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."