New Story, Part One: Here We Go Again

OK, I know. As far as writing goes, I have not been good about finishing anything. This is actually kind of par for the course in my life. But on the writing front, I think I've got a fresh inspiration. On the down side, that means I won't be finishing "Last Battle" anytime soon, but that's been pretty much off the table for quite some time. The good news is that you get to read some new material here.

You may notice that this story has no title. This is for two reasons. One is that I don't like the title I currently have and will probably change it when I've written more. The other is that the current title ruins one of the plot points that I haven't even written yet. So for the time being, it's just called "New Story".

I'll probably throw in some thoughts on my process as this goes on. What I'm posting now is about a third of what I have written so far, so don't be surprised if there's a lot more very soon. Comments welcome as always.

Once upon a time there was a woman who lived alone near the edge of a great forest. She had been married to a soldier, but he had died in the last war and so she was left alone and longing for children. She had friends in the village and they came and chatted with her and brought their children for her to look after from time to time, so she was never entirely isolated. But when her friends came to retrieve their children and gathered them up in their arms, the woman would sigh and get a sad, far away look in her eyes. Some of her friends suggested that she marry again, but the woman had loved her husband dearly and couldn’t bring herself to even think of having another. So in time, as they saw how desperately she wanted a child, each of her friends in turn suggested she go to see the Lady of the Wood.

The Lady of the Wood was something of a mystery, though the whole village knew about her. They called her a healer or wise woman or sorceress, and some, very quietly, even called her a witch. Nearly everyone at least knew someone who had been to see her, or claimed they had. She lived deep in the wood, the very wood right near this poor childless woman’s home. That everyone was clear on. But exactly where in the wood she lived, no one could exactly say. Stranger still, no one could seem to agree what her home or the Lady herself looked like. Some said she was a horrible, green-skinned old had who lived in a grass hut by a swamp. Others said she lived in a pure white tower and was more beautiful than the fairest princess. Still others said she lived at the center of a maze of greenery and looked no older than a child. There were more stories than the woman could count. But all her friends agreed that she could definitely help the woman, for a price.

So one clear morning in the early spring, the woman set off into the wood to ask the Lady for help. Now the woman knew most of the woods quite well, having lived their for many a year. So she was certain that she could easily find the Lady’s home just by searching the places she had never been to before. But the search did not prove so easy. The woman found herself twisting and turning through unfamiliar territory, only to end up back in the middle of a place she knew quite well. Even familiar stretches of the forest didn’t seem to connect up the way they usually did. For long hours, the woman wove through the trees, marking her trail and retracing her steps and never ending up where she expected. Then, just as she was sure that she was lost without hope, she came to a small clearing and there was the house of the Lady of the Wood.

It wasn’t anything like any of the stories she had heard. It was a simple little cottage of gray stone in a wooden frame. There were large window, but it seemed too dark inside for the woman to see. Vines grew up along one side of the house, snaking wildly around the stone and up over the thatched roof. All along the wood frame were carved figures of all manner of animals. The woman was admiring a deer at the base of one corner when it suddenly raised its head and looked up at her. It was alive, not a carving at all. As she approached, the woman saw other real animals hidden among the wooden ones. A fat squirrel darted across the lintel carrying a nut. A small falcon perched on the edge of the roof flapped its wing and settled again. The woman recalled a tale she had heard about how the Lady tended to the sick and injured animals of the wood. She was starting to believe it was true.

The woman reached the door and a lizard that was definitely wooden eyed her from the frame. Taking a deep breath, the woman made three load taps upon the door.

“Come in.” The voice was soft but definitely commanding. There was nothing to do but obey. The woman pushed the door open and stepped into the Lady’s house.

It was rather dark inside. There were no candles, no light of any kind except what sun the trees failed to block from the windows. The menagerie of animals the woman had seen outside clearly had free range of the cottage as well. An owl perched in the darkest corner half opened one eye to regard the woman irritably before closing it again. A pair of little finches chirped from the sill of one window. A handsome red fox sat by a dusty cupboard. A little hedgehog played in the dirt floor beneath the table, circling the Lady’s feet.

