《The Fire Queen》


 Chapter 1 - Exile

    I remember the day that we left for the north like it was yesterday. My father, a general in the king''s army, had been exiled to the Northlands by the queen, who had taken advantage of the king''s ailing faculties to usurp the throne. My father was exiled for the crime of treason, for his supposed involvement in a plot to assassinate the king. Nearly all of the high ranking members of the king''s court were accused of similar crimes and punished with exile to the Northlands.


    The Northlands were known to be cold and barren, and inhabited by savages. Our exile, then, was tantamount to a death sentence, at least that''s the way it seemed to those of us that had no firsthand knowledge of the Northlands. During his time in the army my father had participated in several expeditionary missions to the Northlands and he assured us that living there wasn''t going to be as hard as we had been led to believe. There were rivers and plenty of animals to hunt, he told us; once we had shelter we would be fine. He also assured us that our exile would not last long. The queen, being illegitimate, was ruling without the blessing of the Overseer, and without the blessing of the Overseer the kingdom was doomed to suffer under her rule, and it would only be a matter of time before she was forced to vacate the throne.


    I was afraid of what awaited us in the Northlands but I chose to put my trust in my father. My mother, however, was not assuaged by my father''s assurances. From the beginning she had blamed him for our exile, saying that he could have easily sworn fealty to the queen and spared them from all of this but had chosen to pride and sense of honor before his family. Her anger at my father and her fear of what awaited us in the Northlands only increased as we got closer to the day of our departure.


    We left the capital city of Glendale as part of a caravan that consisted of seven other families that had also been exiled. Each family brought two wagons with them, one for them and one for their provisions. Included amongst the provisions were weapons for us to defend ourselves with in the event of us coming under attack from the bandits that lived in the caves beyond the Rhume salt flats. If such an attack were to occur everyone with combat training would have to take up arms and defend the caravan, and that included me. I was fifteen years old and had been training with my father since I was eight. He had trained me in archery, staff combat and sword combat. My training up to that point had been relatively easy. That, he informed me, was going to change when we got to the Northlands.


    It took us a week to reach Galand, a small mining town that was the only town north of the capital city. We spent the night there, replenished our provisions and took on enough water to last us for the duration of the trip across the salt flats. In the morning, when it was time to move out, the members of the caravan were asked if any of them wished to turn back, because there would be no turning back once we hit the salt flats. Two families said that they wanted to go back, their reason being that if the rest of the journey was going to be harder than the journey to Galand then they would rather go back to Glendale and take their chances there. My father expected that this would be the case and he bore no hard feelings toward them, nor did he bear any hard feelings toward my mother when she said that she also wished to go back. We''d thought that once we had left she would accept the reality of our exile, but she was too scared, believing that the only thing that awaited us in the Northlands was death. She asked me to come back with her and I said no. I was resolved to keep going all the way to the Northlands and trusted my father to get us all there safely. I stepped away from my mother at the moment of parting when she tried to hug me. I couldn''t forgive her for what she was doing and I wanted her to just leave. I never saw her again, and I never learned what became of her.


    We departed from Galand and began the long trek across the Rhume salt flats, a vast expanse of land that had had its natural beauty stripped away by the mining activities that were responsible for Galand''s establishment and expansion. Crossing the giant salt flats would take us another week, and would be the greatest strain on our provisions. The good news, my father said, was that while on the salt flats we had no reason to fear attack by bandits. The bandits stayed away from the salt flats because there were no places for them to hide. The bandits would become a threat when we left the salt flats.


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    The salt flats, my father explained, represented a kind of border. The kingdom had no interest in anything beyond the salt flats, considering the area beyond it to be worthless. The land beyond the salt flats was littered with rock formations, and one could only dig one foot beneath the soil before hitting rock. The land was unsuitable for farming, and geology surveyors had deemed the rock worthless, as such, the kingdom saw no reason to expand into these lands. The bandits lived in the caves that were found in the larger rock formations. They were able to live out there because they had managed to domesticate the teewahs, large flightless birds with strong legs that had a large hump on their back in which they stored water. By riding the teewahs the bandits were able to cross the salt flats in as little as half a day. The bandits would travel south and carry out raids on convoys travelling between Galand and the capital city, then use the teewah''s speed to quickly cross the salt flats and put themselves out of reach. The bandits would either take what they had stolen and sell it in the capital city weeks later or they would travel to the Northlands and use it to trade with the Okwari for food and other essentials. It was unclear who exactly the bandits were. My father''s suspicion was that they were societal outcasts: ex-convicts, disgraced soldiers, people that owed money, that sort. I asked my father if whether the fact that we were outcasts as well might lead the bandits to spare us, to which my father responded that taking that chance would be far too risky; if we were to come into contact with the bandits we had to be ready to defend ourselves.


    On the other side of the salt flats we were confronted by terrain that was uneven and littered with jagged rock formations protruding from the ground. Because of the challenging terrain of the land our only way forward with the wagons was to use the road that had been established by the army''s expedition force. Using the established road made us sitting ducks for the bandits, but we had no other options. Only minutes after we had begun travelling on the road, my father spotted something.


    "Left side, on the crest of that hill."


    Far in the distance, a bandit riding a teewah was watching us.


    "Are they going to attack us?" I asked my father.


    "Not now, they''ll keep following us until nightfall, then make their move when we''ve stopped for the day."


    "What are we going to do?"


    "Whatever we can to fight them off, which won''t be much."


    We kept travelling, and the bandit on the teewah kept following us and watching us. The closer we got to nightfall, the more afraid I became. The danger that we were in suddenly became real to me. I could feel my father''s fear, the man I had always thought of as being fearless. There were probably more bandits beyond the hill that the bandit that was tracking us was walking along; our ability to defend ourselves depended on how many. We pushed on until the sun started going down, at which point we had no choice but to stop and set up camp for the night. My father said that he would stay awake for as long as he could to keep watch, but after a long hard day of travelling he wouldn''t be able to stay awake for very long. Too anxious to sleep, I stayed awake with my father. We sat looking up at the stars and talked about what awaited us in the Northlands if we were able to make it there. He explained to me that the people that were referred to as savages were a race known as the Okwari that had dark hair, swarthy skin and were very tall. They had one point inhabited the entire kingdom but were pushed further and further north by the expansionist policies of previous rulers until there was nowhere left for them to go but the Northlands, where they were assured they wouldn''t be bothered.


    It had been two years since the last time my father had ventured to the Northlands. During his expeditions he had developed a relationship with one of the Okwari chiefs, a man named Kendor, who he hoped would help us to get settled. The winters were going to be the hardest part of living in the Northlands. The Okwari weren''t an agrarian people, they were hunter-gatherers, as such they didn''t stockpile grain to consume during the winter but rather went out in the snow to hunt for whatever animals they could find. We would be doing the same, which was why the most important thing that I could do was to continue to improve my archery skills.

 Chapter 2 - Danger

    The bandits came late at night after my father and I had been sitting and talking for hours and everyone else was fast asleep. There were seven of them; six were on horses, the seventh, who appeared to be the leader, was riding the teewah. My father got up off the ground, drew his sword from its scabbard and got ready to fight. The bandit dismounted from the teewah and walked toward us without drawing a weapon and unwrapped the cloth that covering their face. To our shock, it was a woman.


    "You''re not a military convoy," she said to my father.


    "We''re exiles, the queen has exiled us to the Northlands," my father responded, lowering his guard.


    "The queen? What''s happened to the king?" She asked.


    "The king is ailing, the queen has usurped the throne."


    "The queen is illegitimate then?"


    "She is."


    The bandit thought about this for a moment before she turned around and walked back to her teewah.


    "You''re not going to rob us?" My father asked, confused.


    "You''re exiles, which means you''re like us, so no, we won''t be robbing you, and besides, the information that you''ve given me is far more valuable than anything we could steal from you."


    "Is that your daughter?" She added, looking at me.


    "Yes," my father answered.


    "Raise her to be strong, she''s going to need to be out here."


    "I intend to."


    She remounted her teewah and led the other bandits away, bringing an end to the most frightening experience of my life. The teewah was much larger than it had looked from afar, it was almost twice the size of a horse, and she was more physically imposing than any woman I had ever seen. The greatest danger that was facing us had passed, leaving me and my father to contemplate the encounter that we had just had.


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    "What did she mean when she said that you''d given her valuable information?"


    "With an illegitimate queen on the throne the kingdom is going to enter into a period of decline which the bandits will be able to exploit."


    "Are we safe now?"


    "That''s what she said, hopefully we can take her at her word."


    It turned out we could take her at her word. We completed the rest of our journey to the Bronden mountain range without encountering any more bandits. The Bronden mountains served as the unofficial border between the kingdom and the Northlands. The easiest way to travel through the mountains into the Northlands was through a narrow valley that the Okwari kept scouted. My father told the rest of the caravan to wait at the entrance to the valley while he went through it alone and made sure that it was safe for the rest of us. The rest of us looked up at the mountains and couldn''t see any scouts but my father assured us that they were there. He rode slowly into the valley on his horse until he became enshrouded by the darkness of the valley and we could no longer see him. He was gone for long, so long that I began to have fears about him not returning. When he did finally return he brought word with him that the valley was safe to cross, and that in the coming days the Okwari chief would be coming to the military outpost to discuss our situation as well as the developments in the kingdom.


    Not far from the entrance to the Northlands was a military outpost where we would be staying until we were able to erect our own shelters. After passing through the valley it took us just over an hour to reach the outpost. The outpost was a large stone building with a thatch roof that was large enough to easily accommodate all thirty of us. The challenge was going to be how we lived out here. We had depleted most of our provisions during the trip and needed to start thinking immediately about how we were going to feed ourselves. We''d start worrying about that tomorrow, my father said to me; for now everybody just needed to rest. We weren''t going to rest. Soon after arriving at the outpost my father told me to get on one of the horses and follow him. We rode away from the outpost and deeper into the Northlands until we reached a point where the ground dropped off. From the plateau we were on the vastness of the Northlands stretched out before us for as far as we could see. There were more mountains in the distance but other than that the land was flat, barren and desolate. It was a wonder that anybody was able to live here at all.

 Chapter 3 - Survival

    "During winter everything that you see is going to be covered by three feet of snow; when spring comes the snow melts, the land turns green and animals from all over come to graze and give birth, it''s incredibly beautiful," my father said to me.


    "We need to get through winter first," I responded.


    "When the Okwari chief comes I''m going to ask for their help, without it we most likely won''t survive."


    The Okwari chief came to the outpost three days later, accompanied by six members of his tribe. All were riding teewahs. My father was the one who greeted and welcomed them. When my father spoke with them, it was in their own language, a skill I didn''t know he possessed. They went into the outpost to talk and the rest of us were told to remain outside. The fear among the others was palpable. I was not afraid. I believed that my father would come through with what we needed, and that''s exactly what he did.


    "They''ll help us, but only this once, as soon as winter''s passed it''s going to be up to us to fend for ourselves," he said to me after the Okwari had left.


    "How did you get him to agree to help us?"


    "I let him know that he could trust us, that for as long as we were here we wouldn''t do anything to endanger them or their way of life, and because he knows me he trusts that I''m telling him the truth."


    The Okwari helped us with food and wood for the duration of the winter months. They brought the provisions to us; they didn''t trust us enough yet to let us know the location of their village. The cold that winter was unlike anything we''d experienced before. We spent all of our time inside the outpost bundled up in warm clothing whereas the Okwari that delivered the provisions to us were able to travel a long distance in the cold without any problems. The food they brought us was always meat, which we found strange because my father had told us that they were purely hunter gatherers; obviously they had livestock of some kind.


    The assistance that we received from the Okwari allowed us to make it through the winter without losing anybody. When spring arrived, the landscape changed exactly as my father said it would, and we were free to start leaving the outpost and exploring the landscape of our new home. As soon as the snow thawed my father set off on horseback to thank the Okwari personally for the help they gave us during the winter. I begged him to take me with him but he said no, that to bring somebody along with him, even his own daughter, would be a violation of their trust. He returned the next day and informed the rest of us that there was a piece of land further inland that was the perfect location for us to establish a settlement. The piece of land in question was the site of an old Okwari settlement, where there were old structures that could be made habitable with just a few repairs, and it was close to a river. If we wanted to have everything ready in time for the next winter we needed to go there now and begin work immediately, which we did. The trip with the wagons fully loaded took us one day, and when we got there what we found was promising. There were twenty structures on the site, more than we needed. The repairs that were required were minor, but without the proper tools there was a limit to how much we could do. The Okwari built their structures out of stone, with roofs that were made from grass piled on top of animal hide that was stretched across wooden beams. The stone walls were fine, but the roofs had all fallen in.


    "The chief told me that they''ve got hides that we can use, and soon the grass will be tall enough for us to start cutting it and using it to make our roofs; until then we''ll be camping out," my father said to me. The initial repairs would be rudimentary; to get the tools that we needed we would have to trade for them with the bandits. My father''s main goal, once the structures were repaired, was to build a waterwheel in the river that would power a sawmill and an irrigation system for when we began planting, which was going to be important for when more exiles arrived in the north, of which my father was expecting a steady stream in the months and years ahead. To realize his ambitions for the settlement we needed tools and materials from the capital city, until we managed to procure those tools and materials from the bandits we were just going to make do with what we had, with as much help from the Okwari as they were willing to give us. The amount of help that we were getting from the Okwari baffled me and the others. After everything that had been done to them it made no sense for them to be so helpful to us.


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    "That''s how things work up here in the Northlands," my father explained to me when I asked him about it, "living here is not easy, so it''s important to take advantage of any opportunity to make living here easier; in our case, I told the chief when he visited the outpost about our plans for our settlement and I promised that when everything''s up and running they would also get to enjoy the benefits of it all, that''s why they''re helping us."


    With the land now green the animals returned and we could go hunting. Our food concerns were at an end and thanks to the materials that the Okwari shared with us we were able to repair the roofs of the dwellings in relatively short order. Everybody was working incredibly hard, my father especially, but despite that he refused to let up on my training for even a day. Whether he''d been working all day on the settlement or had been out on a long hunt he would unfailingly hand me my wooden sword and tell me that we were going to train. Once while we were training a violent downpour began and I lowered my sword thinking that we would be returning to the settlement, only for my father to correct me.


    "What are you doing?" He asked me.


    "Aren''t we going back? It''s raining."


    "Do you think that if you''re on the battlefield and it starts raining that the battle is going to stop?" He asked rhetorically, "raise your sword, we''re not done here."


    My father trained me relentlessly every day, always stressing to me the importance of me being ready for any challenges that I would have to deal with in the Northlands. I asked him once if it was really necessary for us to go to such extremes when it came to my training and he answered my question by taking me along on one of the hunts that the men of the settlement went on to procure food for us. Before the hunt began my father told me to find a vantage point where I would be safe from which I would be able to witness the hunt. The main animal that was hunted was the buffalo, large horned herbivores that lived in herds on the plains. When attacked, the buffalo would defend themselves by charging as a herd toward whatever it was that was attacking them; this made hunting them difficult and extremely dangerous. In the weeks since spring had arrived and we''d started hunting two men had returned to the settlement from hunts having sustained injuries that fortunately weren''t as bad as they could have been.


    Five men participated in the hunt. The method that was used for hunting buffalo was for one man to fire an arrow at the herd and draw their attention, then when the herd is chasing him the other four men would ride alongside the herd, two on each side, firing as many arrows as they could to try and bring down as many buffalo as they could before parts of the herd broke off and turned on them and they had to flee. From my vantage point I watched as my father and the four men that joined him on the hunt took on the herd. My father assumed the responsibility of being the one who fired the first shot and became the primary target of the herd when it stampeded. The arrow that my father launched hit one of the buffalo in its leg and almost immediately the herd began its pursuit of him. The buffalo were fast and it was all my father''s horse could do to keep ahead of them. While my father was fleeing the stampeding herd, the other four members of the hunting party flanked the herd and started firing. They managed to bring down three buffalo before they also had to flee. After the herd had broken up they continued chasing my father and the others for only a little longer before they regrouped and moved on. The carcasses were transported back to the settlement using the wagons that we had used on our trek to the Northlands. It was terrifying watching my father and the others having to put their lives at risk for something as basic as procuring food for us; it also put into perspective my father''s fanaticism about my training in a way that just hearing about the challenges of living here couldn''t have done. I trained diligently every day from then on.

 Chapter 4 - Hope

    One of the buffalos that were killed during the hunt we gave to the bandits, with whom we had been trading since we''d first started hunting shortly after the spring thaw. The woman that we had first met on our journey to the Northlands was the one that we always dealt with and every time that she came to the settlement to find out what we had to offer she would make a point of asking me how strong I''d gotten. Once, she asked my father if she could spar with me so she could see for herself how strong I was and we sparred with wooden swords for a few minutes. I did my best to show her how much I''d learned and how strong I''d become but she was so powerful, more powerful than my father even, that I doubted she could gauge my abilities at all. After our sparring session she told me that my training was progressing well and that if I remained diligent in my training I would grow up to be a formidable warrior. My father had been watching our session and invited her to eat lunch with us. There were so many things that I wanted to know about her that I was always too shy to ask; I didn''t even know her name, which I learned during that lunch was Uraia. She was Okwari chief Kendor''s daughter and had left the tribe and joined the bandits to see more of the world besides just the Northlands. As a bandit her talents had been recognized and she had quickly risen to become one of their leaders. She had not left the Okwari clan acrimoniously and returned regularly to the village to see her friends and family there. I told her that I was curious to see how the Okwari lived and she promised to take me with her to the village the next time she came to trade with us.


    Through trading with the bandits we were able to obtain many of the tools that we needed for crafting wood, quarrying stone and for performing other important tasks, which was important because as my father predicted, other exiles as well as refugees started to make their way north. The settlement was capable of absorbing a few more but soon we would be at our limit, so it was critical that we started expanding the settlement.


    Uraia returned to the settlement a week later. She had come to take me to the Okwari village like she had promised and to give me a present: a teewah chick. It was impossible to tame a grown teewah, she explained to me, if you wanted to have a teewah for a partner you had to raise one from when it was a chick or make a contract with one using a binding stone. The bandits got theirs by raiding their nests. Every spring when the eggs hatched they would raid their nests and steal about three or four, not enough to affect the population. I left the chick with my father to take care of for me while I was gone and left with Uraia on the back of her teewah. The teewah''s speed was unreal, at full speed it was easily more than twice as fast as a horse. As big as I thought the Northlands were from our journey to the settlement, my journey to the Okwari village with Uraia opened my eyes to the true vastness of this land. Riding with Uraia we passed rivers, lakes and forests that were all home to animals that I''d never seen before. Whenever we came across one such animal Uraia would stop and allow me time to observe them for a short while. While I was watching some white wolves drinking at the far shore of a lake, Uraia explained to me that the Okwari live according to one core principle: that you don''t take what you don''t need and whatever you do take you give back in some way, and in doing so the balance is maintained. This was something that we needed to remember as more exiles and refugees arrived and our settlement grew.


    We reached the Okwari village just before nightfall. I was exhausted when we arrived and was carried into one of the huts by Uraia where I fell asleep. I got my first real look at the Okwari village the next morning when I woke up. I emerged from the hut that Uraia had put me in and, although dawn had only just broken, much of the village was already at work on their first tasks of the day. Feeling out of place, I looked around for Uraia. She had been waiting for me and was close by. When she saw me she came over to me and brought me my breakfast.


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    "Here, I kept it warm for you," she said, handing me a bowl.


    The bowl that she handed me was filled with warm meat and potato stew. I ate my first spoonful and was overwhelmed by the deep flavor of it.


    "It''s good, isn''t it? We use herbs, mushrooms and other ingredients that we gather in the forests to add flavor; you can''t find those ingredients anywhere else but here."


    I gobbled down my bowl of stew and went back into the hut to get ready for my first day among the Okwari. When I went back outside six men carrying spears walked past on teewahs.


    "Where are they going?" I asked Uraia.


    "They''re going hunting."


    "Can we go too?" I asked, fascinated to see how they hunted.


    "Sure, but we have to keep our distance."


    Uraia and I went to get her teewah and we set off after the hunting party. The Okwari were all large and powerful like Uraia, this allowed them to hunt with spears rather than with bows. Because of the Okwari''s power and the teewah''s speed, they were able to hunt without any fear of the buffalo. With their big spears they were able to easily kill a buffalo with one throw, and when the herd turned on them their speed was no match for the teewah''s. They''d kill a buffalo and run away, then when the herd had given up on chasing them they''d retrieve their spear from the carcass and go back for another kill. The six men that took on the herd did so with perfect synchronicity and managed to bring down twenty buffalo with ease in just minutes. They transported the carcasses using horse-drawn carriages like we did. Ten carcasses went back to Uraia''s village and the other ten were shared with the other villages.


    "How many villages are there?" I asked Uraia on the way back.


    "There are over a hundred, spread out all across the Northlands. We all share with the villages that are closest to us."


    Back at the village, I was free to roam and learn as much about the Okwari as I could. It turned out I was right, they did keep livestock. There were three large pens full of buffalo, and one smaller pen that had around twenty teewahs in it. The buffalo that they kept as livestock was what they ate during the winter; during the rest of the year they hunted and this allowed their livestock herds to be replenished by new calves in time for winter. In addition to the huts that were similar to what we had found when we arrived at the settlement, the village also had a large communal building that was primarily used during the winter, when all of the villagers moved out of their huts and moved into the communal building to enjoy greater warmth. The communal building was built differently than the huts. It''s walls were made of two layers of stonework between which was a thick mixture of straw and wool that the buffalo shed during spring. This mixture between the walls sealed the body heat from the villagers within the building. There were pieces of land in the village where crops were being grown but it was small subsistence farming, nothing like what my father had planned for our settlement.


    I spent hours roaming the village and despite being an outsider there was nobody in the village that looked at me or treated me funny, which, Uraia explained, was because they knew my father and liked and trusted him. When I returned to the settlement the next day with Uraia, it was with a greater appreciation for the kind of life that we could build for ourselves here in the Northlands.

 Chapter 5 - Independence

    The teewah chick that Uraia gave me, which I had named Lucy, grew fast. After two years she was fully grown, and I was riding her all over the Northlands, exploring as much of it as I could. My two years of unrelenting daily training with my father had made him confident enough about my abilities to leave me to explore the Northlands on my own. We still trained every day but with my father being so busy with making improvements to the settlement our training sessions were much shorter than they used to be. To make up for the amount of training time that we were losing he asked Uraia to spend time training me whenever possible. Despite how much more skilled I had become, I still couldn''t keep up with Uraia during the training sessions that we had. Whenever we sparred she would carry me throughout the exchange before dropping me to the ground with one powerful blow to remind me of how much further I still had to go before I could consider myself a warrior.


    Thanks to Uraia, the bandits made getting the tools and materials that my father needed for his improvements their top priority and he was able to bring most of his ideas to fruition. He was able to build his waterwheel which was primarily being used for milling lumber but which in the future could also be used for irrigation and milling grain. Uraia''s father rode out often on his teewah to our settlement to see how my father''s projects were coming along. He was hugely impressed by the sawmill and asked my father if he would mill lumber for his village, to which my father responded that if he supplied the logs he would happily do it. There was no question of asking for anything in return; were it not for the help that we had received from the chief and his village we in all likelihood would be dead by now. To haul in the trees that we felled in the nearby forests the chief had given my father two buffalos from their livestock herd, and he promised that when my father needed more buffalo for plowing he would provide them. The sawmill was running almost all day and was working terrifically, which was critical because, as my father predicted, people kept coming north from the kingdom. There wasn''t the time to build new dwellings for them from stone; my father kept the sawmill running for as long as possible and new dwellings were built entirely from wood.


    The more people that arrived at the settlement, the more time I spent away from the settlement with Lucy. I didn''t have any problems with the new arrivals, I had just come to really enjoy the peace and quiet of the vast expanses of the Northlands. My favorite thing to do when I went riding was to watch the wolves. They were the top predators in the land and were able to freely roam the plains of the Northlands without fear. Only the Okwari could have posed a threat to them, but the practice of hunting wolves had been outlawed generations ago and the wolf was now considered sacred by the Okwari.


    The wolves were beautiful. I could spend hours just sitting and watching them, and I often did. It was during one of the days when I had ridden out on Lucy and was following and watching a pack of wolves that I noticed something in the behavior of the pack that I hadn''t seen before. It looked like they were playing, but the more I watched them the clearer it became that they weren''t playing. One of the pups was being ganged up on by the rest of the pups and a couple of the adult wolves, and their treatment of the pup grew increasingly violent until the pack moved on without the pup. Left on its own, it was only a matter of time before the pup died. I waited until the pack was a safe distance away from the pup and when they were I got on Lucy and went to get the pup. It didn''t have any serious injuries, just a few scrapes that would quickly heal. The pup was a male and had thick black fur. I brought the pup back to the settlement with me and gave it a few small pieces of meat and some water to drink. When I told my father why I''d brought a wolf pup home with me he said that he wasn''t surprised by my actions given my affinity for animals. I named the pup Anbu. He lived with us in the hut and slept next to me at night. During the day he was free to roam the settlement but he never strayed far away from me, and if he did it was to play with Lucy. Lucy had taken to Anbu like a mother and wouldn''t go far away from him unless he was with me. Over time the three of us became inseparable and we did everything together. When he saw that I had a wolf pup, the chief told me that it was a sign that there was something special about me. By this time I had learned how to speak the Okwari language, thanks mostly to Uraia. I spent a lot of time at the Okwari village, and because I had a teewah I was able to go on hunts with them. I didn''t have the strength to bring down a buffalo with a spear so I still used a bow and arrow, though I was able to bring one down with just one arrow.


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    The settlement kept getting bigger as exiles and refugees came north in greater numbers. The stories that they told confirmed what we had been hearing from Uraia for months, which was that things in the capital city were going from bad to worse and as a result so was everything in the rest of the kingdom. People all across the kingdom were fleeing in search of a better life elsewhere. Those that lived in the northern parts of the kingdom were coming north to the settlement while those in the eastern, western and southern parts of the kingdom were heading for the nearest border. To the east was the kingdom of Erst, to the west was the kingdom of Dranii, and to the south was the kingdom of Theran. The deterioration of the kingdom had produced a large refugee problem that the neighboring kingdoms were responding to by firming up their borders with increased troops and physical barriers. My father warned me and the others in the settlement that if the number of people coming north became unsustainable then we might have to enact similar measures. Our primary concern was the Okwari becoming anxious about us increasingly encroaching upon them and tensions arising between us because of that.


    As far as resources went we had the capacity to absorb many more people. We had a surplus of lumber for building dwellings thanks to the sawmill and the fields that we''d cultivated had produced a good crop the past two years. My father had used the two buffalo that the chief had given him for hauling lumber to pull the plow that he''d had made and create fields for planting. After seeing the success of my father''s efforts, the chief gave him extra buffalo to use to plow more fields. The quick growth and development of the settlement was due to the arrival of skilled artisans. The plows that we were using were made by the carpenters and blacksmiths that had come north from the capital city, and the planting that we were doing was being overseen by a farmer who had come north after his land was seized. The progress of the settlement was exceeding all of our expectations and yet, despite all of the success that we had managed to achieve over the last four years in building a new life for ourselves, I couldn''t help feeling uneasy about it all because of how different the way that we were doing things was than the way that the Okwari did things. Now when I left the settlement it wasn''t just for the day but for days at a time. I would take Lucy and Anbu with me and we would ride out far away from the settlement, deeper and deeper into the Northlands. Anbu was now fully grown and had become a reliable tracker. When we went out into the wilderness for days at a time we had no problem finding food. Our usual prey was deer. We''d go into a forest, Anbu would sniff one out and lead me to it and then it was simply a matter of me bringing it down with an arrow. Whatever we went hunting Anbu never forgot himself and chased after our prey. He always remained by my side, trusting that he and Lucy would be provided for after I''d brought down our prey.

 Chapter 6 - Return

    We saw Uraia at the settlement a lot less often than we used to. Her reason for her long absences was that with things being so bad in the kingdom she and the rest of the bandits were free to enter the kingdom and conduct their business there for as long as they wanted. What had become especially lucrative for the bandits were the underground fights that were being held in the city. These fights took place in different locations throughout the city to maintain secrecy and the bets that were placed on these fights produced a huge pot of which the winning fighter received a large share. The fights were to the death, with fighters being able to choose whatever weapon they wished to use for the fight.


    Uraia had competed in three fights so far that she had won easily. Her feeling was that the fighters that she''d fought were just thugs that had been recruited by the syndicates that ran the fights. They were not true warriors, and as such were easy opponents. After seeing one of her fights in which she dispatched with her opponent in no time at all, one of the syndicates made a lucrative offer to Uraia to fight for him, which she turned down. The syndicates were dangerous people, she said, the kind that are best kept away from. According to Uraia, lawlessness had completely taken over the capital city, with syndicates in control of all of the major functions of the city. For my father, who had dedicated over three decades of his life to fighting in service of the king''s dream of peace and unity, the news about the state of the kingdom was difficult to take.


    Having read all of my father''s diaries from his time in the military, I understood how brutal the civil wars had been that the king had fought to subjugate the nobles and unite the kingdom. The kingdom had now once again been broken up into different states, with the noble families returning to their previous positions of power as State Regents. They had used their reacquired power to reverse nearly all of the reforms that the king had instituted following the end of the wars. The most consequential of these reforms that had been rolled back was the king''s decision to free the citizens that were indentured to landowners and to turn that land over to the formerly indentured citizens for them to work for themselves. The land reform program had been a success but when the nobles returned to power the first thing they did was to strip the freed citizens of their rights and seize their land. Refusing to return to being indentured, most of the peasant farmers chose to flee either for the nearest border or for the Northlands. This mass emigration precipitated a refugee crisis and a food crisis which compounded the refugee crisis. Everything that we heard from Uraia was nothing that we hadn''t heard before from exiles and refugees that had come to the Northlands, it was just that every time we received news about the kingdom it was about things getting worse in ways which were entirely foreseeable and thus preventable if only there was strong and capable leadership that was willing to take the necessary action to halt the kingdom''s precipitous descent.


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    My father''s suspicion was that the person behind all of this was not the queen but rather a man named Cornelius Vanbilt, a nobleman who, against all advice to the contrary, the king added to his court to placate the nobles and bring the wars officially to an end. Nobody trusted Vanbilt. He cared nothing for the king or the kingdom, his only interest was in restoring to the other nobles that which they had lost, and everybody could see that all that he was doing was waiting for his chance. My father guessed that with the queen assuming all of the decision making responsibilities, Vanbilt had seen his chance and taken it. With the silver tongue that he possessed it wasn''t hard for my father to imagine Vanbilt inveigling out of the queen the return of nobles'' rank, property and privileges. With the kingdom grappling with an emigration crisis and a food crisis, my father''s prediction was that foreign involvement and interference in the kingdom is what would come next, in which case the kingdom may be too far gone for a new ruler chosen by the Overseer to save it when the king eventually passed.


    I could feel my father''s frustration at his powerlessness to do anything about what was happening in the kingdom. He started to retreat, pulling away from settlement business and withdrawing into himself. After seeing what all the news of the kingdom''s decline was doing to my father, I decided that I needed to see it for myself. The next time I saw Uraia I asked her if it would be okay for me to come with her the next time she traveled to the capital city, to which she responded that if it was okay with my father then I was welcome to come with. My father''s trust in Uraia was absolute; as long as I was with her he saw no reason to worry. I left Anbu behind at the settlement and Uraia and I rode out on our teewahs. This was my first time leaving the Northlands since we''d been exiled, and I was fascinated to see how much things had changed since we''d left. Riding our teewahs it took us two days to reach Galand where we rendezvoused with some other bandits who were also heading to the capital city. We left our teewahs in Galand and made the rest of journey on horseback.


    Galand now effectively belonged to the bandits. The town had been deserted and the bandits had used their resources to establish themselves there. When Uraia and I arrived in the town it was populated by many more people besides the bandits, people that had been on their way to the Northlands but had decided to remain in Galand rather than take their chances in the wilderness.


    "Your father''s work at the settlement is what inspired us to make this place livable for all of these people," Uraia said to me.


    Uraia warned me that the city we were traveling to was not the same city that I remembered from before we were exiled. When the capital city came into visual range it looked the same as I remembered, but as we got closer to the city the reality of the kingdom''s decay became apparent. In the fields and forests on the outskirts of the city people were living in shanties that they had constructed from whatever materials they could get their hands on.

 Chapter 7 - Emotions

    "This is just the beginning," Uraia said to me, noticing my reaction to the plight of these people.


    Inside of the city there was an oppressive atmosphere of despair and hopelessness that hung over everything. Men were sitting around in the streets with nothing to do; dirty children were begging for food; women were standing in doorways offering their services as sex workers. The shops and businesses that were central to the vibrancy of the city were boarded up, and the streets were being patrolled by armed militia who were obviously not under the authority of the military or the City Patrol. Uraia led us to the inn where we would be staying. The inn was owned by the bandits, who used it as their base in the city. Once inside the inn we could talk safely about what was going on in the city.


    "It''s the syndicates, they''ve taken over everything," Uraia told me in the room that we were going to be sharing, "those men that you saw patrolling the streets were enforcers that work for the syndicates; their job isn''t to keep the peace, it''s to ensure that nothing interferes with their activities. When the syndicates took over they began demanding high taxes from the residents and the business owners, that''s what drove most of the people out of the city. The syndicates installed their people in their houses and started running their operations out of the buildings where the residents'' businesses used to be."


    "How are these syndicates making money if they''ve driven almost everybody out of the city?"


    "The syndicates work for the nobles; the nobles are bankrolling the syndicates with the proceeds they receive from their activities in the states. Many of the citizens in the countryside that tried to flee for the neighboring kingdoms were unable to do so because those kingdoms sealed their borders, which left them with no choice but to return to indentured servitude. Your father was right about foreign involvement in the kingdom. To make up for the citizens that were able to flee slaves were brought in from elsewhere. There are only a few kingdoms that are active in the slave trade; one of them is working to prop up the noble families, and their influence is growing; it''s only a matter of time before they make their move."


    "Why is there a food shortage if people are working the fields?"


    "They''re using a lot of the land to grow something else besides food, a flower called Caeda that''s used to make a powerful narcotic; those flowers are ten times more lucrative than food crops, so they grow just enough food crops to meet their peoples'' absolute minimum needs and use the rest of the land to grow Caeda, and it seems like the same kingdom that''s propping up the nobles is responsible for the proliferation of this narcotic. We''ve spoken with some people that are familiar with all of the kingdoms and their belief is that the kingdom of Volstaff is behind all of this, they have a history of meddling in the affairs of weak nations and trying to bring them under their control."


    I was curious to see what the rest of the city looked like but Uraia advised against it, saying that it was too dangerous to just walk around the city. We remained at the inn while we waited for someone to arrive with the details of where that night''s fight would be taking place. The location of the fights was kept a secret and was only revealed at specific locations on the day that the fights were going to take place. That night the fights were going to be taking place in what used to be an underground market. We left the inn just before nightfall and made our way through the darkening streets in the direction of the venue, which wasn''t far away from the inn. The fights could be held in small venues as it was mostly the syndicate bosses and their close associates that attended. Six fights were scheduled for that night. Uraia was fighting last. The venue filled up fast as the syndicate leaders and their associates arrived in groups and took their seats.


    My father had done his best to prepare me for anything that I might encounter in this world, but nothing could have prepared me for what I witnessed that night. I knew beforehand that I was going to watch fights to the death, but still the violence that I saw that night had a chilling effect on me. I had never seen a human being killed by another human being before, and the sight of them doing so for mere sport was especially disturbing, made worse by the way that the victor played to the crowd before and after killing their opponent. When the time came for Uraia to fight I was nervous. In the five fights that I had seen the fighters had shown no mercy as they had sought to take their opponent''s life. I knew Uraia was strong, but in this environment there was no telling what might happen. Her opponent entered first. He was introduced as Vrado, was muscular and from the looks of it was over 6ft tall. He wore a horned helmet over his head, no armor, and carried an axe and a shield. Uraia, as a returning fighter, entered next. Uraia carried no shield, preferring to fight with two swords, just like when we sparred. I knew how skilled Uraia was as a fighter but I was still worried. The man that she was fighting looked incredibly strong, and the scars all over his body attested to his experience as a warrior. In all likelihood he had been drafted by one of the syndicates to deal with Uraia, whose victories they''d grown tired of.


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    The fight started with the two of them circling the ring and feeling each other out. Vrado attacked first. He lunged at Uraia with his axe, which Uraia was able to easily dodge. Vrado lunged at Uraia another two times and both times Uraia dodged. Vrado was powerful but he lacked speed to deal with Uraia''s agility, this was noticed by everybody during their opening exchanges and the inevitably of his defeat was felt by all. The next time he lunged at Uraia she parried with the sword in her left hand and slit his leg with the sword in her right hand, dropping him to one knee. Nobody was more sure of Uraia''s victory than Uraia herself. I could see in her posture that she didn''t view Vrado as a threat and was merely toying with him like a cat with a mouse, nonetheless I continued to watch the fight through my fingers. The ease with which Uraia was able to dodge his attacks caused Vrado to get frustrated, and the more frustrated he got the more he charged at Uraia with no regard for the fact that he had no answer for her speed and agility. For Uraia, the fight with Vrado was an exercise in surgical striking. By biding her time and waiting for him to strike first she was able to pick him apart to the point where he was struggling just to move because of the amount of blood that he had lost. Vrado knew that he had lost the fight. In one final desperate act he charged at Uraia with the little bit of strength that he had left. This time Uraia didn''t parry. She blocked the blow from his axe, ducked underneath his follow up swing with his shield and went through him with the sword in her other hand. Vrado dropped his axe and fell to his knees, death now just moments away. Uraia didn''t play to the crowd and delay his death like the others had done; with one swift and decisive swing she cut his head off and brought an end to the fight.


    Uraia and I didn''t talk on the way back to the inn. When we were back in our room at the inn, all of the feelings that I had been keeping suppressed during the fights came bursting out of me and I threw myself at Uraia and wrapped my arms tightly around her.


    "What''s wrong?" Uraia asked me.


    "Don''t do that again," I said with tears running down my face.


    "What?"


    "Those fights, don''t do them anymore," I pleaded with her.


    "But you saw how good I am, nothing''s going to happen to me."


    "Uraia, please!"


    I looked up at her with my tear streaked face and when she saw what this meant to me she agreed not to go back and took me in her arms. It was that night that I came to truly understand how special Uraia was to me and how much it would hurt if ever I was to lose her.


    Back in the Northlands, I was spending more time away from the settlement with Anbu and Lucy than I was before. I had too many feelings to sort through, and I couldn''t do that amidst the hustle and bustle of the settlement, especially with all of the excitement around the two large grain silos that were being constructed. Mainly what I needed to sort through were my feelings for Uraia. The intensity of my reaction to watching her fighting had awakened me to the depth of my feelings for her, but just what those feelings were I didn''t know. She had always been like a big sister to me but it wasn''t clear to me if the feelings I experienced that night was caused by my fear of potentially losing my sister or something else, something that I couldn''t begin to imagine how I would deal with.

 Chapter 8 - Tragedy and departure

    I used to enjoy being by myself out in the wilderness of the Northlands, but after returning from the capital city all I ever felt when I went off on my own was lonely. It had never occurred to me before how alone I was. I''d spent so much time either training, reading or paying close attention to the projects that were being undertaken to develop the settlement that I had not made any meaningful relationships with any of the other residents of the settlement. Strangely, the more alone I felt the more I wanted to be alone and the more I sought out solitude. The people in the settlement were almost like strangers to me, but that did nothing to lessen the horror of returning to the settlement and finding them all massacred.


    Looking back, I can still remember the events of that day with perfect clarity. Lucy, Anbu and I had been gone from the settlement for three weeks. We had pushed further into the Northlands than we ever had before; after reaching the northernmost Okwari village we kept travelling for another week until we reached Lake Huron, the lake that fed the river Amur, the primary water source for the entire kingdom. We stayed at the lake for three days, and it was there that I was finally able to achieve some inner peace having spent weeks being tormented by my confusion about my feelings for Uraia.


    I wasn''t able to tell from a distance that something had happened at the settlement. When I was returning and the settlement first came into view it looked like everything was normal, but the closer I got the more I was able to see that something wasn''t right. I became worried and had Lucy speed up, and soon it became clear to me that some kind of disaster had befallen the settlement. The full scale of the massacre that had occurred revealed itself to me when I entered the settlement. The structures were all burned and destroyed, and the people had all been killed. I walked through the settlement in a state of shock and only saw more of the same. The rotten smell of death was thick, and the ashes that had been left behind by the fires were being kicked up and blown about by the wind. There was nothing left, nothing but silence. In my disbelief I was unable to process my surroundings. I walked around the settlement in a daze trying to make sense of what I was looking at until it struck me that there was something specific that I should have been doing. My father! I ran to where our dwelling was and found it a charred ruin like everything else. I removed the burnt timbers from the inside of the stone walls but found no body inside. Manically I went back outside and started checking the bodies on the floor to see if one of them was him. Most of the bodies were caked in coagulated blood from having been run through with a sword or a spear; many had arrows sticking out of them, some were decapitated, some were burnt beyond recognition. I checked body after body after body in search of him until eventually I couldn''t take looking closely at dead bodies anymore and stopped.


    I found a rock and sat on it and let the full horror of what I had returned to wash over me. Everybody from the settlement was dead, all eight hundred of them. This was the queen''s doing. Only the kingdom had the manpower to do something like this, but why? Try as I might with the few thoughts that I was able to stitch together I couldn''t begin to fathom why they would do this.


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    I lost track of time sitting on that rock. The horror of everything around me was too much; the grief, the devastation, the disbelief, the anger, all of these emotions were more than I could bear and they kept me sitting on that rock with no apprehension of the passing of time. Anbu and Lucy didn''t leave my side the whole time that I sat there. I could feel their presence and nothing else until, after an indeterminate amount of time, I heard Uraia''s voice.


    "Alegra! Alegra!"


    It was when I felt her arms around me that I was jolted out of my daze.


    "Are you alright? Are you alright?" She rushed over to me and asked frantically.


    "They''re dead, they''re all dead, everybody''s dead," I remember saying before I succumbed to tears and screams and needed to be wrapped in Uraia''s arms again.


    Once I was reasonably composed Uraia put me on the back of Lucy and led us away from the settlement. She took me to her father''s village and put me down in one of the huts to rest.


    "No, please, don''t leave me alone!" I said to her after she''d put me down, clinging to her arm.


    "I''m not going anywhere."


    I fell asleep in Uraia''s arms and slept for over a day. When I awoke Anbu was there next to me but Uraia was gone. For some reason I was scared to leave the hut and stayed inside until Uraia came in to check on me. I went outside with her and she brought food for us both. While we ate she told me that she explained the situation to her father and that he had gotten together men from all of the villages and they had gone to the settlement and buried the bodies and dealt with the destruction that had been left behind from the massacre.


    "The queen did it; I don''t know why she did it, but it was her, I''m sure of it," I said to Uraia.


    "My father told me about the military campaigns against our people when the kingdom was expanding northward, and he told me that one of the tactics they used to use was to encircle a village in a wide diameter and then move in and attack; from what I saw at the settlement it looks like they did the same thing, so you''re probably right."


    I vowed then and there that somehow I would find a way to exact vengeance upon the queen one day for what she done to us.


    I stayed on at the village for a few weeks. Everybody was nice to me and the chief told me that I could stay and make the village my new home. I appreciated his kindness and that of everybody in the village but I couldn''t stay. My place wasn''t among the Okwari; I needed to find a place for myself. That place, I believed, was with Uraia and the bandits. I didn''t ask Uraia if it was okay for me to come with her; when she left the village to return to the capital city I followed her from a distance with Lucy and Anbu and when I caught up with her I simply said to her "I''m coming with you."

 Chapter 9 - New frontiers

    I spent the next four years with the bandits. It was made clear to me at the beginning that I would be responsible for myself and that I would have to prove myself as a member. Neither proved to be a challenge.


    Most of what the bandits did consisted of them working for the syndicates, who were engaged in a perennial struggle for increased power, wealth and influence. As a bandit I stole, killed and sabotaged, travelling all over the kingdom with other bandits to strike at critical functions of the operations of other syndicates. The syndicates were all in league with the nobles, and whenever a syndicate suffered damage the noble that was backing them also suffered damage. The stage was being set for another civil war, this time with the nobles going into conflict amongst themselves rather than with the kingdom.


    The inevitability of this civil war was such that demand for armor and weapons spiked and in the countryside peasants were being made to participate in combat drills. In the capital city, overtures were being made to skilled fighters who were being offered considerable sums of gold in exchange for aligning themselves with a particular noble. All of the bandits received this offer, and we all declined it. This civil war was the final stage of the Volstaff kingdom''s plan to bring the kingdom completely to its knees so that it could be easily taken over, and none of us had any interest in being a part of that, nor did we have any interest in getting drawn into the war involuntarily. The decision was made to disband; we would all take what we had earned and go our separate ways.


    During my time with the bandits there was one other person besides Uraia whom I had developed a close bond with, a young woman named Clara. Like me she had red hair and she was also the daughter of an exiled member of the king''s court. After being exiled, she and her family had gone north and settled in Galand. She and Uraia started making plans for us to return north on the assumption that I would be going with them. My intention wasn''t to return to the north, my intention was to escape the civil war by going elsewhere, specifically east, to the Erst kingdom. Of the three kingdoms that bordered ours it was known to be the most stable and prosperous. Because of this it attracted the most refugees and had put in place the most stringent border controls of the three border kingdoms, but there were rumors that for the right amount of money you could get in. I set off for the east prepared to use all of the gold that I had accrued as a bandit to buy my way in, and once I was in I could set about building a life for myself.


