Chrysalis

The revered Queen Verita of Liria, second of her name, defender of the frontier and upholder of the Lion tenants of her ancestors was pissed.

Long had she puzzled over how the enemy had been able to gather so many more troops than she had been able to anticipate. Her closest advisors had worked with her on their strategy. The careful plotting, endless information gathering, debates and planning had been overthrown when her soldiers had been soundly defeated and outnumbered when the trap had finally been sprung and her enemies dashed out of the shadows into the light.

Where had all these fighters come from?

Seeing those organised warriors at the castle door was one thing and now looking at these disciplined soldiers dressed in mercenary gear arrayed against them before the dais of her own throne it all became clear.

These were not mercenaries or hirelings brought in to bolster the numbers for the fight. These were trained soldiers from a nearby kingdom! There must be a hundred of them there! This isn't a small number by any means. Someone must have wanted to interfere in the political situation in Liria desperately to commit so many of their people to a coup in another country!

Seeing the Andron ambassador standing beside Corrin as the filthy Mercenary Union lounged on Verita's throne she could easily guess who it had been.

"Great Queen Verita, how nice of you to join us" drawled Corrin, one leg dangling over the side of the throne, "we were just wondering when my coronation should be held. You wouldn't have any input on the matter would you?"

Verita disregarded the mercenary as beneath her notice and turned instead towards the ambassador Regix.

"Regix, so interesting to see you here. Incredible how quickly the kingdom of Andron has been able to adjust to the changing landscape here in Liria. One could be forgiven for thinking that you had known about all of this in advance" she said.

The ambassador smiled tightly and turned to Corrin, deferring to the Union leader.

Enjoying the display of her authority Corrin beamed at her former Queen.

"Don't be upset Verita. It turns out people other than me can notice how incompetent your reign has been. Our friends from across the border wanted to assist the people of Liria to have good governance, for once".

roll her eyes at the

you cared about was money and power, let's not pretend

pretend in front of the street rats though" she gestured towards the townsfolk nervously clutching their weapons behind their Queen, "I can't very well say to the public that I'll be rewarded with mountains of gold by Andron for destroying your rule and handing over the governance of our nation to a

family had founded this Kingdom, her own kin had fought and died in the campaign to liberate these lands from the monsters. Since then they had tirelessly worked to raise this nation out of the dirt for hundreds

had risen so far and so quickly that their neighbour to the north feared they would be overshadowed and eventually absorbed. After all, it was Liria that was able to expand their territory by pushing south, Andron had

had to admit it made sense. Had she been Queen of Andron she might have

Queen Verita Leocor of the Leocor's. Liria was her kingdom and she'd be damned before she gave it over

to her full height and imperiously proclaimed, "Corrin, you will need to surrender yourself to me for judgement. Regix, order your men to stand down

chuckled to himself but Corrin was more unrestrained, throwing back her head and laughing

idea how you got back inside the city but the only that did is save me the trouble of hunting you down in the countryside and putting you down like a

by the sadistic look in the others' eyes Queen Verita sincerely doubted a quick death featured at all

her tensed and even Corrin's eyes widened in

the mind bridge to allow communication between her and the monster. As soon as the weave

worms?] the voice

spoken to with the constant disrespect and rudeness she received from this monster but

against me and a century of soldiers from

disinterest rolling off the creature in waves, confusing her. What

your throne Verita? What would your precious Legion say if they were to find out of

I separate your head from your shoulders" Verita

toward the

will fall apart and our pact will be finished monster. Those people all have to die and

as monsters go this ant wasn't that large of powerful, but for some reason it managed to overcome impossible odds over and over again. The baffling magic that it was able to