuse to spend time with Mia. It was much better than just standing around watching recruits train for the hundredth time or watching the border with flying drones doing everything.

They fell quiet as they walked. Dan noted their current main guard, a former Nerlian knight, peel off to talk to the village leaders and nodded in thanks. Owin also left to go the other way with a quick goodbye. This little detour had been good, but the village didn't have much strategic importance, so they didn't need to linger. Aside from being close to the border, as the entire region was. Though there were closer settlements.

"It feels like humans are just prone to superstition," Mia mused as they reached their flying mounts. "When institutional religion is retreating, like what happened in Cernlia, it's filled with all sorts of folk beliefs and stuff."

"It's probably not just humans," he pointed out.

"Yeah, true."

"But I get what you mean. I've seen shrines to minor spirits before. They probably don't even exist. I mean, the main gods, sure, they came from another world and all that. But some local forest sprite or a god of granaries?"

Mia hummed. "You know, for all we know they do exist. Like, doesn't worship make gods stronger or something? Or am I confusing that? Who's to say it can't generate spirits into existence too, even if we've just never seen them?"

"Leian seems to do fine without worship," Dan pointed out. He glanced back at the shrine. "You don't think Mother will get power from that —?"

Mia laughed. "Oh, I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way."

As they settled on their mounts, Dan shuddered slightly at the thought of what an actual organized cult and state religion worshiping their Hive Queen would be like. Yeah, let's not go there. Not that Mother would approve.

"Maybe they'll institute something else? Like a Cult of Reason, like during the French Revolution?"

They spent the rest of the flight bickering playfully about religion, cults and whether science could ever be a religion itself. (Tia said that science was a method and so by definition it wasn't; Dan said some people would treat it as an ideology and so really, what was the difference, if not semantics?) He did notice that neither of them were in any hurry to inform Regina of what they'd seen. They talked to a few other drones and brought it up, but didn't tell her directly. Besides, they were all busy. Max seemed amused and concerned, but Dan had the impression his brother appreciated the distraction since he was just sitting and worrying in the capital, trying to protect everyone without being able to personally go and do stuff.

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Originally, he should have been focused on plans to move the court to the new capital. Dan supposed that move was delayed now. Although he doubted their Mother would leave it be for long.

Personally, Dan was already noticing how his own area of operations got less interest. The focus had shifted east and the border fortifications here were judged 'good enough'. It probably wasn't wrong, but he wondered if or when he'd be reassigned elsewhere. Until then, he would do his best here. And Mia was also still often around, she even spent less time further east now. Though she had been touring their major factories.

How are the soldiers taking it? She asked over the psychic link after a short pause.

Dan shrugged. As well as expected. They're antsy. We all are. Many of them still have some stupid ideas about winning glory in war. I suppose we need that for recruitment, but god, some of these kids. At least the veterans are doing better.

He was pretty sure that a few of the recruits had managed to dodge the age restriction. It had been a hard-fought compromise anyway: Regina had wanted to set it to eighteen years, most others had argued for sixteen (if there had to be a limit anyway). In the end, there was now a minimum age of seventeen to enlist. They weren't supposed to see full combat until they were eighteen, but Dan doubted how well that would hold up in practice.

It didn't take long for them to reach the nearest military base. They had been designed in several 'layers', with key points housing larger bases and smaller outposts in between. This was one of the bigger ones and also served as a command and intelligence center. As Dan and Mia touched down and dismounted, several soldiers stood ready to take their mounts, and he could see others caring for other flying drones already.

Dan had barely turned around before he met another vaguely familiar officer, who went up to them and directed them to Galatea, who had shown up recently and was waiting in the command center. Dan sighed and increased his pace.

"I'm always glad to see you, but I thought you would be in the east, focusing on that project or preparations against Esemen?" Mia asked as they sat down together in an unused conference room. Galatea drifted over to a chair and an aide brought the two of them tea before leaving again.

Galatea shrugged slightly. She looked surprisingly relaxed. "I was, but I decided to check on you, as well. Just because the Esemen might be eying an invasion doesn't mean the Western Confederation is just going to sit around on their backsides."

Huh, that was surprisingly similar to what he'd been thinking, Dan supposed.

Mia hummed, leaning forward slightly. "How are Tia and the others? The dig?" she asked. "I've talked to them over the psychic link, but you were actually there."

"They're fine," Galatea reassured her. She cocked her head slightly. "The dig has given us more information on the Hivekind than I expected, even if most of it won't be relevant in a technological or military sense. Tia is very interested. So are the rest. I think Regina is thinking about larger policy or something regarding that past genocide, but she's been tight-lipped about it."

Dan nodded seriously. The mention seemed to turn the conversation more somber, as it often did. But he shook off the mood after a moment and leaned forward. "So! Have you seen that little shrine some villagers put up to Regina? Weird, right?"