    The journey east took me a month. If it had just been me and Lucy we could''ve gotten there much sooner, but we had to keep pace with Anbu. Arriving in the border town of Allendale, I was met by the same scene as when I had first traveled to the capital city. Outside of the town, refugees that had decided against returning home were living in camps composed of makeshift shelters. To keep the refugees out, the town had constructed a perimeter wall and anybody wanting to enter the town had to pay a toll. Once inside I found an inn where I could stable Lucy and took Anbu with me to visit the local administration building to learn what the protocol was for gaining entry to the kingdom.


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    "We are no longer processing refugee applications," the clerk told me.


    "I had heard that for a certain fee..."


    "For a certain fee you could bribe an official to grant you the necessary paperwork, but there''s since been a crackdown on corruption."


    "I have gold."


    "I''m sorry, but we are not granting entry in exchange for payment. There is only one way to gain entrance to the kingdom as a refugee."


    "And what is that?"


    "To the south of here is a mountain where terrilium is mined. The mountain is actually a  dormant volcano, and because of the high temperatures inside the mountain a phoenix has nested there. If you can get rid of the phoenix, allowing the miners to return to work, you''ll be allowed entry and granted full citizenship."


    After leaving the Administration building I returned to the inn for Lucy and rode south with her Anbu to get a look at the mountain that the phoenix had made its home. When the mountain was in view I got off of Lucy and took a seat in the shade under a tree, hoping to get a sight of the phoenix in the event it flew somewhere. I sat there waiting for a long time, time which I spent thinking about whether I was on the right path and whether I should do the sensible thing and return to the north. I hadn''t been back to the north since the massacre and had planned to never go back. In the years since I had joined the bandits I had learned that the massacre had occurred because the success of the settlement was causing some agitation among the citizens of the capital city who were angry about the fact that people that were exiled were doing a better job with the settlement they''d built than was being done in the rest of the kingdom. The settlement had been massacred to quell that agitation and to silence the stories that were circulating about the settlement''s prosperity being due to the presence in the settlement of a red haired girl who was the incarnation of the mythical fire queen who, according to an ancient legend, descended from the heavens draped in golden flames and saved the kingdom from invaders by engulfing the invading army in a sea of flames. My resolve to never return to the north was to ensure that nothing like what happened to the settlement happened to Galand or the Okwari villages, and for that reason I had to keep moving forward on the path that I''d chosen.

 Chapter 10 - Strange occurrences

    I didn''t get to see the phoenix. I sat looking at the mountain for hours but the phoenix didn''t show itself. I left to return to town planning on coming back again the following day to see if I would get an opportunity to see it then, but those plans changed when, on our way back to the town, Anbu heard something in the bushes to the side of the path we were travelling along. I left Lucy behind and followed Anbu into the vegetation and found him in a clearing standing over what looked like a very sick horse. The horse was lying on its side and was struggling to breathe, had several wounds on its body and looked malnourished. It appeared to be on death''s door, nevertheless I couldn''t just leave it there. I got behind the horse and used all of my strength to try and get it up off the ground, to no avail. Anbu saw how much I was struggling and started barking threateningly at the horse, which startled it into trying to get up off floor on its own.


    Once it was reasonably erect I was able to steady it and get it standing properly upright, after which I had to soothe it as it was still in a panic from Anbu barking at it. The horse was able to stand on its four legs without any real trouble and I was able to get it back to the town. I stabled it at the inn with Lucy, gave it food and water and made sure the bed of straw on the floor was comfortable. After checking on it the next morning and feeding it again I visited the local beastmaster to get some medicine for the horse and to find out more about the phoenix. I got some balm and bandages for the horse and some disconcerting information about the phoenix.


    "Nobody that''s gone after that bird has come back alive, that includes experienced beastmasters working in teams."


    "That phoenix is my only way into the kingdom."


    "Others have come here and said the same thing. The truth is that the kingdom isn''t expecting anybody to actually get rid of the phoenix; their hope is that enough people will die in the attempt to alleviate the refugee problem. My advice to you is to forget about this and go home."


    "I don''t have a home to go back to; I have no choice but to go through with this."


    Seeing that he wasn''t going to be able to deter me, the beastmaster relented.


    "Are you planning on driving it out or capturing it?" He asked me.


    "Capture."


    "A binding stone for a creature that size costs five gold coins."


    I took the coins out of my pocket and slid them to him across the counter.


    "How big is it?" I asked him.


    "You''re the girl with the teewah, right?"


    I nodded.


    "About three times bigger."


    "That big?!"


    "That''s why I''m telling you to forget this! It''s a suicide mission!"


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    "I''ll figure something out."


    After a week of feeding the horse and tending to its wounds it got much better and was well enough for me to take it for a walk to get some exercise. I put a harness on it and walked with it to where I had found it, where I stood and looked up again at the mountain within which the phoenix was nesting. If everything that the beastmaster had said was true then I really ought to have given up and returned to the north, but for some reason I couldn''t do that. Something was pushing me forward, telling me that the phoenix was my only option. I returned to the beastmaster when I got back to town to ask him if he had any more information about the phoenix that could be of help to me.


    "I''ve already given you the best advice that I have to give you: forget about that bird and go home."


    "And I''ve already told you that I can''t do that, so I''ll ask you again if you have any information to share with me that can help me."


    "The phoenix is nesting at the very bottom of the mine, if you enter from one of the higher entrances you should be able to safely get a look at it; hopefully once you''ve seen it you''ll realize how foolish this all is."


    I thanked the beastmaster for the information and returned to the inn. I needed to feed Lucy, the horse and Anbu and get some dinner for myself. I went around to the back of the inn to where the stables were to feed Lucy and the horse and the horse was gone. In the stable pen where I''d left the horse there was a shabby old man with a long beard sleeping on the straw.


    "Hey! Wake up!" I opened the stable door and said to the old man.


    Groggily he turned on his side and opened his eyes.


    "Who are you? Where am I?" He asked confusedly.


    "Where is the horse that was here?"


    "Horse? What horse?"


    "There was a white horse here that I was taking care of; I left it here less than an hour ago."


    "There was no horse here when I arrived; I came in here and laid down to get some rest because it was empty."


    The old man didn''t appear to be lying, and there was no reason for him to lie. There were other empty pens in the stable where he could have gone to sleep. I walked outside to ask the stableman what had happened to the horse. He told me that he hadn''t seen the horse leaving and when I told him that there was an old man sleeping in the pen where I''d left the horse he looked at me with an expression of utter bafflement before going inside to see for himself.


    "What are you doing in here?" The stableman asked the old man, who was still lying on the straw.


    "I just need a place to sleep for tonight."


    "This place is for guests of the inn to keep their animals, you can''t stay here."


    "Do you know this man?" I asked the stableman.


    "I''ve never seen him before."


    The old man got up slowly to his feet. He was frail, filthy, and had a terrible cough. Even if the stableman would allow it I couldn''t leave him to sleep in the stable, that just wouldn''t have been right.


    "Come with me," I said to the old man.


    I got him a room at the inn for the night, arranged for a change of clothes for him and told him to have a bath and meet me in the mess hall for dinner, where we ate soup and bread together. There was something mysterious about the old man. I couldn''t shake the feeling that he wasn''t just some bum, that there was actually a lot more to him. Over dinner I tried to get answers from him about who he was and what was going on in his life but he wouldn''t answer any of my questions with a straight answer. He wouldn''t even tell me his name, saying that it wasn''t important.


    The next morning the old man was gone. I went to his room to ask him what he was going to do next and to offer him some silver coins to help him on his way but when I knocked on his door there was no answer and when I opened the door and entered the room it was empty and perfectly tidy. I went downstairs and asked the innkeeper at the front desk when the old man had left and he told me that he hadn''t seen him leave. The old man had vanished, just like the horse. Something strange was going on that unfortunately I didn''t have the time to get to the bottom of. My only priority was the phoenix.

 Chapter 11 - Destiny

    The beastmaster''s advice was extremely helpful. I walked up the side of the mountain along the path that had been created for the miners and entered the mines through the third tunnel from the bottom. At the end of the tunnel, which opened up into the main central shaft. From there I was able to observe the phoenix below. It was resting with its chicks next to a lava pool. The lava pool was small but the heat was unbearable; I''d only been standing on the ledge for a few seconds but I was already drenched in sweat and was having difficulty breathing. The phoenix was as big as the beastmaster said; I wouldn''t stand a chance against it if I took it on directly. There were four chicks and they were still small, from where I was standing they looked to be roughly half the size of Anbu. The next three days I spent at the inn thinking about how I was going to capture the phoenix. The old man didn''t return, and neither did the horse; they had well and truly vanished. They had both appeared before me for a reason, of that I was certain. I chose to believe that they were harbingers of good fortune, and armed with that belief I went for the phoenix.


    I took Anbu with me. For the plan that I had devised to work I needed his help. This meant placing him in mortal danger, which terrified me, but I couldn''t do this without him and I trusted that he would do what he needed to do to survive. I had Anbu wait for me at the entrance to the tunnel that led to where the phoenix was nesting while I entered from the tunnel above. While making my way through the tunnel I threaded a rope through all of the buttresses on the end of which I had tied a bell which would be suspended at the entrance. The first time that I rang the bell was going to be the signal for Anbu to start barking and the second time I rang it was going to be the signal for him to stop barking and run. I had a second rope with me which had a grappling hook attached to it. The grappling hook I secured to the final buttress at the end of the tunnel. When the time was right I would use the rope to rappel down into the cavern where the phoenix had made its nest.


    If my plan failed, of which there was a high probability, I was dead, and yet despite that I felt no trepidation. Without hesitation I pulled on the rope tied to the bell and set the plan into motion. Anbu started barking and the phoenix, sensing danger, woke up and set off in the direction of the danger. I counted four seconds and pulled on the rope again. Anbu''s barking stopped, but whether he had survived I wouldn''t know unless I managed to survive. As soon as I''d rung the bell I threw the second rope down into the cavern and rappelled down as fast as I could. Anbu''s barking had sent the chicks into a panic, and when they saw me their panic worsened. They started running around hysterically, making it harder for me to do what I needed to do in the short amount of time that I had to do it.


    When the phoenix returned to the cavern it found me holding one of its chicks with a knife to its neck.


    "Heel," I said, looking the phoenix straight in the eyes.


    The phoenix let out a screech and started walking menacingly toward me.


    "Heel!" I said again, louder this time.


    The phoenix stood upright, spread its wings and roared. It''s golden ruff swelled and began to glow; it was about to blow fire.


    "HEEL!" I yelled back at the phoenix.


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    The phoenix leant forward and opened its beak. I could see the flames inside and feel their heat on my face. I refused to be intimidated by the phoenix and responded to its display of fire by holding its chick tighter and pressing the knife harder against its neck.


    "HEEEELLLLL!!!!" I yelled again.


    The phoenix showed no signs of backing down, but when the chick that I was holding started crying out as if it was in extreme pain the phoenix began to show signs of wavering. I didn''t loosen my grip on the chick and kept the knife pressed hard against its neck, staring into the phoenix''s eyes with eyes unwavering resolve. Seeing and hearing its baby in distress, and seeing that I would not hesitate to slit its throat before it could incinerate me, the phoenix finally backed down. It withdrew its wings, extinguished the flame inside of it and closed its beak, adopting a posture of submission. As a show of good faith I removed the knife from the chicks throat and put the chick back on the ground.


    A contract is formed between a beast and a human when the beast submits to the human and the human places a binding stone on its head. If the beast accepts the contract it will absorb the binding stone and depending on the beast a symbol will appear on the sister gem stone held by the human, signifying the completion of the contract. The binding stone that I placed on the phoenix''s head was absorbed by the phoenix and was visible only as a small gem fragment on its head. With the contract formed we were able to transmit our thoughts to one another, and I used the power right away to explain and apologize for my actions.


    "I''m sorry for what I just did, but you have to listen to me; you and your babies are not safe here, this mountain is an important mine and if you stay here people are going to keep coming here and trying to get you to leave, but if you''ll come with me I can take you someplace where you''ll be safe."


    I stepped closer to the phoenix and put my head and arms against its breast. Its body was softer and warmer than anything I''d ever experienced before. I could''ve stood there enjoying its warmth and softness forever, but the chicks had come over and were pecking at my legs demanding attention. I picked up the chick that I had taken hostage, hugged it and kissed it all over.


    "I''m sorry," I said to the chick, which appeared to have no recollection of what I had just put it through.


    "My, my...I knew you were impressive but I never imagined you would accomplish something like this," a voice from inside the tunnel said.


    Upon hearing the voice the phoenix and her chicks began stepping back from the tunnel. They were afraid. The footsteps got closer and soon the speaker came into view.


    "It''s you!"


    Out of the darkness of the tunnel stepped the old man from the stable, only now his hair and beard were perfectly groomed and he was wearing blue and white robes befitting of royalty.


    "Just who are you?" I asked him.


    "The question isn''t who am I, the question is who are you."


    "Who am I?"


    "That''s right; you, Alegra Luthera, are the new queen of the Aseronian kingdom."


    "What are you talking about?"


    "I am the Overseer for the kingdom of Aseron. The king is dead, and it is time for a new ruler to ascend the throne, specifically, you."


    "You can''t honestly expect me to believe this."


    And then, right before my eyes, he transformed into the white horse that I had rescued that had then mysteriously vanished.


    "That was you?"


    "We Overseers have a human form and an animal form," the Overseer said, turning back into human form, "I used both to test you, to test your compassion, and you passed, as I had no doubt you would."


    "You mean this is for real?"


    "Yes. You are going to fly to the capital city on the back of your phoenix, march into the palace, throw the impostor queen off of the throne and announce to your subjects your ascension to the throne and the rising from the ashes of the fire queen."

 Chapter 12 - Preparations

    The Overseer turned around and walked back down the tunnel. "I''ll be waiting for you at the palace," he''d said before leaving. Behind me the phoenix and her chicks were still trembling. I understood their fear; unlike me they were aware that they were in the presence of a divine being.


    "You don''t have to be afraid of him," I walked over to Myra and said to her. Myra was the name that I had decided to give to the phoenix, "I want you all to wait here for me, I''ll come back for you soon."


    I left the mine and went back outside with only one thought on my mind: Anbu. Before I spent any time thinking about what the Overseer had said to me I needed to know if Anbu was okay.


    "Anbu!" I called out once I was outside. I waited a few moments for Anbu to respond in some way, but he didn''t.


    "Anbu!" I called again, and again I got no response.


    I began fearing the worst when, without announcing his arrival, Anbu ran up the side pass of the mountain. I got down on one knee to embrace him and was almost knocked over by him when he jumped into me. I was so happy to see that Anbu was okay that I couldn''t stop myself from being overwhelmed by my emotions.


    "Good boy, good boy," I said to him again and again, burying my tear streaked face in his coat.


    We returned to the village and without delay I set about addressing the things that I needed to get in order. First I visited the beastmaster to show him the symbol on the gem stone that was on the necklace that he''d given me when I''d bought the binding stone which was proof that I had successfully formed a contract with the phoenix. I told him that the phoenix had chicks and that I needed to be able to transport them somehow. After asking me to name my price for the chicks, an offer I refused, he came up with the idea of a large basket that the phoenix could carry in its talons. He also advised me to get a saddle and a harness for riding the phoenix. He said that he could arrange both for a fee and I told him to get to work.


    Next I returned to the administration building and showed the necklace to the official that I had dealt with earlier. I told him that I was no longer interested in citizenship and asked if he could arrange for me to have a meeting with the mayor. The mayor''s office was in the same building and the official took me straight to him. He opened the door to the mayor''s office, told him that the phoenix had been dealt with and that the person responsible for dealing with it wished to speak with him. The mayor was a portly man with a bald pate and a handlebar moustache. He greeted me effusively and welcomed me into his office.


    "I can''t tell you how grateful to you we are for what you''ve done; things have been slow in this town ever since activity at the mine stopped. Whatever it is that you want, tell me and I''ll make sure to arrange it for you."


    "I''d like you to provide the refugees with horses, wagons and provisions so that they can return home."


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    "Why would they want to go home?"


    "The king is dead; the Overseer has chosen a new ruler, a new dawn is about to dawn for the kingdom."


    "Are you..."


    "Just arrange for the wagons and provisions," I said and left.


    The news about me capturing the phoenix spread through the town fast, as did the rumor that I was the new Aseronian queen. These stories reached the refugees that were living on the outskirts of the town and that made it easy for me to convince them to return home. The mayor came through with the horses, wagons and provisions and when we presented them to the refugees I addressed them and reassured them by explaining to them the situation in the kingdom.


    "You may all return to your homes in the kingdom. The king is dead, a new ruler has been chosen and soon the queen will be deposed and the nobles dealt with. There are enough provisions here to last you for the entire journey; the mayor has generously provided these wagons and provisions, you are to repay his generosity by leaving as soon as possible."


    "Is it true...what we''ve heard, that you are the new queen?" One of the refugees stepped forward and asked me with an expression of enormous expectation on his face.


    "By this time tomorrow you are all to be gone from here, is that clear?"


    "Yes," the refugee answered.


    "Once again I am in your debt," the mayor said to me when we were back in the town, "is there anything that I can do for you to repay you for getting rid of the refugees?"


    "I''m grateful enough to you for what you''ve done in providing those wagons and provisions; there is no need for you to feel in debt to me."


    The mayor returned to his office and I returned to the inn. It was time for my daily visit to the mountain to see Myra and the chicks, and today was special, today was the day that I was taking Lucy to see them for the first time. Anbu had been coming with me every day to see them and he enjoyed playing with the chicks every time we went to see them.


    The time for us to travel to the capital city was fast approaching. Cyrus, the beastmaster, was nearly done with the items I''d asked him to make; once he was done it would be time to leave. Whether I was ready to assume the throne I wasn''t sure. Since my conversation with the Overseer in the mountain I had been spending my time at the inn making notes of as much as I could remember from what I had read in my father''s books and diaries. Those books contained a treasure trove of information about the makeup of the king''s court, the responsibilities of the members, the personnel and systems through which the king''s directives were carried out, the details of the kingdom''s relationships with its neighboring kingdoms and details about those kingdoms'' leaders. I sat in my room at the inn and wrote feverishly, doing my best to get as much of it as possible down on paper. There had been dozens of those books; all of them were burned during the massacre of the settlement.


    By writing down only the most essential aspects of what I could recall I was able to fill two notebooks. I paid particular attention to recalling the names of the court officials that had been the most helpful to the king. My intention when I returned to the palace was to locate them wherever they were and bring them back to the palace to help me get to grips immediately with the issues plaguing the kingdom. There were four officials that were of the greatest interest to me: Stanis Hentleman, the hand of the king; Uther Wenman, commander of the paladins, the highest rank in the army; Alfred Winthrup, royal treasurer; and Boris Graff, chief ambassador. All four men had survived the first round of purges that had seen us sent to the Northlands but they had doubtless since been removed from the queen''s circle of advisers.

 Chapter 13 - Strengthening the bond

    Lucy took to the chicks with the same maternal affection with which she had taken to Anbu. Whereas Anbu played with the chicks, Lucy was watchful and protective, especially when we started taking the chicks outside to run around in the fields. With me, Lucy and Anbu watching the chicks, Myra was free to fly off and procure food. She went to get food every day, and every day she came back with something different. Once she came back with a buffalo, which meant that she had gone north to hunt; another time she came back with a konto, a large horned reptile which, Cyrus explained to me, inhabited lands in the western kingdom of Dranii. Cyrus came with us sometimes when we went to visit Myra and the chicks. As a beastmaster he was fascinated to learn all that he could about them and told me that he would give anything to see them up close. I told him that I would be happy to take him on one condition: that he come with me to the palace. I had told him everything about the Overseer and the Overseer''s plan to present me to the citizens as the reincarnation of the fire queen.


    "As soon as you are done with the items I asked you for we''ll be leaving, so I need your answer soon," I''d said to him when he''d asked if he could see the phoenix.


    "Don''t you think you''re being a bit hasty?"


    "In what way?"


    "Well, for starters, don''t you need to learn how to fly that thing first?"


    He was right. There was a lot that I still needed to learn about Myra before I could truly consider myself her master. And there was no guarantee that just because I arrived in the capital city on the back of a phoenix that I would face no opposition. The sensible thing to do would be to have a plan in place for countering any opposition I faced within the city. The opposition, if there was to be any, would come from the syndicates, who depended on the nobles and their backing from the queen. From my time with the bandits I knew that between them the syndicates operated with roughly a thousand members. If I was free to use Myra I could have easily torched the lot of them, but with them being in the city amongst innocent civilians that wasn''t an option. The opposition from the syndicates would have to be suppressed with physical force, for which I needed manpower. I decided to delay my journey to the capital city until I had mastered Myra and had assembled a large enough militia to confront the syndicates and the queen''s guard with.


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    I flew with Myra for the first time as soon as Cyrus was done with the saddle and the harness. It took him longer to make than he''d originally estimated because after seeing Myra up close he realized that what he''d been working on wasn''t going to work as Myra was much larger than he''d thought--she was actually more like five times larger than Lucy. I needed Cyrus''s help to put the harness and the saddle on her because of how big they were and how long the leather straps were. Cyrus and I were extra careful while securing the straps to Myra; if we made a mistake and she reacted angrily she could easily kill us both. Once Myra was all strapped in it was time for our first flight. I put my foot in the stirrup and climbed into the saddle nervously. Myra took flight slowly and hovered in the air for a few moments while I got comfortable with being in the air with her. She flew gently and straight at first. Just like when riding a horse, I used my body to guide her. She turned when I leaned to the side, descended when I pushed forward and climbed when I pulled back on the harness. Myra''s response time to my guidance improved fast and it wasn''t long before we were doing barrel rolls, nosedives and steep climbs through the clouds.


    With flight mastered we went to get Myra and the chicks'' food for the day. We flew north, too high to be seen, over the capital city, the Northlands and the frozen expanse that was beyond Lake Huron. We flew all the way to the ocean, which I''d never seen before, and descended. We flew over the water and surveyed the surface for signs of prey, eventually spotting a shoal of fish that were jumping in and out of the water. We got behind the shoal and stalked it while we worked out what the perfect timing would be for us to swoop down and grab one while it was out of the water. Myra could have easily done this on her own, and had done so many times before, but on this occasion she waited for me to give the command for her to dive, which, when I did, was timed perfectly. Myra swooped down and grabbed one of the fish clean out of the air, her talons piercing straight through the fish''s body and killing it instantly.


    The fish was huge, it was almost the size of a buffalo. As he always did when Myra brought back food, Anbu unreservedly joined the chicks in feasting on the carcass. Myra and Lucy held back, content with the leftovers. I asked Cyrus about the fish that we''d brought back and he told me that he didn''t know anything about it, he''d never been so far north before.

 Chapter 14 - Crusade

    By delaying my departure for the capital city and staying on in Allendale I managed to obtain useful bits of information from the townspeople. I learned that when the Erst kingdom was still accepting refugees priority was given to individuals based on their rank and many individuals of high rank had taken advantage of this to flee to the Erst kingdom. The official responsible for immigration matters agreed to show me his records and there were several names in there that I recognized. The most notable name was that of Uther Wenman, the man whose military stature I was counting on to restore security to the kingdom.


    "From what I understand many of the refugees that passed through here ended up settling in a town called Westmore. The town''s not far from here, if you travel there on your teewah you should be able to get there in less than a day," the mayor said to me.


    I had gone to him to ask if he would be willing to provide lodgings for any Aseronians I found across the border that I wanted to bring back with me to take with me to the capital city. He said it was no problem and he advised me to make the trip with Lucy and not Myra.


    "If you are seen with the phoenix and word of it gets to the queen she''s going to become paranoid and will bolster her defenses, making it harder for you to storm the city."


    I had already thought of this but I was still impressed by his analytical thinking.


    I left Anbu with Cyrus and made the journey into Erst with Lucy. My goal was to reach Westmore as quickly as possible, as such I didn''t spend any time taking in any of what I was passing in Erst. What I was able to apprehend was that Erst had a refugee problem besides the Aseronians that had crossed the border. While riding to Westmore I passed a number of encampments where dwarven refugees were staying. In one of my father''s books I had read about the displacement of the dwarves from their ancestral lands of Grunheim.


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    Grunheim was tiny, and the dwarves were its only inhabitants. The land had been shunned by everybody else as uninhabitable because it was mostly just rock, but the dwarves had managed to find deposits of precious metals in the rock that they were able to extract. The dwarves made Grunheim their home and used the land''s mineral wealth to develop the area and support themselves. Grunheim was bordered by five kingdoms with whom they did most of their trading. The minerals that were mined by the dwarves were used by the kingdoms mostly for minting coins and were thus indispensible to them. The dwarves traded fairly and most of the kingdom''s that traded with them did so without complaint. The king of Kandalar, king Emon, however, had other ideas.


    Kandalar was one of the five kingdoms that bordered Grunheim, located to the south-west of it. He decided that he wanted Grunheim''s mineral wealth for himself, and launched an army to invade Grunheim and drive out the dwarves. Because of the untraversable terrain of Grunheim, the army had to march on foot. Progress was slow going, and with only a few wagons maintaining supply lines was a challenge. The dwarves had expected that such an invasion would one day occur and had taken steps to fortify Grunheim. Using the rock that they had quarried when mining the dwarves had built large walls and watchtowers as perimeter defenses. These perimeter defenses surrounded Iserlohn Fortress, the mountain stronghold that housed the dwarves'' underground city. The Kandalarian forces struggled to penetrate the dwarven defenses and suffered mass casualties without succeeding in penetrating the walls. Nevertheless, the king of Kandalar would not be deterred. More and more troops were summoned from Kandalar to throw at the dwarves with no regard for the mounting losses.


    The siege of Iserlohn Fortress lasted for two years, with the dwarves eventually having to surrender due to the depletion of their provisions. The dwarves lost ten thousand men in the siege; the Kandalarians lost over two hundred thousand. It was a pyrrhic victory for king Emon, whose crusade had drained his kingdom''s military and treasury. He returned home to furious subjects, and was assassinated just one week after his return.


    After leaving Grunheim, the dwarves were scattered across the realm, never able to find a new home for themselves.

 Chapter 15 - Gathering allies

    Finding Uther in Westmore proved not to be very difficult. Refugees, wherever they go, tend to stick together. I asked at the inn that I checked into about refugees from Aseron and was told to visit the southern part of town. I traveled to the southern part of town and after speaking to a few people I found Uther in a leather tanning shop just outside of town. I had no recollection of ever meeting Uther and yet he recognized me the second he saw me. He said he remembered me from when I was a small child and would never forget my red hair and blue eyes. We sat outside and talked. I told him all about the settlement, Myra and the Overseer, and that I needed help assembling a force to storm the capital city with.


    "Most of my men came with me to Westmore, getting them together won''t be a problem. The problem is that there are only about one hundred of us, that''s not enough to storm the city with, you''ll have to recruit additional forces elsewhere."


    "I''ll get the forces that we need, but it''s not only soldiers that I need, I need knowledgeable and experienced officials to help me rule. Aside from you, Alfred Winthrup and Boris Graff are the two that I am most interested in; would you happen to know what became of them?"


    "Alfred was accused of theft and jailed, I don''t know if he''s still alive. Boris used his diplomatic contacts to flee; he''s also here in Erst, in the capital city."


    "What of the hand of the king?"


    "Dead; Vanbilt saw to that himself, he had him poisoned and installed himself as hand of the queen."


    "That''s what I expected. Could you get word to Boris and inform him of the current situation?"


    "That won''t be a problem, I''ll visit him personally."


    "We don''t have much time, the nobles are on the verge of going to war with each other, this all has to be done before civil war breaks out."


    "I''ll start immediately, and I''ll act fast; you also need to act fast to acquire the forces you need."


    "I was hoping that you''d be able to round up more than just one hundred men, since you can''t I''m going to have to do something that I wanted to avoid at all cost."


    "And what would that be?"


    "I''ll have to ask the Okwari for help."


    "They''ll help?"


    "I hope so; they were kind to us when we were exiled to the Northlands, so hopefully they''ll agree to help me with this."


    "I see."


    "There''s one more thing I''d like to know; my father was of high rank, he could have fled the kingdom like the rest of you, why didn''t he?"


    "He knew that many would be exiled to the Northlands that wouldn''t be able to flee to a different kingdom; he wanted to make sure there would be something waiting for them in the Northlands so that they weren''t just going there to die."


    "That''s what I thought."


    I held back my tears until I had left with Lucy. The sacrifice that my father had made for his fellow Aseronians was overwhelming. Getting confirmation of it from Uther caused me to experience a sudden surge of grief over my father''s death, and it reawakened my thirst for revenge against the queen, which in the years since the massacre of the settlement had largely become dormant.


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    As soon as I returned to Allendale I got Myra harnessed and we flew north immediately. I was going there in search of an army, but the longer we flew the more I found myself thinking about Uraia and how much I was looking forward to seeing her again. It had been almost three months since we had separated and in that time I had only grown to miss Uraia more and more. I still wasn''t sure what the true nature of my feelings for her were but I had come to understand that the depth of my feelings for her were such that I was never going to be able to remain separated from her, and from her reaction to seeing me dismount from Myra when we touched down in the village she felt the same way. When she saw that it was me she ran to me, and when I saw her running to me I ran to her. She took me in her arms, lifted me up and spun me around in the air. Even after putting me back down on the ground she didn''t let go of me. She kept holding on to me tightly, and I could feel what I was sure were tears on the side of my face. I hadn''t expected such a reaction from Uraia; the strangeness of it almost caused me to forget the reason for my trip. I left Myra with Uraia and went into chief Kendor''s hut with him to explain my situation to him and ask for help. The chief said that he would send men and teewahs to fight for me and would send riders to the other villages to ask them to do the same. To make it easy for him to convince them he suggested that I fly across the Northlands and let the other villages get a look at Myra. I did as he suggested, and I took Uraia with me. I could see that she was dying to fly with Myra and I couldn''t disappoint her by leaving without taking her for a flight. We flew north, flying low over all of the villages that we passed, low enough for the villagers in those villages to see us. I had Myra land when we reached Lake Huron. Uraia and I needed to talk, too much had happened since we had last seen each other for us not to use this opportunity to reconnect.


    "So you''re a queen now?" She asked me after we''d dismounted and I''d walked to the shore.


    "Not yet, I need to get rid of the current one first."


    "How did all this happen?"


    "I got to one of the border towns outside of Erst and I was told that the only way to get into the kingdom was to get a phoenix out of a mine that it had nested in. As soon as I''d formed a contract with Myra, the Overseer appeared before us and told me that he wanted me to succeed the king."


    "How did you manage to get close enough to her to place a binding stone on her?"


    "I held a knife to her chick''s neck and made her submit. Anbu helped me, he distracted her long enough for me to grab hold of one of the chicks, if it wasn''t for him she would''ve turned me to ash with one breath."


    "I don''t think that''s quite true."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Her chicks probably could have survived her flames without being hurt at all, and she probably could have blasted you before you had time to pull the knife across her chick''s neck. My guess is that she searched your feelings and decided all on her own to become your partner."


    "Is that true?" I asked Myra.


    She looked away bashfully, betraying her guilt.


    "With her by your side there''s almost nothing you can''t do," Uraia said.


    "That''s if I choose to be a tyrant; I don''t plan on going down that road, I want to lift the kingdom up through the collective effort of its citizens, and I want our relationships with neighboring kingdoms to be based on trust, fairness and cooperation."


    "How are you planning on doing all that?"


    "First I have to deal with queen Esmeralda, then the nobles, then the Volstaff kingdom, once that''s done I can start focusing on my broader domestic and foreign agendas."


    "To hear you speaking like this, I almost can''t believe you''re the same girl I saw for the first time that night when you were on your way to the Northlands; you''ve grown so much."


    Despite Uraia saying this, I couldn''t think of myself as having gotten any nearer to her. Uraia was everything to me, she would always tower over me, and being close to her would always make me feel like nothing could harm me.


    "I''d like you to come with me."


    "Where?"


    "To the palace, I''m going to need people around me that I can trust, and there''s nobody that I trust more than you."


    "And just what exactly would I be doing at the palace?"


    "Captain of the Royal Guard."


    "That sounds important."


    "My life would be in your hands, it''ll be up to you to protect me from all of the threats that I face, and there are going to be many."


    "Alegra that''s too much, I can''t..."


    "You''re the only one that I''m willing to trust with this; please, Uraia, say that you''ll do this for me."


    Uraia agreed to come with me to the palace and accept the position of Captain of the Royal Guard. She also agreed to travel to Galand and meet up with Clara. Together they would work to put the word out amongst the bandits, asking them to join the forces that were being assembled to storm the city and dethrone the queen.

 Chapter 16 - Strategy

    The operation was due to be carried out in two weeks. Uther and his men arrived in Allendale with horses and armaments. Their forces would be split in two: a force of fifty, led by Uther, would enter the city from the east and ride up the hill to the palace, the remainder of the battalion would split into two squadrons of twenty five men each who would join the Okwari and the bandits and enter the city from the south and the west. Before the three squadrons moved on the city I would fly over it with Myra, distracting the queen''s forces and creating an opportunity for the squadrons to enter and catch the queen''s forces by surprise, throwing them into disarray and making it easy for us to overwhelm them. I had worked on the plan with Uther, whose knowledge of the city''s defenses and of military tactics proved invaluable. It was his idea for us to launch a blitz attack on the city to compensate for us potentially having fewer numbers than the queen and the syndicates had inside the city. By catching them unawares and targeting key locations we could prevent them from consolidating their forces and mounting a counterattack. The syndicates operated out of six primary buildings. Upon entering the city our targets would be those buildings as well as the controls for the entrance gates. Cyrus suggested that, given the level of discontent among the citizens, we should make an announcement during the operation of what was taking place to rally them over to our side, and he suggested that the mayor, with his eloquence and commanding public speaking voice, would be the perfect person for it. The mayor, who, as an avid student of history, was fascinated to see with his own eyes the end of one era and the beginning of another, agreed to be a part of the operation and fulfill the role of delivering the proclamation of the commencement of the reign of Alegra Luthera.


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 Chapter 17 - Ascension

    On the day of the operation I flew high above the outskirts of the city to get a look at how many forces had been assembled for the raid on the city, and from what I saw there was no cause for concern about us not having enough numbers. The chief had come through. Assembled outside the western and southern entrances to the city were what looked from my vantage point like hundreds of Okwari riding their teewahs. They were gathered far away from the entrance gates, outside of the range of vision of anyone in the city, but with the teewahs'' speed it would take them just over a minute to reach the entrance gates, not enough time for the queen''s forces to lock down the city. Uraia was leading the forces to the west, and the forces to the south were being led by Clara. Everything was in place for the attack, all that was left was for me to give the signal, which I did by descending with Myra. Uther and his men that were attacking from the east advanced first. Being on horseback they were slower than the Okwari and the bandits on their teewahs.


    When I began flying low over the city the reaction that it provoked among the citizens was greater than what we''d thought it would be. Looking down on the city I saw people coming out onto the streets and onto their balconies to get a look at me. Soon a festive atmosphere broke out amongst the crowds and they all staring cheering and waving at me. The militia that were patrolling the streets and guarding the entrances to the city also stopped what they were doing to look up to the sky. The plan to distract them worked perfectly, not only were they not on the lookout for any danger but because of the cheering of the crowds they couldn''t hear the stampede that was approaching the city. When our forces entered the city the crowds grew quiet and moved aside to let them pass. The entrance gates were seized quickly and easily, allowing all of our forces to enter the city and make their way to the locations of the syndicates'' headquarters, while at the same time Uther and his squadron of fifty men were riding up to the palace.


    Uraia and Clara were meeting no resistance as they moved through the city. They had things under control so I went to join Uther and his men at the palace. By the time I descended to the ground with Myra at the entrance Uther and his men had already entered the palace and either killed or subdued the guards they''d encountered.


    "Where is the queen?" I asked Uther when I entered the palace.


    "We haven''t found her yet."


    "And VanBilt?"


    "We''ve captured him, most of the palace is under our control."


    "The queen couldn''t have gone far!"


    "There''s an underground passage in the dungeon that leads to a pass behind the palace, I''ve sent men to search the pass."


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    I wasn''t prepared to wait for somebody else to find and apprehend the queen, the possibility of her getting away and denying me my revenge was unacceptable. I ran back outside, got back on Myra and had her fly around to the back of the palace. Uther''s men knew where the exit of the underground passage was and were riding furiously to get there. I had Maya follow them, intent on foiling the queen''s escape myself.


    With the city under control, it was time for the mayor to address the townspeople, which he did from a pedestal that he''d brought with him when he''d entered the city days earlier.


    "Attention citizens of Glendale! The woman that you saw flying over the city is your new queen, Alegra Luthera, daughter of General Isaac Luthera, who served with distinction in the king''s army. She and the forces that have stormed the city have come to liberate you from the tyranny of the queen, the nobles and the syndicates. Do not fear them, embrace them, and embrace the opportunity that you have been presented with to rid yourselves of the illegitimate queen and her corrupt cohorts and usher in the era of Queen Alegra, the one chosen by the Overseer to lead this kingdom out of ruin."


    The mayor''s speech stirred the crowd and extinguished any hope the syndicates had of retaking control of the city. The citizens of Glendale were transformed into a mob and began attacking the militia that patrolled the city for the syndicates. The militia, outnumbered dozens to one, tried to flee but were surrounded on all sides and swarmed upon.


    The queen emerged from a trap door disguised in the fields far to the south of the palace. Because she had made her escape on foot it was easy for us to cover the ground and be there waiting for her at the exit when she emerged. She emerged behind the guards, both of whom froze when they saw me waiting for them with Myra behind me.


    "Both of you, lay down your arms and surrender," I said to them.


    They did as they were told, leaving nothing between me and the queen.


    "Queen Esmeralda," I said, approaching her with slow, methodical steps, "you had all of the people that you exiled to the north slaughtered, including my father, and were it not for pure fortune I would have been killed as well."


    "It was VanBilt, the whole thing was his idea, you have to..."


    Enraged by her pathetic attempt to save herself, I struck her with the back of my hand, knocking her to the floor.


    "You''ll both be made to pay for your crimes, I promise. Take them into custody and take them back to the palace," I told Uther''s men.


    I returned to the palace with Myra. The siege was over. Uther had taken control of the palace, and Uraia and Clara had taken control of the city. The kingdom was mine. Standing outside the palace I could hear the citizens cheering from the city below. I walked to the edge of the precipice that overlooked the city with Myra and looked down upon the citizens that were now my subjects. As soon as they saw me and Myra they began chanting my name and pumping their fists in the air.


    "ALEGRA! ALEGRA! ALEGRA! ALEGRA!..."


    My subjects were acknowledging me, and I owed it to them to acknowledge them in return. I removed my sword from its scabbard and raised it in the air, eliciting a huge cheer from the crowd below. Their queen had arrived, The Fire Queen had arrived.

 Chapter 18 - Heavy is the head

    The syndicate leaders were rounded up by Uraia and Clara and taken into custody. Nearly all of their militia had been killed. Alfred Winthrup was found in a cell in the palace dungeon and set free along with others that had been imprisoned by the queen and VanBilt. The palace guards that Uther and his men had subdued were given or choice: swear fealty to the new queen or be imprisoned. All swore fealty.


    The operation over, I had everybody gather at the palace. The person I thanked first was the one person without whom none of this would have been possible. Chief Kendor had traveled with the Okwari warriors but had not participated in the raid on the city. He entered the city only after we had taken control of it and I had him brought straight to the palace. The chief was now an old man and his age was placing limitations upon him. Making this journey to Glendale was a lot for him at his age, but he did it to support me and because he believed that I would be victorious.


    "I told you when you came back with that wolf that you were special," he said to me.


    "I don''t know how I''ll ever be able repay you for this," I responded emotionally.


    "Just be a good queen, rule with compassion and good judgment."


    "Anything that you ever need or want for your people, all you have to do is ask."


    The chief left to return to the Northlands, and took most of his men with him. I''d asked Uraia to select some Okwari soldiers to stay behind with us in the city to help with security. Two hundred men remained behind of the roughly twelve hundred that the chief had assembled and brought to the city.


    "Lock down the city, I don''t want word of the queen''s ouster to reach the nobles," I said to Uther.


    My first priority was to deal with the nobles, and to deal with them in a decisive manner, unlike the king had done. To accomplish this I needed VanBilt, which was why I had given precise orders to Uther that he was to captured alive. I put Clara in charge of reorganizing and leading the City Patrol, and of course Uraia assumed her role as Captain of the Royal Guard; both were made up of a collection of bandits, paladins and Okwari. Uther''s job of reforming the military was much more difficult and could only begin once the nobles had been gotten out of the way, until then I told him to advise and supervise Uraia and Clara, and once he was done with that he was to travel to the capital city of Erst and find Boris and bring him back to Glendale.


    The first person I met with from outside my circle was Alfred Winthrup. I gave him a week to rest and recuperate after his release then had him meet with me at the palace to discuss the kingdom''s finances. I spent no time in the throne room, I preferred to manage affairs from either the Great Hall or a small study that I had appropriated for myself because of the view it afforded me of the gardens that I had set aside for Myra and her chicks.


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    I met Alfred in the study. He was looking much better but he still had a ways to go before he was fully recovered from the effects of his imprisonment. The picture that he painted of the kingdom''s finances was grim. The queen had authorized the accumulation of enormous amounts of debt to make up for the decline in tax revenues. The nobles, in exchange for taking over the responsibility of governing the states, had gotten the queen to grant them exemption from taxation. The debt was owed to various kingdoms, but the majority of it, around sixty percent of it, was owed to Volstaff and Dranii. This was no coincidence. The kingdom of Dranii bordered our kingdom to the west, and Volstaff bordered Dranii to the west. For Volstaff to have carried out their plan to cripple the kingdom they would have needed Dranii''s help. The debt, though, wasn''t the worst of our financial problems. According to Alfred, the queen had allowed for Volstaff currency to be accepted in Aseron as legal tender. Ever since the quantity of Volstaff coins in circulation had steadily increased while the quantity of Aseron coins in circulation had decreased. The danger of this, Alfred explained, was that it severely compromised our ability to conduct economic policy. If their currency became the primary medium of exchange in our kingdom it would leave us at the mercy of their economic policies, including tariffs, currency fluctuations and interest rates. Having your economy taken over by a foreign currency, then, was almost the same as losing a war. Alfred had some ideas for how we might mitigate these issues; I told him to put his ideas down on paper in detail and to bring them to me when he was done.


    After learning from Alfred about the extensive cooperation between Volstaff and Dranii, I had to consult with Uther about the situation. Uther''s assessment was that Dranii had most likely granted Volstaff free passage through their kingdom in exchange for the opportunity to also profit from our kingdom''s downfall.


    "If that''s true, then it means that Dranii has a much smaller interest in our state of affairs than Volstaff does," I mused.


    "That''s something that you should discuss with Boris," Uther responded.


    "Militarily, is Dranii a threat?"


    "The state that our military is in, everybody''s a threat."


    "When word gets out that the queen''s been dethroned and Volstaff''s plan has been scuppered, what then?"


    "My guess is that Volstaff will look to take advantage of the fact that we''re still weak and seek to bring about the completion of their plan by launching an invasion."


    "Will Dranii help them?"


    "I''m sure they''ll grant their forces passage through their kingdom; as to whether they''ll commit troops of their own, that I can''t say."


    "Even if they don''t, we still won''t have enough to repel a full scale invasion."


    "No, we won''t, which is why it''s imperative that we keep the news of queen Esmeralda''s dethroning quiet."


    "I want you to go and retrieve Boris now, I need to know how Dranii will react in the event of a Volstaff invasion. Tell Uraia to give you two teewahs, one for you and one for him, I want him brought back here as quickly as possible."

 Chapter 19 - Hand of the Queen

    With everybody busy with the various tasks I had assigned them, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to travel to Allendale and bring Anbu, Lucy and the chicks back to the palace. I took the mayor with me. He was nervous about flying with Myra but he needed to return to Allendale to set things in order and traveling with me and Myra was the fastest way to get there. I had decided to offer the mayor the post of Hand Of The Queen because he was exceptionally well read and his political instincts were deeply astute. I hadn''t offered him the post yet, I thought I''d wait until we were in Allendale where he''d feel more comfortable about refusing it if in fact that''s what he wanted.


    Cyrus had been taking care of Anbu, Lucy and the chicks while we were away. Anbu was ecstatic to be see me again and wouldn''t stop wagging his tail and jumping up on me trying to lick my face. The chicks ran straight to Myra, who carried out a thorough inspection of each of them individually.


    "You''ll ride Lucy back to the capital, Myra and I will transport the rest," I said to Cyrus.


    The chicks had grown slightly in the time since I had asked Cyrus to arrange for a basket to be made for carrying them, and with Anbu needing to travel in the basket with them it proved a tight but manageable squeeze.


    I went to the administration building after inspecting the basket with Cyrus to talk to the mayor about returning to Glendale with me and becoming my Hand.


