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?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"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.