While Shera is slipping the information about the silver to King Zoratus, a ball is held at Coral Castle. A young woman named Paula Darcini, attending the ball as her one and only chance to visit the castle, feels out of place and escapes to the garden. There she trips over Woll, who had done the same thing, and begins to chat with him ignorant of his identity. Lee joins them and starts to rip open her uncomfortable formal shirt, but Paula insists that a girl mustn't bare herself in front of a man. Paula uses her grandmother's broach to pin Lee's shirt closed and then leaves the two to return home.They expect Zoratus to attack immediately, yet there is no sign of army activity on the Tanga border. Woll keeps himself busy with paperwork--so busy that he barely even sleeps. His condition weighs on Lee's mind as she goes to give back Paula's broach. Paula lives in a secluded mountain estate similar to the environment where Woll grew up in Soosha. When Lee hears that a wild boar has been ruining Paula's fields, destroying the food she'll need to survive the winter, the undercover queen decides it's the perfect thing to get Woll to relax.
Upon returning to the castle, Lee is drawn into a conference with Karin and Woll's closest friends. Karin is concerned that the king won't choose a concubine to have an heir. Even reveals that, when Woll was first coronated, he didn't know how to handle all the women who suddenly threw themselves at him. He confided in his father that he didn't consider sleeping with women to be particularly enjoyable. Earl Fernan advised him not to mess with the innocent servant girls, but if a noblewoman wanted to seduce him, he should sleep with her once to satisfy her pride but then not show any favoritism afterward to avoid rousing jealousy among the court women. Woll has followed that policy ever since. He keeps insisting to Lee that he's never "had" any women because he means he's never had a loving relationship.
Speculating that Woll is turned off by the women only wanting him for his status, Even believes that he would respond to a woman who loved him for himself rather than his crown. Lee knows she can't stay with Woll forever, she'll have to go back to her own dimension someday, and she wants him to have someone by his side. She puts together a scheme to play matchmaker. She takes Woll to hunt Paula's boar, then destroys the bridge leading to the estate so that he's stranded there. Paula clearly adores him, yet she has no idea he's really the king. When Woll finally makes it back to the castle, however, he's furious that Lee would do something that would be so inconvenient for Paula and her neighbors.
Shera is contacted by the "Guardian Goddess" of the assassin clan, the ghost of a beautiful woman named Moira, and is ordered to report to Earl Farott. Then the king receives word that both Tanga and Pallast have raised armies on their respective borders. Tanga he understands, but Pallast shouldn't know about the silver yet. Supposedly Pallast forces are backing a rebel Delfinian lord in an attack against a nearby loyal lord. Woll goes to the aid of the loyal Lord Graham, with Lee in charge of reinforcements, while he sends Dora and Even to handle Tanga and leaves Baluro to guard the capital.
What he doesn't realize is that King Orlon already knows about the silver and has been using that information to corrupt the previously loyal lords. Graham believes that it's the king's duty to take the silver mines away from the mountain bandits by force for the good of Delfinia, and he can't follow a king who favors bandits over his own citizens. Graham betrays the king and captures him, his forces also defeating the Ramona Knights and taking Nashias prisoner. When Lee hears the news, she rushes off alone to rescue her husband, putting Baluro in command of her troops.
Earl Farott orders Shera to work directly for him. Shera wants to follow orders, since that path is far easier than listening to Lee always saying he should make his own decisions. He hesitates to abandon Lee, however, no matter how tempting it would be to return to a life of unquestioning obedience. What clinches his decision is Moira's announcement that Delfinia has gone to war. Shera runs back to search for Lee and winds up joining Nashias. The Tau leaders, for their part, can't leave the defense of the Tanga border, but they send Even to see if he can help rescue his friend. If he succeeds in saving the king, no one will ever again be able to argue with whatever Woll grants to them.
Then all Delfinian leaders are issued a declaration that Tanga and Pallast have allied against them.