    "I''m flattered by the offer, but I can''t help but think that given the enormous scale of the challenges that you''re facing that you wouldn''t be better served by someone who has more experience in dealing with those sorts of challenges."


    "That''s what Boris, Alfred and Uther are for; I need you to be my second pair of eyes and provide me with a perspective of things that I might be missing."


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    "I still don''t see why you want me."


    "All of the advice that you''ve given me thus far has proven insightful, I''d like you to keep providing me with insightful advice."


    "But I was just..."


    "You wouldn''t have come with us to the capital city unless you had your eye on a position in my court, and you wouldn''t be giving me the run around right now unless you wanted to be able to say later on that I begged you to take the job if ever you should disappoint me and found yourself on the end of a scolding. Tie up whatever loose ends you need to tie up here and return to the palace," I said peremptorily.


    "Yes my lady."


    Cyrus helped me to get Anbu and the chicks into the basket and then it was time to leave. I closed up the lid of the basket, mounted Myra and had her grab the big metal basket handle with her talons before we took off on our return trip to the palace. So as not to create too much turbulence for our passengers I had Myra fly a lot slower than we usually flew.


    I was gone for less than a day; it was not yet sundown by the time I returned to the palace. I had Myra put us down in the garden behind the palace where the chicks would be staying. Uraia came out to help me get them all out of the basket. Uraia had been holding down the fort while I''d been gone and informed me when I returned that in my absence one of the foreign diplomats stationed in Glendale had come seeking an audience. The diplomat in question was the Erst ambassador, and, according to Uraia, he was extremely keen to meet with me. This would be my first official audience as queen and the prospect of it was making me nervous.


    "I should probably wait until Uther has come back with Boris to meet with him," I said.


    "Alegra, you are the queen, you were specifically chosen by the Overseer to rule this kingdom, he wouldn''t have chosen you if he thought you couldn''t handle one simple meeting with a diplomat," Uraia said to me.


    Her words had the desired effect of reassuring me and I told her to send a messenger to the Erst embassy and inform them that the queen was ready to meet with their ambassador.

 Chapter 20 - Diplomacy

    Two hours later the Erst ambassador arrived at the palace. I had him taken to the throne room and met him there. He was a balding middle-age man of patrician bearing, and when he saw me he got down on one knee and placed his right hand over his heart.


    "Your grace," he said to me, acknowledging my royalty.


    "There''s no need for that, officially I''m not even the queen yet, I''m still to be coronated."


    "I am Frederick Bornheim, Erst kingdom ambassador to the kingdom of Aseron, I have come seeking an audience with the queen regarding future relations between our kingdoms."


    "Let''s talk in my study, this room doesn''t exactly lend itself to candor. Follow me."


    I led him to my study where, before we took our seats, he took a moment to look out of the window at Myra and the chicks.


    "I''ve never seen one up close before."


    "Most people haven''t, their reaction is always the same as yours."


    "You realize that with a phoenix under your control you are most likely the most powerful ruler in the realm."


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    "If possible I''d prefer not to use her as part of any offensive action; I don''t want people thinking of me as some sort of genocidal tyrant."


    "That is an admirable sentiment, however it would seem a waste to be in possession of such enormous power and never use it."


    "I didn''t say I would never use her, she would be a last resort, and if it came to that I would not hesitate to have her reduce to ashes whomever it is that has chosen to get belligerent with us."


    "That''s a frightening thought."


    I allowed for a moment of silence so that Ambassador Bornheim could grasp the full seriousness of my words.


    "Moving on, ambassador, why don''t we get to the reason for your visit; you wouldn''t have been so keen to meet with me unless there was something specific that you wished to discuss."


    "Our kingdoms share a wide range of interests, all of which I''d hoped to discuss with you."


    "I haven''t fully assembled my court yet, so there''s only so much that I can discuss."


    "I''m fine with us having a discussion that is much narrower in scope."


    "If I were to guess I''d say that the issue that you''re most interested in resolving is that of the Aseron refugees in your kingdom, correct?"


    "You certainly don''t beat about the bush."


    "No, I don''t. I have every intention of making sure that every citizen of Aseron returns to the kingdom, but before I can start doing that there are some things that I need to address first, so I would ask that you be patient and trust that I''m not indifferent to your concerns."


    "As long as you appreciate the need for us to arrive at a resolution to this issue."


    We decided to leave our discussion there and Ambassador Bornheim left the palace to return to his embassy.

 Chapter 21 - Doubts

    "What was he so eager to talk about?" Uraia came in and asked after he''d left.


    "Refugees, they want the refugees out of their kingdom. I expect other ambassadors will be seeking an audience to discuss the same thing, as well the debt that we owe them, I''m surprised he didn''t bring that up."


    As I predicted, the ambassadors for Theran and Alderin arrived at the palace in the coming days to discuss refugees and debt. I gave them the same assurances that I''d given to Ambassador Bornheim and sent them back to their embassies. The refugee problem would sort itself out; once the refugees discovered that Queen Esmeralda had been dethroned and replaced by the rightful queen as chosen by the Overseer they would return to their homes in the kingdom. Repaying the debt that we owed was my biggest concern, until we had done that the kingdoms to whom we were indebted would continue to hold it over us.


    I could do nothing about the debt until Alfred had finished formulating his plan for how we were to deal with the kingdom''s finances. Forced to wait for my subordinates to complete their tasks and return to me, I turned my attention to the issue of my first proclamation as queen. The mayor had advised me to approach the matter of my first proclamation with the utmost seriousness as it would set the tone for my reign. To drive home his point he recounted to me the cautionary tale of Queen Gwendolyn, the onetime queen of Theran, whose first proclamation was that she was never to walk on ground not strewn with rose petals. Her subjects never took to her and by the end of her reign the kingdom of Theran was weaker than it had been when she''d assumed the throne. I spent the time thinking about what my first proclamation might be in the palace garden with Myra, Anbu, Lucy and the chicks. I thought about other things as well, like how it was possible for an Overseer to select a less than ideal ruler, and if that meant that I was not the right person to lead the kingdom.


    "We''re not infallible," a voice suddenly said to me from out of nowhere.


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    "I was wondering where you were."


    It was the Overseer.


    "I was watching, observing from a distance your fledgling reign as queen."


    "And?"


    "As expected, you''ve continued to live up to my expectations of you."


    "I''m still confused by your basis for those expectations; why did you pick me?"


    "I had my reasons, the main one being him over there," he said, pointing at Anbu, who was rolling around on the ground with one of the chicks.


    "Anbu?"


    "Yes, when I saw you racing to rescue him as a pup when his pack turned on him I thought to myself ''That''s who should be the next ruler of the kingdom''."


    "What if you were wrong? What if I''m not the right person to rule the kingdom?"


    "You wouldn''t have come this far if I was wrong about you."


    "Overseers have been wrong before."


    "Yes, like I said, we''re not infallible."


    "Doesn''t that defeat the whole point of you being divine?"


    "We need people to think that we''re infallible otherwise the rulers that we choose won''t have any authority."


    "But how is it that there are times when you get your selections so badly wrong?"


    "There are things that we can''t legislate for, like power going straight to a ruler''s head as soon as they assume the throne, as was the case with Gwendolyn, whom you were discussing with your Hand."


    "How do you know that''s not going to happen with me?"


    "Because it would have happened already. Where is all of this self doubt coming from? You didn''t have any doubts about your abilities when you were plotting to raid the city, why are you now suddenly questioning your suitability for the throne?"


    "The kingdom faces problems that can''t be solved by simply occupying a city and dethroning a queen, my proficiency in the skills that are needed to address those problems has never been tested."


    "Your captain, Uraia, told you to trust that I wouldn''t have chosen you unless I believed that you would prove yourself equal to whatever challenge you''re confronted with. Listen to her."


    The Overseer vanished before I could question him further about other things that I wished to know more about. He and Uraia were right, I needed to trust myself.

 Chapter 22 - Plans

    I had VanBilt brought to me in the throne room and put into motion my plan for dealing with the nobles. VanBilt''s brief time in prison had been harsh on him; he had only been down there for three weeks but he was showing clear signs of aging.


    "I want you to send a message to the heads of all the noble families, telling them that the queen wishes to have a dialogue with them in the hopes of resolving the differences that exist between them that are threatening to plunge the kingdom into civil war."


    "May I ask what you are planning to do with them?" He asked sheepishly, keeping his head down.


    "No, you may not, you will do as you''re told, and if you perform the task that I''ve given you well, I may choose to be lenient with you when deciding your sentencing."


    "Your grace, if I may, one of the noble families, the Remdahls, are not like the others; when the king sought to unify the kingdom under his rule they did not take up arms against his troops, nor did they collaborate with Volstaff and the syndicates, they are adherents to the noble families'' founding principles of honor and integrity; please, your grace, I beg of you, spare them."


    "You care a lot for the nobles, don''t you? Your loyalty is admirable, I guess that counts for something, even if it is dangerously blind. I''ll take your request under consideration. Is there anything else you''d like to say to me before I have you taken back to your cell?"


    "Just that I''ve always believed that the nobles had the kingdom''s best interests at heart and that in serving their interests I believed that I was serving the interests of the kingdom."


    I had VanBilt taken back to his cell and repaired to my study with Uraia.


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    "He seemed sincere," Uraia said to me.


    "He is. He''s a relic of the old guard, his loyalty to the nobility is such that he''s incapable of seeing the insidious truth of what the nobles really are; that being said, his blind loyalty will engender no clemency from me."


    "Have you decided what you''re going to do with them?"


    "I haven''t. My original plan was to simply kill the lot of them, but what I just witnessed from VanBilt has given me pause. It''s possible he''s symptomatic of something much bigger that exists in the kingdom. There are probably lots of people who share the same unbreakable sense of devotion to the nobles, and if they feel like they''re under attack from the throne they''ll organize themselves into a rebellion, and we''ll have years of civil war, the very thing that I''m trying to prevent."


    "Are you thinking about brokering some kind of treaty with them?"


    "The previous king tried that, and look how that ended. No, they''ll have to be eradicated, it''s just a matter of shedding more blood than I''d originally anticipated."


    "What?" I asked Uraia, who was looking at me with an expression on her face that I couldn''t read.


    "It''s just that you''ve grown into your role as queen very quickly."


    "Come, let''s go outside."


    We went outside into the garden. Myra was sleeping, and the chicks were playing amongst themselves. One of the chicks, a male, did as he always did when we came out to the garden and broke away from the rest of the chicks and ran to us. I made a point of not showing any favoritism to any of the chicks, and so this chick, whenever he ran to us, had learned to go to Uraia to get the attention that he wanted.


    "Keep him," I said to Uraia after she had picked him up and was stroking him on his ruff.


    "What?"


    "If you''re going to protect me then you need to be able to go with me wherever I go, so keep him, become his master."


    Uraia didn''t have the words to respond to the gift that I had just given her. From that moment on the chick that I told her to keep never left her side. She named him Igor, and, despite not using a binding stone on him, the two were as close as me and Myra.

 Chapter 23 - The court takes shape

    When Uther returned with Boris, I had them meet me in the Great Hall to discuss the visits that I had been paid during their absence by the ambassadors of Erst, Theran and Alderin.


    "I''m not surprised that they were quick to request an audience, we''ve always had good relations with those kingdoms, they came here because they likely believed they could discuss matters with the new queen in good faith. The other ambassadors haven''t come because they''re taking their time to decide how they should proceed with us," Boris said.


    "What will Dranii''s response be to my ascension to the throne?"


    "We likely won''t see a response from Dranii any time soon, they''ll wait until they have a clear idea of the kind of queen you''re going to be before they make a move."


    "If Volstaff decides to invade us, will Dranii help them?"


    "If they do decide to help them they''ll provide them with the minimum amount of assistance possible, that''s how they tend to do things."


    "Will they assist them with troops?"


    "I doubt it, most likely the extent of their cooperation will be to provide them with passage through their kingdom."


    "You''re sure about all of this?"


    "Yes. Dranii''s approach to cooperating with other kingdoms is always to try and secure the greatest benefit with the least amount of investment; they''re entirely self-interested, they won''t think twice about forsaking a supposed ally if it would be to their benefit."


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    "If this is all true then perhaps we should give Dranii something to think about."


    "What did you have in mind?"


    "Summon the Dranii ambassador, tell them the new queen wishes to speak with them."


    Boris caught on immediately to what I was planning and gave me a knowing smile.


    "Yes, your majesty."


    "When this invasion happens," I said, turning to Uther, "the likelihood is that no matter what we do between now and then our numbers will still be short."


    "Most likely, yes."


    "I need you to start thinking about two things: maximizing our numbers and tactics that we could employ to make up for our inferior numbers."


    "Much of the kingdom''s fighting force is under the control of the nobles, until we''ve dealt with them..."


    "Yes, but with that particular issue there''s the need for us to be mindful of pulling the weed out by the root and not just snipping it and allowing it to continue to fester."


    "If I may, your majesty," Boris interjected.


    "Please."


    "The nobles have a policy of rewarding loyalty; after the king had successfully subjugated them all of their incoming producing activities were taken over by merchants, if we find out who took over from the merchants when the nobles had their privileges restored we would know who to be wary of when we move against them."


    "Who would have this information?"


    "The merchants established a guild here in the capital city, between the Master of the Merchant Guild and the Royal Treasurer we should be able to discern who has had fortune bestowed upon them by the nobles."


    "I''ll bring it up with Alfred when he comes to me with his plan for what to do about the kingdom''s finances, until then we focus on preparing for this invasion."


    "Yes, your majesty," Uther and Boris said in unison.


    They got up, bowed to me with their hands over their hearts and left. I didn''t like the bowing and made a mental note to eventually have it done away with.

 Chapter 24 - Getting the house in order

    The waiting was driving me mad. It seemed like I was spending all of my time waiting. When I was feeling especially idle I would walk down to the dungeon and visit Esmeralda''s cell in the prison. I didn''t go down there to speak to her, and she had been given instructions not to say anything to me when I was outside her cell. All I did when I went down to the prison to visit her cell was stand outside of her cell door and look at her, at what she had been reduced to. Seeing her in the state that she was in served as an important reminder to me of how one could fall so far so fast. On this occasion, after spending time looking at Esmeralda in her cell, I moved on to the cell where VanBilt was being imprisoned.


    "The noble house that you spoke of, the Remdahls, would they be willing to be of assistance to me?" I asked him.


    "What is it that you need assistance with?"


    "I''m concerned about how many people in the kingdom there might be whose sympathies lie with the nobles."


    "The nobles enjoy a not inconsiderable amount of support among the population, after all, they are the descendents of the founders of the kingdom, the families that came north from Theran and put down roots here, that is why even the king was unwilling to go as far as you wish to go."


    "That support will have to be neutralized to eliminate the possibility of rebellion and civil war."


    "Perhaps if you made the head of the family a member of your court..."


    "I''m not going to fall for that trick like Esmeralda did! The nobles'' time is at an end, forget about trying to save them and start thinking about how you might minimize their suffering."


    "You are asking me to conspire with you to eradicate the nobles; I''m sorry, but I can''t do that."


    "Then you''re useless to me, in which case there''s no reason for me to spare you," I said before walking away from his cell door.


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    "WAIT!" He called out desperately.


    "TOO LATE!" I called back with finality.


    I would give him time to consider whether he was willing to forsake his life for the sake of his loyalty. My expectation was that he would be unwilling to go so far and would consent to aiding me in whatever I should ask of him, I just had to wait.


    Fortunately I didn''t have to wait much longer for Alfred. Two days after Boris''s arrival Alfred came to the palace to present me with his proposal for getting the kingdom''s finances in order. There were three main issues that he believed were most in need of our attention: the debt we owed to foreign kingdoms, in particular Volstaff and Dranii, the Volstaff coins that were in circulation throughout the kingdom, and the depletion of the Royal Treasury''s reserves. Solving the problem of the Volstaff coins in circulation was going to require a two step approach: one, the treasury would begin removing the Volstaff coins from circulation and melting them down to mint new coins, and two, a barter system based on the weighted values of goods and services would be instituted to allow for commerce to continue. The other two problems were interconnected and thus harder to solve. The only way to be rid of the debt was to pay it off, but there was no money in the treasury to pay it off, and the citizens of the kingdom could not bear the level of taxation that would be required to raise the necessary funds. Another solution would have to be found.


    "After the last civil war, when the king subjugated the nobles, he only confiscated part of their wealth. Suppose I confiscated all of their wealth, how far would that go in aiding us?"


    "It would do a lot, but there is a problem."


    "What problem?"


    "Much of the nobles wealth has been stored in banks in Dranii, this makes it easy for them to conceal the funds that they''ve been receiving from Volstaff."


    "I''m planning on summoning the Dranii ambassador soon, I need to know exactly how much they''ve stashed away in their banks in order to make sure that it''s returned to us."


    "I can''t know the exact figure, but there is someone who would know."


    "VanBilt?"


    "He knows everything about the nobles, he''ll be able to tell you how much money they''ve been squirreling away in Dranii."


    "Then it''s a good thing I haven''t killed him yet."


    "He''s fiercely loyal to the nobles, I doubt he''ll give up that information."


    "He will, we just need to squeeze him enough."

 Chapter 25

    Alfred left to begin working on a table of values for the system of bartering that we would soon be implementing. He assured me that this would not take long as it was simply a matter of determining the value in coins of each good and service and assigning those values to the bartering system. Before he left, I asked him why it was that he was jailed while others were exiled. His answer was that when the queen exempted the nobles from taxation she blamed the resulting collapse of the treasury''s revenue on theft by the Royal Treasurer and had him jailed. It seemed that there was nothing that Esmeralda had done as queen that would not disgust me, and my thoughts where Esmeralda was concerned turned to making sure that she was made to suffer a punishment commensurate with the horrors of her reign.


    Mostly what occupied my thoughts was Volstaff''s likely invasion and our preparations for it. I had decided not to use Myra in the battle. This being my first battle as queen I felt that it would set a bad precedent if I simply used Myra to overwhelm the enemy with flames. We needed to show that the kingdom''s strength was in its people, not just its ruler, and that if anybody should commit an act of aggression against Aseron they would be coming up against the full might of the kingdom, the embodiment of which was its people.


    I had some ideas for how we might overcome the shortfall in our numbers. My ideas were the product of knowledge that I had acquired from the Okwari; to explain my ideas to Uther I needed to go north to collect a particular item. I told Uraia to keep an eye on things while I was gone and I told her to give a message to the prison guards: that they were to kill two of the syndicates that we were keeping prisoner in the palace prison and that they were to ensure that VanBilt saw them and knew what they were doing. My expectation was that once he had seen the syndicates being killed as their punishment for committing many of the same crimes that he himself had committed it would push him to agree to cooperate with me.


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    "I hope you''re not developing a taste for ordering people''s deaths," Uraia said to me jokingly as I was preparing to take off with Myra.


    "I''m only doing this because I have to break VanBilt''s resistance, and we were going to kill the syndicates anyway, so I might as well get some use out of them."


    "As long as you''re not turning into the tyrant you''re always saying you don''t want to become."


    "That''s why you''re here, to keep me honest."


    On my way to the Northlands, I wondered if Uraia was only half joking about me enjoying giving the order to have those syndicates killed. When I had come up with the plan to use the penalty of capital punishment to apply stress to VanBilt to secure his cooperation I hadn''t given any thought to whether doing so was the right thing to do and whether it should be weighing more heavily on me that I was ordering the taking of lives. I realized that in addition to being careful about not becoming intoxicated by my power I also had to be careful not to become desensitized by it. I meant what I said when I said to Uraia that she was to keep me honest. She was the only person to whom I could entrust such a responsibility, the only person whom I couldn''t bear to lose. I wondered if Uraia fully appreciated her importance to me. Since arriving at the palace we had spent little time together and I worried that my elevation to the throne had altered the nature of our relationship and made it impossible for us to continue being as close as we used to be. It felt strange giving orders to Uraia, as I was sure it was strange for her to take orders from me. It had always been the other way around, it was always me following Uraia and looking up to her as something dazzling and unattainable. The sudden reversal of our roles had destabilized our relationship, just one of the many problems I was facing that needed addressing. I was going to the north not only to retrieve an important item but also to clear my head and get my thoughts and feelings in order.

 Chapter 26 - Ace in the hole

    As I always did when I came north, I spent a great deal of time in conversation with chief Kendor. On matters of leadership it was to him that I turned for advice. Although I had decided not to use Myra in the event of a Volstaff invasion I was still torn over whether it was the right decision. If I sent an inadequate army into battle we were likely to lose thousands of men, that would be the case even in the event of us being victorious. My fear was that if the army was defeated and I was forced to intervene with Myra people would say that I could have simply done so from the beginning and saved the lives of all the soldiers that fell in battle. Likewise if we won, it would be said that victory could have been achieved much more easily had I simply attacked with Myra from the beginning.


    "You do not wish to become known as a leader who is quick to resort to brutality," Chief Kendor observed after I told him of my misgivings.


    "That''s correct."


    "But you want your people to understand that their lives are important to you and that you would do anything to safeguard them."


    "That''s my dilemma."


    "My experience is that in the aftermath of victory there are no questions that are asked about how that victory was achieved. The soldiers that achieved victory on the battlefield return home as heroes, and the sense of accomplishment they feel stays with them forever and repels any thoughts they might have about the sacrifices that were made for that victory. I''m sure this is something you would have learned from your father."


    "I did, but now that I am facing such a dilemma myself the right answer is not so easy to arrive at."


    "You are right not to want to become known as a ruler who favors brutality. Your decision to meet their army with your army is the right one, all that you should be concerning yourself with is winning this battle."


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    "That''s why I''ve come here, there''s something that I need from you."


    I told the chief what I needed and he had it brought to me. I left with Myra soon after. The chief had given me the clarity that I was looking for, allowing me to move determinedly forward with my plans for how we would stand our ground and stop Volstaff''s invading army. Upon returning to the palace, I had Uther summoned to the palace and brought to my study.


    "You summoned me, your majesty."


    "Come with me outside."


    We went outside and I picked up the bow that I had gone to the Northlands for. The bow was as tall as I was, and was something that Uther had never seen before. Behind the palace were wide open fields that people were not allowed to walk upon, this made it perfect for demonstrating to Uther why I had gone all the way to the north for this bow. I fired an arrow with the bow into the fields and together we watched it fly and land in the fields.


    "I''ve never seen an arrow travel so far before," Uther said to me.


    "This is an Okwari longbow, it''s made from wood that comes from trees that are only found in the north; the trees up there have thicker lumber because of the cold. The Okwari used to use these to hunt with long ago before they''d domesticated the teewahs. If we use these the long range they have will give us a significant tactical advantage in the battle. This is only part of my plan, come inside and I''ll explain the rest to you."


    My strategy, as I explained it to Uther, was for our forces to act like a pack of small animals, devouring its prey by taking many quick, small bites instead of slowly biting off big pieces at a time like one large animal. Uther agreed with the broad outline of my strategy but offered that we may have to make changes to it depending on the numbers that we were able to gather.


    "I asked the chief to make more longbows for us, it won''t take long for them to have them ready, get some horses and riders together to go north and bring them back."


    "Yes, your majesty."


    "And we''re going to need arrows, lots."


    "I''ll see to it that we have enough."

 Chapter 27

    Uther left, and Uraia entered.


    "There''s someone who''s desperate to speak with you," she said to me.


    "VanBilt?"


    "According to the prison guards he''s been begging to see you ever since they killed those two syndicates."


    "I knew it wouldn''t be hard to break him."


    "What should I tell them?"


    "Nothing yet, I think I''ll leave him to sweat a little longer. Uraia, can we talk?"


    "Sure."


    We walked out of the study and decided to have our talk while walking through the halls of the palace.


    "The chief asked me to tell you that he hopes you''re keeping well."


    "Is he keeping well?"


    "He''s his usual self, still as wise as ever. I asked him what he thought of my plan not to use Myra should Volstaff invade and he assured me that I had made the right decision."


    "Alegra, we all believe that it''s the right decision and we fully support you, you didn''t need to sit and have a conversation with my father about that."


    "I enjoy having conversations with your father, when I''m talking with him it''s as if everything is the way it used to be."


    "You mean before you became queen?"


    "Your father is the only person with whom my relationship hasn''t changed, nothing will ever outweigh my respect for him."


    "Has our relationship changed?"


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    "Don''t ask that when you know that it has."


    "How so?"


    "It''s different now; I give you orders and you carry them out, before I used to follow you around like a puppy that couldn''t get enough attention."


    "Alegra, I never looked at you as being some sort of puppy," she stopped, put her hand on top of my head and said, "From the moment I first saw you that night in the Northlands I knew that you were strong and that you would grow up to be even stronger, and now that you''ve become queen I get to see you being the person I always knew you''d become with my own eyes every day, and I''ll remain by your side for as long as it''s my job to protect you."


    Uraia drew me close to her and kissed me softly on my forehead, her way of letting me know that no matter how much everything else changed things between us never would.


    My wait for being able to enjoy the full complement of my court was brought to an end when Cyrus and the mayor arrived at the palace two weeks after I had returned with Anbu and the chicks. After getting reacquainted with Lucy and taking her and Cyrus to the garden behind the palace, I asked the mayor to sit down with me in my study.


    "Took you long enough," I said to him sarcastically.


    "I couldn''t just leave the town in the lurch, I had to make sure that in my absence everything would continue running as smoothly as before."


    "Good, if you had been haphazard about attending to your responsibilities we would have had a problem."


    "Is there anything important that I missed while I was away?"


    "I''m about to authorize a purge of the noble families and their sympathizers and we''re preparing for an invasion by a substantially larger force."


    "So not much then," he replied sarcastically, "what comes next?"


    "What comes next is you officially assume your role as Hand of the Queen."


    I opened one of the drawers of my desk, retrieved from it the purple velvet glove that was worn by the Hand and walked around my desk to where the mayor was sitting.


    "By accepting this glove you agree to become my Hand, to remain by my side, provide me with counsel that you believe will aid me in ruling the kingdom, to serve as regent when I am away from the palace, and to faithfully carry out whatever duties I assign to you; do you accept?"


    "I accept."


    "Well then, Ferland Thornhill, I hereby present you with the glove that symbolizes your selection as Hand of the Queen. Wear it always, and wear it proudly."


    "Yes your majesty."


    Ferland was brought to the brink of tears by the brief informal ceremony that I had improvised for him. His sincerity was a big part of the reason why I had chosen him to fulfill this role; as much as he may have at times tried to portray himself as a political operator he was always entirely transparent, this made it easy for me to trust him.

 Chapter 28 - Economics

    The former Master of the Merchant Guild was a man named Herman Granger. As Guild Master he had overseen the establishment of trade routes, trading posts, distribution networks, market exchanges and banking services throughout the kingdom. Before the establishment of the Merchant Guild all of the production in the kingdom was under the control of the nobles, whose only concern was that the kingdom''s production produced enough income to support their lifestyles. Once the Merchant Guild had been empowered by the king to take over those responsibilities from the nobles the kingdom''s production had increased markedly and so had the peasant farmers'' standard of living because of their ability to be direct participants within the economy.


    The nobles had kept much of the infrastructure that the Merchant Guild had built up but because of their preference for awarding positions of influence to family members and individuals who had a record of demonstrating their loyalty to the noble house much of what the Merchant Guild had achieved had atrophied as a result of bad and lazy management. According to Herman, the Guild was using funds that it had collected from its members as dues to support them financially until they were able to return to being merchants, but those funds were about to run dry, making the need to restore the merchants'' former autonomy something of an emergency.


    "I''m fine with having the Merchant Guild resume responsibility for the kingdom''s means of production, but you will have to agree to certain conditions," I said to Herman.


    "I don''t have much choice but to accept them, do I?"


    "My conditions are that the hiring of slaves is to be forbidden; price controls are to be imposed on staple food items such as salt, wheat and corn; the banks will come under the supervision of the Royal Treasury; merchants will only be allowed to export goods of which they have a surplus; anybody who meets the requirements for joining the Merchant Guild will be allowed to join; and if an acceptable price has been agreed merchants will be required to conclude the transaction, they can''t refuse to trade with a buyer or seller for their own reasons."


    "You''re asking a lot."


    "Because I can."


    "There is no need for you to be so distrustful of us, you know how much better things worked when it was us in charge and not the nobles."


    "I also know that members of the Merchant Guild got to enjoy many benefits that others didn''t, like loans from banks with interest rates that were lower than what others had to pay; I also know that there were times when the prices of goods in the kingdom increased substantially because it was more profitable for merchants to export them to neighboring kingdoms; I also know that becoming a member of the Merchant''s Guild became increasingly difficult as the benefits that members got to enjoy increased, and that merchants refused to buy grain from peasants that had organized themselves into farming co-operatives. So you see, Mr. Granger, I have many good reasons for being circumspect in my dealings with you."


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    "You can''t blame merchants for wanting to maximize their profits."


    "No, but I can blame the king for allowing the merchants to put their profits before the people."


    "The king understood that with merchants a certain amount of leeway must be granted."


    "The king was tired from the wars that he had fought against the nobles, and didn''t pay adequate attention to how things were to be organized in the aftermath of their downfall."


    "This proposal of yours is going to meet with a lot of resistance."


    "And I''ll be counting on you to help with overcoming that resistance."


    "What would be my motivation for helping you with this?"


    "Aside from the return of your right to conduct commerce?"


    "In order for us to return to commerce we need more than just rights."


    "Such as?"


    "Capital; a large injection of capital into the system is going to be needed to get things going again."


    "I''m prepared to provide this injection of capital...in the form of a loan."


    "We would be prepared to accept a loan from the Treasury...with a reasonable rate of interest."


    "I''ll leave it to Alfred to set the repayment terms."


    "We''ve had good dealings with him in the past, I see no reason why we won''t be able to agree terms with him."


    "Then we have an agreement?"


    "We have an agreement," Herman said, getting up from his chair, "Your majesty," he said, bowed, and left.


    "He was a tough one," I said to Ferland after Herman had left.


    "My feeling is that he''s left here having engaged in a much tougher negotiation than he was expecting," Ferland responded.


    "I gave away a lot more than I was planning to."


    "And my guess would be that he got a lot less than he was hoping for."


    "So it was a good negotiation?"


    "I''d say so. I would however like to know where the funds are going to come from for the injection of capital that you promised him."


    "That will come from the wealth that we confiscate from the nobles."


    "Will there be enough?"


    "I don''t know yet, VanBilt hasn''t furnished us with the details of their hidden wealth yet."


    "Might I suggest we expedite that."


    "It already has been expedited; he''s ready to spill his guts, I''m just leaving him to sweat down in the prison because I enjoy tormenting him."


    "And until you''re ready to bring an end to his torment?"


    "We start preparing for the visit of the Dranii ambassador; once VanBilt has given us the information we need we''ll be summoning the Dranii ambassador for an audience."

 Chapter 29 - Mastering flight

    I put Ferland in temporary charge of preparations for the Dranii ambassador''s visit because something important was taking place that I wanted to be a part of. The chicks were making their first serious attempts at flight. They were managing to take off and remain airborne for a few seconds but they weren''t able to maintain controlled flight. This was an important moment for Uraia, because once the chicks had mastered flight the expectation was that they would fly off to begin living on their own. With no binding stone, the only thing that would cause Igor to stay was the natural bond that Uraia had managed to form with him.


    The chicks were practicing flight by running down the hill behind the garden and using their momentum to launch themselves into the air. Every time they tried they would get airborne for a few seconds but inevitably they fell to the ground and rolled the rest of the way down the hill. The chick that was the closest to achieving flight was Igor. Once he was airborne he was able to remain in the air for a few seconds longer than the others and it was clear to see that he would be flying in no time. Despite the possibility of Igor flying off and her never seeing him again, Uraia was providing him with unceasing encouragement. She and Cyrus were encouraging all of them, but Uraia was paying special attention to Igor and giving him extra encouragement, and Igor was trying harder than the other chicks to repay Uraia''s faith in him. Watching them, I was certain that Igor would stay, as was Myra. I had been keeping a binding stone with me just in case Igor flew off and I had to ask Myra to bring him back and have him submit to Uraia and the binding stone. I wanted to fly with Uraia beside me, and as long as the chicks were there I would see to it that at least one of them remained behind as Uraia''s beast.


    Ferland took to the task of preparing for our audience with the Dranii ambassador with preternatural alacrity. After only one day he was eager for me to grant him a block of time to discuss his ideas for what our approach should be. I told him that I appreciated his dedication and enthusiasm but that I wasn''t ready to talk about Dranii just yet.


    "Get some wagons ready, the bows that I asked the chief to have made for us need to be collected."


    My anxiety over the chicks learning to fly was greater than I thought it would be. It had been growing steadily for days and my suspicion was that it was the result of the synchronicity between mine and Myra''s feelings. Myra was experiencing the anxiety of a mother who''s on the verge of becoming an empty nester, and her feelings of despair over having to say goodbye to her babies, which were being transmitted to me through the binding stone, were making it hard for me to concentrate on anything else. Even the chance to watch VanBilt squeal, which I had been looking forward to enormously, held no appeal for me at present. I was stuck waiting for the moment when the chicks took flight and we could all process and adjust to their departure.


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    Igor proved us all right. He was the first to achieve sustained, controlled flight. He still needed to run down the hill to launch himself and his first moments of flight were still frantic but once he got high enough he was able to keep himself in the air under the power of his wings. The other chicks, seeing Igor''s success, began applying themselves to mastering flight with renewed energy and determination.


    When Igor was getting ready to fully master flight it was a tense time for Uraia, who was worried about him possibly flying off and not returning. I made sure to be there for Uraia during this time; if Igor chose to fly off rather than stay by her side she would be heartbroken, and under no circumstances could I allow Uraia to go through such heartbreak alone. Even if Igor flew off and I had Myra bring him back so that Uraia could place a binding stone on him, she would still be hurt by Igor''s decision to leave her.


    I was in the garden with Uraia when the moment of truth arrived. Igor took off with no problem from a standing position, remained comfortably airborne, and then began to fly. He flew around the garden and the fields, then around the palace, then over the city. We watched him flying and waited to see what his choice would be. Uraia was in a state of high anxiety during these few minutes,  a state I''d never seen her in before, not even when she was about to risk her life. I wondered if her anxiety was because of how much she was looking forward to flying with Igor as I did with Myra or if it was because she didn''t want to disappoint me after I had bequeathed Igor to her. I was clutching the binding stone in my right hand, waiting to give Myra the order to bring her son back should he start flying away from the city. Thankfully I didn''t need to resort to such measures. When he became tired of flying over the city Igor returned to the garden, returned to Uraia. He landed before her and walked to her and they nuzzled, a clear expression of the strength of the bond that they had forged.


    "Here, take it," I said to Uraia, holding out the binding stone to her.


    "I don''t need it."


    "With this you''ll be able to communicate telepathically with him, like Myra and I do; take it."


    Uraia took the binding stone from me and the necklace that had the Master Gem on it. She placed the binding stone on Igor''s head and he accepted her as the master to whom he would be bound.


    The most nerve wracking episode that we had lived through in the palace was at an end, and it was time to return to the business of ruling the kingdom.


    "Tell Alfred and Boris to be here in the morning," I said to Ferland on my way back into the palace.


    "Yes your majesty."


    It would be another few months before Uraia was able to fly with Igor, until then I just had to be patient.

 Chapter 30

    I had VanBilt brought up from his cell the next day. He was brought to the Great Hall, where Alfred, Boris, Ferland and I were seated around the table waiting for him. He was seated at the opposite end of the table from us, where a quill and sheets of parchment was waiting for him.


    "You are to write down everything that you know about the nobles'' relationships with Dranii and Volstaff. Names, numbers, everything. If the information that you provide us with is deemed satisfactory, your life will be spared, if not, you will suffer the same fate as your fellow prisoners."


    VanBilt, who was showing all the signs of a person who was in a great distress, picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink bottle and started writing. He filled one sheet of parchment, then another, then another, then another. He filled six pages in total with all of the details about how much money the nobles made every year from a full harvest of Caeda flowers, who transported them out of the kingdom to Dranii, which people in Dranii were responsible for receiving the flowers and arranging payment, and which banks in Dranii were holding the nobles'' money for them. When he was done I thanked him for being so cooperative and had him returned to his cell.


    The four of us took our time reading closely everything that he''d written down and what quickly became obvious was that from a diplomatic standpoint we were facing an enormous challenge. The kingdom of Dranii was a lot more involved in the dealings between Volstaff and the nobles than we''d originally thought. Merchants and royal officials in Dranii were transacting directly with merchants and royal officials from Volstaff and the nobles, and according to VanBilt''s notes the Dranii ambassador, who we were planning on summoning, was the central figure orchestrating all of this. He communicated directly with Esmeralda and VanBilt who then issued instructions to the nobles.


    "This complicates things," Boris said after reading VanBilt''s notes.


    "Given how invested Dranii is in Volstaff''s exploitation of the nobles we should expect a more forceful response from them when we move against the nobles," Ferland offered.


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    "You told me that if Volstaff chose to invade Dranii would not assist with troops; do you still believe that?" I asked Boris.


    "I don''t think that we can count on that, no," Boris responded.


    "The good news is that, from the figures that he''s written down here, we''ll have enough funds after we''ve confiscated the nobles'' wealth to settle our debts and still have some left over," Alfred said.


    "If it''s true that Dranii will always seek out alliances that are the most profitable for them then our focus should be on demonstrating to them that an alliance with us would be more beneficial to them than their alliance with Volstaff," I said.


    "That''s what I''ve been wanting to discuss with you," Ferland said to me.


    He went on to explain that Dranii had uncharacteristically gotten deeply involved in Volstaff''s scheme, and therein lay our opportunity. Should the other kingdoms discover that Dranii was complicit in the proliferation of Histra, the drug that was manufactured from the Caeda flowers, then Dranii would find themselves at the centre of a firestorm. This was our leverage, the stick that we could threaten to beat them with should they provide Volstaff with large scale assistance for their invasion. The carrot would be the opportunity to use Volstaff''s inevitable invasion to weaken them by luring their army into a trap to be decimated. The beauty of this plan, Ferland explained, was that for Dranii there was no downside; if we were successful in repelling Volstaff''s invasion then Dranii would have a weakened Volstaff on their western border whose weakness they could exploit, however, if we failed, they could say to Volstaff that they had intentionally set up a confrontation between our two armies to make it easier for them to get our army out of the way before they moved deeper into our lands. His plan made a lot of sense, but it wasn''t without risks. For it to succeed Dranii needed to believe that we were capable of defeating the Volstaff army, a claim that it was going to be hard to convince them of when they understood how much the kingdom had suffered under Esmeralda''s rule.


    "The fact that you have command of a phoenix will likely be enough for them to put their faith in our ability to defeat the Volstaff army," Ferland said in response to my concerns about the risks that were present in his plan.


    "But I don''t plan on using Myra in battle."


    "It would be best if you didn''t let the Dranii ambassador know that," Ferland said.

 Chapter 31 - More doubts

    With our strategy decided upon for how we would approach our audience with the Dranii ambassador, the time for dealing with the nobles was upon us. We now had enough information courtesy of VanBilt and the Master of the Merchant Guild to have confidence that the actions that we took against the nobles and their retainers would rid the kingdom of their corrosive influence once and for all.


    I had Uther dispatch his men across the kingdom to the seven states to prepare for the phase of the operation that involved informing the soldiers in the states that had been placed under the authority of the nobles of my ascension, taking command of them and using them to round up the nobles'' retainers and family members. Once they had been taken into custody they would be transported to the capital city where they would be detained until I had decided what to do with them. The kingdom had been divided up into seven states to give each of the seven noble families their own domain. Each state had its own capital city that served as the commercial and administrative hub of that state. The noble families all lived in manors near to their capital city and all of their retainers worked in the capital city. Thanks to VanBilt we had the names of all of the noble families'' most important retainers and thanks to the Merchant Guild we knew what positions they occupied and where to find them.


    My intention had always been to rid the kingdom of the scourge of the nobles once and for all by killing the heads of all seven noble houses, however, Uraia''s caution about me enjoying the power that I had to order people''s deaths was giving me pause again. I wondered if there wasn''t a more merciful way of achieving the same goal and whether people would think better of me as a ruler if I prioritized mercy above bloody expedience.


    "Taking life is something that is unavoidable when you''re a ruler; the important thing is knowing when it''s appropriate and not to be excessive."


    The voice that spoke to me was that of the Overseer. I had been sitting in the garden and watching the other chicks continuing their efforts to master flight when he suddenly appeared.


    "Why is it that I see you so seldom?"


    "You are not officially the queen yet; once you have been coronated I shall take up permanent residence here in the palace."


    "And what is it that you''ll be doing here exactly?"


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    "Giving your reign legitimacy, and doing my best to stop you from becoming corrupted by your power, though it seems as if there isn''t much danger of that with you, rather, the problem with you is the danger of you allowing your fear of your power to compromise your effectiveness as a ruler."


    "Can''t I be merciful and effective?"


    "In certain cases, yes; in others, no."


    "In this particular case all I care about is freeing the citizens of the kingdom from the repression of the nobles, there are ways that that can be done without blood being shed."


    "Yes, but there is more involved here than just whether you stain your hands with more blood, there is the issue of how your subjects would feel about you showing mercy to the nobles whom they detest, and if you do show them mercy, might they not be emboldened to one day seek a return to the kingdom and a return to their positions of privilege?"


    "You sound as if you want me to kill them."


    "I advised your predecessor against showing mercy to the nobles for these same reasons, and look at what happened."


    "There were reasons for why the king made the decisions that he made in aftermath of the civil wars, mainly that he was tired from the wars and wanted peace at any cost."


    "You''re not tired, so there is no need for you to compromise the way he did."


    "I just don''t want to be a monster."


    "You''re a long way from being a monster; take it from me, I''ve seen many up close with my own eyes. These doubts that you are having about what you should do with the nobles, what is the reason for them?"


    "I already told you."


    "And I already told you that your worries are baseless, and yet you are still beset by doubts, so what is it really that you are afraid of?"


    At that moment I shifted my gaze to Uraia, who was watching Igor flying above us, and in that one moment the Overseer was able to read my emotions in full.


    "You''re worried that the more you exercise your power the more unrecognizable you''re going to become to her and the distance between you is going to grow inexorably; am I right?" He asked me.


    There was no need for me to answer, his deduction could not have been more perfect.


    "I shouldn''t need to say this, but you cannot allow your personal feelings to affect the decisions that you make as queen, I''ve seen the consequences of that up close with my own eyes as well."


    The Overseer left me to think about the advice that he''d given me about the nobles and the warning that he''d given me about Uraia and my feelings where she was concerned. The more I thought about our conversation the more I felt that he was right. The nobles had to die; for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of my reign, they had to die. I put aside any misgivings that I was having about what to do with the nobles and I decided to put off confronting my feelings for Uraia until after we were done with the nobles and Volstaff.

 Chapter 32 - The battlefield

    VanBilt was summoned to the Great Hall again, this time with only me there to talk to him.


    "Do you remember when I said that I wanted you to summon the nobles to the palace?"


    "Yes."


    "I''d like you to do that now."


    "Now?"


    "Yes, now. Use those sheets of parchment before you to write out letters to the heads of all of the noble families telling them that queen Esmeralda wishes for them to travel to the palace for a roundtable discussion about the affairs of the kingdom and their roles in them."


    "Would you please tell me what you plan to do with them?"


    "No; as I told you before, that''s none of your business, all that you should be worried about is doing what you need to do to save yourself, which in this case means writing letters that are convincing enough to get all of the nobles here, and don''t try slipping in any warnings because if you do we''ll find them, and you know what will happen to you then."


    By this point VanBilt''s resistance was entirely broken. He sat across from me and obediently wrote out the letters that I told him to write without trying to cajole me into showing mercy to the nobles. The letters that he wrote were inspected and deemed acceptable. Messengers were sent out with the letters to the estates of the heads of the noble houses, and with our plan now in motion, all there was for us to do was wait. I spoke with Uraia after the messengers were dispatched, telling her that the bloody business of disposing of the nobles would be up to her and the Royal Guard.


    "If I make you my accomplice then it won''t be so easy for you to accuse me of being bloodthirsty," I said to her jokingly.


    Now that the nobles had been summoned, Uther and I were in a race against time to get ready for the Volstaff invasion. As soon as we were done with the nobles all of the kingdom''s forces would have to be consolidated and moved west. If Uther''s numbers were correct, we could count on having a force of around twenty thousand men. These men were all we would have; it was too late to conscript, arm and train new soldiers. Uther would oversee the consolidation and mobilization of the troops. As for where they would mobilize to, that was yet to be decided. Uther had advised me that for us to prevail we needed to make maximum use of force multipliers, the terrain of the battlefield generally being the most advantageous force multiplier in battles.


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    As was the case with almost all of the kingdoms, our border with Dranii was determined by a series of mountain ranges and rivers. The Volstaff army would avoid the rivers, fording them would be too much trouble. That left the passes between the mountain ranges as our best option for using the terrain to our advantage. To find out which mountain pass would best suit our needs I flew west with Myra to have a look at all of them. There were nine mountain passes in all. When going over the maps with Uther at the palace he''d said that the narrowest pass would be best, but I worried that if we had Dranii direct Volstaff to the narrowest pass they would recognize it as a trap. We needed to find another way to use the terrain to our advantage. To get a better sense of the characteristics of the terrain in the passes I touched down in each one with Myra to conduct a thorough examination of the unique attributes of each pass.


