The response of the queen was so quick and easy that Minas was surprised into cackling laughter. The gall of the woman, good bones. Yes, the bones of her husbands and children and grandchildren. They were very good bones indeed. If not for what they would gain if this little enterprise succeeded, Minas might have wrenched the beating heart from the woman's very chest and eaten it in front of all and sundry. But Minas was very good at hiding her rage behind her humor, the two so intertwined that they could be sometimes called the one and the same.<br/><br/>So she laughed, an unsettling chittering sound  that echoed through the air, out of place among the gentle folk. Ranuk and Goshnar, and every demon behind them ducked their heads in deference and fear. They knew what their mother's laugh meant, and rarely did it ever proceed something good.<br/><br/>When she was done the silence was strained, every single one of her teeth bared in a rictus smile. The king spoke but her ears did not once flick in his direction, her amethyst eyes only for the queen. Naviin's hatred and malice were a pittance compared to the demon mother, a snowflake to her roiling avalanche of icy contempt so thinly veiled behind her inhuman stare.<br/><br/>The demons came in peace, and yes, there were sincere hopes that an alliance could be forged, but that did not erase what had happened between their people. The demon's home had been stolen from them, not once, but thrice, and that would not be so easily forgiven.<br/><br/>Still, this was needed, which was why Minas did not destroy the very castle that she stood on. Her flash of barely restrained violence was there and gone as if it had never happened, but there was a lingering bite to the frosty air that would not abate.<br/><br/>She waved her taloned hand lazily as if to brush aside their words, uncaring of whatever niceties they had planned. Minas had not traveled hundreds of miles to be dithered at by courtly manners.<br/><br/>"Take me to your sickly daughter," Minas commanded.<br/><br/>The treaty was contingent on whether or not the demons could heal the she-elf, and Minas was eager to get the negotiations underway.