Alexia lowered her head and smiled to herself. She had held her self-consciousness at bay long enough to say what she needed to say, and she even believed she had said it well. For now, there was no rush of anxious thoughts cross-examining every word she said and highlighting each blunder with regret.


    I did it, she realized. I really did it. She shook from pride as she grasped the significance of her internal victory. I can do it again.


    This bud of confidence was young but received massive nourishment from the surrounding crowd. Close to a thousand people gathered around her, singing her praises and echoing the call to end the war amidst an encampment built to sustain war. Their words, their rush of positive emotions, testified to the truth. Alexia had lowered her guard, dropped her mask, and spoken her dreams to a group of people enthralled by hate and vengeance, and somehow changed their hearts.


    Leverith! She had needed this! Her smile grew with the dreams she had planted today for all these people.


    Alas, one did not become gregarious after a single speech. She was still Alexia. This Alexia could speak her dreams to a loving crowd bound to her by Leverith and she could do it better than she had ever imagined possible. However, she was still the same person who was lost in everyday conversation, who struggled to find her words or measured them far too long before releasing them. She was still the woman who was terrified of attention, particularly when it fixated on her appearance. Alexia was the girl who had been ridiculed by princes and queens for being soft of heart, and driven to hide herself by envious teachers who would criticize everything about her. She was, at her core, still the person who was worn out by being around groups of people. The old Alexia needed permanent vacations from socialization. This new Alexia needed to escape and take a break before draining herself once more.


    When she had spoken to the encampment, she had temporarily broken free of the self-conscious cage that had forever enclosed her. The walls were closing in again. She scanned the crowd, trying to identify the people who weren’t joining in on her dream of peace. Sir Aldius''s hungry eyes devoured her like she was the tastiest morsel. Alexia folded her arms over her chest and trembled. The adrenaline and Leverith’s spirit were waning, siphoning away her courage. Her reflex was to escape, shut down, and protect her vulnerable core. She needed to isolate and insulate herself. Her thoughts became an endless river flowing toward this conclusion. Unfortunately, Alexia was surrounded by people who expected her to be something more than a timid girl.


    The higher-ranking knights and master medicans surrounded her for impassioned discourse. She startled, her heartrate vaulting even higher as a knight put his hand on her shoulder. They closed in, all talking to her at once. The air seemed to vanish from her lungs and expel from her mouth with haste. Everyone was closing in on her. She was surrounded.


    Their words passed by her unheard. Alexia’s focus was internal; her eyes saw nothing but blurred images of the crowd. A scream climbed her throat, gathering energy with each external noise. She restrained it, with tremendous effort. She struggled to breathe. Alexia tried to teleport her mind, but her distant eyes saw the sea of people closing her in. A hand patted her back and a shriek escaped into the Mirrevar afternoon.


    One of the medicans, bless her until the end of all eternity, called for the others to stop crowding her. Alexia barely heard any of the words that followed. Her eyes turned inward, critical of that shriek and wondering how many now thought her the scared little girl with the soft heart. From a distance, she heard commentary on her sudden paleness or her heavy breathing.


    She clung to one utterance, as it broke through her overwhelm. “She needs rest.”


    It was the intervening medican. Alexia reached after her words like a swimmer drowning in a river grasped for a lifebuoy. “Rest,” was all she was able to utter.


    “I will take care of her.” It was the knight who had allowed her passage into the camp that volunteered to escort her. She followed him, head down, as he forced his way through the crowd, shouting for people to clear out. Alexia fixated on his boots and kept her arms folded over her chest. People reached for her, touching her arm and shoulder, and threw their words of gratitude and adulation her way. She shivered and recoiled at each passing touch. The crowd seemed endless, everyone focusing on her. Alexia drew up her hood, making herself as small as she could, and not just to fit through the gaps in the crowd.


    The knight led her down the main east-west road toward the center of the camp. Chants of her name followed them. Alexia looked forward, avoiding eye contact with the Horned Ape.


    The knight did not avoid her.


    “We crushed the Ruby outside of their walls the night we crossed Mirrevar with you,” the knight told her. “You and Master Stonebreaker helped us defeat the bulk of their elite force and I swear to Gidi that your influence made us stronger outside of their walls. You empower those you touch, both with your words and your magic. Today is further proof of that.”


    Alexia sighed. She was so tired.


    He continued, oblivious or uncaring. “I only wish that we had waited for your return. Our scouts and spies had all agreed that the Ruby encampment was vulnerable. No leadership. No cognitive-affectomancy. Master Conrad deemed that our victory was certain, and Sir Lucius agreed to rush an assault last night.” The knight groaned. “For all the wounded you saved today, twice as many didn’t return with us to camp.”


    Alexia closed her eyes and frowned. She didn’t want to hear this now but knew that she needed to.


    “We were deceived. The Ruby had a sorceress, a master of Norali’s light, who blinded our entire force while her army barraged us with poisoned arrows that somehow penetrated steel. She knocked Sir Lucius Elagrimear off his horse, then he was killed by a poisoned ally who thrashed out with his blade in his final moments. Sir Lucius’s son was second-in-command. He tried to rally our offensive and died fighting a monster of a man that stood a hand taller than any other man I’ve ever seen. Another arrow claimed our most talented knight, Sir Edric the Everbloody. Arrow punched right through his gorget from over a hundred yards as he was commanding the assault on the Ruby’s main gate.”A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Alexia stopped in her tracks. Maleon had been right. Zander and Alfread had turned the tide of the battle. A thousand Sapphire corpses, forever unguided, likely burned in western Mirrevar because she hadn’t saved them. They would burn forever in Zamael’s Hells because she loved the man that killed them. That wasn’t all either. Alexia clutched at Allison’s doll. Maleon had turned against her the moment she spared Zander. Could the killing in Ferrickton have been prevented?


