Lee sneaks behind enemy lines and captures Baluro, delivering him into Nashias' arms. <Scene 7> She uses him as a hostage to challenge the commander of the Royal Army to a joust, which she then wins, taking him captive and gaining Fort Maleba for Woll's forces. Meanwhile, Brooks discovers that the headwoman Karin had a son who supposedly died about the same time as Woll was given to Fernan. He suspects that she switched her own son for Doluwa's, threatening to dig up the baby's casket if she doesn't admit the truth. She says she'll tell the whole story, but only in front of Woll himself.Brooks reports this to Woll, who reluctantly agrees. With a small guard force, he goes to the castle to hear the story. Karin says that Paula had been the object of envy from the court women for bearing the king a son, and she feared for her life. She wanted to go home to her own village, yet she didn't want the king's son to grow up as an uneducated peasant. She entrusted him to Karin so that she could arrange for him to be raised as a noble. So that there wouldn't be two babies in the house causing suspicion, Karin gave her son to Paula to watch over until the matter was settled. Paula swore to guard him with her life.
After Woll was safely in Fernan's hands, Karin went to retrieve her son--only to find he had died with Paula. Desperate to discover why the paranoid Paula would have gone anywhere near a pond in the middle of winter, she asked everyone in the village what had happened. Most assumed she slipped, but one boy claimed he heard two splashes. Karin figured out that someone had thrown the baby into the pond, and Paula had jumped in afterward to save him. It comes out that Peilzen had hired an assassin to get rid of the child. That was why he was always so adamant that Woll couldn't possibly be the king's son.
Peilzen runs away and mobilizes his forces. His men sandwich the king's small group just outside Coral, greatly outnumbering them. Lee and Woll fight valiantly, but it will take too long for reinforcements to arrive. Just then, a new army charges out of the mountains and comes to the king's aid. It's the Tau Free People, come to offer their services as mercenaries. With their help, Woll succeeds in recapturing the castle. He hunts down Peilzen and defeats him in a duel, executing him for the crime of attempting to murder the king's son.
With her "authority" as Bardoh's Daughter, Lee crowns Woll again. She believes her job is done, but Woll doesn't want her to leave. She reminds him that she doesn't belong in Delfinia, she's from another world. She didn't help him so she could get involved in ruling a kingdom, she did it because she liked him as a warrior and thought her skills could help him. Now that the fighting is over, she wants to travel and see other places. He wouldn't dream of limiting her freedom, but he considers her his good friend and wants her to have a place by his side to return to whenever she's willing. To that end, he names her a princess of Delfinia, adopting her as his daughter.