The Lady of the Wood was seated at a small table stirring some sort of mixture in a small bowl. She was an old woman, with long tangles of gray hair, spindly, bony fingers, and wrinkled, craggy skin. Her clothing was dull gray and ragged and she wore no shoes. She set down her spoon and turned to look at the woman. Her sharp green eyes seemed as bright as candleflames peeking out from the leathery face. The Lady stood and the woman was surprised to see that she did not stoop or hunch over. Between her upright stance and her sharp features, there was something strong and almost regal.

“Now,” said the Lady, “what are you here for?”

Clearly the Lady was not looking to chat. The woman swallowed hard and began.

“I want to have a child. My husband is gone and I’m alone in the world. Please, good Lady, can you help me?”

The Lady stared at the woman for what seemed a very long time. The fierce gaze of her bright green eyes made the woman very uncomfortable. She wondered if the Lady was going to say anything at all. Perhaps she was trying to show the woman that her request was stupid. Perhaps she would be better off leaving now.

Just as the woman was making up her mind to leave, the little hedgehog looked up from its spot beneath the table. It scurried over to the woman, circled around her once, and began digging a hole by her feet. The woman wasn’t sure if there was any connection, but the Lady suddenly dropped her piecing gaze and nodded her head.

“I can help you,” she said.

The woman broke into a smile. The Lady’s words made her so full of joy that she hardly knew what to

“Thank you,” she stammered at last, waving her arms awkwardly to try to show just how overjoyed she was. “Thank you so much.”

The Lady was walking back over to her seat at the table. She settled back into the chair and resumed stirring her concoction.

“But before I can do anything,” she began, turning to the woman again, “I need something from you.”

The woman had nearly forgotten about the price, but it hardly diminished her happiness. Nothing seemed like it could be too much to pay for her fondest wish come true.

“Of course,” the woman answered. “Anything I have is yours.”

The Lady held up a hand in caution.

“I know. But it’s not that simple. I need you to fetch me a moon.”

The woman’s smile faded just a little and she raised a brow in confusion.

“A moon?”

“A moon.” The Lady lifted the spoon up from the liquid and scooped what looked like ground herbs out of a small pot nearby. “I want you to return with it in three days time. If you can do that, I can help you.”

“But…”

The woman stopped mid-sentence as the Lady looked up at her questioningly.

“…how will I found your house again?” the woman finished. It was not at all what she had intended to ask, but she couldn’t find the words to question the task the Lady had set her.

“It won’t be so hard next time,” the Lady answered, already more engrossed in her stirring than in the conversation. “Now that you have business with me, my home will be easier to find.”

Dozens of questions sat on the tip of the woman’s tongue. But the Lady seemed oblivious to her presence now and she couldn’t think of any way to start talking again. The woman went to the cottage door, more than a little concerned. The hedgehog once again abandoned its digging and trotted over to the door to watch the woman leave.

“Wish me luck,” the woman said half-heartedly.

The hedgehog looked at her and gave a little squeak. The woman laughed in surprise as the little creature went back into the cottage. She hoped the hedgehog’s good wishes would help her, somehow.

Background: Rayna Rumors

Continuing my series of background tidbits for the still in need of retitling "The Last Battle", I'm now going to delve into the mystery of Rayna's origins. This is a little bit tricky, because unlike the history of Sathyriel's founding, Rayna's parentage is something I haven't really decided on yet. So if you were hoping to get the real dirt on the favorite discussion topic of Sathyrian gossips, you will likely be disappointed. What I'm going to do instead is to go through every known theory of how Cyra ended up with a child who looks very little like her with no father in sight. This, of course, is the main reason why people like to speculate about Rayna so much. But the other is that Rayna always seems to fall short in comparison to what Cyra had accomplished at the same age. Given Cyra's reputation, of course, it would be hard for anyone to measure up, but the difference in both appearance and achievements helps many of the various rumors alive.

