"It's me, Kahlan, my sister. You are safe, alone with me. You are safe. Be at ease. Everything is all right."

"Kahlan?" Cyrilla clutched at Kahlan's white fur mantle. "You promised. You won't go back on your word. You mustn't."

Kahlan smiled. "I promised, and I will keep the promise. I am the queen of Galea, and will be the queen until the day you wish the crown back."

Cyrilla sagged back in relief, still clutching the fur mantle. "Thank you, my queen."

Kahlan urged her to sit up. "Come on, now. I've brought you some warm soup."

Cyrilla turned her face from the spoon. "I'm not hungry."

"If you want me to be the queen, then you must treat me as queen." A questioning frown came to Cyrilla's face. Kahlan smiled. "This is an order from your queen. You will eat the soup."

Only then would Cyrilla eat. When she had finished it all, and had started shaking and crying again, Kahlan hugged her tight until she slipped into a trancelike state, staring blindly up at nothing. Kahlan tucked the heavy blankets tight around her and kissed her forehead.

Zedd had scrounged up a couple barrels, a bench, a stool from the barn, and somewhere found another chair. He had asked Prince Harold and Captain Ryan to join Adie, Jebra, Ahern, Orsk, Kahlan, and himself for dinner. They were close to Ebinissia, and had to talk about their plans. Everyone crowded around the small table as Kahlan broke up hard bread and Jebra dished out steaming bowls of beans from the pot sitting in the fire. When the seer was finished, she sat down on the short bench beside Kahlan, all the while giving Zedd puzzled looks.

Prince Harold, a barrel-chested man with a head of long, thick, dark hair, reminded Kahlan of her father. Harold had only that day returned with his scouts from Ebinissia.

"What news have you from your home," she asked him.

He broke his bread with his thick fingers. "Well," he sighed, "it was the same as you described it. It doesn't look as if anyone else has been there, I think it'll be safe enough for us there. With the Order's army destroyed — "

"The one in this area," Kahlan corrected.

He conceded the point with a wave of his bread. "I don't think we'll have any trouble for now. We don't have many men yet, but they're good men, and we have enough to protect the city from up in the passes in the mountains all around, as long as they don't come in numbers like before. Until the Order brings more men, I think we can hold the city." He gestured toward Zedd. "And we have a wizard."

Zedd, busy spooning beans into his mouth, only slowed enough to grunt in agreement.

Captain Ryan swallowed a big mouthful of beans. "Prince Harold is right. We know these mountains. We can defend the city until they bring a large force. By then, maybe we'll have more men joining with us, and we can start to move."

Harold dunked his bread in his bowl, scooping up a chunk of bacon. "Adie, what do you judge our chances of getting help from Nicobarese?"

"My homeland be in turmoil. When Zedd and I were there, we learned that the king be dead. The Blood of the Fold has moved to seize power, but not all the people be pleased about it. The sorceresses be most displeased. If the Blood takes power, those women will be hunted down and killed. I expect them to back the forces in the army who resist the Blood."

"With civil war," Zedd said, interrupting his speedy spoon work, "it doesn't bode well for sending troops to aid the Midlands."

Adie sighed. "Zedd be right."

"Maybe some of the sorceresses could help?" Kahlan asked.

Adie stirred her spoon in her beans. "Maybe."

Kahlan looked to her half brother. "But you have troops from other areas you can call in."

Harold nodded. "We sure do. At least sixty or seventy thousand, perhaps as many as a hundred thousand could be marshaled, though not all of those will be well trained or well armed. It'll take time to get them organized, but when we do, then Ebinissia will be a force to be reckoned with."

"We had nearly that many here before," Captain Ryan reminded them without looking up from his bowl, "and it wasn't enough."

"True," Harold said flourishing his bread. "But that's just for a beginning." He looked to Kahlan. "You can bring more of the lands together, can't you?"

"That's our hope," she said. "We must rally the Midlands around us, if we're to have a chance."

"What about Sanderia?" Captain Ryan asked. "Their lances are the best in the Midlands."

"And Lifany," Harold said. "They make a lot of weapons, and know how to use them."

Kahlan picked a soft pinch out of the center of her bread. "Sanderia relies on Kelton for summer grazing for their sheep herds. Lifany buys iron from Kelton, and sells them grain. Herjborgue relies on Sanderia's wool. I think they all might go where Keiton goes."

Harold stabbed his spoon into his beans. "There were Keltish dead among the ones who attacked Ebinissia."

"And Galeans." Kahlan put the bread in her mouth and chewed for a moment as she watched him clench his spoon as if it were a knife. He glared into his bowl.

"There were insurgents and murderers from many lands who joined them," she said after she had swallowed. "That does not mean their homelands will. Prince Fyren of Kelton had committed his land to the Imperial Order, but he's dead, now. We are not at war with Kelton; they are part of the Midlands. We are at war with the Imperial Order. We need to stand together. If Kelton joins with us, the others will almost have to, but if they go with the Order, then we will have trouble convincing the others to join us. We need to win over Kelton and bond them to us."

"I'd bet on Kelton joining with the Order," Ahern said. Everyone turned his way. He shrugged. "I'm Keltish. I can tell you that they'll go where the Crown goes; its the way of our people. With Fyren dead, then that would make Duchess Lumholtz next in line. She and her husband, the duke, will go to the side they think will win, no matter who that may be. At least that's my opinion from what I've heard about her."

"That's foolish!" Harold threw his spoon down. "As much as I don't trust Keltans — no offense intended, Ahern — and know their scheming ways, at the heart of it, they're Midlanders. They may want to grab whatever scrap of a farm lies on a disputed border and call it Keltish, but the people are still Midlanders.

"The spirits know that Cyrilla and I had our fights, but when it came to trouble, we stood together. Same with our lands; when D'Hara attacked last summer, we fought to protect Kelton, despite some of our disagreements. If it means the future of the Midlands, they'll go with us. The Midlands means more than what anyone come new to the crown has to say about it." Harold snatched up his spoon and waved it at Ahern. "What have you to say about that?"

Ahern shrugged. "Nothing, I guess."

Zedd's eyes moved between the two men. "We are not here to argue. We are here to fight a war. Speak what you believe, Ahern, You are Keltish, and would know more of it than we."

Ahern scratched his windburned face as he thought on Zedd's words. "General Baldwin, the commander of all Kellish forces, and his generals, Bradford, Cutter, and Emerson, will go where the Crown goes. I don't know the men, I'm just a driver, but I go a lot of places and I hear a lot of talk, and that's what's always said of them. People have a joke that if the queen tossed her crown out the window and it caught on a buck's antlers, the whole of the army would be grazin' on grass within a month."

"And from the talk you hear, do you really believe this duchess become queen will go with the Order just for a chance at power, if it means breaking with the Midlands?" Zedd asked.

Ahern shrugged. "It's just my opinion, understand, but I think it would be so."

As Kahlan spooned out a sweet root without looking up, she spoke. "Ahern's right. I know Cathryn Lumhollz, and her husband, the duke. She will be queen, and even though she takes counsel from her husband, she is of like mind anyway. Prince Fyren would have been king, and I thought he would have stuck with us no matter what, but someone from the Order won him to their side, and he betrayed us. I'm sure the Order will make Cathryn Lumholtz similar offers. She will see power in those offers."