Dearest Zann,

Crown Prince Erwheel interrupted me. “If I won’t listen to my own family when they tell me I can’t beat the laurans, why should I listen to you?”

“I’m telling you more than that,” I said. “You can’t beat the greenkind and you can’t beat the people of the city, and they can’t beat each other, and they probably can’t beat you.”

“I say we can.”

“You can’t, because you don’t know what’s going on. Why do you think the greenkind are here in the first place?” So much for my prepared speech.

“The laurans. Call them the fucking laurans,” Prolonger said. “‘Greenkind’.”

“Why do you think they’re here?” I said again.

“Who knows why they do anything?” Prolonger said.

“I don’t know,” Erwheel said. “Because they wanted to conquer us.”

“It’s a damn good question,” Castellanatus the wizard said. “I’ve spent some time trying to find out.”

“It’s because they were driven out of the laur,” I said. “They have nowhere else to go. I’ve seen the laur recently. It’s horrible, and there are other things living there now. They can’t go back.”

Wryth, standing behind me, said, “One suspects that if we could only know it, we would find that those who drove out the greenkind were themselves fleeing more powerful foes. And so on through the worlds.” I hadn’t thought of that.

“How in piss did you see the laur?” Castellanatus demanded of me. “I’ve been trying to get in there for I don’t know how long and I can’t do it. I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

“There’s a lost highway north of Crideon. I’ll draw you a map later if you want. But I don’t recommend it.”

“So,” Erwheel said, “you’re saying that the laurans can’t retreat, is that it? That’s why we can’t beat them?”

“Sort of. Also, obviously, they’re more magically powerful. Also, you’re counting on the people of Crideon to join with you against the greenkind, and they won’t. Not for long.”

“They will if they know what’s good for them,” Prolonger said.

“No,” I said, still addressing Erwheel. “They hate you. Your piss-swilling family oppressed the people of Crideon too harshly for too long, and they celebrated when you disappeared. The people of Crideon don’t love the greenkind, but they will never want you to come back.”

Prolonger glared at me. “It really is you. I don’t know what happened to you, but you’ve got the same shit mouth as the Ybel I knew. Did I hear right? Is that really your husband leading the rebels in the city?”

“Where else would he be?” I said.

Erwheel cleared his throat. “All this is interesting and I’m glad to know it, but it’s of no use to me. Ybel, for the sake of keeping the conversation moving, I won’t kill you for insulting my family. At least not right now. I hope you’ve got something to suggest, because I’m not going to give up and grow strawberries just because you don’t think I can win.”

“Ay,” I said. “Sue for peace. Start negotiations with Acea and the people of Crideon, and with the greenkind in the Palace. Agree on a way that all three of you can share the city peacefully. And cooperate to remove Lord Clear.”

“Why should I?” Erwheel said. “It’s my city. Mine. I am the rightful heir of the Talistag family, and I will not negotiate away my birthright to runagates and laurans.”

“I get it,” Prolonger said. “She’s trying to stop the war, because of course she is, but nobody will come to the negotiating table with her, because she’s nobody. So she comes to us, because we’re not nobody.”

“I’m not a woman anymore,” I told Prolonger. “I’m a piss-poor man, I know that, and I never should have gone through the transformation in the first place, but it was my choice and I don’t deny it. You might as well call me ‘he’.” I turned to Erwheel. “I already told you. You should negotiate because you can’t win. More than that, you should negotiate because nobody else can win either, and the war is killing the city. If being a prince means anything, doesn’t it mean that you should act to help your city?”

Erwheel scowled and sat back.

“I told you not to trust him. Her. Him,” Prolonger said.

“Shut up,” Erwheel said. “Youngspar, what do you think?”

One of his other advisors, a middle-aged woman with a burn mark where her left eyebrow should have been, cleared her throat. “It’s not what you wanted, Highness, but it’s what has come to us. I think Ybel’s plan may be the wisest course forward.”

“I want to hear more about this,” Castellanatus said. “I want to know about the relationship between the Valnelatars and Lord Clear. There’s some kind of schism between them? Do I understand you right? And I want to know about this transformation of yours, Ybel, and what it has to do with all of this.”

“The people of Crideon were sporadically rebelling against the greenkind,” I said. “You know that part. The Valnelatars found Lord Clear somewhere and put him in charge of defeating the rebellion, because of how formidable he is. But he immediately went too far and tried to use all kinds of dangerous magic against the city. And eventually he went as far as to seize Cas Crid, which was a strike against the Valnelatars as much as it was against the rebellion, because it gave him, himself, the magical status of the ruler of the city.”

“How do you know that?” Castellanatus said.

“I’m a Rosolla Guard,” I said. “The other Rosolla Guards are compelled to obey Lord Clear now. They’re the backbone of his forces in Cas Crid. But I never swore the oath, so he can’t command me the way he does them.”

“You little shit,” Prolonger said.

“And what about your transformation? How does that fit into this?”

“It doesn’t,” I lied. “It was part of a completely separate adventure. Nothing to do with this problem at all,” I lied some more.

All my love,

Ybel