    The only beneficial aspect of the narrowest pass was its narrowness. For setting up an infantry blockade it was perfect, but it wasn''t suitable for what we had been planning. The pass that to me was the most suitable for what we had planned was the southernmost pass. The pass was wide, but it had one important feature that could be of tremendous help to us. There was a slope in the ground that was a fair distance from the entrance to the pass. The slope was mild enough that one could easily traverse it on foot but it was far enough from the entrance to the pass that anything immediately beyond the slope was not visible from the entrance to the pass. If we could hide some of our troops beyond the slope and use them to ambush Volstaff''s troops when they had traveled far enough into the pass then we could potentially launch a devastating surprise attack on them. I returned to the palace and told Uther what I''d found and what my ideas were for how to make the best use of it. Uther knew which pass I was talking about and he understood my idea of using the slope to conceal ourselves from the enemy''s field of vision.


    I would leave the organizational details of our defense such as battalion numbers and troop formations to Uther while I turned my attention to other things. The chicks had now all mastered flight, and, remarkably, they had all chosen to stay. According to Myra they had all grown very fond of us and didn''t wish to leave. I was glad that they had chosen to stay. I had my own fondness for the chicks that was independent of mine and Myra''s synchronized feelings. I wanted to see them continue to grow until they were as big and formidable as their mother, only then would I be okay with them leaving, if that was what they should choose. The garden was getting too small for them; I told Cyrus to design and build a large coop for them in the fields behind the garden. The coop was to be built out of stone and sheltered with a thick bedding of straw on the floor to keep them comfortable. The fields behind the palace were to become their new home when they became too big for the garden, there they would have plenty of space and would still be close enough for me to keep an eye on them.

 Chapter 33 - Death of the nobles

    The nobles arrived sooner than we''d anticipated. They were easy to spot because of the ornate carriages they traveled in. The first to arrive was Louis Udoras, head of the Udoras house. His carriage entered the city gates and as soon as the gates were closed behind it the City Guard surrounded it and escorted it to the city residence that the Udoras family kept for when they had business in the city that they had to attend to personally, where Louis and his traveling companions were placed under house arrest until the rest of the nobles had arrived. All of the nobles were treated this way, until the final noble, Marcus DeLange, arrived. He was brought directly to the palace where he was made to wait for the others to be brought to the palace from where they were being held under house arrest. When they arrived they were all seated around the table in the Great Hall and made to wait. VanBilt entered soon after and asked Nicolas Remdahl, head of the Remdahl house, to come with him. The two of them left the room, and the stage was set for the eradication of the nobles.


    I wasn''t there to see it, but from the throne room where Ferland and I were waiting for VanBilt and Nicolas I was able to hear their screams. The sound of their screams lasted only a couple of seconds; Uraia and the rest of the Royal Guard did their job quickly and efficiently. VanBilt and Nicolas arrived in the throne room shaken by what they had heard, Nicolas more so than VanBilt, who was by now used to my way of doing things.


    "Lord Remdahl," I said to Nicolas, who had decided all on his own to kneel before me, "Cornelius over here has told me that you are not like the other nobles; you didn''t agree to go along with Volstaff''s plan for crippling the kingdom and you didn''t oppose the king''s efforts to subjugate the nobility."


    "That is because the authority of the ruler of the kingdom is absolute, to go against them is to go against the Overseer, such heresy is appalling and unbefitting of nobility."


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    "The other nobles didn''t share your sentiment."


    "That''s because they had gotten too used to their power and privilege and were willing to do anything to preserve it."


    "They went too far this time. If I hadn''t become queen, Volstaff''s plan for crippling the kingdom would have been a success and Aseron would have become a Volstaff vassal state. I hope you understand that, given that, I had no choice but to dispose of them."


    "I understand, their conduct has been too egregious, even I think so, but why have you spared me?"


    "Because you didn''t go along with them in aiding Volstaff''s scheme, and because Cornelius begs me to spare to you every chance he gets."


    "What is to become of me, if I am no longer to be a noble?"


    "You will be exiled. I have spoken with the Erst ambassador, they''ve agreed to accept all of you as refugees. By now all of the nobles'' family members and retainers have been taken into custody and are being brought here to Glendale, you will all depart for Erst together. I''m leaving you your family fortune, it should be enough to support all of you, and take him with you too, I''ve decided to spare him," I said, gesturing at VanBilt.


    "You have?" VanBilt asked, shocked by my decision.


    "Yes; you''ve been very helpful to me, and I''ve come to appreciate your enslavement to your loyalties, so you may go and be with your nobles about whom you care so much."


    Nicolas was taken back to his residence along with VanBilt to wait for the rest of the nobles and their retainers to come in from the states. The bodies of the slain nobles were taken out to the field behind the palace and buried in unmarked graves. The lockdown of the city was lifted, and to send a message to the citizens that the days of the nobles'' rule were over I had their ornate carriages transported to the town square and burned.

 Chapter 34

    Nicolas Remdahl and the rest of the nobles and their retainers left the city for Erst in ordinary wagons. I watched them leaving from one of the rooms on the second floor of the palace, leaving for their new lives as ordinary citizens in a foreign land. It wasn''t lost on me that what I was witnessing was the end of an era, the end of the more than thousand year old history of the nobles, and, just like with Esmeralda, my thoughts turned to the incredible fragility of power, and whether my actions, like the ones that I had taken against the nobles, would one day expose the fragility of my power.


    "If you keep handling things the way you''ve handled this business with the nobles you''ll be just fine," the Overseer said to me.


    I had by now gotten used to his unannounced pop-ins and was no longer startled when his voice came to me from out of thin air.


    "Do you really mean that?"


    "When the king decided to move on the nobles he ended up fighting a series of civil wars that lasted for years and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people; you were able to bring a conclusive end to the time of the nobles with minimal bloodshed, I''d say that qualifies as a resounding success."


    "The noble that I spared, Lord Remdahl, he told me that his  reason for not joining the other nobles in their opposition to the king or their alliance with Volstaff was his devotion to you; why was his devotion to you so much stronger than his own self-interest?"


    "Because he is a direct descendant of the first pilgrims to travel to these lands and settle it. It is the dream of all settlers to have their years of toil rewarded by an Overseer being sent down from Mount Edrugar to recognize the land that they''ve settled as a kingdom."


    "Is that where you''re from? Mount Edrugar?"


    "It''s where all of us Overseers are from, the mountain is a wellspring of divine energy."


    "Where is it?"


    "I''m afraid I can''t tell you that, such knowledge is not for humans to know."


    "When you came down and recognized Aseron as a kingdom, were you aware that the settlers had driven the Okwari off their lands and killed thousands of them in the process?"


    "Yes, I was aware of that."


    "Why was there no divine punishment for that?!" I asked angrily.


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    "It is not up to us to stand in judgment of you humans, it''s up to you to recognize when your behavior has been abominable and to correct it accordingly."


    "That''s exactly what I plan to do, the Okwari will receive what they are owed for what they were made to suffer, as queen I will make sure of it."


    I had been thinking a lot about this ever since Ferland had stressed to me the importance of my first proclamation and how it would set the tone for my reign. I was torn between using my proclamation to make clear my intent to address the wrongs that the Okwari were made to suffer or if I should use it to send a message to the citizens of my unwavering commitment to always act in their best interests. I couldn''t decide which would be the better approach, so I chose to focus on something else.


    With the nobles gone the administration of the affairs of the states now fell under the purview of the palace. The newly restored Merchant Guild took charge of economic affairs and the soldiers assumed responsibility for security. The administration of civilian services throughout the kingdom covered a wide range of areas, the most important of which was providing the population with agricultural assistance, of which there would need to be a great deal because of the elimination of the Caeda crop. To replenish the growth of food crops a larger than usual share of the harvested food crops would need to be set aside for planting for the next harvest, putting our food situation in critical territory.


    "We''ll have to import, there''s no other way," Alfred said to me and Ferland.


    "That much is obvious, the issue is how much we need, how much it will cost and who produces enough of a harvest to provide us with what we need," I said to Alfred.


    "The best estimate we''ve been able to come up with is that we''ll need to import sixty percent of the grain that we need."


    "Does that include the grain that''s needed for feeding livestock?"


    "It does."


    "And who produces enough grain to supply us with that much?"


    "Theran is the kingdom that produces the most grain, we''ve been importing most of our grain from them, but not as much as this, we''ll need to double what we''ve been importing thus far."


    "Do they have enough to meet our needs?"


    "Theran exports its grain to many kingdoms, mostly to kingdoms that aren''t able to grow the food they need because their landscapes don''t allow for the cultivation of large fields, like Kandalar."


    "And we''ve been importing grain to make up for a reduced harvest due to us growing flowers for narcotics."


    "That''s why they''ve been charging us more than the normal rate."


    "How much more?"


    "About thirty percent."


    "Thirty percent!"


    "A deferred payment plan was agreed for much of the grain that was imported, that is the nature of our indebtedness to Theran. The good news is that the nobles were making more money growing the Caeda flowers than the grain imports cost, so as soon as we get Dranii to turn over the nobles'' fortunes we''ll be in the clear."


    My audience with the Dranii ambassador was shaping up to be the most important event of my reign and it was imperative that we left nothing to chance. We sent a letter to the Dranii embassy summoning the ambassador only once we had all of the information that we needed to engage in a robust dialogue.

 Chapter 35 - The Dranii ambassador

    The audience with the Dranii ambassador was held in the throne room, and, to project as much of an imposing aura as possible as queen, I brought Myra into the throne room with me, and judging from the ambassador''s reaction to her when he entered the throne room her presence more than achieved the desired effect.


    "Ambassador Wilhelm, I trust we will be able to have a productive discussion."


    "I came here with every intention of us having a productive discussion."


    "Good, then I won''t be withholding anything during this discussion."


    "I hope you don''t."


    "I know that you''ve been acting as an intermediary between the nobles and Volstaff."


    "I see."


    "Now that I am queen Volstaff''s plan to take over this kingdom is dead, understood?"


    "Have you summoned me to inform me of your intention to retaliate against us?"


    "No, I summoned you to make you an offer."


    "I''m listening."


    "Help me punish Volstaff for what they''ve done to my kingdom."


    "What did you have in mind?"


    "Our belief is that when Volstaff learns of Esmeralda''s removal from power they''ll believe that I''m going to need time to consolidate the kingdom''s forces and that this will be the perfect window of opportunity for them to launch an invasion and bring their plan to a successful conclusion."


    "Do you want us to dissuade them from launching an invasion?"


    "On the contrary, I want you to persuade them to invade us and to persuade them to move their troops through the mountain pass where we plan to meet them."


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    "You believe that you can win?"


    "With her," I said, looking over at Myra, "there can be no other outcome."


    "And what would we be getting out of all of this?"


    "After we''ve routed Volstaff''s army they will be considerably weakened, and you''d be free to take advantage of that any way you want, and we don''t send word to the other kingdoms of your role in the proliferation of Histra."


    "It''s a tempting offer, very tempting."


    "It comes with conditions, the main one being that you must turn over to me the nobles'' wealth that you''ve been storing for them in your banks."


    "That will take some time to arrange."


    "No it won''t, we have all the exact figures, VanBilt was kind enough to furnish them for us."


    "Anything else?"


    "Scrap the debt that we owe you."


    "I''m sorry, but we have financial obligations of our own that are contingent upon the terms that were negotiated when we took you on as a debtor state."


    "Is there room for us to negotiate a mitigation of our debt?"


    "What''s your offer?"


    "Refugees; I will take in all of the dwarven refugees that you have in your kingdom, if you''ll agree to expunge forty percent of our debt."


    "Thirty percent."


    "Fine," I responded immediately.


    "Nobody from any other kingdom is to learn of any of this."


    "This plan doesn''t work for you unless you have complete deniability, so you can count on us to exercise absolute discretion."


    "When all is said and done, I hope our two kingdoms are able to have a warm and mutually beneficial relationship."


    "I plan to pursue such a relationship, and I''m glad to hear that I''ll have you for an ally in that pursuit."


    Following the conclusion of our discussion the ambassador returned to his embassy, which had been placed under the City Guard''s watch while he had been at the palace and would remain so until after our battle with Volstaff, Myra returned outside and Ferland and I repaired to my study to go over what we had managed to achieve in the audience with the Dranii ambassador.


    "That went very smoothly," I said to Ferland.


    "I told you, with Dranii if you make them an attractive offer their cooperation is all but guaranteed."


    "You were right about the dwarves, his whole face lit up when I brought up the idea of us taking them in."


    "That''s because they''re desperate to get rid of them, all of the kingdoms are."


    "Why is that? The dwarves are the most industrious race there is."


    "That''s the problem, everywhere they go they do really well and it''s not long before the locals come to resent them, when that happens they''re forced to leave and wherever it is that they go to next the same thing happens all over again. It''ll happen here as well, we''re going to need to be prepared for it."


    "We will be."

 Chapter 36

    From what I had read in my father''s books the dwarves were tremendously skilled and hard working. They were particularly skilled at metalwork, metallurgy, engineering and masonry, skills that could be of enormous benefit to us if we were able to find a way to have the dwarves live in the kingdom without the rest of the citizens becoming resentful of them. I was interested in the dwarves'' skills because economically Aseron had nothing special about it that set it apart from the other kingdoms. Erst was a coastal kingdom whose wealth came mostly from maritime trade and shipbuilding, Theran produced bountiful harvests and Grunheim was blessed with mineral wealth. For me to elevate Aseron as a kingdom I needed to make it a powerhouse at something and I believed the dwarves could help us with that, it was just a matter of making sure that demand for the dwarves'' skills as artisans didn''t negatively impact the ability of the citizens of the kingdom from continuing to make a living off of their skills as artisans. The answer that I arrived at after spending days thinking about the problem was to create new demand, to have the dwarves apply their knowledge and skills to creating goods and providing services that either complemented the work of the kingdom''s artisans or did not compete directly with their work.


    "What are these goods and services that the dwarves will be providing that will not cause the citizens to fear the loss of their livelihoods?" Alfred asked me.


    "Once I''ve spent some time with the dwarves and learned what they are capable of we will know how to proceed."


    "You are planning to bring all of the dwarves here with no plan for how they will be integrated into the kingdom?" Ferland asked.


    "Yes."


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    "Is that wise?"


    "I think it is."


    "Despite the risks?"


    "I don''t care about the risks! The dwarves had their home taken from them and have been shunted from place to place ever since; it''s wrong! Now that I am queen and have the power to help those that are in need of help I will do so without my intentions being undermined by political concerns."


    Of course Ferland was right to be concerned about the public reaction to my decision, but what the dwarves were being made to go through was horrible and I just couldn''t do nothing when I had the power to do something. The Okwari had helped us when they could have easily left us to starve and freeze to death and the bond that I had formed with them continued to be more important to me than anything else, and with good reason. To help us fight off the Volstaff invasion Chief Kendor sent more than just the longbows I had asked him for. The party that Ferland had sent to the north to retrieve the bows returned accompanied by two thousand teewah riders. Uraia and I rode out on our teewahs to meet them outside the city. The person leading them was Uraia''s older brother Bandor, Chief Kendor''s direct successor.


    "There is no need for you to fight in this battle, we''ve taken control of the army so we have the numbers we need to go to battle," I said to Bandor.


    "Yes, but you are one of us and you have asked for our help, so we have come to help."


    "This won''t be like when we stormed the city, in this battle there will be many casualties."


    "We do not fear battle, and we are proud to go to battle for our queen."


    "Well, in that case, I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield."


    The Okwari all set up camp outside the city while they waited to be called upon to leave for the battlefield. The unexpected arrival of the Okwari warriors necessitated a change in our tactics. I spoke with Uther and he was excited by the prospect of having the Okwari and their teewahs under his command.


    "I think it would be best if Uraia led them, you know, since she speaks the language."


    "Agreed."

 Chapter 37

    Uther began making alterations to his tactics to include the additional element of the teewah riders. I left the battle planning to Uther and only checked in on him periodically. I was focusing mainly on the issues of civilian administration and agriculture. I summoned the Theran ambassador for an audience and we talked about how they might assist us in meeting our food needs while we focused on destroying the Caeda fields so that we could restore our grain production. The Theran ambassador was a woman named Gail, who was quick to share with me her delight to discover that Aseron had a queen for its new ruler. Theran, she informed me, was a kingdom that had been ruled by queens for over a thousand years, and it was because of this fact, they believed, that the kingdom had experienced centuries of peaceful prosperity.


    "I think it has more to do with the other kingdoms not wishing to jeopardize their food supply," I countered.


    "You''re probably right, but it was a wise decision by our predecessors to focus on making us an agricultural powerhouse and we''ve been benefiting from it ever since."


    "That''s true, if you have a specialty that others depend on it will insulate you from any threat they might pose, I''m hoping to do the same for Aseron but we''re not blessed with natural resources so I''m having a hard time figuring out how we would make ourselves invaluable to the other kingdoms."


    "I''m sure you''ll come up with something, but if you come up with something agricultural we''re going to have a problem."


    "We don''t have your warm climate and rich soil, so there''s no need for you to be concerned about that."


    I was able to get the Theran ambassador to agree to increase their agricultural exports to us until our grain production was back to the level it was at before the cultivation of the Caeda flowers began. I was also able to secure a reduction in what we owed them by once again offering to take in their dwarven refugees.


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    By offering to take in the dwarves it was looking like I was going to be able to reduce our indebtedness to all of the kingdoms that were our creditors, leaving us with more funds available to us from what we confiscated from the nobles. Having funds available to spend meant that I could pursue ambitions that I had for the kingdom, namely the social and economic reforms that I believed were necessary to empower the citizens which in turn would empower the kingdom. First and foremost I wanted to make it possible for every child in the kingdom to receive an education. This was important to me because were it not for all of the books of my father''s that I had read during our time in the Northlands I would be useless as queen. The nobles had denied the children of ordinary citizens the opportunity to receive an education for the purpose of keeping them subservient. Of all the horrible things that the nobles had done this was, in my opinion, the worst, and I was more motivated to address this unfairness that the nobles had inflicted upon the citizens than I was any other. The other big change that I wished to make was to change the livestock breeding practices of the peasant farmers. At present the farmers in the kingdom raised livestock primarily for the nobles and their retainers, whose meat of choice was beef. Raising cows for beef was expensive, time consuming and labor intensive because they ate a lot and bred slow. The peasant farmers would be better off if they kept cows primarily for milk and focused on breeding chickens and pigs for meat, that way they would produce enough meat for themselves and to sell.


    But all of that came later, for now our entire focus needed to be on the Volstaff invasion. Three weeks after our audience the Dranii ambassador returned to the palace to inform us that they had delivered the news of Esmeralda''s ouster to the king of Volstaff and they had succeeded in convincing him to take of advantage of this period of transition and uncertainty within the kingdom by having his army march on the capital.


    "Are they going to march through the southern pass?" I asked the ambassador.


    "We told them that it was the best way to enter your kingdom and that we''ll make preparations to assist their army as they make their way through our kingdom in the direction of the southern pass."


    "Then everything is in place."


    "Yes, everything is in place."


    I called for Uther as soon as the ambassador left.


    "Start moving the army, Volstaff are making their move."

 Chapter 38

    Uraia and the Okwari riders left with Uther for the battlefield. In her absence I put Klara in temporary command of the Royal Guard.


    "Ferland is in charge while I am away, I need you to protect him," I said to Klara before my departure.


    "I''m not going to the battlefield?" Klara asked, disappointed.


    "You''re needed here."


    Before I walked out of the palace to go and get Myra, the Overseer decided that we should have one more conversation before I left for the battlefield.


    "You must win this battle, no matter the cost," he said to me.


    "You mean if it looks like we''re going to lose I shouldn''t hesitate to make use of Myra."


    "You may not realize it, but in the short time that you have been queen you have accomplished extraordinary things. The kingdom can''t afford to lose you, so no matter what you must be victorious, and you must return to your throne."


    "I have no intention of doing otherwise."


    Cyrus had gotten Myra saddled and harnessed up for me and was waiting for me with her behind the palace. Only when I was getting ready to take off with Myra was I fully struck by the reality of the fact that we were going to war. Flying over the kingdom and looking down at all that I was responsible for, the Overseer''s words to me before I departed weighed on me heavily. Failure meant surrendering the kingdom to Volstaff, and under no circumstances was I prepared to have the citizens of Aseron submit to Volstaff rule. I was confident in our ability to win the battle with our soldiers, especially with the Okwari riders as part of our forces, but if things went against us on the battlefield I would have no choice but to intervene with Myra and if I did I would have to make sure no Volstaff soldier was left alive to tell the tale of our army''s failure.


    I arrived at the battlefield still unsure as to whether I had it in me to singlehandedly carry out such a large scale massacre. To avoid Myra being seen by the Volstaff troops I had her land far away from the mountain pass and we walked the rest of the way to where our troops were gathered. I left Myra behind the troops and made my way to Uther who was at the front lines.


    The longbow archers, cavalry, teewah riders and some infantry were all stationed at the bottom of the slope where they couldn''t be seen by the Volstaff army. Uther had cleverly positioned four infantry regiments above the slope for the enemy to see; his thinking was that if the enemy saw so few soldiers they would believe that they would have an easy time winning the battle and rush in to our trap.


    "Is that them?" I asked Uther when I reached him at the front of the army.


    "That''s them."


    Uther had managed to get the army to the pass before the Volstaff army.


    "How many of them are there?" I asked.


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    "I''d say about twenty five thousand."


    "And how many do we have?"


    "Ten thousand."


    "So our disadvantage is about what we expected."


    "Their king has made the journey with them, he''d like to talk with you before we begin."


    "Well, let''s not keep him waiting. HORSE!"


    A horse was brought to me and I rode out to the centre of what would be the battlefield to meet with the Volstaff king, who, when he saw me riding toward his army, came forward on his horse to meet me.


    "So you''re the new queen of Aseron," he said after arriving at the centre of the field on his black stallion and sizing me up.


    He had a swarthy complexion, hair down to his shoulders and a long beard that was tinged with white hairs. He was wearing ornate metal armor with a blue cape clipped on the back, armor that was more decorative than for protection.


    "Yes, and you''re the king who has tried every underhanded trick in the book to gain control of my kingdom."


    "Your kingdom was weak, when kingdoms are weak they become targets for other kingdoms; what was done to your kingdom has been done countless times before to  other weak kingdoms."


    "Well Aseron now has a queen who was selected by Aseron''s Overseer to be its ruler, so it''s no longer the weak kingdom that you had set your sights on."


    "You say that and yet when I look behind you I see only four infantry regiments, you can''t hope to win this battle with such a paltry force."


    "What we lack in numbers we make up for with ferocity."


    King Anua let out a loud guffaw after I said this to him, betraying his arrogance and over-confidence.


    "I did not come here seeking a massacre," he said when he was done laughing, "if you agree to surrender to me here I shall spare you and your army and you can all go home in one piece."


    "Funny, I was about to make you the same offer."


    My response removed the smile from his face.


    "Be warned that if you do not accept my offer I will show no mercy to your soldiers, even if you decide to surrender, my army will not stop until every one of your soldiers is dead."


    "Rest assured, I plan to extend the same courtesy to you and your men."


    We parted and returned to our armies having said all that needed to be said.


    "He''s feeling very confident of his chances, so we can expect him to charge in; tell the teewah riders to get ready, we''ll counter with them and the longbows," I said to Uraia and Uther.


    They went to deliver my orders to the soldiers at the rear, leaving me with only one thing left to do, which was to address the soldiers that had gathered to fight for me.


    "Soldiers of Aseron, I am your queen, Alegra Luthera. We are here today to defend our kingdom against the forces of Volstaff that have come here hoping to take our land from us and place us and our fellow citizens under their rule. It is up to us to stop them here; if we win this battle, and send the Volstaff army home as defeated men, Aseron will no longer need fear any threat from any foreign kingdom. Today''s battle is to ensure our future as free Aseronians, and looking at all of you fine soldiers before me there is not a doubt in my mind that we will be victorious!"


    The soldiers cheered, and I could see the belief in their faces.


    "The king of Volstaff has brought his army here thinking that he''ll be able to easily brush us aside and march his army on to our capital. Show him how foolish he is to be so disrespectful of us. Defeat them and you will return home as heroes, and your victory on this battlefield will be recorded in history as one of the finest performances by any army on any battlefield!"


    The soldiers cheered again, this time louder.


    "And just so you don''t hog all of the glory for yourselves, I will be on the battlefield with you, so that I should become known as Alegra, the warrior queen!"


    The soldiers laughed at this brief moment of levity that I chose to add to my speech, their laughter serving as proof that I had succeeded in winning them over.


    "Now, ready yourselves! Battle is about to commence."


    I rode to the rear of the infantry regiments, where the battle would be directed from.

 Chapter 39 - The battle with Volstaff

    On the other side of the battlefield, King Anua conferred with his chief military adviser.


    "It can''t be a coincidence that their army and their queen are here to meet us in the pass that we were told to use," the king said.


    "Damn Dranii, I told you they can''t be trusted."


    "Or maybe they set this up so that we could get rid of their army in one go, leaving us with an unobstructed path toward the capital."


    "If that were the case they would have told us."


    "Even if you''re right, we can''t prove it, and if we accuse them, their response will be exactly what I just suggested."


    "We can''t allow word to get out that we were successfully led into a trap."


    "That is not a cause for concern, our only concern now is winning this battle."


    "Yes my king. How do you wish to proceed?"


    "They''ve got, what, four infantry regiments over there? Defeating them will not be a challenge, in fact, I''d like to get this over with as quickly as possible. Signal to the cavalry, have them move to the front."


    By moving his cavalry forward to charge at us King Anua was doing exactly what I was expecting him to do. The signal was given to Uraia to tell Bandor and the rest of the teewah riders to get ready. Over on the Volstaff side, the order was given for the cavalry to attack. The Volstaff cavalry charged, intending to trample our infantry. In the face of the Volstaff cavalry galloping towards them, our infantrymen held firm, staying faithful to the orders that Uther had given them before the battle. The teewah riders waited in a state of absolute readiness for the semaphore signaling for them to attack, which came when the cavalry had crossed what looked like the halfway point between our two armies. The infantry regiments moved to the side and the teewah riders dashed up the slope to intercept Volstaff''s cavalry. The teewahs were being ridden by two riders: one upfront who was responsible for directing the teewah and another one behind facing the rear armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows. The teewahs rode out onto the battlefield and quickly turned around, giving the archers that were sitting behind the riders a clear shot at the Volstaff cavalrymen.


    The Volstaff cavalrymen weren''t prepared for such a counteroffensive and had no defense against it. The first volley that was fired by the teewah archers took down many, with the slain cavalrymen and their horses causing chaos and disarray among the advancing cavalry. The chaos slowed down the cavalry, allowing the teewah''s to slow down which allowed the teewah archers to increase their rate of fire. The cavalrymen were in no man''s land. Even without the chaos that was being caused by the cavalrymen dropping like flies their horses didn''t have the speed to catch the teewahs, and they couldn''t turn back because if they did they would just be easy pickings. The infantry regiments that Uther placed at the front were there to serve an additional purpose besides just being decoys. When the cavalry men were felled and their horses kept running our infantrymen moved in from the sides, grabbed them by the reins, mounted them and rode them to the rear where our cavalry was waiting for them to join their ranks.


    King Anua, seeing his cavalry being decimated, moved forward his archers to attack the teewah riders from range. As soon as the Volstaff archers moved forward the signal was given for the teewah riders to retreat. Using the teewah''s speed they were able to escape the Volstaff archers'' range, and, with the Volstaff archers now in an advanced position, it was time for our archers to enter the battle. The longbowmen didn''t need to move forward from their positions to fire, the range of the Okwari longbows was such that the arrows they fired were capable of reaching across the battlefield. The first volley that they fired made it all the way to reach the Volstaff archers, who began to retreat after being struck by the first volley.


    We had played our cards and sprung our traps, and now it was time for us to make our move. Our forces organized themselves into a new formation. The infantry came together again and moved forward, the teewah riders also moved forward and orgainzed themselves in columns between the infantry, and the longbowmen marched up the slope and took up their position behind the infantry. Across the battlefield there was no further movement from Volstaff. The few cavalry that had managed to survive had retreated to the rear, and because of our longbows there was nothing King Anua could do with his infantry or his archers.


    Our attack was begun by the teewah riders. They moved forward while firing their arrows at the Volstaff frontline infantry, who defended themselves by raising their shields and forming a phalanx. Behind the teewahs, our infantry and longbowmen marched forward. When they had reached a certain distance two signals were given: one for the longbowmen and the infantry, the other for the cavalry. The signal for the infantry and the longbowmen was to tell them to organize themselves into narrow columns spaced far apart and for the longbowmen to hold station and commence firing. The signal for the cavalry was to tell them to begin their charge. Uther and I were at the head of the cavalry and we led the charge.


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    The Volstaff soldiers were too focused on defending themselves against the arrows that were coming from ahead and from above to take defensive measures against our cavalry. We rode between the columns of longbowmen and infantry without slowing down, and when we were through our infantry started running forward to keep pace with us as best they could. Once we were beyond the columns of infantry, the teewah riders also split up to create space for us to run through, freeing us to continue riding at the Volstaff infantry full speed. We smashed into them, knocked them down to the ground and trampled over them, after which our infantry set upon them and made easy work of them.


    The Volstaff army, caught off guard by our tactics, panicked and began to retreat, which was the cue for our longbowmen to resume firing, targeting the retreating soldiers at the rear, which thinned out those regiments and made it easier for our cavalry to charge through them, and once we had penetrated as far as we could we dismounted and engaged the disorganized and demoralized Volstaff soldiers in melee combat. Fighting on the ground, my only focus was on killing as many Volstaff soldiers as I could. With every swing and every thrust I was killing, eventually getting lost in the frenzy of all the blood I was spilling. I lost perspective of the battle as a whole and needed Uraia to come to me and point out something to me that I should have been paying attention to.


    "Alegra, he''s getting away!"


    I looked behind me and saw King Anua fleeing on his chariot flanked by his Royal Guard.


    "MYRA!"


    Myra took flight and came to me on the battlefield. At the sight of Myra, the remaining Volstaff soldiers lost what little will to fight they had left, and the bloodbath got worse. I lifted myself up onto Myra and we flew after the king. He had managed to travel a good distance from his army; obviously he had begun his retreat much sooner than the army had begun theirs. We flew past them and I had Myra discharge a pillar of fire to the ground below as a message to the king and his guards that they would go no further. Myra descended to the ground and I dismounted her with the intention of challenging King Anua to direct combat with me. When I stepped toward the king his Royal Guard moved quickly to attack me but were stopped in their tracks by a loud and menacing screech from Myra.


    King Anua understood that I wanted to fight him one on one and that there was nothing that he could do to avoid it. He ordered his royal guard to stand down, picked up his shield and disembarked from his chariot. I could tell that he was nervous about engaging me in combat. It had probably been a long time since he had participated in real combat and the ornate armor that he was wearing looked like it was heavy and difficult to move in. Nothing was said between us before we commenced combat. We circled each other for a few seconds, waiting for the other to make the first move. King Anua made the first move, lunging at me and swinging his sword wildly, the kind of move that an unskilled fighter would make. I dodged his attack with ease by stepping to my left and decided to wait and see what his next move would be rather than counterattacking. His next move was to lunge at me again, this time with a backhand swing that I was able to dodge by taking a step back. I was right about him, he was slow and rusty. He came at me again with another lunge and this time I blocked it with my shield and followed with a strike of my own. He blocked my strike with his shield but his movement was clumsy and the blow caused him to stumble backwards. For a moment I thought about taking pity on him and giving him the opportunity to surrender because he had no hope of beating me, but then I remembered his vow to kill us all if we didn''t surrender to him and all I could think about was making sure he didn''t leave this battlefield alive. I went on the attack, unleashing a barrage of swift and powerful strikes that he struggled to defend against. With the fifth strike of my barrage I managed to get him on the arm that he was holding his sword in but the armor that he was wearing was so thick that I didn''t do any damage to him. His movements were so slow and ponderous that I didn''t need a shield to fight him, so I discarded it, which made me faster and more agile. Seeing the advantage that getting rid of my shield had given me, King Anua did the same. He started moving a little more freely, but his movements were still restricted by his decorative armor. I continued to get the better of our exchanges as King Anua fought reactively, focusing on parrying my strikes. He did well enough for a while but eventually his inferior stamina and heavy armor caused his movements to slow significantly. He was breathing heavily and sweating and was struggling to find the energy just to keep moving. I, on the other hand, was perfectly fine. I attacked him again and struck so hard with one of my swings I knocked his sword out of his hand. With him now defenseless I could aim for a target. I thrust with my sword and got him between his breast plate and his shoulder armor, piercing his right shoulder and inflicting a grievous wound upon him which, together with his fatigue, dropped him to his knees.


    "Just a little longer, and I would have had your kingdom," he looked up and said to me.


    "The moment it became my kingdom your fate was sealed."


    I delivered the killing blow by driving my sword into his right shoulder. He didn''t die instantly, he remained on his knees and drew his final breaths before his body succumbed to its wounds and collapsed to the ground.


    "Take your king back to your kingdom, and tell them there that if Volstaff ever challenges Aseron again you will suffer the same fate that you have suffered here today," I said to the king''s guards.

 Chapter 40

    I gestured for Myra to come to me and we flew back to our troops. The battle was over. To my relief Uraia, Uther and Bandor were all still alive. Most of the Volstaff troops had been killed with only a few having been able to successfully surrender. I told them that they were free to go. We had shed enough blood for one day, and I wanted us to put this battle behind us. The casualties that we had suffered were minimal. According to Uther the number was likely to come in under a thousand, an astonishing feat given that we had been outnumbered two to one.


    "Were any Okwari killed?" I asked.


    "So far it looks like they all managed to survive."


    "Good."


    "You can return to the palace if you''d like, all that''s left here is the clean up, I''ll take care of that."


    "Thank you Uther, for all that you''ve done; this wouldn''t have been possible without you."


    "It was your plan, I just told everybody where to go."


    "You will still be receiving special recognition from me for what you''ve accomplished here today, as will everybody else whose excellent leadership helped to make this victory possible."


    I decided to take Uther up on his offer. I left him in charge of the cleanup operation and left with Myra to return to the palace. We took off into the air and just like when we had seized the capital city I got to hear my subjects chanting my name.


    "ALEGRA! ALEGRA! ALEGRA!..." The soldiers chanted from below as Myra and I hovered in the sky above them.


    As proud as they were to have me as their queen I was prouder to have them as my subjects. Despite being immensely outnumbered they had trusted me and fought bravely and had won a great victory. I could not fail them as queen. As I flew back to the palace I thought about the reforms that I planned to implement and my determination to get them implemented was greater than ever. Now that the battle with Volstaff was over my full focus was going to be on governing the kingdom and improving the lives of the citizens. This was going to be hard work, requiring lots of time and resources, and I was eager to get started, believing that the reforms that I had planned would have a transformational impact on peoples'' lives the like of which had never been experienced before. But before I could begin anything I needed a wash and a rest.


    "Take care of her," I said to Cyrus when I touched down at the palace, handing him Myra''s reins.


    Upon being informed of my return, Ferland came out to meet me at the entrance to the palace.


    "Is the battle over already?" He asked me.


    "Yes Ferland, the battle is over."


    "Did we win?"


    "Yes Ferland, we won."


    "I thought that you would be gone for days; how were you able to achieve victory so quickly?"


    "The Volstaff army turned out to be less formidable than we were expecting, their king even less so."


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    "The king was there?! Did you fight him? What happened?"


    "He''s dead."


    "You killed their king! This is incredible, once people find out about this your legend is sure to..."


    "Ferland," I said, cutting him off, "I need a bath."


    "Yes, yes I''ll see to it that that is taken care of immediately."


    The bath was located in the basement of the palace. I went down there after I had repaired to my chambers and removed my armor. The water that was waiting for me in the bath was nice and hot, perfect for me to relax in. When I lowered myself into the bathwater the water turned pink from the blood of the Volstaff soldiers that I had on me. The battle against Volstaff was my first time participating in a real battle and it was going to take time for me to process what I had experienced on the battlefield. The amount of death had been just staggering. I tried remembering how many soldiers I had killed but I couldn''t, all I could remember was a bloody haze because I had gotten lost in the frenzy of the battle and had been taken over by bloodlust. Looking back my behavior as the commander of an army had been wholly unacceptable. As a leader it was imperative that I remain calm and objective. I had failed to do so, and while my failure had not cost us this time the story would have been different had we been facing an opponent that was better prepared and better organized. I returned to my chamber after my bath still thinking about the trouble that I could have caused and I decided that in the future I would not participate directly in battles and would leave all matters relating to the battlefield in Uther''s capable hands. I fell asleep almost instantly upon hitting the bed and slept a long, deep sleep. I woke up the next day wishing that I had brought Uraia back with me so that her face would be the first thing that I saw when I woke up. Instead, I got the Overseer.


    "You know, every time I think that you can''t get any more impressive you prove me wrong," he said to me.


    "This couldn''t have waited until later when I''m better refreshed?" I sat up in my bed and asked groggily.


    "We Overseers have a habit of choosing inconvenient times for conversations with our annointed ones."


    "So I''ve noticed."


    "Do you know what your soldiers are saying about you right now?"


    "How can I? They''re on the other side of the kingdom."


    "They''re talking about what an incredible queen they have. They''re all going to return home to their towns and villages and tell everyone who will listen to them about their queen who flies on the back of a phoenix and who killed the Volstaff king."


    "Are they also going to talk about the help that we got from the Okwari and how we couldn''t have won without them?"


    "I imagine they will."


    "Good."


    "You''ve accrued an enormous amount of goodwill with this victory, have you thought about what you might use it for?"


    "I''m going to help the dwarves, I''m going to allow them to come to Aseron and make it their home."


    "I think that''s an admirable goal, however it''s not without its risks."


    "I am well aware of the risks and I am preparing measures to mitigate those risks, so there''s no reason for you to worry about anything."


    "I never said I was worried, in fact I''ve learned that when it comes to you there''s really no need for me to ever be worried."


    "That''s not true, I lost control of myself on the battlefield, and were it not for us having the upper hand my failure to maintain my composure could have cost us dearly."


    "You''re making far too much of this. It was your first battle, it''s only natural that you would become overwhelmed by it. I would suggest that you stop fretting over what happened during the battle, which you won, I might add, and instead focus on what comes next now that the Volstaff threat has been seen off."


    "I''ve already told you, making a home here in Aseron for the dwarves is now my top priority."


    "Yes, but you have other matters that require your attention, such as your coronation, for example."


    "My coronation is not an urgent matter."


    "It is to me; until you have officially been placed on the throne I am going to be stuck on Mount Edrugar having to answer all sorts of questions about why my kingdom still doesn''t have a ruler, so if you could make your coronation more of a priority, that would be greatly appreciated."


    "Fine, I''ll have Ferland start making preparations for it."


    "That''s all I ask."


    "Anything else?"


    "Well, in order for our bond as ruler and Overseer to be fully forged you need to give me a name, so start thinking of one."

 Chapter 41

    I decided that I wouldn''t do anything serious until Uraia and the others returned. I told Ferland to begin making preparations for my coronation and that he should send word to the Dranii ambassador informing him of our victory and King Anua''s death.


    "And send a message to Galand, tell everyone that fled there that it''s safe for them to return home."


    Galand was what I believed would be the best place for the dwarves to live. The town wasn''t quite big enough to support the number of dwarves that we were expecting but with just a little expansion it would meet their needs just fine.


    Aside from helping the dwarves get settled in the kingdom there were three other major priorities that I needed to get done. There was my coronation and proclamations, Esmeralda''s punishment, and the thing I was dreading most, telling Uraia how I felt about her. I could no longer deny that the love that I felt for Uraia was anything other than the deepest possible love, the kind that made you feel as if the worst thing imaginable was not being able to spend every moment possible together with that person. I didn''t know if Uraia felt the same way; if I confessed to her and she didn''t then we would no longer be able to be together, and that, more than the thought of her rejecting me, was what I feared most.


    Two days after I had Ferland deliver the news of the Volstaff army''s defeat to the Dranii ambassador he came to the palace seeking an audience. We held the audience in the throne room, which, Ferland told me, I needed to get more comfortable in and make my own.


    "I wanted to be the first to congratulate you on your outstanding victory," he said obsequiously.


    "Thank you Wilhelm, that''s very nice of you."


    "I must admit that when I heard that you had repelled the Volstaff invasion and routed their army in just one day I thought that I was having my leg pulled, but then I remembered that phoenix of yours and it made perfect sense that it would only take you a day to do away with them."


    "Actually it was the soldiers that won the battle, I didn''t use Myra at all, except to chase after King Anua when he tried to flee."


    "I see. I''m surprised to hear that because we had agreed to cooperate with you believing that you would be using that beast of yours to deliver a guaranteed victory. If your army had been found wanting and you''d lost we would have been placed in a very awkward position."


    "Be that as it may, the judgment that I made was that it was in the best interests of my kingdom for it to be known that our army is strong enough to stand up to and defeat any army that marches on our kingdom."


    "Yes, this victory certainly will accomplish that."


    "And how we managed to achieve this victory makes no difference to you and your ability to achieve your objectives."


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    "That''s true, we''ve already sent a ''diplomatic delegation'' accompanied by a large ''security detail'' to Volstaff, they''ll have the capital city in their grasp in no time."


    "So we''re all square then?"


    "Yes, we''re all square, and if I may congratulate you one more time on your victory."


    "Thank you again, and if I may say that of all the kingdoms that pose a threat to us, yours is the one that I''ll be keeping an eye on the most."


    "Likewise, Queen Alegra."


    The easiest item to take care of on my to do list was the issue of Esmeralda''s punishment. Ever since we had seized the palace and locked her up in the dungeon I had been thinking about what would be an appropriate punishment for her and I believed I had come up with something that would leave me feeling that she had been made to suffer a punishment that was commensurate with her many crimes. Of course no punishment would ever be enough to pay her back for what she had done to my father and the others; I would just have to content myself with the knowledge that I had been able to subject her to some suffering for it.


    When Uraia and the others returned to the capital I let them have a few days to rest and recharge and then I rode on Lucy to the outskirts of the city where the Okwari were camping before they made their trip home.


    "I need you to do something for me," I said to Bandor.


    "What is it?"


    "I need you to transport a prisoner to the north for me, to where the settlement used to be."


    "Is that all?"


    "Yes, just take her there and guard her until I arrive."


    "Okay."


    Esmeralda was taken out of the dungeon and handed over to Bandor to take north with him. Riding the teewahs it would take them two days to reach the ruins of the settlement. I left with Myra three days after they''d left and arrived at the settlement to find Esmeralda tied to a post with Bandor guarding her personally along with five other Okwari.


    "Do you know where we are?" I walked over to Esmeralda and asked her after thanking Bandor and the others for bringing her here.


    She didn''t answer me, she just looked at me with an expression of fear and disbelief.


    "This is the settlement that we established after you exiled us, after you sent us here to get killed by hunger and the cold. With help from the Okwari we were able to survive and build a life for ourselves here. We were living here quietly and peacefully until you decided that we were a threat to your rule and you sent soldiers here to kill everyone and burn everything to the ground. I survived because I wasn''t here when the massacre happened, and ever since the day when I returned to find everyone dead I promised myself that one day I would make you pay for what you did to all of the people here that I cared about so much, one of whom was my father. Today is finally that day."


    This was all that I wished to say to her, and having said it I turned away from her and walked back to Myra. She pleaded for me to spare her, telling me that she knew nothing of what happened here, that VanBilt had orchestrated the whole thing behind her back. I paid no attention to her pleas and the more I ignored her the more desperate she became.


    "Please, you have to believe me, I had nothing to do with what happened here, please, you don''t need to do this!"


    Myra was standing a few meters away from Esmeralda and Esmeralda quickly came to understand why. I told Myra to get ready and her ruff swelled and started to glow.


    "NO! NO! PLEASE! I DID NOTHING! PLEASE BELIEVE ME! DON''T..."


    The heat of Myra''s flames turned Esmeralda to ash almost instantly. This was the only cruelty that I would permit myself. Esmeralda was uniquely deserving of the cruelty that I had inflicted upon her and for that reason my conscience was unaffected by what I had done to her.

 Chapter 42 - Queen Alegra

    Before returning to the palace I decided to travel with Bandor and the others to Chief Kendor''s village. I was eager to tell him how the battle had gone and to ask him what he thought about the changes that I had planned for the kingdom. It had only been a few weeks since I had last seen Chief Kendor but in those weeks he looked like he had aged a few years. He now needed two sticks to walk with and his eyesight had gotten a little worse. The Okwari that had returned ahead of Bandor had already informed the chief of our victory and of the fact that no Okwari had been killed in the battle.


    "Thank you for keeping them safe," the chief said to me after I greeted him in his hut.


    "They all came back safe because of what excellent warriors they are, without them we couldn''t have won the battle."


    "They told me all about the battle, about how well your troops were organized and commanded; you would have found a way to win without them."


    "That''s not true, the teewahs'' speed allowed us to get the better of their cavalry and by using the longbows we were able to protect our troops from their archers, so it is in fact the case that we couldn''t have won without all of the help that you gave us."


    "In that case I will accept that you are being sincere."


    "My coronation is going to be taking place soon, I hope you''ll be able to attend."


    "I''ll be there, I may not look like it but there is still a lot of life left in this body."


    "My first proclamation as queen is going to be to recognize the Okwari as full citizens of Aseron invested with all of the rights that are enjoyed by citizens of Aseron."