Aside from which - if any - of these stories is true, the thing about covering this piece f the story that is challenging is figuring out why Cyra doesn't simply put the controversy to rest by at least saying whether or not Rayna is her legitimate daughter. Right now, my best guess is that she doesn't see any good outcome from it. If Rayna is in fact her own flesh and blood, the unfavorable comparisons to Cyra will only continue. If Rayna is not Cyra's biological daughter, not only could it legitimize criticisms of Rayna ("Well, of course she's not like the queen; she's not he real daughter."), it could call into question her right to inherit the throne. (Though to be fair, I don't know if Sathyriel has a law of primogenature or not.)

So there are still a lot of unresolved questions around this issue. Heck, I don't even know if Cyra has told Rayna where she came from (though my gut feeling is that she has) or if what she told her was the truth (which it might not be if the real story is particularly painful). Still, I think it'll be useful to have the various theories down and I'm hoping you'll find it interesting.

Comments welcome as always.


The Wish

This theory is nearly identical to the start of numerous fairy tales: a queen wishing with all her heart for a child. After the initial wishing, this story branches off into numerous variations. Some follow the fairy tale tradition and bring in a benevolent magical creature who grants Cyra's wish out of gratitude for a good deed. People who see Cyra as having a close relationship with the land itself will say that her wish was granted by some spirit of the natural world. Often, the deed is attributed to a powerful mage of some kind. Centaurs are popular candidates since many people know very little about them, though in truth they are not known for practicing magic. Some people will tell you that the mage was from somewhere far away, possibly even outside of Sathyriel, while others claim the spellcaster was local to their particular town. The geography of where these two variations show up most frequently seems completely random however, so there is no way of telling where this mysterious mage may actually have come from, assuming that he or she even existed. Another variation on this theme is that Cyra's wish was granted by a dragon. Though dragons are not known to practice any true magic, Cyra's ties to the dragons make this a popular story. In all versions, Cyra is magically able to bear a child without a male partner.

The Wish story is mostly told to young children, as it is one of the most benign and gentle explanations of Rayna's origins. As they grow older, children usually start to question the story and eventually stop believing it. Though magic is a very real part of life in Sathyriel, there is no known spell that could cause a woman to bear a child on her own. Even if such a spell were possible, the skill of the mage who performed it would have to have been tremendous, which makes it difficult to believe that his or her name and deeds would have been lost to history and survive only in legend. Though a few people stick solidly by one version or another of this story throughout their lives, most tend to discount it as a children's tale.


The Orphan

Both during and after the Keltarian occupation, war orphans were not uncommon in Sathyriel, giving this theory some credibility. Though Rayna is too young to have been born before the liberation of Sathyriel, fighting between Keltaria and Sathyriel, sometime involving other countries as well, frequently broke out, especially near the border.

In this scenario, Rayna is an orphaned child who ends up in Cyra's care. Usually, the story has Cyra coming to a village or town on the border with Keltaria and discovering the child. In some versions, Rayna is the sole survivor of a village that has been completely wiped out, a direct parallel to Cyra's own history. Aside from being almost too much of a coincidence to be believed, attacks resulting in the destruction of an entire population were extremely rare after Sathyriel became a free kingdom. A more likely version has the child's parents among a much smaller number of victims of a Keltarian attack. The other villagers are either unable or unwilling to care for the baby themselves, so Cyra takes the child to raise as her own. Sometimes, the story takes place in another kingdom under attack by Keltaria, usually Baren Vol which has a largely human population. This is a particular popular setting for the version where no one in the town is willing to take the child in. Sad to say, some Sathyrians still harbor animosity towards neighboring countries, especially those citizens who remember the days of the Keltarian occupation when those countries stood aside and offered no help to Sathyriel until Cyra's campaign was well on its way to victory.


