Once the necessity of the planetary leaders being in close proximity or near-constant contact became lessened to the point of only being a monthly event, Zera found her adjusting to the return of the quiet monotony of the palace to be far more difficult than previously anticipated. She found her studies to be fairly repetitive, her tutors boring and wished more than anything to be involved in battle planning or coordination. Instead, she sat in a classroom, alone -save for the tutor behind the desk near the door-, drawing elaborate battles and warriors from all races in the margins of her notebook.
Afterwards, she returned to her room, quickly changed to more free moving garments allowing for better maneuvering while training, and retrieved her bo-staff from a closet before she took off running to the training room. Sternum and Jade, who had been training her before now, had arranged to meet her once a week for additional training sessions, both standing in the hallway outside the room they used for training in the palace she called home. An older male Icean, at first Zera thought it to be her father, was speaking with them for a moment, turning and bowing to her as she approached.
"Lady Zera, I apologise for taking time from your trainers, I wanted to bring up something rather, minor, regarding these arrangements." He spoke haltingly, his antennae curled down behind his eyes, though something in his expression and voice made her uneasy. She recognised him after a long moment, frowning lightly as she knew him to be a former advisor to her Grandfather, who had been outed by another known as Galen who had sacrificed himself to save Cryos as a child from a collapsing tunnel section during a raid.
"Lord Frost, I was not aware you were in any position to speak to members of the Alliance, especially guests of the royal family." She narrowed her eyes, moving her staff to her secondary arms at her back and crossing her main ones. Jade and Sternum raised a brow, turning to look skeptically at the male Icean. Frost paled, though it was difficult to tell, and bowed before quickly taking leave of them and almost skittering away.
"He sounded like he knew what he was talking about regarding things, sounded like he wanted us to change where your training occurs, with how he was carefully wording his speech." Sternum turned to Jade once they had watched Frost disappear down the corridor.
"He's trying to undermine my father, no doubt. Should've been exiled years ago, from what I was told." Zera hated that Frost had suddenly decided to come out of the cave he had found for himself, the self-important former Lord -only allowed to keep his title as his family line had been alongside the ruling families for centuries- having been cowed and humiliated by his attempts in the past.
"Oh that's the one Cryos told me about, the one that left him for dead during a cave-in." Jade nodded, arms crossed herself. Sternum held his urge to laugh that both females in his midst held the same pose and expression.
"We'll mention him showing up to Cryos later." Sternum offered, motioning to the door that opened to his left. "Shall we begin?"
The training session lasted nearly three hours, Zera thoroughly exhausted but feeling like she had learned more close-combat fighting tactics in the one day, than in the entire time they had been fighting the beast planet. Sternum and Jade had taken turns in sparring with her, helping her up after each time she was knocked down and going over what she had done wrong. She adapted and responded far better and more quickly than they expected, her simply mentioning that sparring with Pyrus before he had been almost forced to take over governance amongst his people, had helped her adaptibility and understanding in close-hand combat training.
When Zera had bid the pair farewell for the night and said goodnight to her father in the hall following the evening meal they shared with Sternum and Jade, Jade turned serious and crossed her arms again stubbornly once Zera was out of earshot.
"Frost was trying to convince us you had pushed him to order us to leave just before Zera's training." She stated blatantly. Cryos at first blinked a few times almost comically, Sternum nodding when the other King's gaze fell on him that indeed, Frost had tried to undermine Cryos' arrangements for Zera.
"I should have exiled him a long time ago. Or worse. Thank you for telling me." He bowed slightly to them, Jade simply waved it off halfheartedly, but nodded acknowledgment to his bow.
"If you want a good place to get rid of someone, I know a few pits he'd become lost in." Sternum grinned, Cryos appearing to pale himself.
"Of that I have no doubt." Cryos chuckled lightly, nodding as Sternum motioned for them to head for the ship docks to return to their respective worlds, the three walking together. "How are Femur and Pelvus handling this co-governance?"
"Well enough. Change is something we all have been… avoiding, for a long time. Perhaps combining our peoples as we have been and encouraging them to look past the surface and forgive old grudges is a better idea than many of our forefathers have been able to enact. We're in a perfect situation to do so." Sternum mused, Cryos nodding.
"I agree, though it will be difficult to look past the history of our warring system. The Firians are doing their best, but Pyrus is too young to take all of this on himself."
"And yet, he's done a better job than Femur did on his own." Jade chuckled, Sternum glancing at her with a toothy grin. "Graveheart is helping him out, thankfully. Though that incident with the fake Vizier did a number on him."
"Graveheart sees too much of his lost brother in Pyrus, I believe, yet he has been doing him a great favour by working with him. I believe they are both benefiting from his involvement." Cryos added, having learned of Mica from Jade one night during a private conversation. She had not been there, on Planet Fire when Mica was lost to a molten river during one of Rock's expeditions, which had been resource raids necessary as their four worlds used to war against each other.
"If only the Golden Jubilation had worked." Sternum sighed, having overheard his father, Emperor Spine, working with a Firian double-agent to sabotage the event. Pyrus' father, the late Emperor Magmus, had reached out to the other three planetary leaders, Cryos himself, Lord Mantle of Rock and Emperor Spine of Bone, and invited them to Fire, offering his world as a central hub for possibly talking about ending the centuries-long war.
An explosion in the streets outside the Firian palace, just behind where Magmus, Cryos and Mantle had been walking and talking as though old friends, proved that Magmus had made an error in starting without Spine. In truth, it proved that Spine could not be trusted, and pushed Mantle away from the attempt at a truce. Cryos had attempted to save their interactions, Magmus strangely sighing and telling him to run, before any retaliation came. Magmus may have saved Cryos' life that day, as several of his own Honor Guard headed by General Blaze raced down the streets, weapons ready and powered up, stopped only by Magmus ordering them to stand down.
That had been the last time he and Mantle had seen Magmus, as little more than three months later, intelligence had brought him the information that Magmus had died following a two-pronged raid. Some said that Magmus had resisted the poison that had been on the blade of the Bone Warrior that had gained a single hit on the Emperor, a seasoned warrior in his own right, as he had been able to return to and die within his Palace.
"You have no idea. I think it would have worked, very well, if it hadn't been for Spine being an opportunist." Cryos expressed, swallowing the lump that welled up in his throat. Jade and Sternum agreed wordlessly, bid Cryos farewell, and returned to their respective ships that ferried them off world and back to their homes.
Instead of going to his own personal chambers for the night, Cryos went to his General and directed extra watch on Frost, and if he were to be seen within the palace, to apprehend him and inform Cryos promptly, regardless of what he could be doing. He reiterated that Frost had been publicly humiliated when Cryos was young, and he still had not learned his lesson to stay out of the affairs of the royal family.
Weeks spanning to many months passed then, Frost not making a single appearance during the entirety, had Cryos secretly hoping the usurper would not show himself around the Palace or the surrounding tunnel city.