It was not until the sun met the horizon that the group stopped. The horses were weary and exhausted. It was lucky that the wagon had not broken an axle nor the horses injured at the pace they had maintained.

They had been heading north, and decided to camp on the top of a small hill near the road. This way, whoever was on watch would be able to see a much further distance, and they would have a head start if anyone came after them.

Azara had taken the reins at first, but gave them up to Joakim who had jumped into the wagon beside her. Her exhaustion set in and she had leaned against the man for most of the way, while clung on to him to keep from being tossed off the wagon when it struck bumps in the road.

When the camp had been set and a fire had been started, the sun was setting. The sky was covered in flaming orange and red, and Azara was sitting on the side of the hill facing west, watching the slowly disappearing disk of orange. The light lit a fire in her odd colored irises, and it glistened off the tears that ran from her eyes and down her face, making them sparkle, like little crystals falling from golden eyes.

As Valerius approached her, she had her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped around those, in a fetal like position.

"I don't want to talk to you right now," she said. The words were hard to say. Her chest burned and her heart ached. Her whole body felt strained. Using the magic of the sort she had cast in Midton had taken a toll on her human body.

“Look, Azara, Irinia wanted to say that-”

“Let her say what she wants herself! I know she is shy, but you don’t speak for her!” Azara yelled back, but she did not turn her head to look at him. Rather, her focus was towards the horizon and the setting sun. “You’ve dragged me into a war, implicated me in treason! This is not what I came to this country for! Stars help me, I’ve killed for you now!”

Valerius sighed and then tried to continue. “Azara, what she wanted to say was that-”

“GO!” Azara shouted, turning round to yell the words. A fire broke out around her on the grass, and small flames shot from her mouth and then extinguished. Valerius backed away, and the flames extinguished.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “I’ll go.”

He did, letting Azara sit in peace under the fading warmth of the setting sun, till night had fallen. It was a time for thought, for some tears, and consideration.

There were not many places she could go from this point. Too many witnesses had been left alive, too many people had seen what she had done. Soon the whole kingdom would know that she was in league with whatever plot Valerius and his group had come up with.

First of all, this was stupid, she thought. They weren’t schemers or ruthless rebels. She could see it in their eyes with her celestial sight, in their souls. The prince could fight, she had seen that, but he wasn’t bent towards the sort of death and destruction they were plotting. He was kind and nervous, with those innocent sky blue eyes always darting around and trying to seem serious. He was always trying to seem like he knew what he was doing when he didn’t. There was no way he could turn into the man needed to lead a revolution.

Then again, she remembered Konrad’s face in Midton, a hazy drunken memory punctuated by that one moment of clarity, and she felt her heart sink. He had also once been innocent.

She then remembered Valerius grabbing Kasper, and shouting at him so fiercely.

Maybe Valerius could, if he suffered enough, become the man he needed to be - but he was more likely to die first. More than that, she didn't want him to become that sort of person.

And then there was her mission. This changed everything. If she wanted to accomplish it, she would have to stick with this little party of idiots, because now the only way she’d ever get the demands she wanted out of Ursulam was to put this prince on the throne.

Last, there were her thoughts on the matter. It was terrible, but she saw a chance in all this. She felt it, in a business sense. What if they - she - could be successful? Valerius didn’t have to be the perfect king. He just had to be a person, and perhaps he had already figured that out. There were already plenty of people in the kingdom angry at the crown. The Hawks had passed on the message Valerius had expected to here - two whole provinces were ready to rise up. That was almost half the country. More could follow. Then, with that sort of power, they could have a shot at the throne. Azara’s power added in, and they had a serious chance.

She would be a part of that, and if she could be beside Valerius when it happened, she would have all of it.

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It was insane. She had known them all a moon’s worth of time. She had no business trying to take over a kingdom. She was here on behalf of her mother on a diplomatic trip.

It was tempting. She could do it. She was powerful enough. She could have it. The thoughts gnawed at her heart, like when food is placed in front of a starving person.

“Hey,” a voice said from behind her. “, mind if we talk?”

Azara recognized the cracking teenage voice as Kasper, and she turned around. Under the full moon’s light, it wasn’t hard to see him. It must have been his turn on watch, and he had wandered away from the camp.

“Fine,” she said, hoping that it would take her mind away from the wild thoughts she’d been having before. When Kasper sat down beside her though, she was not put at ease.

“So...I was just wondering, are you going to sit out here all night?” Kasper asked. “If so then I’d like to give up my watch and go to sleep.”

