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."