    "That is very kind of you Alegra, but there is no need for you to do such a thing, we help you because you are a child of the Okwari, and if we did not help you then we would be failing you as our child."


    "It''s not just about all of the help that you''ve given me. You were all the victims of a terrible injustice, an injustice that I now have the power to correct."


    "A simple proclamation is not going to be enough to achieve that."


    "No, but it''s a start, and it comes after the soldiers have gotten to see with their own eyes how much the Okwari have to contribute to the kingdom."


    "Even so, there is no need for this, we are happy here."


    "In addition to my proclamation I will be declaring all of the lands north of the Bronden mountains the domain of the Okwari. You will have your own state within the kingdom and a representative on the Governing Council to make sure that the Okwari are being taken into consideration when decisions are being made about the kingdom''s future."


    "Alegra, this is too much."


    "This is just the start, I''m going to transform this kingdom into a place that is unrecognizable from what the nobles built."


    "Your father would be very proud of what his daughter has become."


    The chief''s words brought me to tears. For all of my power as queen I could do nothing about the losses that I had suffered. The chief understood my pain and he placed a hand on my shoulder to reassure me that he was still here for me and would be for as long as he lived. With my father gone the most important thing to me was that Chief Kendor be proud of me and what I was doing, and it was his pride in me that inspired me to continue pursuing my plans for transforming the kingdom and improving the lives of its citizens.


    I spent the night in the village and returned to Glendale to find a frenzy of activity taking place within the city. Preparations were being made for my coronation, and from the looks of things Ferland was sparing no expense.


    "Is all of this really necessary?" I asked him when I arrived at the palace.


    "It appears that the turnout for your coronation is going to be much larger than we thought, so we''re having to scale up our original plans."


    "And what is that going to do to our timeline?"


    "We need to give people time to make the trip here, so we''ll have to delay things by about ten days."


    "Ten days is fine; just how many people are we expecting for my coronation?"


    "Thousands."


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    "Thousands?!"


    "Yes, after your victory against the Volstaff army and your purge of the nobles your subjects are eager to see their queen with their own eyes."


    "Well, since you''ve got so much on your plate, I''ll leave you to get on with it."


    Uraia, as she always did when I went away alone, was making the most of her time with Igor. Having mastered flight Igor and the other chicks were working on developing their flames. Mastering their flames required the chicks develop their capacity to build up flames in their breast while also filling their air with lungs to expel the flames with. Achieving both simultaneously was very difficult and the chicks were struggling to get it right. As soon as she saw me walk out into the garden Uraia left what she was doing and came over to me.


    "We were expecting you back yesterday," she said to me.


    "I went up to see your father and I ended up spending the night in the village."


    "How is he?"


    "He''s fine, older, but fine."


    "What did you do to Esmeralda?"


    "I had Myra take care of her; she burned to death in the place that she had burned to the ground, that''s about as fitting a punishment as I could give her."


    "Are you okay?"


    "I''m fine."


    I wasn''t in the mood to unpack all of my feelings just then. I went back inside the palace and repaired to my chambers to be alone with my thoughts. Anbu came with me. I had been neglecting him with how busy I had been and now he was seizing his opportunity to get some attention. Anbu wasn''t the only one that I''d been neglecting; ever since I had become queen I had spent hardly any time with the people that were most important to me. During my time with the bandits Uraia, Klara and I had been almost inseparable, now I hardly saw Klara because she was always occupied with her City Guard responsibilities and although Uraia was with me the whole day we never had any time alone. When I brought them all to the capital with me I didn''t imagine that our relationships would become so strained. I thought back to my time at the settlement, about how I spent so much time away from the settlement with Lucy and Anbu and would spend the years following the massacre regretting that I didn''t spend more time with the people there. I didn''t want to make the mistake again of not making the most of the time I had with the people that I cared about, Uraia being the person that I cared about most.


    Uraia must have noticed that there was something off about me when we spoke. She came to see me in my quarters an hour after we had spoken in the garden.


    "It''s not like you to withdraw like this. Something happened up north, didn''t it?"


    "No, nothing happened, it''s just..."


    "What?"


    "When I visited your father and I saw him looking so old it made me think about the people that I care about that I don''t want to lose like how I lost my father and the others, and suddenly my revenge didn''t seem so important, not when compared with what all of you have come to mean to me."


    "I never thought you''d get much satisfaction from killing Esmeralda, but at least now you can put it behind you and focus on the future."


    I wanted to tell Uraia that when I thought about the future all that I thought about was a future where we were together, that everything else was a distant second in my mind to my love for her. I didn''t end up saying anything to her, choosing instead to leave my chambers and return to my duties as queen, starting with finding out more from Ferland about what his exact plans were for my coronation.


    * * *


    My coronation proved to be much bigger than I imagined it would be and it was bigger than Ferland was expecting it to be. Ferland had made the decision to have the ceremony outside of the city to accommodate the large numbers that were expected. Carpenters had constructed a large wooden stage in front of the southern boundary wall where all of the ceremonies would take place. The stage was big enough to accommodate all of the people that I wanted to be a part of my coronation: The Overseer, Uraia, Klara, Chief Kendor, and Uther and the rest of my court. Myra was behind us up on the wall, flanked by two banners that were emblazoned with our kingdom''s new symbol, that of a phoenix rising from flames.


    Before us the crowd stretched as far as we could see. It wasn''t just thousands that had come to the capital for my coronation, it was tens of thousands, which included all of the Okwari that were capable of making the trip. Ferland had done an excellent job with the preparations, despite the large turnout everything had gone perfectly smoothly.


    For me to officially become queen my reign needed to be inaugurated by The Overseer. He was standing next to me on the platform with the laurel in his hands that, when he placed it on my head, would signify the official commencement of my reign as queen of Aseron. Ferland, as master of ceremonies, began the proceedings by addressing the crowd.


    "Citizens of Aseron, I stand before you today proud to introduce the woman who we are here today to coronate as the new queen of Aseron. In the short time since she was chosen to rule by The Overseer she has vanquished the nobles, led our soldiers to a historic victory against the invading Volstaff army and killed their king, and now, having done so much for the kingdom, the time has come to have her officially take her place on the throne as the new queen of Aseron."


    Ferland stepped back and the Overseer and I stepped forward. I was wearing ornate silver and gold armor with a red cape clasped to the back of my shoulders. I faced the Overseer and got down on one knee with my head bowed for him to place the laurel wreath on my head that symbolized my ascension to the throne.


    "Congratulations Alegra," the Overseer said to me when I rose as queen.


    "Thank you, Elias," I said, bestowing upon the Overseer the name that he had asked me to come up with for him.


    When I got to my feet and turned to the crowd as their new queen the cheers from them were rapturous. Behind us Myra provided the pyrotechnics, shooting large pillars of fire up into the sky. The hope and optimism in the crowd was palpable. They believed that as their queen I would continue to deliver positive change for them, and for the first time since Elias approached me in the mine and told me that he''d chosen me to be the new queen of Aseron I felt the full weight of their dreams and aspirations on my shoulders. I stood on the stage facing them determined not to fail them, determined to fulfill the expectations that they had of The Fire Queen, the ruler that would take Aseron from the abyss it had been driven into by Esmeralda and raise it up to new heights, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

 Chapter 43 - Dawn of a new era

    The Governing Council, the body responsible for debating the issues confronting the kingdom, could only be convened by a ruler that has been officially placed on the throne by the Overseer. In the past the Governing Council was merely the nobles getting together in the capital to tell the king what they wanted him to do, but things were different now. After the purge of the nobles the citizens of the seven states were granted the opportunity to select a representative to sit on the Governing Council and advocate for them in the palace. The Governing council that I presided over for the first time consisted of eight representatives, the new addition being the Okwari representative. The person who the Okwari had chosen to represent them on the Governing Council was Uraia, a logical choice, given how close we were and the fact that she would have no problems with the language. To assume the position of the Okwari representative on the Governing Council Uraia had to relinquish her role as Captain of the Royal Guard. I had Klara take her place and told Uraia to apply all of her focus to thinking of ways in which the kingdom could help the Okwari in the north. Traditionally state representatives were furnished with a residence in the capital city but Uraia chose to remain at the palace. Understandably Uraia was nervous about sitting on the Governing Council, but I assured her that nothing would happen during the council sessions that would make her feel like she didn''t belong.


    The council met for the first time two weeks after my coronation. The celebrations that were held in the capital city after my coronation lasted a week and another week was allowed for the cleanup and for everybody to return home. The meeting was held in the throne room. In attendance were the members of my court and the eight representatives from the kingdom''s eight territories. The representatives in attendance were the same people that the citizens had chosen as their representatives when the king had subjugated the nobles. They had the citizens'' trust, so it made sense to invite them to rejoin the council. The main items on the agenda were the proclamations that I had issued, specifically my proclamation that all of the children in the kingdom were to receive an education. Implementing such a policy brought with it many logistical challenges that the state representatives weren''t sure of how to overcome. Ferland had warned me about this and had advised me to formulate a proposal for meeting these challenges. The representatives were broadly in agreement with my proposal but were anxious to know how I planned to make it a reality.


    "First of all, everybody needs to understand and accept that this is not going to happen overnight. The implementation of this plan is going to require the successful completion of three phases: building a schoolhouse in each village where the children will have their lessons, crafting a curriculum that will teach them everything that they need to know, and training teachers to teach that curriculum. The cost of building the schoolhouses will be covered by the Royal Treasury, I will personally oversee the crafting of the curriculum, and there are two large residences here in the capital that used to belong to two of the noble families that I plan to convert into an educational facility for training teachers. Work on building the schoolhouses can begin immediately, as can crafting the curriculum and establishing the teaching academy, however finding people that are literate enough to become teachers and training them at the academy is going to take a bit longer. My goal is to have everything up and running in two years at the latest. Is everybody happy with that?" I asked.


    "What do you have in mind for the curriculum?" The representative from the state of Kalta, Nolan Ren, asked.


    "We''ll start with a foundation of literacy, mathematics, geography and history. After that the course of their education will be determined by their aptitude and the needs of the kingdom. Engineering and Agricultural Science are to be the two main fields of study made available to them, with other fields of study to be introduced later."


    "The farmers depend on their children to help them work the fields, if the children are in school then who will help work the fields?" The representative from the state of Novarda, Claude Wemler, asked.


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    "The children will attend school during fall and winter, and I plan on introducing some new farming techniques that will make working the fields less labor intensive."


    "Such as?" Representative Wemler asked.


    "Shifting away from small scale subsistence farming to large scale farming through greater use of livestock in plowing and improved water management for irrigation."


    "That is also going to require significant capital investment."


    "Which we have after Dranii turned over the nobles'' wealth that they had been storing for them."


    "Where is the livestock for plowing going to come from? The only livestock that we''ve been raising has been for beef and milk."


    "The Okwari have herds of domesticated buffalo that are perfect for farm work, we used them when we were living in the north, I''ll ask them to start bringing some south so you can see for yourself how useful they can be to the farmers."


    "And the water management?"


    "We dig furrows and line them with clay to transport water that will be scooped out of the rivers by waterwheels, this will allow for the cultivation of larger fields and for expansion further inland from natural water sources."


    "That''s another big undertaking that''s going to require a lot of manpower."


    "Bear in mind that the potential of this kingdom has been largely untapped due to the nobles'' needs being the sole focus of all of the work that was being done, now that we are focusing on projects that are intended to benefit the ordinary citizens I believe that there will be enormous enthusiasm for these projects among the citizens."


    In the weeks that followed the beginning stages of my plans were put into motion, and as I expected there was great enthusiasm for my proposals. We made the announcement that all who had been fortunate enough to be educated by the nobles were invited to apply for the teacher training program expecting to receive dozens of applications. We received hundreds. The response to my plans for improving water management and agricultural productivity were received with similar enthusiasm. The state representatives came to me with proposals from villages all over their states for expanding their fields. The Okwari brought two hundred buffalo down from their villages and we sent roughly thirty to each state for them to give to a small number of farmers for them to use and evaluate their usefulness. The farmers were impressed with the potential of the buffalos and after hearing about the teewahs from the soldiers that returned from the battle with Volstaff people were interested in acquiring some for themselves too. I spoke with Uraia and told her that if they were open to it, livestock trading could be very lucrative for the Okwari. Uraia said that she would speak with them about it but that they would most likely not be interested as they didn''t care about material wealth.


    "Material wealth doesn''t have to be their reason for trading, there are a lot of everyday items that would make their lives easier that they could trade for."


    "You''d have an easier time convincing them."


    I didn''t need much of an excuse to travel north; with Chief Kendor being so old I had resolved to visit him as much as was possible. Bandor was being readied to take over as chief and it was with him that I spoke about the Okwari trading with the rest of the kingdom. As Uraia predicted, the Okwari had little appetite for trade. The Okwari had a way of life that they were comfortable with and which they saw no reason to make changes to, but because it was important to me and my ambitions for the kingdom they agreed to help. In exchange for us sending chickens and pigs up north for the Okwari they would send breeding pairs of buffalo and teewahs down south. Of course the buffalo and teewahs were worth a lot more than pigs and chickens. The difference would be held for the Okwari by the Royal Treasurer for them to avail themselves of whenever they so chose. I also promised Bandor that I would make good on my father''s promise to share with them the innovations that he had worked on at the settlement, like the waterwheel and the sawmill. I also informed him of my plan to educate all of the children in the kingdom, and of my wish to extend this opportunity to the Okwari children as well. The problem was that the Okwari villages were sparsely populated and spread far apart; the most sensible solution to this problem was to build a boarding school in the north where we could educate all of the children. Bandor was a lot more skeptical of this idea. He told me that he understood that I wanted what was best for the Okwari but that the changes that I was proposing were too much. The Okwari were open to change, but it would have to be done slowly.

 Chapter 44 - Fallout

    On my way back to the palace I stopped off in Galand to meet with the first of the dwarves that had arrived in the kingdom. Around five hundred dwarves had arrived from Theran and were in the process of getting settled in Galand. This first group of dwarves had been led to Galand by Brumli, who had been the king of Grunheim at the time of its fall. I had specifically asked for him to come up first so that I could speak with him about the dwarves'' future in Aseron. The dwarves that had arrived had gotten themselves settled in Galand and were already working on expansion plans for when the rest of the dwarves arrived. Outside of the town was a large stockpile of rocks that they had quarried and there were plots that they had prepared for new construction. I had Myra land in the town and I walked around taking in everything that the dwarves were busy with. The stories that my father told me about the dwarves'' industriousness were no exaggeration, at the rate they were going Galand would soon be unrecognizable. Brumli came to meet me while I was walking around the town. Like all of the dwarves he was short and had a beard and a bulbous nose, but only he wore the gold pin that was the symbol of the king of Grunheim.


    "Are you Queen Alegra?" He came to me and asked.


    "Yes, I am."


    "My heartfelt thanks to you for opening your kingdom to us," he got down on one knee and said to me.


    "It is unseemly for you to kneel before me, Brumli, after all, you are royalty as well."


    "I am not royalty, I have no kingdom," he raised himself and said.


    "As long as you have your people and as long as they look to you as their leader then you are their king."


    "That''s very kind of you to say, but without a throne I am no king."


    "If it''s any consolation I hardly ever sit on my throne."


    "It''s not, but thanks."


    "I noticed a large pile of rocks outside of the town; tell me, how were you able to quarry so much in such a short space of time?"


    "It''s easy with dynamite."


    "Dynamite?"


    "An old invention of ours, using it allows us to excavate in the mines a lot faster than if we were using hammers and pickaxes."


    "We''ve been having some difficulty melting down coins and minting new ones, the process is taking far longer than we''d anticipated, is that something you could help us with?"


    "That won''t be a problem, we can have that done for you in no time."


    "There are other areas where I believe your expertise can be a great help to us, if I should call on you, will you be as generous with your help as you''re being now?"


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    "If we can help, we will, all you have to do is ask," Brumli averred.


    Giving sanctuary to the dwarves was going to be a huge boon for the kingdom, I could feel it. I left Galand tingling with excitement at the thought of how much progress the kingdom could make with the aid of the dwarves'' ingenuity. I also felt a growing determination to restore what the dwarves had had taken away from them by liberating Grunheim from Kandalar so that they may return to their home. But that was far in the future. Upon returning to the palace I was informed by Ferland that there were a number of diplomatic fires that needed to be extinguished. The other kingdoms weren''t happy with the amount of power that Dranii had gained as a result of our victory over Volstaff and me slaying their king. Dranii was viewed with great suspicion by their neighbors who didn''t appreciate the role that we had played in enabling Dranii to take control of Volstaff. Some were threatening retaliation against us, hence the urgency with which Ferland wanted me to address the situation.


    The kingdom that was the most concerned about Dranii''s increased strength was Gornden, the kingdom to the south of Dranii who had in the past gone through the experience of being betrayed by Dranii with whom they''d thought they had an ironclad alliance. Distrust of Dranii ran deep, especially amongst those that had had direct dealings with them who now saw Aseron as a threat because they believed us to be in league with them. I had Ferland summon the Dranii ambassador first and I told my Chief Ambassador Boris to start working on a proposal that we could present to the kingdoms that were concerned about our relationship with Dranii that would make it clear to them that we had no outward ambitions and put them at ease.


    "We expected this, it''s only natural that if a kingdom makes a big move like we did that other kingdoms would have a problem with it," ambassador Wilhelm said to me.


    "The main reason why they have a problem with it is their past dealings with you, they don''t trust you to have as much power as you''ve accumulated."


    "We''ve never entered into direct conflict with another kingdom, if that''s what they''re afraid of. In fact they''re safer than they were before, direct military confrontation was King Anua''s style, it''s not ours."


    "Be that as it may, all of these rulers have anxieties and those anxieties need to be assuaged."


    "That''s easier said than done, as you''ve correctly observed, the distrust that the other kingdoms have toward us is deep, assuaging it, as you put it, would be next to impossible."


    "That doesn''t mean we shouldn''t try."


    "You can try, but it will be an exercise in futility; we know what the other kingdoms think of us and we don''t care, we always pursue what is in our best interest and we make no apologies for that, to do otherwise would be a betrayal of our citizens whose expectation of their rulers is that they always work toward furthering the glory of their kingdom."


    "I invited you here to talk about how we might cool the tensions that have arisen in the wake of your conquest of Volstaff and your response is to speak the language of empire; I believe I understand why the other kingdoms are so on edge."


    "Like I said already, there is no reason for them to be on edge, but if you wish to push forward with some kind of effort to calm everyone''s nerves then please go ahead, and if we can be of help, we will be."


    "Does that mean that you will support whatever proposal I put forward."


    "No, I didn''t say that, but if it''s a proposal that makes a decent amount of sense I can see us getting behind it, of course to be sure of our commitment you will have to talk with someone higher up than me."


    "You''re saying I need to speak with your king?"


    "Yes, and you''ll have no trouble securing an audience with him, he''s actually dying to meet you."

 Chapter 45

    I was intrigued by Ambassador Wilhelm''s words about King Werner dying to meet me. My suspicion was that he believed that because I had only recently ascended to throne that he could take advantage of my na?vet¨¦. I had no intention of allowing him to do so and planned to be as well equipped for my audience with him as possible. I had Boris come to the palace for a long discussion about the length to which Dranii''s tentacles extended into the kingdoms and what tactics I could expect him to deploy in his attempt to broker an alliance between our two kingdoms.


    "Dranii''s primary means of exerting influence is through the debt obligations of other kingdoms. You see, Dranii was able to amass a large store of reserves by focusing on exporting their natural resources rather than using them themselves and they''ve been using those reserves to issue loans to desperate kingdoms at exorbitant rates of interest. These kingdoms of course cannot afford to repay these loans and so in lieu of repayment Dranii gets them to sign over their most valuable assets like mineral rights and farmland, which generates revenue for Dranii that they can then loan out to other kingdoms and further the reach of their influence."


    "Well, we are not indebted to them, so they won''t be able to use that as leverage against us."


    "No, you got them to erase our debt in exchange for you decimating the Volstaff army, a transaction that proved extremely lucrative for Dranii as they got an entire kingdom out of it."


    "I had no choice, if I hadn''t gotten that debt burden cleared it would''ve made it impossible for us to make any progress on anything."


    "That''s exactly my point, the debt that we owed them was miniscule compared with what they were able to obtain, that''s how they gain wealth and strength."


    "That''s a very underhanded way of going about things."


    "The term that it''s come to be known as is Debt Trap Diplomacy, and however underhanded it may be there''s no denying its effectiveness."


    "So since we don''t owe them any money how do you think King Werner will try to get me to align myself with him?"


    "The simplest option available to him would be a political marriage between you and one of his sons, something that I suspect you would never agree to."


    "Never."


    "Well then, his next best option would be to use the other kingdoms'' suspicions of us to put forward the idea that an alliance with Dranii would ensure our security."


    "That would make it next to impossible for us to have positive relations with the other kingdoms in the future."


    "Making us increasingly dependent on Dranii, which is their ultimate goal."


    "Do you think that this has been their goal from when they first started negotiating with us?"


    "Most likely, it''s how they''re known to operate."


    "You''re saying that it''s not possible for me to broker any kind of agreement with Dranii that isn''t going to be viewed with suspicion by the other kingdoms?"


    "That''s correct."


    "Then that means that our only option is to work with the other kingdoms to put together some sort of deterrent against any future aggression by Dranii."


    "That won''t be easy, all of the efforts that have been made in the past to get the kingdoms to co-operate for the common good ended in failure; they are simply not willing to make the sacrifices that are needed to create a large multi-party alliance."


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    "Will you explore the possibility of creating one anyway?"


    "If that is your wish, it shall be done."


    "And have Alfred look into what each kingdom''s situation is regarding their entanglements with Dranii, if this is going to work it''s going to require the severing of those entanglements."


    Our realm consisted of nine kingdoms. Erst, Theran and Dranii were our immediate neighbors and were thus my primary concerns. Beyond them there was Volstaff, Kandalar, Gronden, Grunheim, Menten, and Undria. Volstaff had fallen to Dranii, and Kandalar, after suffering heavy losses in their campaign to capture Grunheim, had borrowed so much from Dranii that they had effectively become their vassal state. Forming the alliance that I had in mind would have to be done with the aid of Erst, Theran, Gronden, Menten and Undria. For the alliance to work, Theran''s participation, as the wealthiest of the five kingdoms, was absolutely essential; without them, there was no point in continuing. To increase the chances of Theran agreeing to join this coalition we would not approach them until a detailed proposal had been developed that we could present to them. The main component of that proposal had to be debt relief. Clearing the debt burden that the kingdoms had taken on would have the impact of immediately eliminating Dranii''s hold on them, but this was going to require enormous capital, which the kingdoms that had the wherewithal to contribute to were going to balk at, even if our proposal included ironclad provisions by which the debtor nations would have to abide in exchange for debt relief.


    "Don''t be so naive as to think that this all comes down to simple economics," Ferland said to me when I asked for his input on my idea, "some of these kingdoms have deep ties that go well beyond their transactions with one another. The current political dynamics of the realm were to a large extent established seven hundred years ago when the entire realm went to war. The realm was tearing itself apart with all of the kingdoms suffering heavy losses. In the midst of all of that chaos, the queen of Theran and the king of Dranii agreed to form an alliance and use their combined power to end the war. As a result, the treaty that was signed to bring the war to an official end contained numerous provisions that favored Dranii and Theran."


    "You''re not telling me anything I don''t know, I read all about The Great War in my father''s books."


    "Then you know that Theran''s monopoly on food exports is something that they negotiated as part of that treaty, and that ever since Dranii has worked to maintain that monopoly for them by accepting farmland in lieu of debt repayments and allowing it to go fallow, increasing those kingdoms'' dependence on Theran for their food supply."


    "Is that true?"


    "Yes, and it doesn''t end there. Theran''s monopoly on food exports is lucrative for Erst, whose maritime industry is largely dependent on Theran contracting with them exclusively to ship their grain to the coastal kingdoms, and for Undria, who provide the slaves that work the fields in Theran, and let''s not forget that Theran has an influence campaign of their own that they carry out by selling food to kingdoms at below the going rate, or, in some cases, giving it to them for free."


    "I''d thought that I''d be able to count on Theran as an ally."


    "I understand why you would think that, Queen Herana has worked very hard to cultivate her image as the most benevolent ruler in the realm, but make no mistake, if she believes that her power is under threat she will do whatever she has to do to preserve it."


    "What would be your advice for how I should proceed?"


    "For starters, tell Dranii that you have no interest in getting involved in the geopolitical games of the realm as you wish to focus on your domestic agenda of reform. Then you inform Theran that you have no intention of forming an alliance with Dranii so that they don''t feel like their alliance with Dranii is under threat. Once you have done this it should be clear to all that you have no ambitions of being complicit in Dranii''s goal of domination of the realm."


    "I''m inclined to agree with you that your approach would cause the kingdoms to be less suspicious of us, but what is obvious is that the organizing principles of the realm that came into effect in the aftermath of The Great War cannot be sustained for very much longer, and if steps are not taken to create a new rules-based order then there is going to be a second Great War."


    "You''re not the first to recognize the need for an overhaul of the realm''s power dynamics, efforts have been made in the past to get the kingdoms to unite behind a fairer and more sustainable way of doing things but they all ended in failure because Dranii and Theran refused to agree to any terms that would''ve put the other kingdoms on more equal footing with them. That''s the thing about power, it''s never relinquished willingly, it has to be taken."

 Chapter 46 - The Great War

    My conversation with Ferland had been a good one in that he had made a sound suggestion for how we might defuse the tension that had arisen among the kingdoms in the wake of Dranii''s takeover of Volstaff, but I couldn''t help feeling deeply disheartened by his assertion that it was futile to try and save the realm from being consumed by a second Great War. The cost of the the Great War had been catastrophic for all of the kingdoms. Hundreds of thousands had lost their lives and the scale of destruction was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. If there was even the slightest chance that a second Great War was going to break out then every effort needed to be made to put a stop to it, and right now the likelihood of the realm going to war was higher than it had been in the lead up to the first Great War.


    The first Great War had small beginnings. Enraged by the last minute collapse of a political marriage between his son and the princess of Erst, the king of Volstaff, King Dorn, put into motion a harebrained scheme to kidnap the princess and force her to marry his son. The kidnapping was botched and the plan failed, and in retaliation King Rundell stopped allowing grain from Theran to be shipped to Volstaff, creating a food crisis in Volstaff which they attempted to alleviate by purchasing grain from their neighbor Dranii, who would only sell it to them at inflated prices. Desperate for food, Volstaff resorted to theft and skirmishes broke out between Volstaff forces and Dranii forces. Aseron, concerned about westward migration of desperate citizens from Volstaff, made the decision to start sending food aid to Volstaff, a decision that was met with disapproval by Dranii, whose relations with Volstaff had rapidly deteriorated, and by Erst, who wanted Volstaff to endure as much suffering as they were able to inflict upon them, while Theran, who didn''t appreciate losing an entire kingdom as a customer because of a squabble over an aborted marriage, were growing increasingly impatient with the situation. The skirmishes between Volstaff and Dranii soon escalated into full scale war. Erst joined the conflict by using its navy to transport its soldiers to Volstaff''s west coast, trapping Volstaff in a pincer. The Volstaff forces fought back against the forces of Dranii and Erst surprisingly well, and, sensing an opportunity to get payback on Dranii for blocking their coal exports, Kandalar joined the fray in support of Volstaff, followed shortly thereafter by Aseron, who were still smarting from Dranii''s insensitivity to their concerns about immigration. The conflict spiralled out of control and got to a point where it wasn''t possible for Theran to remain neutral. Dranii reached out to them for help and, in exchange for agreeing to give them a prominent seat at the table for the post-war talks in the event that they won, Theran sent their troops to the battlefield together with thousands of Undrian slaves that were conscripted into the Theran military. The combined forces of Dranii, Erst and Theran managed to overpower the forces of Volstaff, Kandalar and Aseron, bringing an end to the war.


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    The fears that some of the kingdoms had about Dranii''s growing influence throughout the realm were serious enough that it was entirely conceivable that somebody would decide that action needed to be taken to curb Dranii''s influence and if they did then it was easy to imagine the other kingdoms getting pulled into what would inevitably become a second Great War.


    Despite Ferland cautioning me that any effort to unite the realm was doomed I couldn''t stop thinking about the need to do exactly that and how such a unification might be achieved. My sense was that reaching out to Theran in the hopes of securing an ally wouldn''t be a total exercise in futility. Given how long they had stayed out of the first Great War it was safe to assume that they had no appetite for a second Great War, meaning they should be receptive to a reasonable proposal for a new order of the realm that would reduce the likelihood of the realm going to war again. I kept thinking about what I could do to make this a reality, even when I was supposed to be focusing on the issues that needed to be addressed in Aseron. The dwarves were continuing to arrive from the other kingdoms and rather than have them all go straight to Galand I wanted arrangements to be made for some of them to stay on in the villages that they passed through on their way to the north to help out with the construction of the new schoolhouses. The dwarves were highly skilled masons, I had seen this myself during one of my subsequent visits to Galand. The additional structures that they were building with the rock that they had quarried were flying up thanks to their stonemason skills and an innovative pulley system that they were using to hoist the rocks. I wanted the schoolhouses built fast and well but I also had in mind the expansion of the fields and the villages which the dwarves'' skills would be a big help with. My hope was that the villagers would embrace the dwarves and their ingenuity and would benefit from knowledge transfer which would expedite our expansion plans. I spoke with Brumli about my plans for the kingdom and he had some suggestions for how to best achieve my ambitions. He suggested that we should adopt a large scale approach to water management through the building of dams and canals. Some of the dams and canals, he told me, could be constructed out of wood and clay, but the dams and canals that were going to have large volumes of water passing through them would need to be built from stone, a massive engineering undertaking that, Brumli assured me, they could handle. They had built a large dam in Grunheim to secure a water source for themselves and building it had not proved an overly strenuous test of their engineering capabilities. I asked him for detailed blueprints illustrating how these dams would be built and how they would work so that I could explain this new approach to water management that we would be taking to the members of the Governing Council.

 Chapter 47

    Financing these projects wasn''t going to be a problem, in addition to the nobles'' confiscated wealth our reserves were being further increased by the Volstaff coins that we were taking out of circulation and using to mint new Aseron coins. These new coins, Alfred informed me, would need to be kept out of circulation as much as possible; if they were all put into circulation immediately their value would drop and we would get no benefit from the increase in our reserves aside from crippling inflation.


    Putting together this new plan for water management across the kingdom was going to take time, time which I could use to address the diplomatic issues that Boris and Ferland had been advising me on. We had made all the progress that we could make through diplomatic talks with the ambassadors; to formalize our relationships with the other kingdoms, Dranii in particular, I needed to meet with those leaders in person. We agreed that Dranii would be the first kingdom I visited. This being my first foreign diplomatic trip as the official ruler of Aseron, Boris was excited to get to work on the preparations for the trip.


    "You''re going to need to be accompanied by a large security force and a large cadre of diplomatic and economic advisers. We''ll need many horses, maybe one hundred, several carriages for transporting people and provisions, and we''ll need to send advanced word to all of the towns through which we''ll be traveling to prepare themselves for the arrival of a royal traveling party," Boris said with great enthusiasm.


    "How long is this trip going to take?" I asked him.


    "My estimation is that it should take us about three months to get there."


    "And if I fly over there with Myra?"


    "That would maybe take a day," he answered despondently.


    "Excellent, that''s what I''ll do then."


    "Your majesty, please, such things are simply not done, as queen you must respect the traditions of royalty and that means traveling with all of the personnel and pageantry that a royal is expected to travel with."


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    "Boris, I don''t care about any of that, I just want to go there and get this over with."


    "What about your security? You can''t go to a foreign kingdom all on your own, the risk involved is too great!"


    "I''ll have Myra with me, and I''ll ask Uraia to accompany me with Igor, and I trust her with my safety more than I do any army."


    Now that she was the Okwari representative on the Governing Council Uraia wasn''t supposed to participate in palace affairs but the fact of the matter was that her role on the Governing Council left her with nothing to do and she was bored. When I told her about my trip to Dranii and I asked her to join me she happily agreed, mostly because ever since Igor had gotten big enough for her to fly with him she had been looking forward to going on a long distance trip with me and Myra.


    As I always did when I left the palace I put Ferland in charge until my return and Uraia and I took off for Dranii. We traveled to Galand first so Uraia could get a look at the work that the dwarves were doing and from there we traveled to Bandor''s village so Uraia could pay her father a visit. Bandor was now the chief, and Kendor was spending nearly all of his time resting in his hut, waiting for his time to come. We spent some time with Kendor in his hut where he was resting and then we sat down with Bandor to discuss his resistance to the ideas that I''d put forward for improving the lives of the Okwari.


    "It''s not that we don''t appreciate what you want to do for us, it''s just that to many what you are proposing sounds similar what we went through when the white settlers that drove us off our land decided to try and civilize us by taking our children away and raising them in their culture," Bandor said.


    "But that was over five hundred years ago," I responded.


    "Yes, but that episode was very traumatic for us and it hasn''t been forgotten."


    "Bandor, we have a seat on the Governing Council, I''m there to make sure that when it comes to issues that affect us it is our needs that comes first."


    "Uraia, you should know by now that ever since you left us to join the bandits you have been viewed as an outsider."


    Uraia was hurt by this, I could see it in her face. The best thing for us to do was to leave before something truly terrible was said. Flying over the Northlands and looking down at the land below that was dotted with Okwari villages spread far apart, I realized that I had been naive in believing that I could act as a bridge between the Okwari and the rest of the kingdom when there was so much distrust and enmity on the part of the Okwari because of everything that they had suffered at the hands of my ancestors. I was still resolved to making the Okwari feel like the kingdom was as much theirs as it was any other Aseronian''s, I just had to find another way to do it.

 Chapter 48 - King Gregorio

    To get to Dranii we flew south west. We were both keen to put our disappointing visit to the village behind us and focusing our minds on what awaited us in Dranii allowed us to do that. We flew well into nightfall, following the line of the Olsteria mountains which Boris told me would lead us to Alemdor, the capital of Dranii. We managed to locate the city and when we arrived there we flew straight to the castle which was located at the center of the city and landed up on the roof. The guards stationed on the roof drew their swords and surrounded us when we landed, though their fear of Myra and Igor was obvious.


    "State your business," one of the guards commanded.


    "Tell King Gregorio that Queen Alegra of Aseron is here to speak with him," I climbed down from Myra and said to the guard.


    The guard, recognizing that the presence of two phoenixes before him meant that I could only be telling the truth, set off at great speed to deliver the message. After only a few minutes King Gregorio himself came up to the roof to welcome us.


    "So the rumors are true then, The Fire Queen really has risen anew," King Gregorio walked over to us and said.


    "I hope it''s not a problem that I''ve arrived unannounced," I said.


    "It''s not a problem at all, though I do wish you had given us time to prepare a welcome for you befitting of royalty."


    "I''m not one for pomp and circumstance, so think nothing of it."


    "Very well then, shall we proceed into the castle, I''m sure you and your companion are tired from your long journey."


    "This is Uraia, the Governing Council''s Okwari representative and my former Royal Guard captain, a role she''s agreed to reprise for this trip."


    "Follow me," King Gregorio said after giving a small bow of his head in Uraia''s direction.


    We followed him down the stairs and through a door that opened up to a large hallway where a woman was standing and waiting.


    "Elana, this is Alegra, the queen of Aseron, and her companion Uraia," the king said to her before turning back to us, "This is Elana, she is one of my most devoted attendants, she will ensure that all of your needs are taken care of during your stay here; Elana, show them to their quarters and make sure that they are provided with everything they need."


    "Yes my king," Elana answered, bowing to King Gregorio, "come with me," she then said to us.


    We followed her down the hallway to the other end of the castle, where doors were open that led to two large bedrooms.


    "I trust these shall prove acceptable accommodations," Elana said to us.


    "Yes, this''ll be fine," I answered.


    "The king has asked me to tell you that you are invited to dinner, which will be served in the banquet hall in about an hour, giving you enough time to take care of your ablutions."


    "Thank you, please tell the king that we''d be delighted to join him for dinner."


    While I was busy washing myself in my bathroom, I came to appreciate what Boris had said to me about respecting the traditions of royalty. The awkwardness of my abrupt arrival was not an ideal platform for high level direct talks between royals on serious geopolitical issues. King Gregorio seemed not to have any issues with the manner in which we had arrived. The banquet hall where we would be dining was lavishly decorated and a veritable feast was laid out on the table, all of which had been done in the short space of time since our arrival. King Gregorio met us in the banquet hall, along with members of his court and his son Philip, who he insisted I sit next to. Philip was handsome, he had blue eyes and flowing brown hair and was elegantly dressed in regal attire.


    "Philip here is my eldest and the heir to my throne."


    "I am honored to make your acquaintance, Queen Alegra. I have been eager to meet you ever since learning of your ascension," Philip said charmingly, taking my hand and kissing it.


    "News of your exploits has traveled far and wide, the manner in which you seized the throne has captured the imaginations of many, already there are legends about you in which you are described as a divine being, the holy resurrection of The Fire Queen," King Gregorio said to me.


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    "If that were the case I wouldn''t have gone into Myra''s cave fearing for my life."


    "To dare to capture a fully grown phoenix all on your own is in itself worthy of deep veneration," King Gregorio said.


    "I didn''t do it all on my own, Anbu helped me, he''s a wolf that I rescued when we were living in the Northlands."


    "You''re an animal lover, you and Philip will get along very well, he''s much happier spending his time out in the wild than he is when he is attending to matters of state."


    "I have a wolf as well, her name is Sheena; I''d love to get a close look at your phoenix while you''re here, I''ve never seen one before," Philip said to me.


    "They''re up on the roof, if you''d like we can go after dinner."


    "They?" Philip asked, confused.


    "Oh yes, that''s right, Queen Alegra''s companion Uraia flew here on the back of a phoenix as well, which is something that I''ve been meaning to ask you; how is it that you''ve got two phoenixes?" King Gregorio asked.


    "Uraia''s phoenix is named Igor, he''s Myra''s son. She had taken up residence in the mine where I captured her to nest with her chicks. After I''d captured her and we''d managed to successfully dethrone Queen Gwendolyn I brought the chicks with me back to the palace. Igor took a strong liking to Uraia and decided to stay, and the other two come and go as they please, they''ve also developed an attachment to us."


    "Four phoenixes, no wonder the other kingdoms are worried about you," King Gregorio said as we were taking our seats at the table.


    Uraia didn''t take a seat, she remained standing behind me the same way King Gregorio''s Royal Guard captain stood behind him.


    "What the other kingdoms are worried about is that you seem to have designs on conquering the entire realm."


    "I have no such designs, if an opportunity presents itself for me to strengthen my kingdom I''m going to seize it, to do otherwise would be a dereliction of my duty as king, but I''m not the sort to march my army against another kingdom simply because I''ve decided on a whim that I would like to have their kingdom for myself."


    "I think if you operated that way they''d be less anxious, it''s your underhanded way of going about increasing your influence that causes them so much anxiety."


    "What you call underhanded I call strategic, and what they''re failing to acknowledge is that if they ran their kingdoms properly they wouldn''t need to borrow from us so much and put themselves at our mercy."


    "I didn''t come here to debate your practices, I came here because the other kingdoms believe that I was doing your bidding when I killed Anua and I''d like the record set straight that I was not."


    "It wouldn''t be the worst thing in the world for people to believe that we are allies, their fear of us would insulate you from ever going through again what you went through with Volstaff."


    "I don''t doubt that there would be benefits to such arrangement, but my goal is to establish relationships with the other kingdoms on my own terms, and I can''t do that if they believe that I''m in your pocket."


    "Your wish to be perceived as a ruler who is beholden to no one and does things on her own terms is incredibly naive, the realm operates according to a certain order, challenge that order and you will find yourself isolated and vulnerable."


    "Is that a threat?"


    "No, a simple statement of fact, one which I have no doubt you will come to learn in due time, until then you have my word that I will do nothing to encourage the rumors that our kingdoms are in league with each other, nor will I hold anything against you if in the future you decide that a formal alliance with us is something that you''d like to pursue."


    "That''s very generous of you, but with respect to us not being allies, I''d like you to be declarative about that."


    "You''re very determined about this aren''t you? I will say that I admire your determination, even if I believe that you are wasting your time. What exactly is it that you are hoping to achieve?"


    "What I am hoping to achieve is a set of relationships with the other kingdoms in the realm that are based on fairness and trust."


    "Like I said, you are being incredibly naive, however I suppose that your idealism is to be expected given who your father is."


    "You knew my father?"


    "Yes, I was surprised when I met him that a military man could be so erudite. He and I had a long discussion at this very table about the very same subject that we''re discussing now: what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behavior by a kingdom when it is pursuing its interests. Your father was of the opinion that a kingdom should always act honorably and in fairness so that it''s got some goodwill in reserve with the other kingdoms if ever it needs to call upon them, my opinion that I expressed to him, which is the same as the one that I am expressing to you now, is that all of us in the realm are essentially playing a game, and games have winners and losers, so the only logical thing to do as a ruler is to ensure that your kingdom is one of the winners. We went back and forth on this topic for hours and despite the fact that neither of us was able to change the other''s mind it''s still one of the most enjoyable conversations I''ve ever had."


    "I was told before coming here to be prepared for dealing with a ruler with an entirely cynical worldview and I must say that the depths of your cynicism were vastly underrepresented."


    King Gregorio let out a loud guffaw at this.


    "I haven''t had such candid words spoken to me directly in a long time, I am now more hopeful for an alliance between us than I was before, though I fear my chances of convincing you of the merits of such an alliance are all but non-existent. I''ll leave Philip to continue making our case for us tomorrow, you two can go flying and talk about it then."


    "Flying?" I asked, perplexed.


    "You on your phoenix, and Philip on his gryphon, he won''t forgive me if I let you leave without him having the opportunity to find out which creature is superior in the air."

 Chapter 49

    I repaired to my room after our dinner with the king feeling that I had accomplished what I had come to accomplish and I was looking forward to spending the following day with Philip and his gryphon. It was the gryphon that I was curious about; I was wary of Philip after Boris had warned me about King Gregorio attempting to secure an alliance between our kingdoms through a political marriage between me and one of his sons, though it didn''t make sense to me that he would have designs on engineering a marriage between his firstborn and the queen of Aseron. There were other kingdoms that were more important than Aseron, Theran, namely, and it seemed to me that if the king was going to engineer a marriage between his firstborn and another royal it would make sense for it to be with a Theran princess. This didn''t mean that I could altogether dismiss the possibility of King Gregorio wanting me for a daughter-in-law, hence my decision to remain wary of Philip. There were other reasons for my wariness, the main one being Uraia''s feelings. When we were introduced to Philip in the banquet hall and King Gregorio insisted that we sit together I felt Uraia tense up and she remained tense throughout the dinner. She didn''t accompany me and Philip up onto the roof when I took him to see Myra and Igor and when we repaired to our rooms she said a curt "Good night" to me before going into her room and closing her door. There were two possible explanations I felt for why Uraia was acting the way that she was acting. One was that by having to stand behind me during dinner she had been made to feel excluded and diminished, the other was that King Gregorio forcing me and Philip together had made her uncomfortable, but why? Because she was afraid that I was going to be taken advantage of? Or because she didn''t like me and Philip being so close? I didn''t get a chance to talk with her about it that night, nor did we get to talk about it the next morning.


    Philip and I left early to take Myra and his gryphon out for a flight. His gryphon, which he''d named Rolf, slept in a large roost that was similar to the one that Cyrus had built for Myra and the chicks. The gryphon had the head, claws and feathers of an eagle, with its head covered in white feathers and the rest of its body covered in brown feathers. Rolf was around the same size as Myra but from the look of him he was heavier, so I couldn''t see that he had any chance of being quicker than Myra.


    "Where are we going?" I asked Philip when we were getting ready to leave.


    "There''s a mountain to the east that has the best views of the kingdom, we''ll go there, the trip will take us about twenty minutes."


    "And when do we start the race?"


    "How about I take off first and I fly at top speed and we see if you can catch me?"


    "Okay."


    Like me, Myra understood that Philip and Rolf stood no chance against us, but we decided to humor them nonetheless. I had asked Uraia to remain behind at the castle because there were some things that I wanted to speak about with Philip alone. Uraia''s disposition had not changed from the previous night; when I asked her to remain behind while I went with Philip her response was a dismissive "Okay". When we left Dranii we would have to have a heart to heart talk, but for now I needed to focus on Philip. Myra and I took off after Philip and Rolf and by traveling at a speed that was less than what Myra was fully capable of we were able to maintain the same distance behind them. We kept traveling at this speed until we decided that we had toyed with them for long enough. I had Myra up our speed and after only a few seconds we were past them. We kept flying at the same speed and pulled farther and farther away from Philip and Rolf despite them giving it their all. When we had pulled far enough ahead to put to bed any questions about which flier was quicker, Myra and I stopped in mid-air and waited there for Philip to catch up.


    "I thought that she''d be quicker but I wasn''t expecting her to be so much quicker," Philip said to me when they reached us.


    "Shall we continue at a reasonable pace then?"


    "Follow me."