“Did Valerius ask you to speak with me? Or Irinia?” Azara asked, accusing. She wasn’t going to buy a humorous question. It was a cover for something.

Kasper shook his head. “No, I just wanted to-”

“Why did you have me stay? You could have just let me leave that meeting, and I would have been none the wiser. Yet you got me to stay.” She said, and her tone was even more accusatory.

“Valerius didn’t want you to know. Irinia was worried about it. Joakim was with Valerius. It was my meeting though, and I thought you had a right to know what was going on if you were with us on this journey.” he explained.

“That was stupid. You have no idea what I could have done with that information. I could have turned on you. Handing the king your heads would put me in his favor.” she said, but the truth was she hated the thought. Azara knew that if she had any weakness, it was that she was not capable of being very ruthless.

“But you didn’t,” Kasper said. “I didn’t think you were the sort of person.”

“You’re a not even a full-grown man,” she replied. “How would you know what sort of person I am?”

Kasper shrugged. “You seem to make those sorts of judgments about people. Whether they’re lying or not for example. You did that twice back in the town.”

“That’s different,” she replied. She wasn’t about to tell him how it was different though, and as she anticipated that question she tried to come up with one of the many excuses she had used in the past for her sight - the ability to see glimmers of people’s souls. Luckily, the question never came.

“I don’t think so,” Kasper replied. “I know about evil people. If you had been an evil person, you wouldn’t have volunteered to come with us. You did that out of pity. If you had been an evil person, you wouldn’t treat Irinia so nice when training her, and yeah I’ve watched that. She’s a mat to be walked on for most people. Evil people always notice that and treat her badly because of it. You’re kind to her by comparison.”

Azara rolled her eyes, though she was sure Kasper wouldn’t be able to see the expression in the dark. Her thoughts wandered back to her earlier ideas about this whole mess. It was horrible that she had even been thinking about exploiting the whole situation for her own gain. Yet still, the temptation persisted. Theoretical plans and ideas popped up.

“Thank you, but I don’t think I’m deserving.”

He laughed a bit, and Azara felt a little perturbed at that. Did he find her humorous? Did he think he knew her better after a few weeks of travel than she knew herself?

“I said by comparison for a reason,” Kasper said. Then he was silent a moment, allowing a period of quiet to pass before he spoke again. “Hey, do you want to know why we’re doing this?”

Azara sighed. It was a question that had been bothering her, but one that she had been too angry to ask Valerius in person.

“Yes, I would. I’d like to know how a bunch of children and an old soldier came together to decide to start a revolution,” she said, and felt a little sad that she could hear her mother in the words. Ezmeralda had always been able to attack others with sarcastic and spiteful words, and it pained Azara that she had picked up that habit when angry or disdainful. She had never hated her mother, but she had always disliked it that she was the most like the woman of her siblings.

“It is because, by comparison, Valerius' father is very evil,” Kasper said. “I know our bunch is not a ruthless or scheming lot. I know what those people are like. I’ve kept their company before. We are not the type to do this. I’m just some kid whose parents became destitute and died because of the king’s taxes. Irinia’s a shy girl that can’t hurt a fly. I think Valerius just misses his mother somedays and realizes this won’t get her back. Joakim has a daughter he wants to go home to - though, other than that I’ll admit he may be the most suited to this. He lost his job as a guard sergeant over the king’s policies taking money from the military. He hadn’t known anything, had no other skills, and his wife died because he couldn’t get enough money to get her medicine when she was ill. He’s kind on the outside, but a spiteful killer compared to the rest of us. But the point is-”

“You’ve all got something against the king, I get it. He’s ruined lives with his reckless rule, and his lavish expenditures. I understand.” she said. It didn’t matter much anyway. Before this talk had even begun she had known the truth - and that was that she didn’t have many other options than to keep with the group. Either her mission was a failure now, and she let these new friends of hers die to one of her kin or the king, or she stuck with them and they had the chance to triumph.

“Yeah. Look, I get it if you don’t want to help us because we hid the truth from you but-”

“Kasper I’m going to help you. I just...I needed time to think about it. To try and find the best way I could get this to turn out in my favor. But I am going to help you all. Its the only option I have now anyway, to not go back home empty-handed.” She said, and sighed. It was a terrible decision, but she had to go with it.

He smiled at her, and she saw it through the moonlight and gave him a weak smile back.

“So anyway, about that night watch, could you actually-”

“I’m going to sleep,” Azara replied, and headed towards the camp. “I used too much energy today anyway. That sort of awesome magic is not easy to cast.”