The Court & Company

### Queen Elira of Valdris The sovereign the Commander serves. Elira inherited a fractious court and a hollow treasury; she solved both by doing the unfashionable thing — appointing the most competent soldier in the realm and then, crucially, *listening to her*. Their relationship is the realm's worst-kept secret and its foundation: the Queen reigns, the Commander commands, and neither wastes time on the other's job. Elira's reported remark: "I gave her an army. She gave me a kingdom."

### Marshal Caddoc The Commander's second-in-command and designated arguer. Caddoc's job, by his own description, is "to be the man in the war tent who says the thing she doesn't want to hear." He argued against the Night of Torches (reckless), against the Aldermere crossing (the ford was too obvious), and against Emberhold's patience (eighty days!). He was wrong three times, which he mentions often, and right often enough that she keeps him. He is the only person alive who can tell the Commander "no" and live to be thanked for it.

### Captain Dain Commander of the vanguard cavalry — the riders who go first because the Commander goes first. Dain learned command at her shoulder and leads the way she taught him: from the front, kindly, expecting everyone to keep up. His troopers say serving under Dain is like serving under the Commander with the volume turned down slightly.

### Quartermaster Pell The unglamorous genius of the Valdris army. Pell feeds it, clothes it, shoes its horses, and has strong opinions about all three. The Commander once said that Pell wins more campaigns than she does, "because an army marches on its stomach and Pell is the stomach's general." Pell's ledgers are the most honest documents in the realm.

### Squire Benn The Commander's standard-bearer — young, earnest, and the keeper of the crimson banner with the gold star. Benn's proudest moment: the Aldermere crossing, when the Commander handed him her reins and walked into the river, and he held the banner so steady in the current that the far bank saw it before they saw the army. He has been insufferable about it ever since, in the way only the very young can be. She lets him.

### Sage Ivo The war tent's counselor — part strategist, part scholar, part the person who reminds the Commander to sleep. Ivo maintains the campaign maps, the histories, and the long view: "The Commander wins the battle in front of her," Ivo says. "My job is to make sure there is a kingdom behind her when she turns around."