    Philip led the way and we continued on to the mountain at a leisurely pace. While flying behind Philip we flew over several towns and villages, all of which looked highly prosperous. His approach to foreign policy may be controversial, but there was no denying that King Gregorio served his people well. When the mountain that we were traveling to came into view Philip signaled to me to prepare to descend. To my surprise we weren''t landing on the mountain but rather on a piece of land at the foot of the mountain where there was a log cabin. The first thing I noticed as we were descending was that there was smoke coming out of the cabin''s chimney. Somebody was there. We touched down in front of the cabin and out of the front door came a young woman who ran toward Philip, threw her arms around him and gave him a big kiss on his cheek.


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    "This is Griselda," he said to me after he had set her down on her feet, "Griselda, this is Alegra, the new queen of Aseron."


    Griselda and I shook hands without saying anything, learning that I was royalty had rendered her speechless.


    "I must say this is quite the surprise, I was laboring under the impression that your father had designs on us getting married," I said to Philip.


    "Oh he does, whenever he sees an opportunity to bring another kingdom within his sphere of influence his first instinct is to arrange a marriage between one of his children and a member of their royal family."


    "I would''ve thought that Aseron is not an important enough kingdom for your father to use his firstborn in an attempt to forge an alliance."


    "The truth is that it''s not my father''s plan for me to succeed him; I don''t share his cynical worldview and because of that he sees me as unfit to be his successor, my younger brother Baron is much more in line with my father''s thinking, he''s my father''s chosen successor."


    "So where does that leave you?"


    "A pawn, whose only usefulness is as a groom for one of his marriages."


    "What about Griselda?"


    "I have no intention of leaving Griselda, I don''t care what scheme my father cooks up that he wishes me to be a part of."


    "You could''ve told me all of this back at the palace; why did you bring me here?"


    "I wanted you to know that I''m telling the truth, that you can trust me."


    "Why is it important that I trust you?"


    "Because I want you to take my words to heart: under no circumstances must you enter into any kind of alliance with my father, if you do this kingdom will attach itself to yours like a parasite until your kingdom has been sucked dry, that''s what he does to every kingdom that''s foolish enough to believe his sales pitch about '' a mutually beneficial arrangement''."


    "Why are you going so far out of your way like this to warn me?"


    "I admire what you''re doing for the dwarves, and from your conversation with my father last night it''s obvious that you''re a ruler who is driven by idealism and benevolence, unlike my father who is driven by greed. I believe that you can bring positive change to the realm, but the only way that you can do that is if you are not infected by my father and his politics."


    "I didn''t offer to take in the dwarves entirely out of a sense of charity, I believe that their ingenuity can benefit my kingdom."


    "But you are not exploiting them, correct?"


    "No, I would never do that."


    "Exactly, that''s what makes you different. My father recognizes that about you, that''s why he''s been eager to meet with you, so he could bring you over to his side, and his way of doing things."


    "The realm is in need of a new order, if things keep going as they have been going a second Great War is all but inevitable."


    "I think you''re right; my father doesn''t realize it, but discontent is growing in kingdoms like Volstaff and Kandalar that he''s made into Dranii proxy states, and kingdoms like Theran and Erst are growing concerned that eventually he''ll choose not to honor the terms of their alliance and will seek to bring them under his influence as well."


    "If what you''re saying is true, then in the event of war breaking out Dranii would be all alone."


    "That''s what my father doesn''t realize, he doesn''t realize that his strategy for making Dranii stronger is isolating us and causing the other kingdoms'' antipathy toward us to increase."


    "You want a new order to be established in the realm because you believe it''s essential for Dranii''s survival?"


    "Yes, and I believe you''re the one to create that order."


    "I have only just become queen, and Aseron is still recovering from the damage from Esmeralda''s time as queen, as much as I believe in the need for a new order, I can''t lead the effort to form a coalition to create a new order all on my own."


    "You will have allies, the discontent that I spoke of is much deeper than I can convey to you with words."


    "I can''t do anything without Theran, if I''m going to do this I''ll have to have their support."


    "Their support can be secured, the fact that you are a female ruler will go a long ways toward that, combined with your rejection of my father''s overture."


    "They''ll want their monopoly on food exports to be maintained."


    "They can keep their monopoly on food exports, the truth is that it''s cheaper for some of the kingdoms to import food from Theran than it is for them to grow their own."


    "You''ve thought about this a lot."


    "Change has been needed for a long time, there just hasn''t been a leader with the capability to bring about that change."

 Chapter 50 - Love

    I left Dranii with Uraia with a feeling that while I had put one issue to bed, that of refusing an alliance with King Gregorio, I had many more issues that I needed to think about thanks to my conversation with Prince Philip. but thinking about these issues needed to wait until after Uraia and I had talked. When I returned to the castle with Philip she was as cold to me as she had been the night before. In the air on the way back to Aseron she kept her distance from me, staying only close enough to keep me in her sight. I hated that there was tension between me and Uraia, and I couldn''t wait until we had returned to the palace to clear up whatever it was that was responsible for Uraia feeling this way. I had Myra wait for Uraia and Igor to catch up to us.


    "Uraia, what''s wrong?" I asked her when they''d reached us.


    Uraia didn''t respond; she looked at me with a countenance of stone and had Igor take off at great speed. Myra and I took off after them, having to travel at full speed. Igor was big enough to carry Uraia but he still wasn''t fully grown; Myra was faster. Every time we caught up with them, Uraia would have Igor make a sudden direction change to get away from us before continuing to fly away from us at top speed. This mid-air dance between us continued for several minutes until Uraia realized that she couldn''t outrun us with Igor and went into a sharp nosedive. She and Igor landed in a glen in the middle of a forest beneath us which Myra and I followed them into.


    "Talk! Uraia, talk to me!" I dismounted and said to her.


    "Where did you go with him?" She asked with pain in her voice and on her face.


    "This is about Philip?"


    "You didn''t want to separate from him last night, I''ve never seen you like that with anyone before."


    "They were our hosts, I was just being polite, and the reason why you''ve never seen me like that with anyone before is because the only person I''ve been like that with is you."


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    "Where did you go with him?"


    "He took me to a log cabin where he introduced me to Griselda, the woman he loves, and told me that he has no intention of agreeing to any of his father''s marriage proposals."


    Uraia let out a small laugh when she heard my answer, a small laugh that was followed by her crossing her arms and then putting a hand over her face. I had never seen Uraia cry before, and I was unable to process the experience of it.


    "Talk to me, Uraia; please, just talk to me."


    "Everything has changed so much, your duties as queen are taking up more and more of your time and now that I''m not the captain of your guard I hardly get to see you. It feels like it''s only a matter of time before your responsibilities as queen take you away from me completely."


    "Do you really think that I would let that happen?"


    "It''s going to happen whether you like it or not, fulfilling your duties as queen is the most important thing, there''s no escaping that."


    Much of what Uraia said was true, and it forced upon me the realization that I couldn''t put off telling Uraia how I felt any longer.


    "Uraia, listen to me. You are everything to me; ever since that night when I first saw you the only thing I''ve ever wanted is to be as strong as you. When you started coming to the settlement to train me, the thought of disappointing you terrified me because I was afraid that if I disappointed you you would stop coming to the settlement and I wouldn''t get to see you anymore. And when the settlement was massacred and you came for me, all I could think of was that as long as I had you, as long as you were there for me, I would be fine. I love you, Uraia; I love you so much it hurts, it hurts that I can''t reach out and touch you softly when you''re close, that I can''t put my arms around you when we''re alone and kiss you."


    After hearing these words, Uraia lowered her arms and turned to me.


    "You can."


    Kissing Uraia, I was taken back to that night in the Okwari village after the massacre when she''d kept me in her arms the whole night. I was finally getting to experience the intimacy that up to that point I had only been able to imagine and dream about, and I wished that it could go on forever.

 Chapter 51

    Uraia and I were careful to be discreet upon returning to Aseron. The only person we told was Klara, who, when we told her, was happy to hear the news. Uraia spent the night with me in my room every night but aside from that nothing changed. I carried out my duties as queen as normal, which included quick trips to Gronden and Menten to reassure them that there was no cooperative relationship between Aseron and Dranii. Our next trip would be to Theran to discuss the matter of the creation of a new system of rules for governing the realm. For this trip I planned to allow Boris to make all of the preparations that he felt were necessary for the trip. In Dranii, King Gregorio had advised me to do what he does: dispatch the royal procession ahead of time and join them later by flying to them with Myra, that way I wouldn''t have to endure the interminable trip. This was an excellent idea which I informed Boris of my intention to utilize. Boris made no objection to this, so long as the effect of me arriving in Theran accompanied by a large party wasn''t compromised he didn''t care.


    I left Boris to his preparations and took another flight to Galand to get a look at how much progress Brumli and the dwarves had made since my last visit. It had been a few weeks since I had last been to Galand and in that time the dwarves had used the rock that they had quarried with their dynamite to build new structures and they had completed work on a large furnace for their metalwork.


    "The tools we''re using keep breaking on us, we need to make our own tools."


    "I''ll make sure you''ve got the ore you need to make new tools for yourselves. Just out of curiosity, why are your tools so much stronger than ours?"


    "We work the steel at a much higher temperature, that allows us to compress it more and add more layers."


    "And how do you get those higher temperatures?"


    "We burn high quantities of coal in a high pressure cauldron like this one," he said, showing me to the furnace, "the combination of lots of coal, high pressure and frequent oxygenation produces high temperatures that allow us to bend any metal as much as we want, though I''m sure those temperatures are nothing compared with what she can produce," he said, speaking of Myra.


    "Let''s find out."


    I stood back and watched as Brumli took hold of a large fragment of ore with a pair of tongs and held it in the furnace for Myra to apply her flames to. After just a few seconds of Myra blowing flames onto the ore Brumli removed it from the furnace, placed it on an anvil and began striking it with a hammer. Myra''s flames had made the iron so soft that Brumli had to work fast to shape it before it cooled down and hardened. He struck each side quickly three times before dipping the iron in water, then it went back in the furnace for Myra to fire it up again. He repeated this process several times until I was able to perceive that he was crafting a blade. Once he had managed to form the shape of the blade he used a stone to scrub off any imperfections that remained from the forging process and attached it to a handle that he had ready. The handle had a red leather grip, and had my sigil etched into it where the blade met the hilt.


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    "It''s so light," I said to Brunli when he handed it to me.


    "That''s because the steel is pure."


    "Thank you Brumli."


    "I was going to make for you as a surprise as a way of thanking you for what you''ve done for us, but when you arrived here I thought that what would make it the perfect gift was to forge it using your phoenix''s flames."


    "Can you make one of those furnaces and send it to the capital? I''d like to show it to the blacksmiths in the city."


    "We can do that, it''ll take a few weeks though."


    "There''s no rush, I have other business that I need to take care of."


    The other business that I needed to take care of was Bandor. I left Galand with Myra and flew north to the village to speak with him. I didn''t like what he''d said to Uraia about her being an outsider and I wanted to know if he had made any progress on deciding whether to allow me to build schools in the Northlands where the Okwari children could be educated. Bandor wasn''t at the village when I arrived, I spoke with Chief Kendor when I arrived and he told me that Bandor was off visiting one of the other villages.


    "I wanted to speak with Bandor about the conversation that we had with him when we stopped off here on our way to Dranii; he said some things that I wanted to clear up with him."


    "You weren''t happy with what he said to you?"


    "He called Uraia an outsider because of her decision to leave and join the bandits, and he said that my offer to educate the Okwari children was not too different from the effort that was made by the first pilgrims to civilize the Okwari."


    "I don''t like what he said about Uraia either, but you have to bear in mind the circumstances of her departure."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Uraia is not...normal. I protected her as much as I could but she understood that she would have to leave eventually, and when she was old enough to do so she did."


    I had no idea that Uraia had had to deal with being made to feel ostracized like this, and learning of this only made me angrier at Bandor for what he had said to her.


    "I need to know what Bandor''s intentions are, whether he''s planning to cooperate with me."


    "Bandor is still finding his way as a leader, you can''t pressure him to make big decisions that affect all of the Okwari so early in his time as chief."


    "I''ve got big ambitions for the kingdom and I want the Okwari to be a part of them, but if Bandor decides to stand in my way then the Okwari will be left behind."


    "I understand that you want what is best for us, but the distrust that exists among the Okwari toward those with white skin runs deep."


    "But you helped to take care of us when we were exiled, you sent warriors to help me take the throne and to help me fight off the Volstaff invasion, so why all of a sudden is there all of this suspicion about me?"


    "All of that was done on my orders, and there was plenty of opposition to my decisions. I agreed to help all of you when you were exiled here because I knew your father and I knew him to be good man; I agreed to fight your battles with you because I believed that as queen you could be a bridge between us and the rest of the kingdom."


    "That''s what I''m trying to do, and we''ve made great progress."


    "Yes, but it is because so much progress has been made that we must proceed slowly; if we don''t, the progress that we have made could be undone."

 Chapter 52

    I was frustrated but I had no choice but to accept that all that I could do was be patient and hope that Bandor came to his senses soon. There were many opportunities available for the Okwari to take advantage of but only if they chose to do so. I wanted the Okwari to benefit from my rule as much as possible, but I had an entire kingdom to govern and projects to oversee that had the full support of the citizens whose lives those projects were meant to improve. Before returning to the palace I stopped at Galand once more and asked if Brumli if he would send some men south to the capital city to help accelerate construction of the teacher''s academy. With most of my plans now in motion my impatience to see them come to fruition was growing. My impatience was such that I needed Ferland to consistently remind me that a ruler''s legacy was constructed over many decades and that greed and impatience would only serve to undermine my ambitions. To take my mind off of the construction of the teacher''s academy and the schoolhouses I applied myself to the task of designing and crafting the syllabus that would be taught to the students. I based the syllabus mostly on what I learned from reading my father''s books during our exile in the north. The mathematics, literacy and geography syllabi were easy enough to put together; the history syllabus however proved a challenge. I wanted the history syllabus to cover the entire history of Aseron and the major historical events of the realm as a whole, but when it came to Aseron there were events that the palace historian had omitted from the record, in particular the events around the relationship between the first pilgrims and the Okwari. Knowing Ferland to be a keen student of history I asked him if he knew of any texts that provide a full account of those events. Ferland had such a book in his private library, a firsthand account of the pilgrims'' persecution of the Okwari written by Peter DeLange, whose family would go on to become one of the seven noble families. The book contained details and anecdotes about the various injustices committed against the Okwari by the first settlers of Aseron: the campaigns of violence that were waged against them, the theft of their livestock, the razing of their villages, the kidnapping of their children who they attempted to ''civilize'' by educating and assimilating them. After suffering for years at the hands of the white settlers, the Okwari determined that their only hope was to abandon their lands and go north, where they would be able to live in peace.


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    Reading about all of the atrocities that the Okwari had had inflicted upon them, I was amazed that Chief Kendor had ever gotten the Okwari to agree to help us when we were exiles and even more amazed that he had gotten them to fight for me. Getting the Okwari to trust that they were now the equal of any other citizen in Aseron was going to take a long time and a lot of effort, an effort I was prepared to commit myself to fully.

 Chapter 53

    Boris had left for Theran with the royal party that he had assembled for the trip while I was busy with the syllabus work. As part of the royal party he took Ferland, Alfred and Uther with him to participate in high level talks about security, trade and debt financing. The palace was quiet with all of them gone, allowing me and Uraia to spend more time together. I asked her about her time growing up in the village and why she had really left. She told me that as a child she''d had a friend named Reala and that the two of them had been inseparable. As they got older their bond got stronger and Uraia made the mistake of misinterpreting the bond they shared as romantic attraction. Uraia tried to kiss her one day and Reala recoiled. Talk about Uraia not being normal began soon after. Following this Uraia was looked upon by the other villagers with suspicion and she became withdrawn, keeping to herself in the isolation of the Northlands as much as possible until she reached the conclusion that she had to leave.


    By telling me about all of this Uraia was revealing to me a side of herself that I never knew existed. I had always only known Uraia as an unshakable tower of strength, but now I was discovering that that strength was the product of many years of fear and loneliness that she was only able to cope with by hardening herself against the world that wouldn''t accept her. With me she was able to be herself without fear of judgment; being able to do that for her, while miniscule in comparison with everything that she had done for me, gave me a greater feeling of fulfillment than I had gotten from anything that I had done as queen. We also talked about her position on the Governing Council as the Okwari representative and whether she wanted to remain in the role given what Bandor had said to her. She told me that at present it made little difference as Bandor had not made any decisions about how the Okwari would engage with the rest of the kingdom, as such her position on the Governing Council was purely symbolic. Uraia wasn''t happy in this role; what she wanted, she told me, was to be by my side, to play her part in ensuring that my reign continued unthreatened for as long as my body drew breath. We decided that Uraia would return to her post as the captain of my Royal Guard and I would find a new post for Klara. The role of the Okwari representative on the Governing Council would remain inactive until Bandor had reached a decision about how he would like to proceed.


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    Uraia and I departed for the royal convoy two months after Boris and the convoy had departed the capital city for Theran. My estimation was that enough time had passed for them to be close enough to Theran that I would only have to travel with the convoy for about a week until we reached Theran''s capital city, Avondrea. In those two months I was able to complete the syllabus for the lower levels of school including a history syllabus that covered the history of the first settlers'' injustices against the Okwari. The higher level subjects required specialized knowledge that I didn''t possess enough of to craft a syllabus. When I returned from Theran I would need to seek out individuals that had the knowledge and the expertise that were needed to craft educational courses for fields of study like engineering and agricultural science, as well as individuals that could help me with something that had been gnawing away at me ever since I had decided to dispatch with the nobles. It bothered me that there wasn''t a universal set of laws governing the kingdom. The only laws that existed in the kingdom during the time of the nobles were the laws that the nobles created that applied only to their individual fiefdoms. These laws were arbitrary and more often than not punitive in nature. With the elimination of the nobles and the unification of the kingdom under the authority of the throne, a new legal code was needed that recognized all Aseronians as being equal under the law.

 Chapter 54

    These new laws would create fair uniform tax rates, imbue the citizens with inalienable rights and create avenues of recourse that they could pursue if ever an injustice was committed against them. This legal code would make Aseron the first kingdom in the realm to guarantee fairness and equality before the law and I was excited to begin the process of drafting the laws that would comprise the legal code but it had to wait until after we had concluded our visit to Theran. Uraia and I reached the convoy that was travelling south Theran just before nightfall having left the palace at dawn. The convoy had already entered Theran lands and at the pace they were traveling they would reach Avondrea in a week. At the center of the convoy was the royal carriage, a large, plush and ornate carriage that I was supposed to be traveling in. When Uraia and I arrived at the convoy we were exhausted from flying all day. I instructed the convoy to stop for the day so that we could rest. It wasn''t just me and Uraia who needed to rest, but Myra and Igor as well. The next morning Ferland and I talked in the royal carriage about my decision to create a new legal code for the kingdom. He felt that my sentiment was the right one but cautioned me that I was likely going to face opposition from the Governing Council members, who weren''t going to like the idea of the palace arrogating so much authority, especially over taxation.


    "All of the projects that I''ve initiated across the kingdom are being directly funded by the Royal Treasury, if they insist on being uncooperative we can threaten to put a stop to the funding for those initiatives, that should soften their resistance."


    My conversation with Ferland was followed by a conversation with Alfred about the budgetary implications of my proposal for kingdom wide general rates of taxation.


    "Certainly it will increase our revenues; in the past the nobles had the peasants do whatever work needed to be done in their fiefdoms and compensated them by providing them with food, clothing and shelter, and the only revenue that the palace received was the annual fee that the nobles paid to the palace for its continued recognition of their fiefdoms."


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    "The peasants'' labor was worth a great deal more than what they were receiving from the nobles for their labor."


    "Yes; by moving to a system of direct taxation the peasants can keep the majority of the income that they generate with their labor and they''ll get to enjoy the benefits of the services that the taxes would provide for."


    I was confident that once we explained the details of the taxation system to the Governing Council that we would encounter little resistance from them. Of course, the Governing Council had no actual authority, if they strenuously objected to my proposal I could still implement it regardless, but showing deference to the Governing Council was important for illustrating to the citizens that as queen I was proceeding on issues in a manner that reflected their concerns, so Ferland, Alfred and I would do our best to gain their support.


    Uraia and I didn''t travel with the convoy during the day while it was moving. We took Myra and Igor and flew around Theran to get a look at as much of the kingdom as we could. Theran''s lands were mostly flat with few mountains and hills. No matter how far we flew in whatever direction, all we saw beneath us were fields and fields of crops. The stories that were told about Theran''s vast fields did not do justice to the sheer endlessness of them. Three things made these endless fields possible: the first was the two rivers that flowed through Theran from the great lakes in Gronden, whose tributaries snaked all throughout Theran, the second was Theran''s temperate climate and the third were the tens of thousands of Undrian slaves that worked the fields. The Undrian slaves were similar in appearance to the Okwari; they were large and had swarthy skin, the only difference was that they had curly hair similar to the Kandalarians. It pained me to see the Undrian slaves toiling in the fields under the hot sun; more painful was my powerlessness to do anything about it.

 Chapter 55 - Trip to Theran

    With one day left until we arrived at Avondrea, I remained in the royal carriage in preparation for our entrance into the city. Boris''s planning of the trip had been nothing short of perfection, the convoy was going to reach its destination without experiencing any supply issues, and our grand entrance into the capital city of Avondrea that he had hoped for was going to be achieved. Having received advance notice of our imminent arrival, Queen Herana had prepared a welcoming ceremony for us that was unlike anything I had ever seen or could have imagined. Upon entering the city gates our convoy was greeted by two rows of dancers lined up on either side of the street that led the way to the palace while dancing in perfect synchronicity. On the balconies of the buildings that lined the street the citizens threw down flower petals while celebrating our arrival. At the palace a welcoming party was waiting for us. I stepped out of the carriage and was welcomed by Roland Dorman, who introduced himself to me as the queen''s Chief Counsel, her equivalent of what Ferland was to me. I walked with him along a line of all of the members of the queen''s court, until, finally, I got to meet Queen Herana. She was middle aged, tall and had graying hair, and stood rigidly erect, her posture perfect. I felt immense intimidation meeting her, which was strange given that I had felt no sense of intimidation when I''d met King Gregorio.


    "The only other queen in the realm; I am honored to welcome you to Theran, Queen Alegra," Herana said to me.


    "I''m honored to be here."


    Herana''s palace was constructed entirely of marble. Arched, colonnaded walkways led you through the palace which was built around beautiful lush indoor gardens.


    "I think your story is a remarkable one; I''ve been wanting to meet you ever since I heard about your journey to becoming queen."


    "I just did what I had to do."


    "Don''t be so modest; you displayed tremendous courage, intelligence and resourcefulness, it''s no wonder the Overseer picked you. I knew when I heard about all that you had accomplished that you would make a great queen, and I want to help you to become a great queen."


    "Thank you, but the reason I came here was not to discuss our mutual interests but rather how we can cooperate to change the realm."


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    "You do have big ambitions; let''s leave those discussions for tomorrow, today is just for celebrating your arrival."


    Queen Herana and I spent the rest of the day getting to know each other personally while our courtiers talked amongst themselves about the various points of mutual interest between our two kingdoms. Boris, Alfred and Uther, because they had experience as members of court, were perfectly at ease in this environment. Ferland however was participating in his first ever royal summit as a member of a high level delegation and his nervousness was obvious.


    We had lunch in the palace''s central courtyard, spent the evening enjoying an orchestral musical performance at the Avondrea auditorium and returned to the palace for dinner in the palace dining hall. Queen Herana was eager to learn as much as she could about me and we spent the day talking about my past, the initiatives that I had launched since becoming queen, and my ambitions for the future of Aseron.


    "You are easily the most idealistic ruler I''ve ever met. I find most of what you are doing to be admirable but you must remember that the more you give to your subjects the more they are going to expect and the harder it is to keep them quiescent."


    "That sounds like something I''d expect King Gregorio to say."


    "I suppose it is a bit of a cynical thing to say, but I would hate for your reign to be undermined by a failure on your part to be more pragmatic."


    "I think I''m being nothing but pragmatic; what could be more pragmatic than wanting my citizens to achieve their full potential?"


    "Subjects...call them your subjects, not citizens."


    The more Queen Herana and I spoke the more I felt a disconnect between us and the more I worried that she was not going to be an ally for what I was planning. I wondered if I would eventually end up this way, if my obsession with my status as queen would come to take precedence over my concern for the citizens of Aseron. I was confident enough in my sense of duty to the citizens of Aseron to believe that it wouldn''t happen, but I was also aware that I had undergone some changes in the short time that I had been queen and that there was no way to know in what ways I would change in the future. By the end of the night, after we had all repaired to our quarters, I was giving serious thought to whether I should speak with her about my idea for us to lead an effort to unite the realm against Dranii. My fear was that, given the insights into her character that I had obtained from our brief time together, that she was perhaps more likely to view my proposal as a threat to Theran''s current stability, and that the most prudent course of action for her would be to reject my proposal and inform King Gregorio of what I was plotting. I went to sleep deciding that I had no choice in the matter; without Theran''s wealth and power as the realm''s largest food producer there was no hope forming any kind of coalition against Dranii.

 Chapter 56 - Remaking the world

    Queen Herana preferred that we talk informally, just the two of us. As we walked through the gardens that surrounded the palace I talked with her about the growing discontent in the realm with King Gregorio and his policy of Debt Trap Diplomacy.


    "There are concerns that this discontent could boil over into a wide ranging conflict, which, given how devastating the Great War was, makes it imperative that we exercise whatever options we have at our disposal to stop it preemptively," I said.


    "I''m aware of the discontent that exists in the realm, but I don''t see a large scale war as being the most likely outcome. You''re familiar with the expression ''An army marches on its stomach''? They couldn''t launch a large scale mobilization without our support."


    "I think you''re underestimating how much anger people are feeling; King Gregorio is using his leverage as a creditor to exert influence over affairs in their kingdoms that they''re not comfortable losing control over; it''s only a matter of time before they decide that they''ve had enough."


    "The only ones that those people have to be angry at is themselves, if they hadn''t done such a poor job of governing their kingdoms they wouldn''t need to borrow so much and they wouldn''t find themselves in this situation."


    "Be that as it may, the threat of war is real, and chastising people over what they should and shouldn''t have done is not going to stop it."


    "Why are you taking such an interest in this? I would have thought that all of your focus would be directed toward fixing the mess that Esmeralda left behind."


    "If the realm goes to war again no one will be spared; taking action to prevent another war is in all of our interests."


    "How is it in my interest? I have no issues with King Gregorio or his kingdom."


    "How long do you think it will be before King Gregorio sets his sights on your kingdom?"


    "He wouldn''t dare."


    "I had a long talk with Prince Philip when I was there, he told me that his father''s ambition was to eventually have the entire realm in his grasp."


    "He would say that, what with his father overlooking him for the throne in favor of his younger brother Baron."


    "You believe he said this to me for the purpose of stirring up trouble for his father?"


    "That''s the most logical explanation; save for a few minor flare ups the realm has been at peace for seven hundred years, now you would seek to disturb that peace because of the words of a jilted prince."


    "It''s not just him; in Kandalar and Volstaff they are ready to revolt and in Gronden and Menten they are deeply anxious, that''s almost half the realm that''s ready to go to war."


    "Gronded and Menten are small, insignificant kingdoms; Kandalar is still on its knees from their disastrous invasion of Grunheim, and you''re the one who killed King Anua and obliterated his army; if that''s the coalition that''s going to declare war on Dranii it''s going to be a very short war."


    "You''re not taking into account the kingdoms that have no animosity toward Dranii but may decide to join the war because they believe that Dranii needs to be pushed back."


    "And which kingdoms would you be talking about? Here in Theran we have a long history of avoiding conflict unless it is absolutely necessary that we get involved, and there''s no reason for Erst with their navy to get involved, which just leaves you. Are you telling me that if these kingdoms should decide to start a war that you would have Aseron fight alongside them?"


    "I might."


    "Alegra, please listen to me," Herana stopped, turned to me and said, "Do not underestimate the seriousness of what you''re talking about. If these kingdoms do start a war and you join them and you lose, your kingdom will be made to suffer for generations. You are young, and idealistic, I understand that you want to do what you can to make the realm a better place, but I would urge you to think of your kingdom and of your subjects before doing something rash and foolhardy."


    "I am not underestimating the seriousness of all of this, however it seems to me that you are overestimating the strength of your alliance with Dranii that you formed seven hundred years ago in the aftermath of The Great War, an alliance that has never before been tested in the way that King Gregorio is intent on testing it. What will you do when he sets his sights on Theran?"


    "As I have already said, it won''t come to that."


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    "Yes it will, and when it does you will have no one that you can call upon because he will have them all firmly under his thumb."


    "So long as we are speaking in the hypothetical, allow me to pose a hypothetical of my own. If these kingdoms were to march against Dranii and you joined them and you found yourselves to be at a disadvantage, would you use your phoenix to bring a favorable end to the war?"


    "Are you asking this because I didn''t use Myra in the battle with Volstaff?"


    "That''s right, my understanding is that you didn''t do so because you wanted all of the other kingdoms to know that your army was up to the task of defending its kingdom."


    "That''s correct."


    "Again, admirable, but the truth is that it''s going to be hard for you to find allies if you have an almighty weapon at your disposal that you''re not willing to use when the need arises."


    "Are you saying that if I promised to use Myra in battle, should it come to that, that you would agree to be my ally in this."


    "It would make me more amenable to your proposal, yes. So tell me, are you willing to single-handedly incinerate an entire army to save the soldiers that are fighting for you?"


    "I was willing to do it when we were fighting back the Volstaff invasion, fortunately Uther''s battle tactics and command of the army meant I didn''t have to, but if I had to I would have, and I wouldn''t have hesitated for a second."


    "Good; now, why don''t you tell me what it is you have in mind for preventing this war that you believe is inevitable."


    We continued our walk through the palace gardens and I explained to her my proposal for how we might loosen the stranglehold that Dranii had on these kingdoms that were threatening to revolt. The primary issue that needed addressing was debt relief. Kandalar was the worst affected by Dranii''s predatory borrowing; their inability to repay even the interest on the amount that King Gregorio had agreed to borrow them following their disastrous Grunheim campaign meant that their indebtedness to Dranii kept increasing and as it increased so did the number of administrators and merchants sent by King Gregorio to Kandalar to take over the management of their affairs and ownership of their resources. It was the same with Volstaff, who, after having their army decimated by us, were powerless to defend themselves against the march of Dranii troops into their kingdom. My proposal to Queen Herana was that we formulate a payment plan for servicing their debt for them so that they could expel the Dranii merchants and administrators and retake full control of their kingdoms; once they had done this they could begin to contribute to the servicing of their debt and once their economies had recovered they could take over the responsibility of their debt.


    "I''m surprised at how much you want to help these kingdoms; Volstaff tried to do to Aseron what''s being done to them by Dranii, and I know how you feel about what Kandalar did to the dwarves."


    "It''s not about these kingdoms, it''s about the realm."


    "What you are proposing is going to require enormous funds; say we do help them, what will we be getting out of it?"


    "What we get out of it is not having to deal with a big war in the near future, and in exchange for assisting them with their debt we get them to agree to whatever measures we propose to put in place to prevent them from being bad actors in the future."


    "What kind of measures?"


    "We place monitors in Kandalar and Volstaff that will let us know if they''re planning anything malicious, and if it''s established that they are then they are made to face the consequences for it; we cease assisting them with their debt and you stop exporting grain to them."


    "There is one big problem with all of this: in both Kandalar and Volstaff the Overseers have yet to select new leaders; who would we be entering into these agreements with?"


    "I''ll speak with Elias and ask him to speak with the Overseers on Mt Edrugar and find out from them how close they are to selecting new rulers."


    "You have that kind of relationship with your Overseer?"


    "Yes, Elias and I are very close; are you not close with your Overseer?"


    "I can''t remember when was the last time I saw him, which I''ve always chosen to look at as a sign that I''m doing a good job as queen, running the kingdom so well that divine intervention isn''t required."


    I was about to tell her that Elias had nothing but positive things to say about the job that I was doing as queen and he came to see me often. The Overseers it seemed were all unique and most likely this affected the kind of rulers that they selected for their kingdoms. I was interested to know more about this and made a mental note to ask Elias about it when I returned to Aseron.


    "If these kingdoms are open to accepting our offer in exchange for agreeing to our terms, you could make the return of Grunheim to the dwarves one of the conditions that they would have to meet."


    I had thought about this already, and I had so far failed to make a decision on whether to ask for the return of Grunheim.


    "I know why you offered the dwarves safe haven, I''ve seen their engineering capabilities, they can be very useful to you in your efforts to rebuild your kingdom, but that''s only if they are in your kingdom," Herana said to me, with a glint in her eye and a knowing smile. She was testing me, and for the sake of securing her support I gave her the answer that she was looking for.


    "I think the issue of Grunheim...will need to be resolved at a later date."


    The smile on her face widened, and I knew that I had succeeded in obtaining her support for my proposal. Over the next three days we ironed out the finer details of the plan and we discussed possible responses should King Gregorio choose to retaliate against us. Our trip to Theran had been a tremendous success and with a plan in place for averting a large scale war I could return to Aseron and focus on the issues in my own kingdom.


    "The other rulers fear you because of your firebird, but what I see now is that it is your intelligence and level headedness that they should really fear," Herana said to me as we were leaving.


    "They have no reason to fear me at all, peace is the only thing I want," I said as I mounted Myra.


    "There''s an old saying: ''Those who desire peace must prepare for war''. King Gregorio is not going to take this lying down, make sure that you are ready for the chaos that is to come."

 Chapter 57 - Unintended consequences

    I spent the entire flight home thinking about Quenn Herana''s parting words to me. The politics of the realm was one big game, a game that Herana had been playing for decades that I was taking my first steps into, and not tentative steps, Queen Herana and I were taking it upon ourselves to shatter the existing world order and replace it with a new world order of our own. There were many that weren''t going to be happy with our actions, who were going to start thinking of me as a dangerous force in the realm. More than ever I needed Uraia close to me, as long as she was protecting me I had faith that no one who wished me harm would see their wish come to fruition.


    Uraia and I spent two days in bed when we returned to the palace to make up for the time we spent in Theran when we weren''t able to be together. On my third day back I flew up to Galand to see what Brumli and the dwarves were up to. Brumli was more excited to see me than I was to see him. He had been busy since I had last seen him over a month ago and he was egaer to show me what he had been busy with. The first thing that he wanted to show me was a device for transporting water vertically that he told me worked far better than a waterwheel. He had only built a small model but it was clear to see from the model how the device worked. The device was a wooden cylinder inside of which was a metal screw that had three paddles attached to it outside the cylinder. Brumli explained to me that the side with the paddles went into the river and the current moved the paddles which turned the screw which scooped up the water and carried it upwards. This ''waterscrew'' as he called it was a better solution for transporting water than the waterwheel because with a waterwheel the higher you want to transport the water the bigger the wheel needs to be; with the waterscrew it was simply a matter of making it longer. What Brumli envisioned was that the waterscrew would transport water up into a water tower where it could be kept for storage and the overflow would be taken out by pipes that would carry the water to wherever it was needed.


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    "This is brilliant, Brumli, but what about those dams that you proposed building?"


    "We still need to build those to create new waterways, these waterscrews will allow us to easily control the flow of water to anywhere we choose."


    "I''d like you to build one of these in one of the canals in the capital city so that we can see how effectively it can be used to distribute water to various locations."


    The Okwari had a saying: ''With water anything is possible''. These waterscrews that Brunli and the others had developed had the potential to bring about rapid transformation in the kingdom, affecting everything from agriculture to settlement expansion to industry. I felt guilty about declining the opportunity to reclaim Grunheim for the dwarves, but over the following months we erected twelve waterscrew towers in the canals in the capital city that were giving the residents their first experience of running water piped directly into their homes and we commenced construction on two dams, the teaching academy was completed and so were the schoolhouses in the villages.


    The issue of new leaders being selected for Volstaff and Kandalar was yet to be resolved, Elias paid me a visit at the palace to inform me that the Overseers for those two kingdoms were yet to identify appropriate candidates for their thrones. Because there were no legitemate leaders on the thrones in those kingdoms Queen Herana and I couldn''t move forward with our plan, word of which, despite our pledge to keep it to ourselves, reached Dranii, setting into motion a most unexpected sequence of events.


    "King Gregorio and Prince Baron have been murdered. Prince Philip has fled the castle, he''s accused of colluding with members of the Council of Regents to usurp the throne. Dranii has entered a state of civil war," Ferland rushed to me in my study and told me.

 Chapter 58

    The next morning I had the Theran ambassador summoned to the palace. She arrived in short order and when I asked her about the leak of our plan that had precipitated civil war in Dranii she was remarkably candid.


    "There have been rumblings coming out of Dranii for a long time that there are members of the Council of Regents who believed that he was going too far with his influence campaign. Our belief was that if our plan for rescuing these kingdoms from his stranglehold became known to him that he would propose taking retaliatory action against us which those members of the Council of Regents would consider a dangerous escalation that he could not be allowed to proceed with. Prince Philip had nothing to do with the assassinations, but he''s the one that they want on the throne, and with the kingdom now in a state of civil war Dranii is too weak to exert its power externally, meaning we don''t need to commit the funds that we would have needed to commit to service Kandalar and Volstaff''s debt for them."


    It took me a long time to digest what Ambassador Gail had shared with me. I had thought after speaking with Queen Herana that I could trust her to be a faithful and honest ally, instead she had taken my proposal that I had spent countless hours working on and used it to instigate a war.


    Perhaps sensing my deep sense of anger, betrayal and disbelief, Elias came to pay me a visit. I was up on the palace roof at the time, breathing in the fresh air and doing my best to collect my thoughts.


    "I understand that you are frustrated, but this is the reality of dealing with the rulers of other kingdoms, if an opportunity presents itself for them to achieve an advantageous outcome in an expedient manner they will take it without hesitating," he said to me.


    "We spoke for days, we had an agreement that we promised to honor; is nothing sacred?!"


    "In the game of kings and queens, I''m afraid not. The only thing for you to think about now is how you will move forward after this."


    "Why is all of this happening? If it''s the job of the Overseers to select the rulers then why are there so many struggles over succession in all of the kingdoms?"


    "Succession is not simply a matter of the Overseer choosing a ruler and installing them on the throne; whenever possible we try to ensure continuity and stability, which generally means that when a royal vacates the throne it''ll be someone from within their orbit who has displayed the most leadership acumen that will be the one who is selected to succeed them."


    "Then why did you pick me?"


    "I picked you because this kingdom was in need of someone new who would sweep away all of the rot and corruption that had taken hold of it. Dranii is not in as bad a state as Aseron was in when I chose you to become its ruler. Prince Philip would be a good choice to take over as king, that''s if he''s able to survive this war."


    "He''ll survive; I know where he''s gone, they won''t find him."


    I decided to take Myra and go and see Philip. I went alone, planning to be in and out of the kingdom as quickly as possible. As I flew across Dranii the towns that I had flown over with Philip now had columns of smoke rising up from them, confirming that the kingdom truly was in a state of civil war. As I thought, Philip had fled with his gryphon to the cabin where Griselda lived.


    "I just found out two days ago about the war; how did this happen?" I landed and asked Philip, who was busy brushing Rolf.


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    "The Council of Regents had been split into two camps for a long time: one camp was opposed to my father''s campaign of using the financial support that he offered to kingdoms to entrap them, believing that eventually those kingdoms would turn on us, and another camp that supported my father in everything that he did, needless to say the regents that supported my father did so because of the generous fiefs that he bestowed upon them. It was only a matter of time before the regents that opposed my father moved against him; when he started talking about retaliating against you and Theran for your plan to bail out Kandalar and Volstaff they decided that they had to act."


    "I never meant for this to happen."


    "This was always going to happen, it''s not your fault."


    "What are you going to do?"


    "Wait for this war to end and see where I stand when everything shakes out."


    "You and Griselda could come to Aseron, you''d be safe there."


    "If we did that then you would be accused of being involved in all of this, and I won''t be a part of anything that would jeopardize what you''re trying to accomplish as queen."


    "Elias told me that the regents that opposed your father want to place you on the throne."


    "I have no interest in the throne, and besides, I''d need the backing of the Overseer."


    "Suppose you did have the backing of the Overseer, if the opportunity presented itself, would you take the throne?"


    "If I had the blessing of the Overseer, and I believed that I could serve the kingdom well as its king, then yes, I would agree to become the king."


    I returned to Aseron with the intention of not getting involved in any of the politics of the realm until the situation in Dranii had been resolved. I focused all of my energies on my domestic agenda. I checked in on the construction of the dams, oversaw the teaching academy''s intake of students and I expanded the scope of the legal code that I was working on by adding property laws to supplement the land reform scheme that I was planning on implementing. My plan was to take the land that the peasant farmers had been farming for the nobles and give it to them as a way of compensating them for their generations of toil they were made to endure by the nobles. Giving them the land that they had been working for generations was a small gesture, but it was a start.


    I was in my study happily working on my various projects when Ferland came to me to inform that a messenger bird from Galand had arrived with a note from Brumli asking if I could come north to Galand to have a look at another invention of his. I was always excited to see Brumli''s inventions and when I read the note saying that he had a new invention and rushed outside to Myra and set off for Galand. In recent weeks Galand had become a bustling town. The dwarves that helped to build the schoolhouses in the villages had made their way to Galand after the schoolhouses were finished, and after seeing how well the furnace worked that I had asked Brumli to make and send down to Glendale, blacksmiths from all over the kingdom were coming north to Galand to learn the dwarves'' trade secrets. Brumli met me in the town when I landed and had me follow him to his house. He led me into his house and through to his kitchen where sitting on the table was another device he had invented that was nothing short of miraculous. A lump of coal was being used to heat up a small metal cylinder which discharged thick steam and somehow it was causing a piece of wood to see saw, which, through another piece of wood that it was connected to perpendicularly, was rotating a wheel.


    "Brumli, what is this?"


    "I haven''t come up with a name for it yet."


    "How does it work?"


    "The boiler is filled with water which is heated up by the coal, the steam is then sent up here where the build up and release of pressure produces vertical movement which is used to turn the wheel."


    "Could you make a big one?"


    "Yes, easily. I was about to start building one but we''ve been focused on building more structures to accommodate the rest of the dwarves that are making their way here."


    "Brumli, I want you to start working on a full size version of this as soon as I leave, okay?"


    "Yes."


    Alegra had always held the dwarves'' engineering talents in the highest esteem, but she''d never imagined that the dwarves would bring about so much transformation in such a short space of time. If they continued to make engineering breakthroughs such as this then Aseron was going to advance further and faster than she had originally anticipated. She stood in Brumli''s kitchen and wondered what the challenges and opportunities of that rapid advancement would be as she stared down at the world''s first steam engine.

 Chapter 59

    The civil war in Dranii went on for six months. The faction of regents that opposed King Gregorio were able to use the greed and corruption of the regents that supported King Gregorio to rally more people to their side and their superior numbers proved decisive. The Council of Regents was reformed without the members that supported King Gregorio, and Philip, after the war ended and he returned to the castle, agreed to accept the regents'' offer to become the new king, a decision that was supported by the Overseer. Philip''s first act as king was to extend clemency to all who had participated in the war. Everyone who had fled the kingdom during the war returned and the process of rebuilding began.


    Philip''s first trip as king was to fly over alone with Rolf and visit me in Aseron. He came to tell me about everything that had happened in Dranii since the conclusion of the war and to inform me of his plans as king. He told me that he planned to recall all of the merchants and civil administrators that his father had dispatched to those kingdoms so that those kingdoms could retake control of their affairs and that he wanted to give them the opportunity to repay their debt on fair terms, and he hoped that I would act as a neutral arbiter between Dranii and the other kingdoms, Volstaff and Kandalar in particular.


    "Why me? I''ve got nothing to do with any of this."


    "Word of the plan that you formulated to help Kandalar and Volstaff traveled not only to Dranii but across the realm; it''s burnished your reputation as an honest and honorable leader."


    "If you''re hoping for a revival of that plan the chances of that happening are slim, I''m not prepared to trust Quenn Herana just yet after what she did."


    "Your plan was a good one, but the fact is that there was no way my father was ever going to let you put it into effect. Queen Herana understood this, and she understood that the best way to deal with my father was to have those in Dranii that were unhappy with his leadership to turn on him."


    "So you''re not angry that she caused a civil war in your kingdom?"


    "Well, it''s because of that civil war that I''ve become king, so I can''t be too angry about it, can I?"


    "You''ve taken to your new status as king like a duck to water, despite you telling me in Dranii that you had no interest in the throne."


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    "I''m interested in the opportunity that it gives me to do good, like you have done in your time as queen."


    "I''m just doing what needs to be done, I''m not doing anything special."


    "That''s not true, what you have done in your short time as queen is nothing short of miraculous; if I can achieve half of what you''ve achieved I''ll be proud of my work as king."


    "Now that my father is no more," Philip continued, "the balance of the realm has been disturbed; if an alliance doesn''t emerge to impose some kind of order there will be chaos."


    "Queen Herana warned me to prepare for the coming chaos; is that what she was talking about?"


    "Almost certainly; her ambassador was the first one to come and see me when I became king to discuss the possibility of a new alliance between our two kingdoms. I explained to her that I don''t plan on continuing to do things the way my father did and that consequently Dranii would not be as beneficial an ally as we used to be."


    "So who is it that will bring order to the realm then?"


    "I think many will look to you for that."


    "They can look all they want; I''ve decided not to involve myself with the politics of realm any more, my entire focus henceforth will be on Aseron."