The Search

Though very similar to "The Orphan", "The Search" is a rather distinct tale with several iterations of its own. In this story, Cyra comes upon a dying or gravely injured parent. Sometimes it is a Sathyrian soldier, sometimes it's a civilian. The injuries come from a Keltarian attack, a local rampaging monster, or sometime a natural disaster. There s even a version in which Cyra and a group of knights liberate captives bound for slavery in Keltaria and discover the person in question among them. The gender of the parent is also variable. The common thread is that this person extracts a promise from Cyra to find a daughter - and sometimes a spouse as well that this person has become separated from. In some versions, the person dies after giving Cyra a clue as to where this lost daughter might be. Others claim that the worried parent survives long enough to insist on traveling with Cyra to find the missing child. In either case, Cyra embarks on a long journey to keep her word and find the girl. The search is, after a variety of adventures along the way, successful. The spouse - if the story mentioned one - has inevitably died, leaving the child alone in the world. In the versions where the one parent has survived, he or she is able to see the girl one last time, then dies after asking Cyra to watch over the child. In versions where the parent has already died, Cyra finds the daughter at an orphans' home or in the care of a wicked stepmother type relative, and, with varying degrees of difficulty, adopts the child as her own.

This story is a highly popular one, as it can be expanded into a lengthy epic and fits in with the almost worshipful regard Sathyrians have to their queen. Whether it's actually true is another matter. There are numerous legends about Cyra's heroic deeds which have little or no basis in reality, and confirming the veracity of this story is nearly impossible. Though a situation like this may have occurred at some time, the idea of Cyra pursuing the matter herself is somewhat improbable. While Cyra has a reputation for being honorable and showing great concern for her people, it seems unlikely that she would leave an active battlefront to see to the welfare of a missing child personally. Sending a group of knights to investigate would have been more feasible. Still, the story has great staying power and might in fact contain a grain of truth.


The God Father

Since Cyra's coronation, Sathyriel has been home to a number of diverse faiths. Several of them are polytheistic and followers of those faiths are more likely to embrace this particular idea. In this tale, Rayna is the daughter of Cyra and a deity. The god in question is usually one that devotees think of as a potentially suitable mate for Cyra. There are warrior gods, gods of protection, and gods though to have ties to Sathyriel. Some followers of Suto Teg claim that Rayna's father was a dragon turned human for a single night, or that Cyra became a dragon for a night.

It is interesting to note that this is the only theory of Rayna's parentage that Cyra actively denies. Cyra has long gone out of her way to keep any faith that she herself follows a secret to avoid the appearance of a state religion. She has tried to discourage any implications that she is associated with any divine forces or is anything other than an ordinary human (aside from being raised by dragons). This theory was highly popular when Rayna was very young, but has less of a following nowadays. Cyra's denial and the fact that Rayna has not shown any superhuman qualities have made it less of a favorite than other guesses.


The Lover

This story and the following one are thought to be the closest to what really happened. As it is often said, the simplest explanation is often the correct one.

Like many of these theories, this one is set during a time of battle. Between the fighting, Cyra develops a close friendship with a particular man. Sometimes he is an ally from another country, sometimes he is a knight of Sathyriel, but most often, he is an ordinary Sathyrian soldier. Some tellers say that their affair was only a single night's tryst, which did happen among soldiers seeking comfort the night before a battle, uncertain if they would ever return. But others insist that it was a lengthy romance that saw them through many battlefields. The fate of Cyra's lover is also a subject of dispute. Sometimes he dies in the fighting. In one version Cyra discovers that she is carrying his child before his death and tells him the night before the final battle. In another, she decides to wait to tell him, but she never sees him alive again. In still another, Cyra only discovers that she is pregnant after her lover dies, leaving he to raise the child alone. The other main variation spare the soldier. But when Cyra tells him he has fathered her child, she gives him a choice: he can marry her and raise their baby alongside her as king of Sathyriel, or he can return to the life he had before becoming a soldier and live out his days in relative anonymity. After much thought, he chooses to go back to the life he knew. Cyra agrees to keep his identity a secret and they part, never to see each other again. Some people say that he is now dead, a casualty of war or victim to some illness or accident in whatever occupation he went back to, But others say that he still lives, keeping the secret of his love affair with the queen and the daughter he has never met to this very day.


