Vambasta could have crossed the distance to Derpy in three strides.
She had measured it more than once.
The first stride would take her past Seraphine’s table. The second would bring the guards down from the side of the dais. By the third, she would either have reached the collar or given Vaeloria a reason to tighten it.
Vemi’s paw rested against her wrist.
She had not needed to look at her sister to know when to put it there.
The two small dragon constructs had brought the argument to a pause. Silver and violet light caught against Derpy’s clothing, drawing the attention of every armed person in the throne room. The queens were watching the guardians. The guards were watching the queens.
Vambasta watched Derpy.
He was still in the chair Vaeloria had chosen for him. His shoulders had not relaxed when she lifted her hand. He had tried to speak, and the collar had stopped him while everyone in the room watched.
No one had removed it.
Vambasta turned her wrist beneath Vemi’s paw.
“I am standing still,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“Then stop holding me as though I am about to bite someone.”
Vemi loosened her grip but did not withdraw it.
“Are you?”
Vambasta did not answer.
The silence was sufficient.
On the walk from the mess hall, Vemi had tried to prepare for an audience in which they would be required to remain decorative.
Seraphine had brought them as protection. That meant standing close enough to be seen, quiet enough not to interrupt, and ready to act before being blamed for failing to anticipate an instruction.
Vambasta was good at the last part when someone she cared about was in danger.
The rest was going to be difficult.
Sir Reginal had gone ahead with Hina, leaving the sisters to follow the escort through the colder corridors leading toward the throne room. The princess’s laugh had carried back to them once, followed by Reginal saying her name with the exhausted severity of someone who expected to repeat himself.
Vambasta watched the pair disappear around a turn.
“She creeps me out.”
“She is meant to unsettle people,” Vemi replied.
“That is not what I mean.”
“I know.”
Neither needed to describe what had happened at the table. Vemi had felt her sister preparing to move when Hina threatened Vespera. She had stopped her before the guards could decide that the large wolf was the danger worth addressing.
They had watched the princess until her own people intervened.
Vemi kept thinking about that difference.
Vambasta had broken a table, and every nearby guard had taken notice. Hina had begun to transform in front of an unwilling guest, and the same guards had waited for someone with the appropriate standing to object.
Here, danger was not judged only by what a person did.
It depended on who had brought them.
Vemi glanced toward the escort and lowered her voice.
“We need to be careful about what they can say we started.”
Vambasta flexed the hand she had driven through the wood.
“You sound as though you agree with them.”
“I am trying to make sure they do not get to decide what happens to you.”
“They seem to be doing that anyway.”
The corridor narrowed around a line of carved arches. Vemi studied the markings without assuming she knew every function. Entrances, wards, places where someone could close a passage before the people inside understood it had become a cell.
The palace did not have to be built specifically against wolves to be a place where wolves had little say.
“This is not home,” she said.
Vambasta gave her a sideways look.
“I noticed the elves.”
“At home, if someone threatens a member of the pack, everyone knows why we move. Here, they can call the same thing an attack on the crown.”
“So we wait for permission to care?”
“No. We choose how to act before they choose the meaning for us.”
Vambasta looked ahead again.
The anger did not leave her. It settled deeper, making her footsteps more deliberate.
After a while, she said, “I can feel that he is here.”
Vemi knew who she meant.
“I know.”
“We came all this way, and I still do not know if I can get near him.”
“We will find out.”
“I am not built for standing around looking useful.”
Vemi brushed her sister’s arm.
“You are built for family. Sometimes that means not taking the first fight offered to you.”
Vambasta’s expression changed just enough for Vemi to see that the words had reached her.
She had wanted a rematch with Derpy. She had missed him with an anger that made the admission difficult to bear. Now he was nearby, and she was being asked to behave as though the important thing was whether two queens approved of her posture.
“I will try,” she said.
Vemi accepted the answer without asking for a better one.
Now, behind Seraphine’s chair, Vemi counted the room again.
There were the obvious guards at the doors and beside the dais. There were others whose weapons were less visible but whose attention had sharpened when Derpy’s bracelets began to open. Lyn held a staff. Amy had moved away from the throne far enough to give herself space.
Three maids stood near the tea service.
One kept looking toward the doors through which Hina had been removed. Another was watching the collar.
Vemi remembered the force that had made Derpy sit. There had been nothing uncertain about it. His body had moved while his face remained unwilling, and everyone had been allowed to understand exactly who had made the decision.
That had been the moment Vambasta nearly moved.