    "You''ve already brought about so much change; what else do you have planned?"


    "That''s a secret."


    The secret in question was a steam powered locomotive that Brumli was working on in Galand.


    "When I was flying over here I saw some of your water towers sticking out of one of the rivers. I had Rolf land on the ground nearby and I had a long talk with a farmer who told me that he''s able to cultivate five times as much land as he was able to before because of those water towers; how do they work?"


    "That''s another secret."


    "He also told me that thanks to your land reforms he owns the land that he is farming and is free to do as he wishes with it."


    "Yes, I took the land that they had been farming for the nobles and gave it to them; half the land they must keep to pass on to their children, the other half they may sell. Some of them have sold that land to merchants who are paying them to work the land for them, it''s proving very lucrative for those farmers."


    "It''s not only merchants that they''re selling to though, is it? I''ve been told that many of the people that fled here during the civil war returned to Dranii to collect their wealth and belongings and then returned here to purchase land and settle here."


    "It''s not only people from Dranii that are coming here; the opportunity to own land, engage in commerce as they see fit and have their children receive an education is proving a powerful allure, and the immigration is proving a boon for the kingdom."


    "All of this prosperity is precisely why the other kingdoms are going to look to you for leadership, and why it is inevitable that you will have to return to playing a role in the politics of the realm."

 Chapter 60

    I couldn''t deny that Philip was right, eventually I would have to once again have to start engaging with the rest of the realm, it wouldn''t be responsible of me as a leader to ignore our neighbors, but things were changing so fast in Aseron that even my full focus was proving insufficient to stay on top of it all. Were it not for Brumli most of the improvements that had taken place would not have been possible and for his indefatigable industry I thanked him by bringing him to the palace and handing him a binding stone to place upon the head of one of the chicks, Igor''s brother.


    "Milady, I can''t, this is too much," Brumli protested.


    "No it''s not; now don''t be afraid, I''ve already told Myra to tell him to submit to you, simply place the stone on his head and he will be yours."


    My decision to give Brumli one of the chicks was motivated primarily by my need for him to have a form of transportation that would allow him to easily travel to anywhere in the kingdom. There were various projects underway in the kingdom that had been made possible by the dwarves'' inventions and innovations that he needed to help oversee, and there was the problem of supplying the dwarves with enough iron ore that needed to be solved fast. Brumli told me that he knew how to find it but it was going to take him a long time to traverse the kingdom looking for it, hence my decision to give him one of the chicks.


    Brumli had taken on a level of responsibility that made him the equivalent of a member of court. I had delegated authority over nearly all of the engineering and construction work going on in the kingdom to Brumli so that I could focus on the development of the civil administration that would be responsible for managing tax collection, adjudicating legal disputes, regulating market transactions, enforcing property laws, issuing title deeds and providing secure banking services. In each village we built a courthouse, expanded the administration building to accommodate the new services, and increased security to protect the bank deposits. These village upgrades were paid for with our increased tax revenues, which had increased so much that even after financing all of these improvements we still had a large surplus, large enough for Alfred to come to me with the idea that we should seek a return on it by putting it to work in the loan market, but I had other plans for it. The steam locomotive that the dwarves were working on in Galand was showing promise and if they were able to develop it into a viable form of transportation extending its use throughout the kingdom and into neighboring kingdoms was going to require enormous commitments of capital that I planned on continuing to build up our reserves for.


    Aseron''s success was causing us to attract attention, notably from Queen Herana. Our agriculture yields had increased to the point where we were able to easily produce enough food to feed our people and our livestock, ending the need for us to import grain from Theran. We were the first kingdom to become fully food independent and our progress had Quenn Herana concerned enough to come to Aseron to find out for herself how we had managed to achieve our independence. On her way through the kingdom she saw the water towers and she understood that we had developed a system for transporting water over great distances, a system which, if we shared it with other kingdoms, would destroy Theran''s economy. She was coming to see me in a state of desperation, and in the interest of maintaining a state of peace between our kingdoms I planned to reassure her that I had no intention of exporting the water towers and that the increase in our agricultural yields was purely for domestic consumption, not for exporting, though Herana was skeptical of this.


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    "I find it hard to believe that you would decline to take advantage of an opportunity to further enrich your kingdom," she said to me when we were speaking in the Great Hall.


    "There are other things that I must devote my attention to."


    "By other things are you referring to King Philip and Aseron''s relationship with Dranii?"


    "Nothing has changed in our relationship with Dranii."


    "You mean nothing has changed yet."


    "As I told King Philip, I have no intention of getting involved in the politics of the realm, all I care about is doing the best that I can for the citizens of Aserons."


    "If that were true then King Philip would not be as resistant to my overtures as he has been."


    "Philip is nothing like his father, perhaps you should consider changing your approach."


    "My ambassadors have informed me that Philip''s first trip after becoming king was to come here, that would make sense if his goal was to foster a close relationship with you with an eye toward an official alliance."


    "He came to see me because he wants to make it clear to the rest of the realm that he''s a different ruler than his father and he thought that I could help with that."


    "He should worry less about appearances and more about what it means to sit on the throne; Theran has been Dranii''s closest ally for the longest time, I''m the one he should have reached out to first upon becoming king to discuss preserving the strength of our alliance."


    "You did trigger a civil war in his kingdom."


    "A civil war that put him on the throne, all the more reason for him to showcase his loyalty."


    "If he did that it would make it look like he was involved in the plot to orchestrate a civil war from the beginning, that he sacrificed thousands of his own people for the sole purpose of installing himself in the throne room, if that were the case he would be a weak king, and worthless to you as an ally."


    I could see that Herana grasped the logic in what I said. The realm had changed dramatically as a consequence of King Gregorio''s death, and she was going to have to wait patiently for the new dynamics of the realm to reveal themselves.


    "Your monopoly on grain exports will remain," I continued, "that is your primary concern, yes?"


    Herana paused to consider my words and the tone in which I had spoken them.


    "When I heard that there was a new queen in the realm I thought that I would take you under my wing and help you to realize your potential as a ruler, but I can see now that you don''t need my help, and that rather than be proud of you, that I should be wary of you."

 Chapter 61

    Queen Herana didn''t stay in Aseron for long. There was little common ground between us and thus little for us to discuss. I was glad when she left, her presence in Aseron was distracting me from things that I would have rather been focusing on. Brumli had managed to find a large deposit of iron ore in the west near the border with Erst that according to Brumli would provide us enough iron ore to last us well over a year. I was excited to see what he had found and left with Myra to meet him there as soon as Herana left.


    "This is a long way from Galand," I said to Brumli when I touched down and climbed down from Myra.


    "We''ll probably have to build a whole new town here, transporting the ore from here to Galand is going to be a problem."


    "How do you know that there''s ore here?"


    "Do you see that grey band there running across the mountain? That''s where the iron is, and there''s a lot of it."


    Getting this mining operation underway was going to require a lot of work and it needed to be done fast, because with metalworkers across the kingdom producing higher quality metal products thanks to the skills that they were learning from the dwarves demand for everything from weapons to cookware to farm implements had exploded, with traders from other kingdoms coming to Aseron to purchase items in bulk. Aseron was fast becoming a kingdom known for its steel but all of that demand was causing our supply of iron ore to become tightly squeezed, and the steam locomotive that the dwarves were working on in Galand, work on which I had told them was to continue unabated, needed a lot of steel. The locomotive, Brumli explained to me, would work in the same way as a mine cart, just on a much larger scale. Large quantities of steel were needed for the locomotive''s construction, construction of the boilers that would power it, and for manufacturing the tracks that it would run on. Steel production was proceeding at such a frenetic pace that Brumli was having to use the chick that I had given him, which he''d named Nelly, to run the furnaces in order to prolong our coal supplies.


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    The steam locomotive held enormous promise and I was excited to see its development through to completion. I had no interest in contemplating war, which, according to Philip''s ambassador, was a real possibility.


    "Our ambassadors in Kandalar and Volstaff have informed us that Queen Herana has been making serious overtures to them. It seems that she is offering them economic support in exchange for political and military support. If she is successful we will have adversaries to our west in the form of Kandalar and Volstaff and to our south and east in the form of Theran and Erst," Ambassador Voran said to me.


    "Would they be adversaries? We''ve done nothing to provoke them into launching a military campaign against us."


    "What Queen Herana seems to have in mind is a new power structure in the realm with her alone at the center, and if she perceives either you or King Philip as a threat to what she''s trying to accomplish she will take steps to nullify you as a threat."


    "I made it clear to her, just like I made it clear to Philip, that I have no interest in getting involved the politics of the realm."


    "Surely you''re not so naive as to think that because you''ve said that you''re not interested in being a part of any of this that you''re just going to be ignored; you have ushered in an era of unparalleled prosperity here in Aseron, that makes you and your kingdom a threat."


    "What about Philip?"


    "Dranii is still recovering from the civil war, if he doesn''t agree to support her she''ll probably seek to take advantage of our present state of weakness by launching an attack from the west with the help of Kandalar and Volstaff."


    "Could Dranii withstand such an offensive?"


    "Not in our current state, no. The thing to remember about Dranii is that is hasn''t been necessary for us to have a large military for a long time."


    "So basically you''re a sitting duck then?"


    "That would be one way of putting it, yes."


    I spent some time alone in my study after Ambassador Voran had left, thinking about the situation in the realm as he had described it to me. War in the immediate future seemed a remote possibility to me; Volstaff and Kandalar were still in a state of political and economic insecurity, not in any shape for a large scale military mobilization. My guess was that Herana was thinking long term, of how much value Kandalar and Volstaff could be to her once they had become more stable, in which case there was no need for us to panic, we had time to consider our options and craft a sensible countermeasure.

 Chapter 62 - Fire turtles

    I put the issue of Queen Herana''s ambitions to the back of my mind and shifted my attention back to the steam locomotive. The full scale version of the model that Brumli had shown me in his house was now complete and was running nice and smoothly. Brumli only had one concern: fuel. Keeping the boiler hot so that the machine could keep running required a lot of coal, which we could mine for but that would mean taking resources away from the new iron ore mine in the east, which I wasn''t prepared to do. Brumli had a suggestion for how we might secure an unending supply of fuel, but it involved great risk.


    "In Gronden there are these creatures: fire turtles. They live in volcanoes, swimming in the lava, because of that nobody has ever been able to get their hands on one, however, these birds can withstand the high temperatures inside of volcanoes. If we got some of those turtles for ourselves, we''d have no problems with powering these machines."


    Brumli''s idea was a good one, and I decided that we would put it into action right away. I had Ferland summon the Gronden ambassador to go over what we had in mind with him so as to avoid any friction between our two kingdoms over us trespassing on their territory and doing as we pleased.


    The Gronden ambassador arrived at the palace with much that he wished to talk about. The issue of the fire turtles was dispensed with in short order with him giving us permission to enter their kingdom and capture some, and from there the discussion turned to the topic of Herana''s political maneuverings.


    "As you are aware, Queen Alegra, we are a small kingdom, and do not have the power to influence events in the realm ourselves," he said to me.


    "Yes, I am aware of that."


    "Whichever way the realm goes we are forced to go that same way, and often it leads to us not being able to prioritize our own needs."


    "I understand your frustration, but as I have already told King Philip and Queen Herana, I have no intention of becoming involved in these games."


    "If you will permit me, Queen Alegra, the opportunity that currently exists for someone to establish themselves as the dominant leader in the realm is going to be seized by someone and it is our belief that the best outcome would be for that to be you."


    "How can you be so sure that I would be better than Herana?"


    "In your reign as queen thus far you have demonstrated that you value qualities such as fairness and honesty, that is why we have no doubt that the realm would be better off with you at the center of power."


    "If Herana is serious about forming alliances with Kandalar and Volstaff then it''s going to be a long time before she can exert any kind of serious pressure on the other kingdoms because of how long it''s going to take for those two kingdoms to return to stability."


    "I''m not so sure it''s going to take as long as you think it''s going to take; the Overseers have chosen new rulers for those kingdoms and depending on the amount of support that they get from Theran those kingdoms could return to being troublesome actors very soon."


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    Ambassador Weyland may have been right about my timetable being wrong, but I wasn''t prepared to take time away from the steam locomotive to deal with politics. We set off the next morning for Gronden: me, Uraia, Brumli and Cyrus. Cyrus rode with Brumli. Cyrus''s job was going to be to remain on the ground with Brumli and apply the binding stones to the turtles after Brumli''s phoenix Nelly had cowed them while Uraia and I would be responsible for grabbing the turtles out of the volcano. We flew south-west to Gronded with each phoenix carrying three metal cages. The journey took us two days and took us to the very western coast of Gronden, where Ambassador Weyland told me was the best place to find fire turtles. We flew westwards across Gronden and were guided to our destination by the smoke bellowing out of the active volcanoes. We flew over each one we saw and descended to just above the lava looking for fire turtles. We didn''t find any in the first two volcanoes we checked and began to worry that our journey was going to prove fruitless. In the third volcano that we checked we again found nothing, only in the fifth volcano, the one closest to the shore, did we find what we''d come for. The volcano was teeming with them, and when we descended into the volcano we understood why. The lava was more active and the temperature was higher inside this volcano than in the other volcanoes, making the job of extracting them from the lava that much more dangerous. When we landed on a nearby beach to set down the cages and get them ready, Uraia and Brumli exhorted me to remain on the beach with Cyrus and allow them to handle the extraction of the turtles.


    "We''re proceeding with the original plan, Myra''s too excited about this for us to sit it out."


    Cyrus and Brumli got the cages ready and Uraia and I set off to catch the turtles. At first we tried to be as safe as possible by descending slowly into the volcano and gently grabbing the turtles, but as soon as we got close to them they submerged under the lava. The only option available to us then was to swoop down from high above and quickly grab them before they had the chance to submerge. Uraia and I flew up and waited for the turtles to resurface, and when they did I went in first. Myra went into a steep dive just like she did when we went fishing, only unlike when we went fishing she didn''t use her talons to grab the turtle; worried that the sharpness of her talons might injure or even kill the turtle I had her grab the turtle with her beak instead. Our first attempt at capturing a turtle using this method proved successful; Myra and I managed to reach the turtle before it had a chance to submerge, we were unaffected by the active lava and Myra was able to grab the turtle with her beak gently enough to avoid doing any damage to it. The turtle tried to escape from Myra''s grasp by expelling flames from its shell, but these flames were nothing for Myra, who didn''t so much as react to being on the receiving end of the turtle''s defense mechanism. Having watched me and Myra it was time for Uraia and Igor to try their hand at grabbing a turtle and they were able to do so without any great difficulty.


    "Let''s go," I said to Uraia when she and Igor emerged from the volcano with a turtle.


    We returned to the beach where Brumli and Cyrus were waiting for us. We dropped the turtles on the sand and just like when we''d caught them they began to emit flames from their shells as a warning to Brumli and Cyrus, but they were quickly made to submit to us by Nelly screeching at them. Cyrus applied the binding stones to their heads and had them enter their cages, and then it was time for me and Uraia to return to the volcano and grab some more turtles. Uraia and I made four more trips to the volcano and captured an additional seven turtles. The turtles weren''t terribly heavy and carrying them in their cages proved not to be a problem for Myra, Igor and Nelly.

 Chapter 63 - The Chief dies

    When we returned to Aseron I told Cyrus to remain in Galand for a while to help with the turtles and from there Uraia and I flew to the Northlands. Just before we had left for Gronded we had received some disturbing news about Chief Kendor''s health and we agreed that we would make our trip to Gronden as quick as possible and travel straight to see him when we were done. Chief Kendor had been poorly for a long time and it was understood that he was now at the end. Uraia and I made it to the village in time to see him before he passed. He had enough vitality left to speak and when we arrived I was immediately shown into the hut where he was resting. He was laying on the floor, breathing heavily and sweating; his departure was well and truly imminent. I got down on one knee next to him and leant in close to his face so that I could hear his softly spoken words.


    "Alegra?" He asked, so softly as to be almost inaudible.


    "Yes Kendor, I''m here."


    "Please keep taking care of Uraia, nobody has shown her more kindness than you have."


    "Uraia takes care of me more than I take care of her."


    "Be patient with Bandor, he''ll come around eventually."


    "I am being patient with him, but it''s because I''ve been patient with him that you haven''t seen any of the progress here that we''ve made across the rest of the kingdom."


    "There''s not much need for progress up here; when you made this land ours you did more than we could have hoped for, there is no need for you to agonize over not doing as much for us as you could be doing."


    "I don''t think I''ll ever feel like I''ve done enough for the Okwari given what you all did for me when I was growing up here in the Northlands."


    "You need to let go of this burden of obligation to us that you are carrying, we know that you care about us and that you''ll be there for us if ever we need your help, so stop worrying about whether you are doing enough for us and worry about doing what you need to do as queen."


    This brief conversation was all the talking that Chief Kendor had the energy for. He went back to resting and I walked out of his hut, reflecting on what were probably his last words to me, which he had spoken to me with the intention of freeing me. I spoke with Uraia and told her that it was okay for her to remain in the village but she decided to come back with me to the palace. I understood her decision later that night when we were in bed in my chambers and I could feel the fear that she was feeling over the imminent loss of her father. I was the only one capable of providing her with the comfort and support that she needed. It was my first time being truly needed by Uraia, and that night it felt like Uraia was as much mine as I was hers.


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    Upon returning to the palace from the Northlands I had informed Ferland that I would not be participating in any official duties for the foreseeable future until Chief Kendor had died. He hung on for a few more days and Uraia was able to visit him again and have a final talk with him. When Chief Kendor died I had all of the members of my court and the members of the Governing Council come up to the Northlands with me for his funeral as a show of respect. The Okwari from all of the other villages attended the funeral, where Chief Kendor''s body received all of the Okwari''s ancient funeral rituals before being carried into the woods and buried in an unmarked grave, as was done with all of the dead Okwari as a way of honoring their relationship with nature.


    Bandor and I spoke after the funeral about whether he was planning any changes now that Kendor was gone and if he was whether those changes would affect the kingdom''s relationship with the Okwari.


    "Nothing will change, however, our stock of buffalo has been depleted quite a bit because of how many my father sent to you to help your farmers, we''ve lost so many that I think it''s only right for us to be compensated in some way."


    I had been waiting for months to hear these words.


    "I''ve stored away the buffaloes value in gold for you; you can come to Glendale and collect it any time you want."


    "What would I do with gold?"


    "You spend it; and there''s a lot of gold, that you could spend on a lot of things."


    Bandor came to Glendale two weeks later. I had Uraia chaperone him to the bank to collect the gold that had been sitting there waiting to be collected while earning a tidy interest and from there they went around the city to look at things that Bandor might want to buy. Bandor stayed with us for three days and when he returned to the village he did so with four wagons loaded up with tools, cookware, blankets, mattresses, soap, oil and spices. After buying so much he still had a lot of gold left and deposited it back in the bank.


    "Think he''ll be back?" Uraia asked me when we were watching Bandor leaving.


    "He''ll be back, and next time he''ll be leaving with a lot more wagons, trust me."


    My prediction proved accurate. A month later Bandor sent word that he would like to return with some buffalo that he''d like to sell. Cyrus was in charge of the livestock trading in the capital. He had returned from Galand and I told him to put the buffalo that Bandor was sending down into auction. Because of the buffaloes strength they were in high demand among farmers as animal laborers. The buffalo that Cyrus put into auction sold fast, and all fetched a high price.


    Now that they had embraced livestock trading it was only a matter of time before Bandor and the rest of the Okwari decided to take advantage of more of the opportunities that were available to them in the kingdom.

 Chapter 64 - The steam locomotive

    As excited as I was about Bandor deciding to start trading with us it was nothing compared with the excitement I felt when word came from Galand that the steam locomotive was ready for its first test. I flew to Galand with Myra as soon as I received the message. In order to test the steam locomotive the dwarves had built a test track on the Rhume salt flats. The track went roughly halfway to the Bronden mountains that separated the kingdom from the Northlands, long enough for us to test the effectiveness of the locomotive.


    "It took longer for us to get it ready for a test because we had to rebuild the boiler, the first one exploded because the heat from the fire turtle was too great," Brumli explained to me as he was giving me a tour of the locomotive.


    "And it''s safe now?"


    "Yes, we managed to work out how much fire the turtle needs to emit for us to safely heat the boiler to the required temperature."


    "So everything''s ready then?"


    "Yes, everything''s ready."


    The steam locomotive that we were testing was a rudimentary model that they had built solely for the purpose of proving that the concept worked. It was basically just a wooden box with four wheels. the boiler inside powered the front wheels which were connected to the rear wheels by two longitudinal pieces of metal. Brumli assured me that if this one worked the next one they built would be much better equipped. Brumli and I were going to make this first test run ourselves with Myra following us from the sky. I stood back and left Brumli to take care of what needed to be done to get the vehicle moving. He tapped on the boiler with a stick to signal to the turtle to start emitting flames from its shell. The boiler started to heat up, and when it started whistling from a small opening at the top Brumli released the brake and removed the stopper from one of the two release pipes on top of the boiler and when he did we started moving forward. We started losing speed as we moved along, which Brumli addressed by tapping on the boiler again to tell the turtle to increase the temperature, which upped our speed.


    "You have to let the steam build up pressure before you start it, once it''s been released the pressure decreases and you need more temperature to keep the steam going strong," Brumli explained.


    I was so astounded that Brumli and the others had actually gotten this thing to work that I was unable to speak. Brumli kept explaining things to me as we moved along and I kept only nodding my head in response. My head was spinning too fast with the myriad of possibilities that this invention was going to create for us for me to pay close attention to everything that Brumli was doing. Only when we were reaching the end of the track and we needed to slow down did I start paying close attention again to what he was doing. He tapped on the boiler again, this time to tell the turtle to stop emitting flames, and when we had slowed down sufficiently he applied the brake, bringing us to a gradual halt.


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    "Now how do we get back?" I asked him.


    Brumli didn''t answer me, he merely gave me a cheeky smile and got to work. He placed the stopper back into the release pipe that he had removed it from earlier and tapped on the boiler for the turtle to start heating it up again. The boiler started whistling, and this time Brumli disengaged the brake and removed the stopper from the other release pipe, which caused us to start moving in the direction from which we came. Obviously, the pipe which released the steam dictated the direction in which the axle spun. The engineering behind it was so simple that I couldn''t believe I hadn''t figured it out sooner. We returned to the Galand to the cheers of the crowd that awaited us, all of whom had worked incredibly hard to make this moment a reality. This was their moment of victory more than it was mine, and no one was more deserving of the plaudits than Brumli.


    "Brumli, I don''t know what to say, what you have achieved with this is nothing short of astounding."


    "Don''t get too excited yet, this is just the beginning, now comes the hard part, making one that can actually pull a heavy load."


    "I have no doubt that you will be able to make it, which is why I am going to press ahead with plans to get the kingdom ready for when we start rolling them out."


    Aseron was comprised of seven states. My plan was to have lines running from Glendale to the capital city of each state. When I returned to the palace I began taking steps to make sure that we were going to have everything we needed to start deploying the steam locomotives. Ferland convened the Governing Council and I told them all about the steam locomotive and the new mine that we needed to break ground on in the east. I explained to them that we needed to build a large terminal in Glendale and terminals in the capital cities of all the states, that metalworkers and woodworkers across the kingdom needed to start devoting a significant amount of their time to manufacturing the rails and sleepers that we needed for laying the tracks, and that the landscape needed to be surveyed to ascertain the best routes for the tracks to be laid on. The Council members agreed to support my plans, and from there we got down to work.


    Surveying the land could be done much quicker from the sky than from the ground, so Uraia and I divided the surveying work between us. Brumli was too busy to join us in surveying the kingdom; he was flying to each state to instruct the blacksmiths on how to manufacture the rails that we needed, and he was overseeing the manufacturing of the first proper steam locomotive, and he was also overseeing the commencement of mining operations at the new iron mine in the east. I worried that Brumli was taking on too much and I talked to him about slowing down and taking on less responsibility, but he assured me that once the mine was up and running and the blacksmiths trained he would be able to remain in Galand and spend all his time on the locomotive.

 Chapter 65

    The amount of work that Brumli and the other dwarves were doing for me was causing me to feel increasingly guilty about my willingness to deny them the chance to return to Grunheim that I had expressed to Queen Herana when I had visited Theran. I made a vow to myself that I would do everything in power to get Grunheim back for them once the locomotives and the rail network were done, and with that goal in mind I asked Brumli if he would look into the possibility of using the steam powered mechanism that powered the locomotive for other purposes, in particular our ability to use it to drill down into the ground. Brumli answered that building a drilling mechanism that would be driven by steam from the boiler would be easy and that he could have one ready quickly. The drill was not for me, it was for Kandalar. With work on the steam locomotive and the rail lines underway I needed something else to turn my attention to. Philip was right, I couldn''t stay out of realm politics, doing what I felt I had to do for the dwarves necessitated that I once again wade into the geopolitics of the realm.


    I spoke with Boris and told him to use his diplomatic contacts to find out all he could about what Herana was offering to King Fazir, the new king of Kandalar, then I summoned Alfred to the palace to help me put together a counter proposal for me to present to King Fazir. Part of that proposal was going to be the supply of steam powered mechanical drills. The purpose of the drills was to allow for aggressive exploration for underground water sources. For centuries they had dug wells across Kandalar in the hopes of finding water; their efforts proved largely unsuccessful and the people of Kandalar continued to live largely as nomads, following the migration routes of their native herds.


    Approaching Kandalar with this proposal meant setting up a direct confrontation with Theran, which I was prepared to do if it was what I had to do to get back for the dwarves what was rightfully theirs. A confrontation with Herana was probably inevitable anyway, she had grand ambitions of making herself the supreme force in the realm and she had identified me as an impediment to her ambitions. I didn''t know what the nature of that conflict would be. I doubted that it would be a direct military confrontation; Theran didn''t have a large military and in the past whenever they had been forced to take military action they had done so as a last resort and had had to send their slaves to the battlefield. The Undrian slaves weren''t good soldiers. In the Great War Theran had sent one hundred thousand slaves to the battlefield to help Dranii and less than half of them returned having been thrown into battle against armies that were badly depleted from years of war. After what we had done to Volstaff''s army I couldn''t see her wanting to fight a war with us, and thanks to our increased agriculture yields she couldn''t hurt us by withholding grain exports to Aseron.


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    The more I thought about our two kingdoms'' standing the less I thought of Queen Herana as a potential threat that I needed to figure out how to deal with, freeing me to focus on other things. I continued working with Uraia to survey the kingdom and I made several trips north to talk with Bandor about what the kingdom''s relationship with the Okwari would be going forward. Having experienced the benefits that trading with the rest of the kingdom had to offer for the Okwari, Bandor was interested in other opportunities within the kingdom that the Okwari could take advantage of. Of particular interest to me were the many medicinal concoctions that the Okwari produced from the wild plants that grew in the Northlands. These medicines could treat pain, fever, wounds, burns, stomach ailments and skin irritations as well as several other ailments. I told Bandor that there would be high demand for those medicines so they should start cultivating those plants as soon as possible. Bandor was also interested in the water towers which I was happy to build for them on the condition that he allowed me to build a school for the Okwari children to attend. Bandor was still apprehensive about the school but those apprehensions were alleviated to a degree when, on one of his trips to the capital city, I introduced him to the woman who I wanted to teach at the school. Her name was Sarah and between me and Uraia we had managed to teach her the language and on one of Bandor''s visits to the capital city I introduced the two of them and they spoke in Okwari, which softened Bandor considerably on the idea of the school. He softened on some of the other ideas I had for bringing development to the north as well, like bringing the Okwari villages closer together to promote ease of access and to concentrate productivity. Selling buffalos in auction in the capital city had generated more than enough funds to cover the cost of the building materials needed for the relocation, but I told Bandor that he didn''t need to worry about that, that if they decided to go ahead with the relocation I would provide the materials that they needed.


    The Okwari seat on the Governing Council remained vacated; Uraia didn''t want to return to it and I didn''t want Uraia to return to it, and with Bandor being free to talk with me directly anytime he wanted there wasn''t much need for the Okwari to have a council representative. The rest of the Governing Council was essential. After surveying the best routes from Glendale to the state capitals it was the Governing Council with whom we coordinated when the time came to start laying the tracks that the steam locomotives would be traveling along. The blacksmiths and woodworkers kept churning out rails and sleepers which were laid by a conscription workforce comprised of citizens from across the kingdom. The idea of bringing in slaves from Undria was suggested to me to help with the expedited schedule that I had imposed on everyone, a suggestion that I was quick to dismiss. Even if building this rail network took longer than I wished, I would not resort to the use of slaves.

 Chapter 66

    Inevitably, the work that we were doing to construct the rail network attracted attention, mostly unwanted attention. Ambassadors called at the palace curious to know what it was that we were building, none more so than the Erst ambassador, who made several calls to the palace to ask about what the purpose of the rail lines was. I realized that he wasn''t going to leave me alone until I had told him what we were busy with, so I asked Ambassador Rutherford if he would join me on a trip to Galand. I had expected from the beginning that Erst would be the kingdom that was the most troubled by the railroad as it represented a direct threat to their shipbuilding and naval logistics industries. I had no interest in challenging those industries, my only objective for the railroad was for it to improve mobility within Aseron. I thought that if I volunteered the information about the steam locomotive it would increase Erst''s willingness to trust that I had no designs on direct competition with them. Ambassador Rutherford took me up on my offer and we rode up to Galand together. Once there, Brumli took the ambassador for a brief ride in the prototype locomotive on the test track to demonstrate the technology to him.


    The ambassador had the same astonished reaction to traveling in the steam locomotive that I had had. We only spoke about it two days later when he returned to the palace. I assured him that I had no plans to expand the rail network throughout the realm and to further reassure him that I had no such plans I showed him a set of plans that I''d had Brumli draw up for a steamboat.


    "This is possible?" Ambassador Rutherford asked me after he had looked over the plans.


    "It''s very possible, and if you had these steam engines you could build bigger ships that carried more cargo and had faster turnaround times."


    "And you would be willing to share this technology with us?"


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    "I would, if certain conditions are met."


    The ambassador left with the promise that he would communicate my conditions to his king and get back to me with his response.


    My next diplomatic assignment was to invite the new Kandalarian ambassador to Galand to demonstrate to him the power of the steam engine and how its use could be of benefit to them. The three of us traveled on the prototype steam locomotive out onto the Rhume salt flats, where Brumli had prepared the steam powered drill in anticipation of our arrival.


    "This technology is very impressive," Ambassador Asif said to me when we disembarked from the locomotive, "but you should know that Queen Herana has made us a very tempting offer, one which I doubt you can match."


    "That''s true, Helena can offer you money and vast quantities of grain, but there is one thing that I can give you that you desperately need that she can''t give you."


    "And what is that?"


    "Water."


    Brumli got the boiler going with the fire turtle and we waited for the drill to start spinning. Brumli had picked out a spot on the salt flats where he was sure we would find water because the ground there was softer than most of the ground on the ground on the flats; Brumli believed this was an indication of the presence of water underground. When the steam was ready Brumli removed the stopper and the drill got moving, steadily making its way deeper and deeper underground.


    "As long as you keep loading in new poles the drill will keep digging deeper," I explained to the ambassador, who was watching the drill with imperturbable fixation.


    When Brumli loaded the sixth and penultimate pole into the machine I began to worry that we weren''t going to hit water, but after he loaded the seventh pole and it was driven halfway down we began to see seepage.


    "There it is," Brumli declared.


    He had the fire turtle stop emitting flames and that was that, the demonstration was over. The drill spike and the poles had to remain in the ground, which was of no concern. The demonstration had been a success, water continued to seep from the ground and Ambassador Asif was impressed with what he had seen, impressed enough to request an audience at the palace to discuss the potential for the use of these drills in Kandalar.

 Chapter 67

    My extensive engagement with the ambassadors from Erst and Kandalar roused the suspicions of the Theran ambassador, who sent word to Queen Herana that I was reaching out to the other kingdoms for what could only be the formation of an alliance. The confrontation with Herana was now at hand, however, despite strengthening my hand by securing the support of Erst and Kandalar, my intention was not to use it to bully Herana into submission. I informed Ambassador Gail of my desire for an audience with Queen Herana and she agreed to communicate my wish for an audience to Avondrea.


    The moment that I had been waiting for was once again at hand. I had tried once before to bring unity to the realm, only to have those efforts dashed by Herana''s preference for a civil war in Dranii. There would be no such opportunity for sabotage this time, and I intended to take full advantage of my position of strength to bring about unity in the realm. My plan was to approach her with the same proposal that I had presented to her the last time, which was to craft a framework of rules that all of the kingdoms would have to abide by when they traded, loaned funds to other kingdoms, and sought to resolve conflicts. As I explained to Queen Herana when I flew to Theran for my audience with her, the chances of conflict arising between kingdoms will be significantly reduced if the opportunities for certain kingdoms to exploit their advantages over certain other kingdoms were eliminated, and the best way to achieve that was to take away the ability of kingdoms to restrict the sale of their goods to would-be buyers by forcing them to sell it into a common market first, where prices would be determined by the overall supply and demand within the realm. On the issue of debt and the need to bring an end to the predatory lending practices that Dranii had used to accumulate power throughout the realm, I proposed the creation of a central bank that would facilitate the loaning of funds to debtor nations at fixed interest rates and under specific, agreed upon conditions. These institutional creations would largely eliminate economic exploitation and drastically reduce the likelihood of disputes between kingdoms escalating into conflict. Of course there was the possibility of conflict arising in the absence of any provocation, as was the case when Kandalar attacked Grunheim. Conflicts such as these generally arose when a smaller kingdom possessed something that a larger kingdom wanted that they thought they could take by force rather than paying for it. Gronden and Menten were the most concerned about this happening to them; to alleviate their fears and gain their support I offered them a security pact that would oblige Aseron to come to their aid should they be the victims of an unprovoked attack.


    "You told me that you had no interest in being involved in realm politics, and yet here you are telling me all about how you''ve managed to gain the support of nearly all of the other kingdoms for a set of reforms that would change the way that everything is done in the realm," Queen Herana said to me.


    "I''m only doing this because your overtures to Kandalar and Volstaff were causing unease among the other kingdoms, enough unease to cause some of the other rulers to start worrying about the possibility of a future war, exactly the thing I was looking to prevent when I came here last and asked you to join me in bringing order to the realm."


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    "King Gregorio was never going to accept our plan to bail out Kandalar and Volstaff; that civil war had to happen, he had to be gotten rid of, him and his son."


    "You may believe that, but you need to understand that what you did has led the other rulers to believe that you are a ruler who cannot be trusted, hence their unease about your overtures to two kingdoms that have acted as rogues in the past."


    "But they trust you?"


    "They trust me because I''ve earned their trust."


    "You have only been on the throne for three years, you are yet to be truly tested, it is ridiculous that they would put their faith in an untested leader."


    "And yet they have, which leaves me needing to convince only you to sign on to my proposal."


    "And if I refuse?"


    "Then we move forward without you."


    "You can''t do this without me, my kingdom is the largest producer of food in the realm; how can you conclude a trade treaty that doesn''t include the kingdom that supplies most of the realm''s food?"


    "As I have proven through the use of crop rotation and our water towers, agricultural productivity in the other kingdoms can be increased to the point where your grain imports are not needed."


    "Now you are threatening the very existence of my kingdom, such a threat is more than enough for me to declare war on your kingdom."


    "Declare war with what army? Your slaves? Everybody knows they''re useless in battle; your threat of war is a hollow one."


    "You are prepared to fight a war with me in order to see your ambition for a unified realm come to fruition?"


    "I am, but there won''t be any need for war if you agree to sign on to these reforms."


    Herana took a moment to consider my ultimatum.


    "Who is going to oversee these institutions to ensure that there is no favoritism, abuse or corruption?" She asked me.


    "We create a body consisting of representatives from all nine kingdoms that will be responsible for oversight of all trade, banking and security matters; I think The Supreme Council would be a good name for it."


    "And would this Supreme Council be situated in Aseron?"


    "I don''t care where we put it, we could put it here in Theran if you''d like."


    Herana took another moment to consider things.


    "I''m inclined to sign on to your proposal, however I will need assurances that Theran''s interests will be protected."


    "Your monopoly on grain exports will remain, however I would advise you to start thinking about diversifying your economy."


    Herana was not very interested in my advice; we had concluded our business and she didn''t see any need for us to talk further, though she did see the need to leave me with some parting words.


    "Alegra," she said to me as I was leaving.


    "Yes?"


    "Well done."

 Chapter 68

    All that was left now was for all of the rulers to become official signatories to the agreement for the realm to enter a new era of cooperation and fairness. I flew home to Aseron feeling proud of what I had accomplished and a little incredulous that I had managed to accomplish it. Were it not for Brumli and the dwarves none of this would have been possible; their steam engine and its wide range of uses was what made it possible for me to convince Kandalar and Erst to support me, which, in the case of Kandalar, included their acquiescence to my stipulation that Grunheim be returned to the dwarves. Soon I would be able to make good on my promise to repay the dwarves for all that they had done for me by getting their homeland back for them, which was the most gratifying outcome in all of this. Myra was flying nearly at full speed so that I could get back to Aseron and give Brumli the news as soon as possible, but my journey home was delayed by an unexpected occurrence.


    While flying over Theran on my way back to Aseron, a dragon swooped down in front us, not just a dragon, a dragon with a rider on its back. Dragons had not been seen in the realm for over a thousand years. It was believed that they had been driven to extinction by the relentless theft of their babies by beastmasters who trained them and sold them off for huge sums of gold. Despite it being discovered that captive dragons would not breed the dragon trade continued until the captive dragons died out and wild dragons were no longer to be found. The dragon rider swooping down in front of us was a challenge, which Myra was eager to accept. The dragon was at least twice Myra''s size; we followed the dragon as best we could but its powerful wings allowed it to comfortably stay ahead of us. We kept flying north, all the way over Glendale, the Northlands and eventually the frozen expanse. I stopped when we reached the ocean at the end of the frozen expanse, but the dragon kept going, flying out over the ocean until it was out of sight. The dragon rider had sought me out and sent me a message: there were lands beyond the realm, lands that held answers to many mysteries. I told only Uraia about my encounter with the dragon and about the choice I had to make about whether to follow them to wherever it was they had gone.


    "Do you want to go?" Uraia asked me when we were outside with Myra and Igor.


    "I can''t deny being curious about what might be out there, but there is still so much to do here, I can''t just up and leave on a journey that would take me away from Aseron for what could be a long time."


    "Most of what you wanted to accomplish most is near completion, all that''s left is for everybody involved to make it all official, and besides, you don''t have to go now."


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    "I couldn''t go alone, there''s no telling what might be out there."


    "I''ll go with you."


    "I''ll need to take a lot more than just you with me, which means I''m going to need a ship."


    * * *


    Six weeks later all nine rulers gathered in Avondrea, the location of the headquarters of the new Supreme Council, to sign their names to the document that would bind their kingdoms to the new rules that would govern the way that kingdoms conducted their affairs with each other. Herana, as host, served as the master of ceremonies, which was fine, my only concern was my vision for unity and peace among the kingdoms becoming a reality, which it was. I was able to give Brumli the good news when I returned to Aseron that he and the rest of the dwarves could return to Grunheim, though I did ask him if it would be possible for some to remain behind to continue working on the steam locomotives.


    "I''ll stay," Brumli answered immediately.


    "It doesn''t have to be you Brumli, anyone with a working knowledge of the steam engines will be fine."


    "I want to stay, I''m excited about what we could do with these engines and I want to keep working on them."


    Approximately half of the dwarves chose to stay. Work on the steam locomotives was completed by the dwarves that remained and additional blacksmiths that traveled to Galand to help, allowing for work to begin on the engines required for the ship that was being built for me in Erst. To accomodate the size and weight of the boilers the ship that they were building was much larger than anything they had built before, and to help overcome the engineering challenges Brumli flew out routinely to the port in Erst where they were building the ship.


    Over the following months, as the steam locomotives went into service and work continued on the large steam ship, the new laws as set out in the charter that all of the kingdoms had signed on to came into effect and, aside from a few contentious incidents that were able to be resolved in the Supreme Council, mostly concerning trade, the new system was working well.


    The ship that the Erst shipbuilders built for me wasn''t just big, it was enormous. It was the height of a three storey building with two huge paddlewheels on either side which, Brumli explained to me, were each powered by two large boilers.  The ship was big enough to accommodate Myra, Igor and Nelly and a crew of thirty. Brumli, because of his deep knowledge of the ship''s engineering, would be managing things in the engine room.


    The success of my reforms and the peace and stability that they had produced in the realm had caused me to become restless, and when the day arrived for us to depart my whole body was tingling as I boarded the ship with Brumli and Uraia, excited at the prospect of discovering a new world made up of creatures and civilizations that we would be the first to see.

 Chapter 69 - At sea

    After a month at sea with no sign of civilization, the viability of our expedition was called into question and serious thought was given to abandoning it. We didn''t want for food because the ocean provided us with what we needed, and water wasn''t a concern because the condensation from the steam engines was free of salt and drinkable. The problem was low spirits among the crew. Having discovered nothing but more ocean our expedition was starting to feel like a fool''s errand. I never lost faith that our journey would result in us finding whatever it was that the dragon rider wanted me to seek out, and my determination to keep going remained undiminished.


    "Are you sure you saw this dragon?" Uraia came over to me and asked one morning while we were waiting for the fog to clear. The fog was so thick you could barely see your hand in front of your face, making it impossible for us to sail, "Maybe it was a hallucination you experienced as a result of the thin air at high altitude."


    "They''re out there, waiting for us, I can feel it. I''ll take the first flight, you and Brumli can decide between the two of you who goes next."


    Every morning when the fog cleared and we were able to resume sailing one of us would fly out on our phoenix in search of land. We had found a few small islands but none of them showed any signs of life. I took flight with Myra that morning wondering if I had lost Uraia as well, if I was now alone in continuing to believe in this expedition, and if the crew''s morale was so low that I had lost Uraia then perhaps it was wrong of me to insist on us continuing. Part of me was also worried about what was going on in Aseron. My faith in Ferland was absolute but having become comfortable in the role of queen the time that I was spending away from the throne was causing me to experience separation anxiety. Driving me forward was not only my curiosity about the existence of an unknown world. Our journey thus far had revealed the extraordinary amount of risk that the dragon rider had taken in coming south. Given the lack of land mass this wasn''t a journey that you would make by flying on the back of a beast that needed to be fed and that needed rest. To make the journey that they had made the dragon rider must have been desperate to have decided to risk her dragon going down in the ocean from exhaustion. I owed it to them to find them and find out from them why they chose to make such a dangerous journey.


    "Find anything?" Uraia asked me when I returned to the ship.


    "Just breakfast," I responded.


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    On our way back to the ship Myra and I had managed to catch a giant eel which would be our food for the rest of the day.


    "Cut some pieces for the turtles," I said to Edmond, one of the crewmates.


    "Yes my queen."


    "I''ll go out next," Brumli said.


    "Thank you Brumli."


    Brumli took off with Ajax on his patrol, leaving me and Uraia alone to talk.


    "I''m starting to wish for something else to eat besides seafood," Uraia said.


    "So am I, but it''s not like we have a choice in the matter."


    "I know you''re thinking the same thing we''re thinking, so how much longer?"


    "I think I''ll give it another week, if we still haven''t found anything we''ll go home."


    "We can keep going a little longer than that if you want; everybody just wants to be reassured that we''re not going to be out here forever."


    "Are you all forgetting that I have more reason to want to go back than any of you? I have a throne waiting for me in Aseron."


    "That''s what everyone is so confused about; why are you prepared to travel so far away from your kingdom and spend so much time away from your throne?"


    "I can''t stop thinking about what that dragon rider must have gone through to make it all the way to our realm; making this journey with a beast would be incredibly dangerous; they probably made the journey not knowing if they would find anything, prepared to go down in the ocean if they were unsuccessful in their search. Can you imagine how desperate someone would have to be to take such a risk?"


    "I understand," Uraia said after taking a moment to consider my words, "We''ll keep going for as long as you want to keep going."


    I couldn''t admit this to anyone, but there was another reason for me not being as anxious as the others about how long our journey was taking, a purely selfish reason. Without the demands of the throne I was able to spend more time with Uraia and I got to enjoy the time that I spent with her more, and because of that I didn''t care as much as I should have about being away from my throne and not doing the important work that needed to be done.


    Ordinarily the flights that we went on in search of land lasted about three hours, on this morning though Brumli returned to the ship having been gone for less than an hour.


    "You''re back early," I said to him when he landed.


    "I found something," he answered excitedly.


    "Uraia, stay with the ship," I said, equally as excitedly.


    I got on Myra and Brumli and I were off before Uraia could say anything. One of us had to stay behind on the ship because the connection that existed between the phoenixes through the binding stones was how we were able to get back to the ship.

 Chapter 70 - The dragon rider

    "What did you find?" I asked Brumli when we were in the air.


    "I found a large island with some ruins on it."


    "Well done Brumli."


    The island that Brumli had found was due east. We flew there at top speed and made it to the island in just a few minutes. The island was considerably larger than any of the other islands we had discovered thus far. It was mostly a large rock formation with a small beach on one side of it. The ruins were built atop the rocks and had been largely consumed by vegetation, but it was undoubted proof of civilization.


    "Let''s come back with the ship, I want to take my time looking at these ruins," I said to Brumli.