The Jerk

Our last story bears some similarities to "The Lover", but the tone is very different. Once again, Cyra falls in love, but this time, she is wronged by the object of her affections. Sometimes he is a foreign nobleman with designs on the throne, taking advantage of a rather young queen. Other times, he turns out to be a Keltarian spy, or even an assassin. There are even stories of Sathyrian lovers who turned on Cyra for various reasons. Understandably, Cyra has a number of easily visible battle scars, and people who tell these stories often claim that one particular scar or another is from a physical attack by this wicked lover. His fates are many: incarceration, exile, death in battle, death by Cyra's hand in self defense, death from a guard or a knight defending Cyra, and a few other suitable ends. But none of these happen before Cyra becomes pregnant with the man's child. This, proponents of this theory claim, is why Cyra never explains where Rayna came from: the story is too painful to her and would cause too much pain to Rayna.

Trying Something New: A Brief History of Sathyriel

I know, it's been a while. During that time, I've realized that putting my first drafts up here isn't really helping me to write more. The more time passes between sections, the more I feel like I have to get something up. And when I feel like that, I tend to write stuff that I'm not at all happy with, which is not encouraging. So I'm going to try continuing it without posting for a while. This also frees me up to write more out of order and not feel like I'm confusing anyone.

In the meantime, I thought I'd try using the blog for various tidbits; information that pertains to and informs what I'm writing, but won't necessarily show up in the final piece. As usual, it's subject to change, so don't be shocked if something I write here ends up being contradicted in the story itself.

What follows is the back story for Sathyriel (sath-EAR-ee-el), the kingdom where our story has taken place so far. (It's called that for now, at least.) This all takes place several decades before the events of our current story.

As always, comments welcome.



Long ago, the land that is now Sathyriel was a number of small territories held by various races. None of them were truly kingdoms, though monarchs of one region or another would sometimes rise up and shortly fall. For these lands were plagued with instability. Small armies fought for control of the local resources and land of value would change hands frequently. Prejudice and mistrust existed between certain races. At worst, they fought. At best, they had no dealings with each other, making trade nearly impossible. The more well established kingdoms bordering these territories did little to encourage true stability. They too coveted the natural resources: metals and gems, fertile land, towering forests, and waterways with passage to the ocean. But each believed that the best way to profit from these resources was to claim them in the name of their particular country. So the kingdoms merely added to the unrest.

Yet even as the wars over land persisted, small civilizations emerged. Dwarven towns sprung up near rich mineral deposits, dotting the landscape with farms and mines. The elves constructed great buildings and monuments of stone and wove cloth that was prized in every land. Tribes of beastmen hunted in the deep forests and even kept invaders at bay with their skill as warriors and their deep knowledge of their homeland. The centaurs, though too small and nomadic a population to attract much attention from the major kingdoms, lived off the land and developed an extremely through knowledge of its plants and creatures, kept alive through oral tradition. The humans seemed able to adapt to almost any landscape, but they gravitated to the trees for building shelter and water where the fishing was plentiful. Many human societies also devoted much energy to the study of magic. To say that humans were the only practitioners of magic is an oversimplification; other races were often familiar with some small number of spells. But humans were the first to consider magical study of major importance and to learn nearly all aspects of magic.

One human society of particular note originated along the northern mountain ranges. The dragon callers, as they were known, were characterized by their close relationship with the nearby dragon clans. Tall towers were built to call the dragons down from the mountains. The language of Rannak was created, allowing for communication between the species. In return for protection from their foes, the humans treated the dragons with great respect and care. This civilization grew and flourished for a time, but as the various territories made their first strides towards meaningful contact with one another, the close connection with the dragons was lost, until only a few villages situated particularly close to dragon weyrs still practiced dragon calling. The dragon callers may well have been only a historical footnote, if not for their crucial role in the ultimate destiny of these lands.

