Far beyond the rocky ridges where the Strategist Lord's colony dug in, another hive seethed with restless life.
Its walls pulsed with heat, thick with the musk of venom and blood. At its heart sat Queen Veyra, a massive figure cloaked in shadow and silk. Her antennae twitched violently as the scent of loss reached her chamber.
Three scouts had been sent.
None returned.
Her mandibles clicked sharply, the sound echoing like a whip crack. "So… a nest dares to rise again in the north."
Around her throne, elite guardians stirred — ants larger than drones, their carapaces blackened and etched with jagged scars. Each one bore the weight of countless battles, and their gazes burned with cold hunger.
"Your scouts fell to an ambush," hissed her war-chief, bowing low. "The enemy is organized. Not wild stragglers — something sharper."
Queen Veyra's eyes gleamed. "Sharper? Then it is no mere colony. It is a challenger."
She rose from her throne, her massive bulk filling the chamber, wings unfurling with a hiss of chitin against stone. The air itself thickened with her pheromones — rage, command, and prophecy of death. Every ant in the chamber trembled under the weight of her will.
"Let it be known," she thundered. "If another queen thinks she may rise, she will be crushed. Their walls will fall, their brood will be devoured, their lordling ground into dust."
The war-chief bowed deeper. "Shall we muster the swarm, my Queen?"
Veyra's mandibles curved into a smile that was all hunger.
"No. Not yet."
Her antennae tasted the air, savoring the faint trace of alien pheromones — the signature of the Strategist Lord. A scent too precise, too cunning.
"We send a raiding party first. Let them bleed. Let them fear. And when their spirits falter—" her voice dropped to a whisper, cold as stone, "—then we send the swarm."
The chamber erupted into motion, warriors surging to arms. Black banners of chitin and silk unfurled across the hive's great hall.
In the darkness, the rival queen's laughter echoed.
The war had begun. And she would not allow another name to rise above hers.