    We flew around the island twice, looking down at the ruins, then made our way back to the ship where Uraia and the rest of the crew were waiting for us on the deck.


    "What was it?" Uraia ran up to me and asked as soon as I landed on the deck with Myra.


    "An island with ruins, we''re going there now," I answered her, then turning to William, who was in charge of navigation, I said, "Turn the ship, we''re going east!"


    "Yes my queen."


    I was so excited by the discovery we had made that I couldn''t stand still. I paced up and down on the deck while waiting for us to arrive at the island. Uraia was also excited but she dealt with her excitement by standing at the bow of the ship and waiting for the island to come into view.


    "Alegra, there it is!" Uraia called out to me.


    "Pull up close to the island and drop anchor, and get the boats ready for disembarking," I said to William.


    "Yes my queen."


    "Uraia, Brumli, let''s go," I said to them, heading for Myra.


    Uraia, Brumli and I took off for the island and left the ship to the crew. We landed on the beach, dismounted from the birds and told them to wait there for us. Leading from the beach up to the ruins were stairs that were carved out of the rock. I walked up the steps first, followed by Uraia and then Brumli. The ruins consisted of a raised plateau that one accessed by going up five steps at the front of the structure. There were four large pillars in the corners of the plateau that were engraved with runes, and at the center of the plateau was a large pile of rubble, most likely there had been a roof atop the structure that had collapsed.


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    "Brumli, what do you think?" I asked after we had taken our time examining the ruins.


    "This is all limestone, this structure was built with materials that were brought here to the island."


    "Meaning that the society that built this is advanced enough to have naval vessels capable of transporting large, heavy materials?"


    "Yes, that''s a safe assumption to make."


    "What about the runes, have you seen their kind before?"


    "They bear a vague resemblance to something that I''ve seen before, but I couldn''t tell you what they mean, or who is responsible for them."


    "Well, at least we know we''re in the right place, whatever it is we''re looking for is bound to be close. We''ll keep the ship anchored here and use the birds to continue searching, my guess is we''re going to make contact in the next couple of days."


    Upon returning to the ship my thoughts turned to the sheer magnitude of what we were on the cusp of. When I first announced this expedition I was met with more than a few dubious looks. The idea of life beyond the shores of our realm was unthinkable to them and the general consensus was that I was embarking on a wild goose chase. I was looking forward to returning to them with the news of our discovery, I was also concerned about the possibility that we may not be equipped to deal with what we encounter should what we encounter turn out to be large in number, malicious and unreceptive to overtures of peace. There was every possibility that we would make such a discovery and given that it was perhaps unwise to continue but we had come too far to turn back without seeing this through to the end.


    "Do you want us to continue our aerial surveillance?" Brumli asked me.


    "No, I think we need to think very carefully about how we proceed. From now on we''ll go out in pairs, I don''t want one of us getting into a dangerous situation alone out there. We''ll continue searching tomorrow, we''ve had enough excitement for today from finding those ruins."


    I wanted to use the rest of the day to collect my thoughts and think about how we would proceed when we made first contact, but by mid afternoon those plans were shot to pieces. I was standing at the stern of the ship looking out at the ocean, lost in my thoughts, when I saw a figure in the sky approaching us from my left. The flier descended closer to the water and flew past the stern of the ship, flying low enough to the water to spray water onto the ship. It was the dragon rider. They landed on the island with the ruins and right away I went for Myra.


    "I''ll come with you," Uraia said, following me.


    "No, I''m going alone."

 Chapter 71 - Saraya the dark elf

    I flew with Myra to the island and we touched down on the beach where the dragon rider had touched down and was waiting for us. The dragon was huge, at least double the size of Myra, and it was incredibly menacing looking with its black and red scales, razor sharp teeth and the two long horns on the top of its head. I dismounted from Myra first and was followed by the dragon rider. They were wearing a brown cape that covered their body and a hood that covered their face. They took a few steps toward me and removed their hood. The dragon rider was a female, with dark hair, yellow eyes, purple skin, and long, pointy ears.


    "You came," she said to me.


    "You didn''t leave me with much of a choice, my curiosity about you was overpowering, as was my interest in seeing a real life dragon in the flesh."


    "Do you not have dragons where you come from?"


    "No, they went extinct years ago from being captured by poachers and raised in captivity."


    "How did they become extinct?"


    "Dragons won''t breed if they''ve been raised in captivity."


    "I wasn''t aware of that."


    "How did you get yours? I don''t see a binding stone on its head."


    "I found him as a hatchling; I think he''d flown out of the nest and wasn''t able to stay in the air. Usually when that happens they get pounced on by a predator, luckily I came upon him before that happened."


    "Does he have a name?"


    "I call him Draga; what about your phoenix, does it have a name?"


    "Her name is Myra."


    "I saw two other phoenixes on your ship, how is it that you have so many?"


    "Those are Myra''s children."


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    "You must be something special for her to trust you with her children like that."


    "Is that why you sought me out? Because you think I''m special?"


    "I heard stories about you while I was in your realm, about how you were the first person for generations to tame a phoenix, about how you seized the throne of your kingdom and have gone on to earn the love and admiration of your subjects; I thought that if I could get you to agree to help me it would give me the best chance to save my people."


    "So you do need help."


    "Yes. My name is Saraya, I am from a race known as the dark elves. We inhabit several islands in an archipelago that''s not too far from here. The main island of the archipelago is inhabited by the race that is intent on subjecting us to as much misery as possible: the white elves. We used to live on the main island with them, but eighty years ago they decided they didn''t want to share the island with us and we were rounded up and separated and taken to live on the smaller nearby islands. Ever since then they''ve been terrorizing us; they make random visits to random islands and kill us for sport. We''ve done our best to build up our defenses but its nowhere near enough; whenever they come we have no choice but to run and hide while those that are tasked with defending our villages get slaughtered trying to slow down the white elves so that we can escape. Since finding Draga I''ve been able to do a better job of protecting everybody but I''m all alone and there''s only so much that I can do by myself!"


    Saraya got down on one knee and punched the ground in frustration. She had been fighting a war all on her own for years with her only hope of salvation being her ability to find allies that would help her.


    "These white elves, how strong are they?"


    "They outnumber us, by at least five to one, and their weapons are far superior to ours. The truth is that if they wanted they could have wiped us all out by now, they''re just keeping us alive so they can use us for sport, that''s how little they think of us, killing us is nothing but entertainment for them."


    "The island that the white elves live on, where is it?"


    "You''re planning on going there?"


    "Yes; I have to, after everything that you''ve told me."


    "It may not be safe."


    "I''m a queen, they''ll have to afford me some courtesy."


    "If you keep heading in that direction you''ll reach it," Saraya said, pointing north east.


    "How long will it take us to arrive there?"


    "You should get there in a couple of days, and be sure not to make any mention of me or any of what I''ve told you when you meet them."


    "I won''t, but while I''m here I''m going to need to visit your islands so that I can see for myself what you''re going through."


    "Just be careful to make sure your movements aren''t tracked."


    "I will."


    "I have to go, I need to resume my patrols. Thank you for coming, and be safe."


    Saraya got back on her dragon and took off, back to her one woman war.

 Chapter 72 - The elves

    Returning to the ship, Uraia and the rest of the crew were still awe struck from the sight of the dragon.


    "I told you I didn''t imagine it," I said to them when I dismounted from Myra and walked over to them.


    "What did they say?" Uraia asked me.


    "Her name is Saraya, she''s a dark elf, she told me that she and her people are being terrorized and they need help, that''s why she came to our realm."


    "Are you going to help her?¡±


    ¡°First I need to know what we¡¯re dealing with; Saraya told me that the island inhabited by the white elves is north-east of here, that¡¯s where we¡¯re going next.¡±


    We set sail for the white elves island without any objection from the crew. We had a definite destination now, and the promise of making contact with a new civilization was too exciting for them to concern themselves with the possibility that we were heading for danger. The crew went back to their stations and I returned to the stern of the ship, where I was soon joined by Uraia.


    ¡°If you agree to help her it would mean going to war again,¡± Uraia said to me.


    ¡°I understand that.¡±


    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be a ground war; it would be a naval war, something we have no experience with.¡±


    ¡°I understand that too.¡±


    ¡°And Erst ships aren¡¯t built for the quick maneuverability that naval warfare requires.¡±


    ¡°Uraia, what do you think I¡¯ve been thinking about all this time?¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± Uraia responded, believing that I had been exacerbated by her questions.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to apologize; your thinking is on the right track, the truth is I¡¯ve been thinking about all of this for weeks, about how we would overcome the disadvantages that we would have in a naval confrontation.¡±


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    ¡°And?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t been unable to come up with anything; because naval warfare is not something that we have a history of in our realm there was nothing about it in any of the books of my father¡¯s that I¡¯ve read. If we do end up going to war with the white elves it¡¯s going to be a completely novel experience for us.¡±


    ¡°I know that you would never go into battle without some kind of a plan, you must have something in mind.¡±


    ¡°I really don¡¯t; I¡¯m going to talk to Brumli about it, ask him if he has any ideas.¡±


    We sailed at full speed in the hopes that we would reach the white elves¡¯ island before sundown but this wasn¡¯t possible. We dropped anchor for the night and resumed our journey in the morning believing that it would be the day that we reached the white elves¡¯ island.


    It was around midday when the white elves¡¯ island came into view. The sight of manmade structures on the land was confirmation that we had reached our destination. We kept sailing along the shore in search of a port, attracting attention from people on the land who, upon seeing the ship, must have apprehended that it was a foreign vessel.


    ¡°Word of our arrival will soon reach those in power, we should expect a welcoming party soon,¡± I said to Brumli, who was standing next to me admiring the architecture of the elves.


    ¡°I¡¯ll make sure the crew does nothing to come across as belligerent.¡±


    As expected, we were soon approached by two sailing vessels that came up on our stern. The vessels flanked us on both sides and one of the crewmen on the boat to our right called out to us.


    ¡°Who is the captain of this vessel?¡± He shouted out.


    ¡°I am,¡± I walked over to the port side and responded to him.


    ¡°State your name and your reason for travelling to these lands.¡±


    ¡°My name is Alegra Luthera, queen of the kingdom of Aseron, we are traveling north on an expeditionary journey.¡±


    ¡°You are from the southern lands?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Our realm is south of here, yes,¡± I answered.


    The crewman on the ship, who looked just like us except for his pointy ears, took a few moments to ponder the situation.


    ¡°Follow us.¡±


    We continued sailing in a convoy, with one of the elf ships in front of us and the other one behind us. The crewman¡¯s mention of the southern lands piqued my interest; he seemed to be implying that they knew about the existence of our realm and I was curious to know why there had never been any contact between our civilizations.


    It took us an hour to reach our destination, a port where the elves¡¯ fleet was docked. Their fleet consisted of sailboats and triremes, built similarly to the boats built in Erst with just aesthetic differences. None of their ships were close to the size of ours, indicating that their technological advancement was not at the level of ours. We brought our ship alongside one of the piers and docked but we did not disembark from the ship, choosing instead to wait onboard the ship for an invitation to disembark. We waited on the ship for about an hour while the sailors that escorted us into the port went to inform the appropriate authorities of our arrival.

 Chapter 73 - Arrival

    A delegation from the city came out to the port to meet with us and learn more from us about our reasons for traveling o their lands. The delegation consisted of four individuals, all men, dressed in black, white and gold robes that looked similar to what you would see a high priest wearing. The four men came aboard the ship to speak with us and apparently had not been informed by the sailors that there were three phoenixes aboard the ship. The delegates were taken aback by the sight of Myra, Igor and Ajax, and approached me with none of the confidence and authority with which they had approached and boarded the ship.


    ¡°We have been informed that you have traveled here from the southern lands, is that correct?¡± One of the members of the delegation stepped forward and asked.


    ¡°That is correct,¡± I stepped forward and answered.


    ¡°We have also been informed that one of you is royalty.¡±


    ¡°That would be me; I am Alegra Luthera, queen of the kingdom of Aseron.¡±


    ¡°Why is a queen taking part in an expeditionary mission?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here purely out of curiosity.¡±


    ¡°Some would see your decision to vacate your throne to participate in an expeditionary mission as a dereliction of your royal duty.¡±


    ¡°The members of my court don¡¯t, and neither do my citizens.¡±


    My answer gave the delegate pause.


    ¡°Your beasts, are they fully under your control?¡±


    ¡°You have nothing to fear from them, I assure you.¡±


    ¡°Very well then; my name is Erevan Althidon, Queen Alleria¡¯s chief attendant; the queen has been informed of your arrival and wishes for an audience.¡±


    ¡°Is this the capital city?¡±


    ¡°It is, the royal palace is located there, at the top of that mountain,¡± Erevan said, pointing behind me at a mountain that was so high the summit of it was shrouded in clouds.


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    ¡°Will we be flying to the palace?¡±


    ¡°Queen Alleria is waiting for you at the Chamber of Elders, it¡¯s where she carries out her duties as queen. We brought some carriages with us; we¡¯ll be travelling there in those.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s very courteous of you.¡±


    ¡°Decide who you wish to be in your party and come and meet us at the carriages, we¡¯ll depart as soon as you are ready.¡±


    The delegates bowed and disembarked from the ship, giving us time to talk before proceeding.


    ¡°Uraia, you and Brumli will accompany me, the rest of you are to stay here with the ship; I don¡¯t want anybody boarding the ship.¡±


    Before leaving the ship, I went over to Myra and pressed my forehead against hers.


    ¡°I¡¯ll call for you if I need you,¡± I communicated to her.


    Uraia, Brumli and I disembarked from the ship and walked down the pier to where two large carriages flanked by cavalrymen, in front of which stood Erevan, who was waiting for us at the end of the pier to receive our answer.


    ¡°It¡¯ll just be the three of us, the rest of the crew will remain with the ship,¡± I said to him.


    ¡°Very well, we¡¯ll depart immediately.¡±


    The four of us climbed into a carriage which was more than large enough to accommodate us and we set off. We entered the city on one of the main roads leading out of the port and attracted a great deal of attention from the citizens who were aware that travelers from a foreign land had come to their shores.


    ¡°I was surprised to see a dwarf as part of your party, I wasn¡¯t aware that there were dwarves in the southern lands,¡± Erevan said to me.


    ¡°They have their own kingdom, it¡¯s called Grunheim. How is it that you know about the dwarves?¡±


    ¡°The dwarves, like us, are an ancient race; we have a long history of engagement with them.¡±


    ¡°Is there a dwarven kingdom near here?¡±


    ¡°There is, across the sea to the east; perhaps that will be your next destination on your expedition.¡±


    ¡°Is it close enough for us to fly there?¡±


    ¡°We have no trouble flying there on our rocs; if your phoenix has the same stamina you should have no problem.¡±


    ¡°Their stamina is just fine, so I expect we will be making that trip.¡±


    Brumli, I could tell, had been unsettled by the knowledge he had acquired of the existence of dwarves in this faraway land. Although it was well outside of our stated mission for this expedition we had to go and see them, I owed it to Brumli.


    The journey to the Chamber of Elders wasn¡¯t a long one; we spoke no more with Erevan over the course of our journey there, which we spent looking out of our carriage at the extraordinary craftsmanship of the elves¡¯ construction. Their structures looked more like sculptures, the beauty of them was unlike anything we had seen before and it gave rise to questions about whether their society was more advanced than ours. The fact that all of their ships that we saw at the harbor were sail ships led me to believe at first that there was no possibility of their society being more advanced than ours with us having mastered mechanical power but perhaps the elves had access to knowledge that was alien to us.

 Chapter 74 - Queen Alleria

    The Chamber of Elders was located deep in the city, at the foot of the high mountain that stretched into the sky that we had seen from the ship. Upon looking at it you would never guess that it was a building where official government business was conducted. Ornate columns chiseled from stone greeted you at the entrance, leading you to large wooden double doors covered in intricate carvings. The building was draped in flowering vines that snaked around the columns and the elaborate ironwork railings and window treatments. We were led inside into a hallway lined on both sides by large stone statues of warriors which, if I had to guess, was a hall of remembrance of some kind. The hallway led us to a large oval shaped amphitheatre that had a raised platform at the centre and banked seating to my left and right. Standing on the central platform alone in the auditorium was a woman whom I presumed to be Queen Alleria. I was led up to the platform by the guards and Erevan, who performed the task of announcing my arrival.


    ¡°My queen,¡± he said, getting down on one knee, ¡°I have brought with me Queen Alegra, queen of Aseron, a kingdom in the southern lands.¡±


    Alleria was facing away from me; all I could see of her was her long flaxen hair and tall, svelte body.


    ¡°Did you say the southern lands?¡± She asked with a melodious voice.


    ¡°Yes my queen, that is correct.¡±


    ¡°I have always been curious about the southern lands; perhaps you would be so kind as to indulge my curiosity.¡±


    ¡°How do you know about us when we have no knowledge of you?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°There are numerous legends about the people of the southern lands that have been a part of our culture for many generations; up until now we¡¯ve had no way of knowing whether they were just legends or if there was truth to the stories.¡±


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    ¡°Well, as you can see, they weren¡¯t just legends.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been informed that you traveled here on a strange looking ship, and that you have three phoenixes and a dwarf with you; is that correct?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that is correct.¡±


    ¡°The legends of the southern lands tell of people that are wild and savage, obviously they did you a disservice.¡±


    ¡°Obviously.¡±


    ¡°Well, now that you¡¯re here we¡¯ll have plenty of time to learn everything there is to know about our respective worlds so that such misconceptions aren¡¯t allowed to develop in the future.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to that as well.¡±


    ¡°And who is this,¡± Alleria asked, turning her attention to Uraia.


    ¡°This is Uraia, the captain of my Royal Guard.¡±


    ¡°She is a different race, yes?¡±


    ¡°She is Okwari.¡±


    ¡°Such diversity¡­how wonderful,¡± Alleria said with what I detected as a more than subtle note of disapproval.


    ¡°The Okwari are an ancient warrior race, their physical capabilities are second to none.¡±


    ¡°We elves are also an ancient warrior race, perhaps before you leave we¡¯ll have a chance to see which race is superior.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d be interested in seeing that as well.¡±


    ¡°Excellent, I¡¯ll have Erevan arrange something, a sort of exhibition. For now let¡¯s get your accommodations in order; Erevan will show you to the residence where you will be staying and accommodations can be arranged for the crew of your ship.¡±


    ¡°The crew will stay with the ship; there are things onboard that require daily attention.¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re worried about us wanting to steal the secrets of your ship I can assure you that we have no such designs; our navy, as you¡¯ve seen, is quite well equipped.¡±


    ¡°They really do have responsibilities that they need to attend to, I¡¯m not leaving them there as guards.¡±


    ¡°Good, because I would hate to think that our relationship was beginning on a note of suspicion and mistrust.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not.¡±

 Chapter 75 - Dark elves

    My audience with Alleria was a lot tenser than I was expecting. Every word that had come out of her mouth she had spoken with a heavy dose of condescension that had put me on edge and made me defensive. I was still feeling the tension from our exchange when we returned to the ship to collect some things before we went on to the residence that Alleria had offered for our use. The others noticed my tension and afforded me the space that I needed to calm myself down and think.


    ¡°Brumli,¡± I called.


    ¡°Yes Alegra,¡± he came to me and said.


    ¡°I want you and Ajax to stay here with the ship, Uraia will come with me. I don¡¯t trust our hosts, and we cannot under any circumstances allow them to gain control of the ship; I am trusting you with making sure that doesn¡¯t happen.¡±


    ¡°You have my word that not one elf will set foot on this ship without your blessing.¡±


    Knowing that there was no length to which Brumli wouldn¡¯t go to honor his word I left the ship with Uraia and we returned to the carriage where Erevan was waiting for us. Erevan had informed us during our trip back to the ship that there was enough space at the residence to accommodate the phoenixes so Myra and Igor were flying over head and following us.


    ¡°I¡¯m curious about the rocs that you mentioned earlier; will I get the chance to see one before we leave?¡± I asked Erevan.


    ¡°Sure, that can be easily arranged, in fact we¡¯d be interested in seeing how they fair in the air against your birds.¡±


    ¡°I should warn you that there was a prince in our realm who challenged my Myra with his gryphon and it ended up not being a contest at all.¡±


    ¡°You have gryphons in your realm as well?¡±


    ¡°There are many interesting creatures in our realm.¡±


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    ¡°What about dragons? Do you have dragons?¡±


    ¡°No, all of the dragons were poached to extinction many years ago. Do you have dragons here?¡± I asked, being careful not to betray my knowledge about Saraya.


    ¡°There¡¯s one dragon that we see flying in the sky from time to time, but it¡¯s the only one that we¡¯ve seen in a long time.¡±


    ¡°What about wolves like Anbu here?¡± I asked, scratching the top of Anbu¡¯s head.


    ¡°We have wolves; they¡¯re quite a bit bigger than him though.¡±


    ¡°That I have to see.¡±


    The residence that we were taken to was an estate located within the city that was not too dissimilar from the nobles¡¯ estates in Glendale. Unlike the nobles¡¯ estates the grounds were not meticulously manicured; the plants on the grounds, which I had never seen growing in our realm, were allowed to grow wild throughout the estate, as was the case in much of the city. The grounds were big enough for Myra and Igor, and the residence was more than large enough for me and Uraia.


    Our carriage pulled up to the entrance to the residence and when we got out of the carriage we were greeted by the staff of the residence. To my shock, the servants were all dark elves.


    ¡°The staff here at the residence will attend to all of your needs during your stay; if there is anything that you need don¡¯t hesitate to ask them for assistance,¡± Erevan said to me.


    ¡°Thank you Erevan, I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll be perfectly comfortable here,¡± I responded.


    Erevan left in the carriage and Uraia and I were escorted into the residence by the servants. We followed them into the foyer where the servants introduced themselves to us.


    ¡°Welcome, my name is Aniira, I will be the chief attendant during your stay here; this is Elara, Neara, and Syann; we¡¯ll start with a tour of the residence, then we¡¯ll get you settled into your sleeping quarters.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I responded.


    While Aniira showed us through the residence I thought about whether it would be smart to ask her about Saraya, deciding ultimately that doing so would be dangerous because I didn¡¯t fully understand the nature of the relationship between the dark elves and the white elves and I didn¡¯t know where these women¡¯s loyalties lay.


    ¡°That¡¯s everything that there is to know about the residence; if you need anything call into one of the voice tubes and one of us will be up to assist you,¡± Aniira said.


    ¡°Thank you Aniira; for now we¡¯d just like to freshen up, it¡¯s been a long journey.¡±


    Aniira and the other servants left us and went down to the ground level where their rooms were located.

 Chapter 76

    The residence was three levels high and consisted of twelve bedrooms and various living areas that were spread out across the upper two floors. The staff¡¯s quarters were on the ground floor along with the kitchen and other utilitarian spaces. It felt eerie being alone in the residence. We had traveled to foreign lands before but we had never been in a foreign land where we knew nothing of their customs and were unsure of the level of hostility toward us.


    It was almost nightfall. Uraia and I took a bath together and changed into our evening wear. After we had been relaxing for a few minutes Aniira¡¯s voice came through the voice tubes informing us that dinner was ready. Uraia and I went down to the dining room. Aniira welcome us into the dining room where food was waiting for us on the table and the other three servants were standing against the wall to wait on us. Our chairs were pulled out for us and Uraia and I sat down to what looked like a lovely meal.


    ¡°What is this?¡± I asked Aniira of the poultry dish that was being served.


    ¡°It¡¯s muscal, a game bird that¡¯s found in the forests.¡±


    I took a bite of the muscal and kept the morsel in my mouth for a moment to savor the flavor of it.


    ¡°Who prepared this?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Neara did,¡± Aniira responded.


    ¡°It¡¯s delicious; in fact it may be the most delicious thing I¡¯ve ever eaten.¡±


    ¡°Thank you madam,¡± Neara responded demurely.


    Uraia and I continued eating, marveling at the succulence of the meat and the skill with which it had been prepared to produce such deep flavor.


    ¡°You don¡¯t look like the other elves; why is that?¡± I asked Aniira.


    ¡°We are dark elves, they are white elves.¡±


    ¡°Why is it that this is my first time since arriving here that I am seeing you dark elves?¡±


    ¡°I am not allowed to discuss that.¡±


    ¡°Are you all servants?¡±


    ¡°Again, I cannot discuss that.¡±


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    ¡°I see; you are second class citizens here. I¡¯d like you to know that Uraia here, who commands more of my trust and respect than anyone else, is from a race who were considered second class people until I became queen and bestowed upon them full rights as citizens of the kingdom.¡±


    Aniira didn¡¯t respond to my remarks but I got the sense that I had managed to successfully convey my genuine feelings to her.


    ¡°Do you think she got the message?¡± Uraia asked me later that night in bed.


    ¡°I hope she did; if we can get these women to open up it¡¯ll help us to learn what we need to learn about what¡¯s going on here.¡±


    ¡°Queen Alleria wouldn¡¯t have put us in a house with dark elf servants if she was worried about us learning about what¡¯s going on here.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re probably right, in which case I should probably just bring up the subject with Alleria and ask her all of the questions that I¡¯m looking for answers to.¡±


    ¡°During the hunt?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll give us something to talk about at least.¡±


    After dinner a messenger of queen Alleria¡¯s had come to the residence to deliver a note informing us that it was a tradition of the elves to welcome their guests with a feast at which was served the flesh of an animal that they hunted together. I responded that we would gladly take part in the hunt which Uraia and I were looking forward to a great deal. We went to sleep early with the intention of getting a bright start early in the morning.


    It was just before dawn when Alleria¡¯s messenger returned and informed us that the hunt would soon be getting under way.


    ¡°This carriage will take you to the Northern Gate that leads to the Northern Forest; queen Alleria and her party are waiting for you there.¡±


    The carriage was being driven by a male dark elf. Driving north in the carriage we saw more dark elves throughout the city performing tasks like sweeping the streets and brushing down horses. It was clear that the dark elves on the island existed as an indentured servant class, just like the slaves in Avondrea.


    Alleria and her party of six were waiting for us at the Northern Gate with four creatures that looked like stags but were larger than the ones that we were familiar with from our realm and had horns that were larger and more elaborate.


    ¡°These are dahus, they¡¯re excellent at traversing challenging terrain; we¡¯ll be going out on the hunt on these,¡± Alleria said to me when we disembarked from the carriage.


    In addition to her party there were two dark elves, a man and a woman, who were holding onto the reins of the two dahus that were meant for me and Uraia.


    ¡°Boronir here will lead the hunt, bringing back our spoils will be the job of the others,¡± Alleria said, referring to the four dark elves that were part of her party who would be accompanying us on foot.


    ¡°Do you have another bow?¡± I asked Alleria.


    ¡°What for?¡±


    ¡°I would like for Uraia to participate in the hunt as well.¡±


    ¡°Voran,¡± Alleria said, addressing one of the dark elves, ¡°Get another bow and quiver.¡±


    Voran ran off to do so and Alleria turned her attention back to me.


    ¡°Boronir is my most trusted warrior; she¡¯s going to have a hard time keeping up with him.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll be fine,¡± I responded confidently.


    Voran returned with the bow and quiver for Uraia and after we were helped up onto our dahus we set off for the forest.

 Chapter 77

    We exited the city onto a wide path that had been cleared to allow for passage in and out of the city. Overhead the branches that were higher up on the tress grew across the path and blocked the little dawn sunlight that was in the sky. Ahead of us, Voran walked with a torch to light the way. I rode next to Alleria with Uraia and Boronir riding ahead of us.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me about the dark elves?¡± I asked Alleria.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to tell?¡±


    ¡°Their existence for starters, it came as a shock to us when we arrived at the residence yesterday and saw them for the first time.¡±


    ¡°Erevan should have informed you of the situation; I¡¯ll admonish him later for his negligence.¡±


    ¡°I think I have a good sense of the situation.¡±


    ¡°And what is your sense of the situation?¡±


    ¡°The dark elves are your slaves, second class citizens with no freedom, no right to self-determination.¡±


    ¡°From your tone of voice I¡¯m assuming you disapprove; is there no such practice in your lands?¡±


    ¡°There is; Uraia and her clan were violently driven off their lands and relegated to the status of second class citizens, and in the kingdom of Avondrea slaves are used to work the fields that produce a significant amount of the realm¡¯s food.¡±


    ¡°This kingdom, Avondrea, could they produce the food that is feeding the rest of your realm without the use of slaves?¡±


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    ¡°No, they couldn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°So while you may disapprove of slavery as a practice you do recognize the necessity of it.¡±


    ¡°We do not import any food from Avondrea, and since becoming queen I have granted the Okwari the status of full citizens of Aseron.¡±


    ¡°You haven¡¯t been queen for long, have you?¡±


    ¡°What makes you say that?¡±


    ¡°Your idealism, it¡¯s typical of a new ruler.¡±


    ¡°Helene, the queen of Avondrea, said the same thing to me; she said that eventually my idealism would give way to pragmatism and I would start seeing things her way. She was wrong.¡±


    ¡°Our history with the dark elves is long and complicated; once you have gained a greater understanding of it you will come to sympathize with us.¡±


    ¡°Tell me about your history with them then.¡±


    ¡°Not now; now we focus on the hunt.¡±


    I was not expecting to receive the truth from Alleria; what was obvious from the way that she spoke was her certainty in their right to exercise dominion over the dark elves.


    We continued traveling through the forest until it gave way to a high ravine.


    ¡°On the other side of the ravine are farmlands and the dwellings that house the dark elves that aren¡¯t lucky enough to live in the city, once we pass through there we¡¯ll be at the hunting grounds,¡± Alleria said.


    ¡°What do you mean they¡¯re not ¡®lucky¡¯ enough to live in the city?¡± I asked.


    ¡°They haven¡¯t done enough to display their acceptance of us as their masters, so they can¡¯t be trusted in the city.¡±


    It being dawn, the farm workers were heading out into the fields to begin working, just like the slaves in Avondrea did. Alleria¡¯s certainty about the white elves¡¯ inherent superiority was deeply troubling; in Avondrea their attitude toward slavery was pure self interest, it was nothing like this attitude of unquestionable superiority that Alleria had which would inevitably imbue one with the belief that any actions that they took against those who they perceived as their inferiors to be entirely justified, and that could only lead to unspeakable atrocities. I thought about what this meant for the dark elves, the fear and terror that they must have felt every day, and I also thought about whether it was right for me to have become so invested in wanting to help the dark elves when I hadn¡¯t given serious thought to taking action to bring an end to the practice of slavery in Avondrea.

 Chapter 78 - The hunting grounds

    ¡°Tell me about your realm,¡± Alleria said to me, puncturing the awkward silence that had formed due to me becoming lost in thought.


    ¡°Is there anything in particular you¡¯d like to know about?¡±


    ¡°Tell me about the dwarves; how many of them are there, where they live, how they live¡­¡±


    ¡°Most of the dwarves live in my kingdom of Aseron; their own kingdom, Grunheim, was invaded by the kingdom of Kandalar, whose king wanted Grunheim¡¯s mineral wealth for himself. The dwarves were displaced by the war and became refugees scattered throughout the realm. When I became queen I made an offer to the other kingdoms that I would take in the dwarves in exchange for debt relief; they agreed and ever since then the dwarves have been citizens of Aseron and have contributed enormously to the recovery and growth of the kingdom.¡±


    ¡°What was it that your kingdom needed to recover from?¡±


    ¡°My predecessor was an illegitimate ruler; her reign was disastrous for the kingdom.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean she was illegitimate?¡±


    ¡°She seized the throne when her husband, King Dorman, became old and infirm; she wasn¡¯t chosen to rule by an Overseer.¡±


    ¡°You have an Overseer?!¡± Alleria stopped, turned to me and asked with a look of shock on her face.


    ¡°Yes, his name is Elias.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen him and spoken with him?¡±


    ¡°Of course I have, he¡¯s the Overseer.¡±


    ¡°And he chose you personally to be queen?¡±


    ¡°Yes; wasn¡¯t it the same for you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve actually never seen or spoken with Lumeria.¡±


    ¡°Lumeria; is that the name of your Overseer?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but we didn¡¯t refer to her as an Overseer, to us she is a goddess, a goddess whose magnificence knows no bounds.¡±


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    ¡°If you have never so much as seen her then how is it that you are the queen?¡±


    ¡°Before becoming queen I was the Lumerian high priestess, when King Vaneron left us it was decided that I was best suited to replace him.¡±


    ¡°I see.¡±


    Another false ruler. I could see a scenario under which Alleria, feeling insecure in her rule, decided to unite the white elves behind her by granting them the freedom to treat the dark elves as they wished. There were other plausible scenarios that I could imagine, but what seemed to be key in all of this was the absence of the Overseer and the white elves¡¯ exaltation of her as a goddess despite possessing little knowledge of her due to her absence. Only Elias could provide me with the information that I needed about Lumeria, and with us being in a foreign land so far away from our realm I wasn¡¯t sure if it was possible to communicate with him. Until I saw Elias again I had to keep fishing for whatever information I could get without letting on that I was here because of Saraya.


    The farmlands were separated from the hunting grounds by a high wooden fence made from thick logs that extended almost as far as the eye could see.


    ¡°Your wolf is well trained? He won¡¯t run off on his own?¡± Alleria asked me.


    ¡°No, he won¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Good, because if he runs off on his own in the hunting grounds he¡¯ll most likely never be seen again.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about Anbu, he¡¯ll be just fine.¡±


    ¡°Open the gates,¡± Alleria turned away from me and said to the two white elf guards standing in front of the gate that led to the hunting grounds.


    The two guards opened the heavy gates and then closed them behind us after we had passed through into the hunting grounds. Looking out at the hunting grounds, I felt like I was back in the Northlands. Before us stretched an overwhelmingly vast expanse of plains and woodlands that I wished I had the freedom to explore like I¡¯d had the freedom to explore the Northlands when I was growing up there.


    ¡°Our primary prey is going to be the dahus, but if we come across other animals that you would like to target just say so,¡± Alleria said.


    ¡°Will we get the chance to see some wolves?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Where there are dahus there are wolves,¡± Alleria responded.


    We moved further into the hunting grounds, heading for the plains where the dahu herds grazed.


    ¡°These dahus are very big, are they going to be able to bring them all the way back to the city?¡± I asked, referring to the four dark elves that were accompanying us.


    ¡°They¡¯ll be fine, they do this all the time,¡± Alleria responded.


    ¡°What happens if somebody gets lost out here?¡± I asked.


    ¡°There are rangers who patrol the area; if there is anybody who is out here that¡¯s not supposed to be here, they¡¯ll be taken care of.¡±


    From the way she said ¡®they¡¯ll be taken care of¡¯, I couldn¡¯t help but think that what Alleria was referring to was dark elves that were caught trying to escape.

 Chapter 79

    We continued moving forward without talking until we arrived at the crest of an incline that afforded us a fuller view of the plains of the hunting grounds.


    ¡°Over there, there are some feeding on the edge of that woodland,¡± Boronir said, pointing to our right, ¡°the best way to get there would be to head over to that verge and then go down the path that¡¯s behind it.¡±


    We followed Boronir¡¯s lead and headed in the direction of the verge to our right. There were four dahus in the group that we were tracking, all of which looked like adults, which made me concerned for the dark elves that were with us who were going to have to carry the carcass back to the city.


    The verge was a rocky plateau that extended out from a large rock formation that was accessible from a moderate slope. Boronir wanted us to go up the slope and onto the verge rather than simply going around the formation so that we would have a complete view and understanding of the terrain that we were heading into. When we reached the verge Boronir had us get off our dahus and approach the edge of the verge to explain to us how the hunt was going to work.


    ¡°We¡¯ll continue down the path on the backs of the dahus but once we reach the bottom we¡¯ll have to continue on foot to avoid startling the dahus. I¡¯ll take the lead and carry out the kill, the rest of you keep a safe distance in case there are predators nearby. I should be able to bring down a dahu with one shot, but if I don¡¯t just be prepared to¡­What are you doing?¡± He asked Uraia.


    While Boronir had been talking Uraia had stepped away from us, removed the bow from her shoulder and an arrow from her quiver and took up a shooting stance.


    ¡°You¡¯re not serious,¡± Boronir said to her, believing that it wasn¡¯t possible to make the shot from so far away.


    He didn¡¯t know Uraia. She released her arrow and it flew with perfect accuracy, nailing one of the dahus in the neck and bringing it down instantly.


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    ¡°Very impressive, Lady Uraia, very impressive. I¡¯ve never seen an arrow fired from such a distance before,¡± Alleria said.


    ¡°I told you you didn¡¯t have to worry about her,¡± I said to Alleria.


    With discernible disgruntlement, Boronir led us down from the verge to collect the carcass. By the time we got to the carcass the other three dahus were nowhere to be seen. Voran walked into the small woodland and chopped down a small tree with his hatchet that he then stripped of its branches and pulled out of the woodland. With the help of one of the other dark elves he tied the dahu¡¯s legs together with rope and tied their bound legs to the tree trunk to carry. Given the size of the dahu I was certain that they would have to call for a wagon to come and haul it but to my surprise Voran and the dark elf that was helping him were able to hoist it up onto their shoulders and carry it without any trouble.


    ¡°Right, that¡¯s it for the hunt; we can go back to the city or, if you¡¯d like, we can explore the hunting grounds a bit more,¡± Alleria said to me.


    ¡°Let¡¯s return to the city, this has been more taxing than I thought it would be,¡± I responded.


    ¡°I thought you might be feeling a bit fatigued, these hunts can be a bit much for first timers.¡±


    Naturally, having gone on hunts with the Okwari this was nothing for me. My hope was that I would be able to come back later and explore the hunting grounds with Myra, in which case it would be a waste of time to explore them now.


    We had turned around and were getting ready to head back in the direction of the entrance gates to the hunting grounds when I heard a rustling noise coming from the woodland where Voran had cut down the tree. I looked to my left and I saw a creature charging out of the woods in our direction. The creature looked like a boar but it was larger and had long, curled tusks protruding from the sides of its snout.


    ¡°Everyone, look out!¡± I yelled, alerting them to the danger.


    The boar was on a collision course with Alleria, who was the closest to the edge of the woodland. In a flash Uraia was off her dahu and managed to get to the boar in time before it rammed into Alleria¡¯s dahu. She stopped it in its tracks by grabbing it by the horns and then wrestled it to the ground and held it there until one of the two dark elves that weren¡¯t carrying the carcass ran over and drove a blade through its neck.


    ¡°My queen, are you alright?¡± Boronir asked frantically.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine Boronir, thanks to Lady Uraia and Arven here, though it¡¯s not their responsibility to protect me, is it?¡± Alleria angrily responded.

 Chapter 80

    Having been publicly and angrily castigated by his queen, Boronir¡¯s tenseness was felt palpably by the rest of us. My impression of Boronir was that he was the type that was eager to please and being shown up twice in quick succession by Uraia, who they would consider to be a member of an inferior race, had wounded him deeply and set him on edge. I didn¡¯t blame Alleria for her admonishment of him; he hadn¡¯t even gotten off his dahu, but I did wonder if his position in Alleria¡¯s inner circle had more to do with his obsequiousness rather than his ability.


    ¡°What was that thing?¡± I asked Alleria.


    ¡°It¡¯s a buro, they live in the woodlands and root around for food in the dirt, they get aggressive like that during mating season, others they¡¯re normally quite docile.¡±


    ¡°Are we going to take this one back with us as well?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I think we will.¡±


    So we set off on our return to the city with two carcasses. On the way back I answered more of Alleria¡¯s questions about our realm. Alleria was so impressed by Uraia that she wanted me to tell her all about the Okwari and their history. I was fine with indulging her curiosity about the Okwari; it was only when it came to the particulars of our realm¡¯s strengths and weaknesses that I became circumspect.


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    I thought when the entrance gate came into view that we were going to leave the hunting grounds without any further incidents, that is until Anbu suddenly dashed into a small woodland that we were passing by.


    ¡°Anbu!¡± I called out after him.


    ¡°I thought you said he was trained,¡± Alleria said.


    I got off my dahu and went after Anbu, but by the time I got to the edge of the woodland he was already out of sight.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go in there, you¡¯ve already seen what dangers lurk in these woods,¡± Alleria said to me.


    I heeded Alleria¡¯s warning and didn¡¯t go into the woodland after Anbu.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go in after him,¡± Uraia came to my side and said to me.


    ¡°No, he went in there for a reason; let¡¯s trust that he knows what he¡¯s doing.¡±


    We waited for an agonizing amount of time, fearing that Anbu had encountered a deadly animal like the buro and wouldn¡¯t be coming back to us. Our minds were put at ease when once again Anbu validated my faith in him by returning to us unharmed, and he didn¡¯t just return to us, he brought something with him.


    ¡°Another wolf pup,¡± Uraia said when Anbu dropped the white ball of fur that he¡¯d carried over in his mouth.


    ¡°What was it doing in the woods?¡± I asked, picking up the pup.


    ¡°It must have gotten separated from its pack and gone into the woods for safety,¡± Alleria said.


    ¡°I met Anbu the same way; when Uraia¡¯s father, Chief Kendor, learned that I had come across a wolf pup that was in need of rescuing he said that it was a sign that I was special.¡±


    ¡°This was after you had become queen?¡± Alleria asked.


    ¡°No, when I was still a child growing up in the Northlands.¡±


    ¡°Would that make this a sign as well?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps.¡±


    ¡°Since you are here and not in your homeland, this would be a sign from Lumeria.¡±


    ¡°I suppose it would be.¡±

 Chapter 81

    Back at the residence, while feeding the new pup some cubes of meat, I thought about the way that Alleria had tensed up when I had agreed with her that it was possible that Anbu finding the puppy was a sign from her goddess Lumeria. Her insecurity in her leadership was severe, as was her fear that she had been forsaken by her goddess. The two made for a dangerous combination; just like Esmeralda, most of Alleria¡¯s decisions were most likely erratic decisions with self preservation being her main consideration. I had little faith in my ability to get Alleria to change the white elves¡¯ treatment of the dark elves by reasoning with her; the only way to stop what was happening here was with force.


    ¡°He¡¯s very cute,¡± Aniira came over and kneeled down next to me and said.


    ¡°It¡¯s a good thing Anbu found him when he did, otherwise he probably would hve died out there.¡±


    ¡°The hunting grounds are very dangerous; he definitely would have died if he was all alone.¡±


    ¡°We didn¡¯t get to see much of the hunting grounds; I¡¯m hoping to get the chance to fly over them with Myra later.¡±


    ¡°You must be careful in the hunting grounds, people go missing there all the time.¡±


    ¡°You mean dark elves that try to escape go missing in the hunting grounds all the time?¡±


    ¡°You mustn¡¯t ask these questions, Queen Alegra, these questions are very dangerous.¡±


    ¡°Alleria isn¡¯t doing very much to hide what¡¯s going on from me; she all but admitted to me that they¡¯ve got rangers patrolling the hunting grounds for dark elves that try to escape.¡±


    ¡°Why are you asking all these questions? Why are you so interested in us?¡±


    ¡°I want to learn as much about this place as I can before we leave.¡±


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°Why? It¡¯s not like you can do anything to help us.¡±


    I didn¡¯t say anything further to Aniira about my reasons for being so interested in the relationship between the white elves and the dark elves. I wasn¡¯t at the point yet where I trusted Aniira enough to share with her the details about my encounters with Saraya. The problem, though, was that I didn¡¯t have time on my side; I couldn¡¯t afford to wait until I was absolutely certain that I could trust her before I told her the truth about why I was here. I decided that I would come clean with Aniira about everything and would ask her to answer all of my questions with complete honesty in exchange. But that would have to wait for later; Uraia and I were expected at Alleria¡¯s palace for the feast that follows the hunt. As it was explained to us, the tradition of going on the hunt and feasting on what you killed was a way for the elves to welcome new arrivals and for the new arrivals to show their respect for the elves¡¯ traditions. The feast was also an opportunity for us to meet the rest of Alleria¡¯s inner circle, which would give us invaluable insights into Alleria the queen.


    We had come back to the residence to wash up after the hunt but also to wait for Brumli to arrive from the ship so that he could join us at the feast. I trusted Brumli¡¯s perspective and I wanted to know his thoughts on Alleria. While we waited for him, I continued to spend time with the puppy. He was quite a bit larger than Anbu had been when I found him, which made sense given how large the animals were in the hunting grounds that would be its prey. Since arriving back at the residence with the pup, Anbu hadn¡¯t left its side once; he was displaying the same protectiveness and parental affection that Lucy had displayed toward Myra¡¯s chicks when we¡¯d first met them. I hadn¡¯t noticed before how much Anbu had matured; seeing him being so paternal with the pup made me realize how much things had changed in the relatively short period of time that I had been queen and the realization caused a mild melancholy to come over me.


    ¡°Have you thought of a name for him yet?¡± Uraia came over and asked.


    ¡°Not yet, I was thinking about Shiloh.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a nice name.¡±


    ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll keep it.¡±


    ¡°Alleria might have been right about this being a sign, you finding another orphaned wolf pup is too much of a coincidence.¡±


    ¡°Did you see her reaction when I agreed with her that it might be a sign? She tensed up so much I thought we were going to have to carry her back like a plank of wood.¡±


    ¡°Were you deliberately trying to wind her up?¡±


    ¡°I was; the key to understanding Alleria and the white elves is the disappearance of Lumeria, their Overseer; the circumstances of her disappearance, I believe, will tell us a lot about why the white elves are such a murderous and oppressive race.¡±