    The knight gave her no space to process this revelation as he dealt another crushing blow to her. “Master Conrad had nearly defeated the Ruby within their walls. We heard them suffocate as he covered them in smoke. But his spell failed. The Ruby witch cleansed the air and a moment later, Conrad was struck by a pair of poisoned arrows and Elianor failed to resuscitate him.”


    Alexia listened, stunned. His spell failure… he had been using Zafrir’s wind energy to blow smoke into the Ruby encampment. While she had been trapped in the mine, she had harnessed a massive amount of Zafrir’s wind in the locket. She reached for her sternum, gripping at the space where the locket belonged. She had stolen the energy Conrad had been using for his spell.


    “Master Silverglow ordered the retreat, but she''s issued no commands since then. Our command structure is in disarray and even though you healed hundreds, this army is broken.”


    The knight stopped and turned to her. He was an older, heavyset warrior with a crescent shaped birthmark on his cheek. This close, she recalled him from the night she traveled across Mirrevar with Maleon and Timmeck. She had saved this man’s life, healing him after he had taken an arrow. “What is your name?”


    “Sir Hammond,” he answered with a bow.


    Alexia cut to the heart of his unspoken message. “The stalemate is broken, the Ruby has momentum, and this encampment is without leadership. Even if I have rallied us toward peace, the Bearbreakers will reinforce the Ruby. They will push an assault on us.” Alexia frowned and held the last words longer, not wanting them to be true. “You believe I need to take the lead to save this encampment.”


    Sir Hammond nodded.


    Just like that Alexia was surrounded again. She cursed several of the Divine Thirteen under her breath. The logical wheels in her mind spun, slamming her heart into wall after wall. If she left Mirrevar, the Ruby would sweep the Sapphire across the Eagle and all the people she inspired would be dead or deterred from peace. If she stayed in Mirrevar, she couldn’t exert pressure on King Gideon to end this war and she would have little authority to make peace with the Ruby in Mirrevar. Worse, if she stayed, she might fail. Alexia had little training in military strategy. Besides, leadership would overdraw on her ability to be someone she was not. Yet, if she returned to Sapphirica, King Gideon could brush away her plea for peace and kick her back to Mirrevar anyway.


    Her anxieties surrounded her from every direction. The Ruby would never come to peace with her. Not after Ferrickton and Vulcan. King Gideon wouldn’t stop pressing her for more victories. The Sapphire and his archlords wouldn’t be swayed like the common folk who paid the price of the Gemstone War. She would be Zander’s enemy! Would she die at his blade or would she kill him? Whoever remained would follow behind as the Chimaera devoured a divided Leveria.


    Alexia lowered her eyes. She was too exhausted, too hopeless, to cry or whimper. Nobody would believe her about the Celegans, even if she tried that tact. The Ruby would see it as a manipulation. The Sapphire would refute it as inconvenient. She had no physical proof to force them to see the truth of the impending Celegan invasion.


    Everywhere she looked, she found only impossibility and defeat.


    “We need you,” Sir Hammond reiterated. “Master Silverglow should be in charge, but I fear she will abandon the task. We have several knights of equal standing in the Horned Apes that could claim the command. I am one of them. However, I expect that Sir Aldius of Lelac will formally take leadership even though he is young. Aldius is the best man for the job, and he desires it the most. Yet, being the best doesn’t make him sufficient to face the coming wrath of the Bearbreakers. We need you, Master Alexia.”


    Aldius. The nightmare only further shattered her dreams. Aldius was a phenomenal swordsman and an arrogant warmonger. He had taken advantage of her and Maleon and lured the Ruby to attack them when the goal was just to escort Alexia to the Impwood. Then, instead of distracting the Ruby from their infiltration, Aldius had led an assault against the Ruby encampment. This was the last man she wanted in charge of this army that she just redirected toward peace. She couldn’t leave Aldius in command. Yet she had to leave.


    Alexia sighed. She gazed up at the sky and a breeze tossed waves of dark gold and chestnut brown hair on her shoulders and back. “I need time to rest and reflect, Sir Hammond.”


    Sir Hammond nodded and guided her along a side road for half a degree without another word. He stopped outside a mid-sized tent. “This is my own personal tent. My squire was another of the casualties.” He heaved a sigh and his voice grew despondent. “I will see that you aren’t bothered while you recover from your ordeals.”


    Sir Hammond saluted her and took his leave.


    “Hammond,” she called after him. He glanced back over his shoulder. “The Sapphire and the Ruby have bled enough. My priority is peace.”


    Hammond drew his sword. Alexia reached for Aurora. She was back in Ferrickton watching Sir Barnett approach her with his blade drawn. Alexia channeled Zafrir’s wind into her staff as her emotions spiraled out of control.


    Hammond held his sword horizontally in both hands and knelt. Alexia’s breathing remained fast, even though she knew logically that he wasn’t going to attack her. A part of her couldn’t believe what her eyes knew to be true.


    “I pledge my blade to you, Master Alexia Bluerose. I pledge my body to protect you. I pledge my soul to your cause.” He looked up at her. “I believe in you and whatever choice you make.”


    Alexia looked away, scrambled for the stoic mask, and searched for the words she was supposed to say in situations like this. “Thank you, Sir Hammond… I am… honored.”


    Hammond stood and bowed again. He smiled as he replied, “The honor is mine.”


    Alexia retreated into the tent, exhaled, and monitored her breathing for several degrees. Inhale, hold, exhale. Imagine the anxiety floating away like autumn leaves fallen on a stream. With nearly each breath, those leaves engulfed her and prevented her from reaching an inner peace. She was surrounded by problems past, present, and future. Somehow, she had to find the answers.