Though the land wars still persisted, these small areas of emerging culture were just beginning to have a measurable stabilizing effect on the area. Though they lacked any centralized leadership to encourage strong trade and diplomatic relations with the neighboring kingdoms, they proved a reliable enough source of goods to convince the larger kingdoms that small scale trade was a better option than trying to seize and hold the land themselves. So in these more developed cultural centers, the kingdoms began to cease military activity. Except for one.

Keltaria, a country on the southwestern border of this fractured region, had long been growing its strength as a military power. The Keltarian army was known and feared throughout the land, giving Keltaria a great deal of freedom in its actions. What no one outside of Keltaria knew was that the Keltarian leadership had made an alliance with the native dragons. This turned an already formidable army into a nearly unstoppable one. With the aid of the dragons, Keltaria was able to achieve a long held desire: to capture every piece of land between itself and the other major kingdoms. The battles were brutally one sided; with the dragons raining down flame from above and the forces of Keltaria charging in, the unprepared defenders could do nothing to save their lands from invasion. The small civilizations that traded with the larger kingdoms begged for help, but their pleas gained them little or no assistance. The other kingdoms feared Keltaria's might and, having no formal diplomatic ties with any part of the territories, did not want to risk war with an even more powerful Keltaria. One by one, every one of the small territories fell to Keltarian rule.

Under the terms of Keltaria's pact with the dragons, the newly acquired Keltarian territories were ruled by Talshak, leader of the Keltarian dragons. Talshak's main task was to keep order in the territories and ensure that the native population continued working for the benefit of the Keltarian empire. The surrounding kingdoms saw the stability that they had craved, but now Keltaria controlled all trade. Prices on goods from the territories grew astronomically and the nobles of Keltaria reaped the benefits. Talshak and his army kept the citizens of the territories at work, providing for Keltaria and any country willing to pay their prices. Rebellion, or even the perception of rebellion was not tolerated. A few small resistance movements sprung up, but they stood no chance against the well-organized and merciless armies of Talshak. In addition to quashing rebellion, Talshak devoted his forces to ridding the land of certain elements he felt too dangerous to go unchecked. Though they had always been a peaceful society, the centaurs suffered greatly under Talshak. Their ease at disappearing into the landscape and their lack of any permanent settlements marked them as too hard for the dragon to control. During Talshak's reign, centaurs were routinely killed on sight. The native dragons were also considered a threat, though Talshak was reluctant to deal with them as directly. Even with the vast forces he controlled, laying siege to the dragon weyrs would be a grueling task. And though it was never said in his presence, in was rumored that he feared some of the dragon clans. So Talshak contented himself with isolating the dragons. His troops were quick to attack any dragon foolish enough to venture too far from the weyr. Talshak further cut off the dragons from the rest of the world by systematically seeking out and destroying the remaining dragon callers. What had been a declining culture became a nonexistent one, as even those suspected of sympathizing with the dragon callers were in danger of being executed. Yet this dying way of life would give birth to the instrument of Talshak's downfall.

It was some decades after the beginning of Keltarian rule that Cyra first emerged. She appeared at first mostly near the northern mountains, though it was not long before her story had spread much farther. She was said to be the sole survivor of the destruction of the last dragon caller village, rescued by the nearby dragon clan and raised as one of their own. She spoke to them in the forgotten tongue of Rannak and treated them as her family. Safely hidden away in the dragon's weyr, she grew to maturity and slowly learned of her heritage, of the world outside and the people living under Talshak's tyrannical rule. So she left the weyr with a purpose: to free the land from Keltaria.

