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.