Vemi had stopped her with a hand against her tail and a warning about territory. The words had tasted worse than she expected.
Pack law did not apply here.
It was true as a practical warning. It was not a reason Derpy should have to sit in a collar.
She shifted closer to Vambasta without making the movement obvious.
“He is watching the artifact,” she murmured.
Vambasta’s eyes moved toward Seraphine’s hand.
“Why?”
“I do not know yet.”
Seraphine’s artifact had responded to the calamity power in the room. Its glow was faint now, but the queen had not put it away. The violet guardian faced it with the same attention Derpy had given it earlier.
The silver construct watched Vaeloria.
Vemi looked from one queen to the other and understood the shape of the problem more clearly.
Seraphine could criticize the collar without asking Derpy where he wanted to go. Vaeloria could deny responsibility for the original capture while refusing to let him choose his own seat. Each had a reason the other woman should not control him.
Neither had offered him a choice that belonged to him.
Vambasta’s fingers curled beneath Vemi’s paw.
“He earned his place with us,” she whispered. “He is not a pet.”
Vemi nodded.
The acknowledgment mattered. She could feel it in the slight easing of her sister’s wrist.
“He should not have to sit there,” Vambasta continued.
“No. He should not.”
“Then what are we doing?”
Vemi looked toward the guards closest to the dais.
“Making sure the next thing that happens is not our mistake.”
Vambasta hated how much effort it took to stay still.
Her power was returning. She could feel it beneath her skin, more available than it had been after Mk2 forced her out of her alpha form. She wanted to believe that was enough to make the next confrontation different.
The memory of the defeat remained precise.
It was not only the impact. It was the moment afterward when she had expected the larger shape to answer and found herself exposed instead. Vemi had seen her trembling. That knowledge still made anger rise faster than anything else.
She had threatened to break the doll when she saw it again.
Now she stood in a room where people spoke about Derpy as though power determined the right to decide what became of him.
The resemblance between those two thoughts irritated her.
She did not forgive Mk2. She still wanted the rematch. But staring at a collar while planning to tear one of Derpy’s dolls apart gave her no comfortable place to put either feeling.
Vemi’s touch changed from restraint to a brief squeeze.
Vambasta looked down.
Her claws had begun to extend.
She pulled them back.
“Do not congratulate me,” she muttered.
“I was not going to.”
“You had the expression.”
“I have been watching the guards.”
“Very supportive of you.”
Vemi almost smiled. The attempt faded when Vaeloria shifted in her throne.
Both sisters looked up.
No new command followed. The queen was still studying the small constructs, deciding how their presence altered the audience.
Vambasta followed Derpy’s posture instead. His attention was fixed, but his body was too carefully still. She knew the difference between someone choosing patience and someone measuring how little movement they could get away with.
He was holding himself back.
She wanted him to look at her and know she was there.
She also knew what she would want to do if he did.
Vambasta drew a slow breath through her nose.
“For him,” Vemi said quietly.
“I remember.”
The reminder did not make the waiting easier. It gave the waiting a reason she could tolerate.
Vemi let go of her sister’s wrist.
Vambasta noticed immediately.
“What changed?”
“I do not want you thinking I intend to stand on you for the whole audience.”
“That would be a poor plan.”
“It would. You are heavy.”
A small sound escaped Vambasta before she could stop it. Not quite a laugh, but close enough to loosen her jaw.
Vemi lowered her voice further.
“If you move, tell me first.”
“So you can stop me?”
“So I can see what you see.”
Vambasta looked at her.
For a moment, Vemi could feel the difference between ordering her sister to remain calm and asking her not to leave her behind in the decision. She had spent the walk warning about consequences. Vambasta needed to know that caution did not mean she would be left alone if waiting stopped being possible.
“We are here together,” Vemi said. “That does not change because we are in someone else’s territory.”
Vambasta’s gaze returned to Derpy.
“If she hurts him again—”
“I am watching too.”
It was not permission. It was not a promise that Vemi had a way to prevent every consequence.
It was enough to make Vambasta stop asking whether her sister understood.
They stood behind Seraphine, both visible as part of the protection she had brought into the room. The arrangement made it easy for anyone looking from a distance to mistake whose interests they were watching.
Vemi kept her hands relaxed.
Vambasta kept her claws sheathed.
On the dais, the silver guardian adjusted its footing while the violet one remained turned toward the artifact. Derpy sat between the queens' attention, unable to answer them in his own voice.
Vambasta counted the distance once more.
Three strides.
This time, before deciding what to do with that knowledge, she checked where Vemi was standing.