By itself it was a compelling story. But what really made people take notice and start to believe that just maybe this stranger and her dragons could actually drive Keltaria out, was the sword. Deslordian, the legendary blade of light. Few remembered the last time it had been seen and many called it a myth. But the story went, the dragons had retrieved it when the last champion fell, keeping it safe until the coming of the next champion. And at long last, the sword had chosen the very child the dragons had saved from the smoldering remains of the last dragon callers village.

Convincing people that the fight against Keltaria could be won was still a hard battle. There were those who pledged their loyalty the first time they saw Cyra with her sword and her entourage of dragons. Avery few even sought her out based solely on the tales they had heard of her. But even as the tiny band of warriors won a few skirmishes against Keltarian soldiers, most people remained skeptical. They were certain that Talshak would crush this uprising, as he had all the others.

Exactly why Talshak did not act immediately against Cyra's forces is still not known. Granted, it was not until several attacks by Cyra and the complete liberation of a major town that the dragon ruler was informed of her existence. Yet still, his response to the news was slow. It is possible that he simply did not believe that she was worthy of his personal attention and chose to leave the matter to more localized forces. Many military historians point out Talshak's continued reluctance to confront the dragon clans head on, which may have made him unwilling to risk fighting a force sad to include dragons. Complacency may have played a part as well. Talshak's rule had gone unopposed for many years and there was less and less need for the dramatic shows of force Talshak had employed shortly after the occupation began. Then there is the story, especially common in Keltaria, that Talshak was slowly going mad and could not see the threat Cyra posed through his clouded mind. Whatever the cause, Talshak did not see Cyra as a serious threat until it was too late.

As Cyra and her troops had more successes, they had more recruits as well. People were starting to believe that this resistance would not be immediately crushed and might even succeed in liberating a small chunk of territory, for a while at least. So old veterans and would-be soldiers sought out Cyra to join her. Most of these new fighters later said they had come because of the stories: of battles or dragons or Deslordian. But they stayed because of Cyra. Some said it was because of her presence, a sense of nobility and leadership that came from something other than her small frame and bloodline devoid of royals. Some were taken with her relationship with the dragons or her troops. She never treated anyone as lower than her, and the dragons were clearly her family. Others were taken with how she would fight in every battle she was present for, rather than sitting and strategizing from some safe location. But nearly all of them were won over by Cyra's vision for the land after the war. No resistance leader who had come before had ever mentioned a plan for after the Keltarians left. Cyra had a dream for shaping the land into a unified kingdom for everyone, a strong kingdom that would never again be fought over and exploited by its neighbors. And the way she talked about it, the soldiers with her believed in it, and it became their dream too.

But Cyra realized that winning over a few new fighters at a time would not be enough to create an army that could defeat Talshak. She needed to win the confidence of the leaders of the people. This was no easy task. Many of the local leaders had been killed in the early days of the Keltarian invasion to demoralize the population. There were some leaders who had sided with the Keltarians in exchange for favorable treatment. Those who remained, the ones who the people truly respected, were carefully guarded secrets. They were almost always treated like ordinary people by their followers, so that the Keltarians wouldn't discover them. For an outsider to get an audience with a community's leader was very hard. But Cyra persisted and her reputation eventually earned her audiences with the leaders. There was still a lot of mistrust at first. Cyra was a human and some of the races worried that she would favor humans before and after the war. Others feared being removed from power when Cyra formed a new government. But Cyra was fair handed and worked hard to assuage these fears. Her army welcomed anyone willing to fight and her generals were the greatest warriors and strategists from all the land's races. And as she laid out her plan for the new kingdom, she made it clear that local leadership would hold an important and respected place. As a result, more and more people became followers of the woman they would one day call their queen.