"I've actually seen that one before," Galatea said, sounding a bit amused. "Only via scrying. I admit I looked around a bit for things like that. You're lucky you got a reasonably artistic one."

"So there are more of them?" he asked curiously.

"Of course. At least depending on your definition. Some are little more than a portrait hung up with some incense or flowers. Others could be confused with a stalker-shrine." Galatea smiled slightly. "I don't think we've seen the last of that trend."

"That figures," Mia nodded. "Well, as long as it doesn't get any worse …"

"That depends on your definition of 'worse'," Galatea replied. "There is another trend some people might find more concerning. Interestingly, there's even a chapel in a village not too far from here, quite close to the border."

"A chapel?" Dan repeated.

"Or a shrine. Whatever you like to call it."

Mia propped her head on a hand. "Would you show us, Galatea?" she asked sweetly.

The mana-form seemed to consider for a moment, before she visibly decided to humor her. She stood up and Dan and Mia scrambled up as well.

"I suppose I can practice my scrying," Galatea said. "Look closely, we'll see …"

She trailed off. Dan frowned and cocked his head. The air shimmered in front of her and it felt almost like there should be a System notification screen presented, although there clearly wasn't one. A gray haze filled the area instead.

"Is that smoke?" he asked.

"No, that looks like a scrying exclusion zone, right?" Mia tsked. "Galatea, I thought you would have remembered there was one there."

"There isn't," Galatea replied, sounding distant. She'd gone still.

Dan straightened up and exchanged a look with Mia. He could sense her sudden alarm, mirroring his. "What's going on there?" she demanded.

Galatea didn't answer, she didn't even seem to have heard her, clearly focused on this scrying blockade.

Dan turned and quickly walked to the door. He needed to find out what was going on, and they should have eyes on this area. He was already reaching out with the psychic link, trying to find which drone was responsible for that.

He'd barely opened the door before he almost ran into someone else hurrying the other direction. The man slid to a stop, gaze flickering around. "Sir! … Princess?"

"Geoff?" Dan leaned a hand on the doorframe. "What's going on?"

"Concerning reports from the border area, sir," Geoff reported. "A plume of smoke has been seen rising from the location of one village. Apparently, flying drones report seeing more smoke. The handlers are sending them closer to look. I thought you should know."

"Good," Dan said absently. Geoff had been with him in the south, he was a good man and one of the few outside the Hive he trusted. It looked like someone had decided not to loop Dan in yet, but he had decided Dan needed to know.

"It also appears to be a dead zone to scrying right now, when it shouldn't be blocked. Something is very clearly wrong."

"A raid, do you think?" Mia asked, appearing in the doorway behind him.

Dan glanced at Geoff, who looked unsure, and shrugged. "Don't see what else it would be, but we should have noticed a raiding force crossing the border."

"They could have just snuck in another way," Mia suggested. "From a different border — or just gone into the Great Forest, then come out in the Empire pretending to be adventurers and heading north. It's not like we've sealed it off. If this is a planned operation …"

Dan nodded, that made sense. He was more focused on the psychic link, though, on the flying drones close to that area. Finding where the reports of smoke came from wasn't that hard.

Just as Dan was focusing on it, one flying drone was shot down — sudden pain, then plummeting, and nothing. He flinched slightly and focused on the other drones, trying not to go too deeply behind their eyes. They spread out at his nudge and he focused on their vision.

The village looked like something in a warzone. It had been surrounded by a palisade, but chunks of it had been blown out. People were moving around chaotically. Flashes of light reflecting off metal with some of them showed weapons and armor. Some of the houses inside were on fire with no clear pattern. One building towards the middle was particularly badly off, although on a second look, it was mostly built of stone, so it was the roof and supports burning. On its side was a large wooden cross — so that was what Galatea had meant, he supposed it made sense. It was also burning, but was still recognizable, and the fire clearly hadn't had much time yet, so it was recent — that also made sense, they'd just been warned.

"We must hurry," Dan said, quickly pulling back to talk to those around him and also sending a mental order to the drones in the stables. "Geoff, raise the men, I've called an emergency."

Mia grabbed his shoulder. "Be careful, Dan. If this is a trap —"

She didn't tell him not to go, though. "I doubt it, it looks more like some kind of symbolic or ideological strike," he replied. "But we'll call reinforcements."

Then he turned and hurried off, breaking into a run in a few steps. The people at the stables were already scrambling to let all the flying drones line up, their riders moving into position. The horses and tamed monsters — less of those than he'd like — were also being readied.

Dan tried to focus on getting ready as quickly as possible and not dwell on the implications. They could still rescue some of the villagers if they hurried, he was sure; Mother would want that. He felt the attention of others on him over the psychic link as Mia had clearly passed the word.

A young soldier ran up to him with his sword and a gun and Dan grabbed it without pause. He was still buckling the belt as he swung himself in the saddle of a flying drone mount and called them into the air.

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