The centaur posed an altogether different challenge for Cyra. It was often difficult to find them at all since they had no permanent homes and their numbers were small due to Talshak's campaign to eradicate them. They lived in small groups with no leaders to appeal to for help. And they did not fight. Even as Talshak's forces slaughtered their kind, few were willing to break their culture's taboo against harming another creature. Most of those who had fought back had been killed. Many of Cyra's generals advised her to simply ignore the centaurs, but Cyra wanted them to be a part of her new kingdom and to have a stake in the outcome of the war. The eventual solution was to have the centaurs act as scouts. Their swiftness and knowledge of the land made them extremely adept at monitoring the movements of Keltarian troops and relaying the information back to Cyra, all without having to fight at all. Thanks to the centaurs' help, Cyra's army was frequently able to surprise Keltarian forces as they moved from town to town.

By the time Talshak began to pay real attention to Cyra, she had recruited a formidable army. To make matters worse for the dragon, the neighboring kingdoms had taken a surreptitious interest in the fighting. Though no one wanted to declare war on Keltaria outright, they were eager to see the territories become a free and stable kingdom with which fair trade would be possible. Many of them were secretly supplying Cyra's army with weapons and armor. So when Talshak began sending stronger forces to crush Cyra, they found a much better equipped force than they had expected. Cyra's army continued gaining ground and Talshak was losing troops. His attempts to further demoralize the population in areas he still controlled through executions and shows of force were only serving to incite the people. In desperation, Talshak appealed to the grand dukes of Keltaria for more troops.

As news of the rebellion and its growing success came back to Keltaria and the grand dukes, Talshak had begun to fall out of favor. Keltarian citizens were upset by the length of the war and the number of casualties. The fighting had caused major disruption of the trading that had been Keltaria's original reason for capturing the territories. The grand dukes felt that Talshak's inability to end Cyra's rebellion was making the kingdom seem weak and inept. Facing a lengthy and costly war, the dukes decided amongst themselves that Talshak should be cut off and the territories given up, for now.

It was around this same time that the rumors about Talshak began in Keltaria. There were many of them, all questioning Talshak's fitness to command, but two in particular seemed to catch on. One was that Talshak had gone mad and was simply not stable enough to keep the territories in line effectively. The other, which often traveled with the first, suggested that the reason Keltaria's great army was faring so poorly against a group of common, untrained rebels was that they were distracted elsewhere. Talshak, the rumor claimed, has designs on ruling not just the territories, but all the neighboring kingdoms and possibly even Keltaria. The army could not successfully quell the resistance because Talshak was staging secret attacks on the borders of the other countries which stole troops from the fight in the territories. Some people later wondered if the grand dukes had spread these rumors themselves as an excuse to withdraw the army and abandon Talshak. It is also possible that one or both of them were true. Either way, the grand dukes denied Talshak's request for more troops, effectively dooming the occupation.

With no reinforcements coming, it was only a matter of time before Talshak was overwhelmed. It was early fall of the occupation's final year when Cyra's army stormed Talshak's fortress. Talshak was killed by Cyra and the independence of the new kingdom of Sathyriel was declared. The remainder of Keltaria's forces retreated soon after. Any hopes Keltaria had harbored of regrouping and retaking Sathyriel were crushed when the neighboring kingdoms declared themselves allied with Sathyriel and sent support troops in to help defend its borders. Negotiations for a peace treaty began within weeks.

With the country's immediate future secured, Sathyriel began to take shape. Cyra was crowned queen. (Whether this was her desire from the beginning or the decision of the people has never been clear.) She began the process of finding suitable representatives from all parts of the kingdom to serve on the new Council of Knights. She and the Council crafted the laws of the kingdom, taking care to respect the original laws and customs of the different areas and races. The local leaders were charged with overseeing their regions and towns and representing the queen and the law. A system of education and codified training for knighthood were set up. Cyra moved the kingdoms capitol to her birthplace, near the mountain where the dragons had raised her. Over time, a suitable palace was build there and the once small grew into a bustling city. Trade was established with other countries. Roads were built to connect the various regions to each other and Sathyriel to its neighbors. As travel around the kingdom became easier, the major cities became more multicultural. The citizens now thought of themselves mostly as Sathyriens, justifiably proud of the kingdom they had helped to build and to free.