Aphelion

... Could be worse. Could be like the George R. R. Martin series (the most recent two volumes being 'A Storm of Swords' and 'A Clash of Kings', not necessarily in that order), where kingdom-shaking crises are set up and left for the next book, which could be YEARS in coming.<br><br>I don't know if Nick had planned to write a sequel (or sequels) to this piece, but the potential is certainly there. In this case, he chose to focus on the choices that make a crown so damn heavy -- to bow to the merchants' and nobles' power grab, and see the end of all her father had built, or to go against her own pacifist leanings and risk a civil war. If he writes a followup story to this one, he could show our Heroine dealing with the consequences of her decisions ...<br><br>Robert M.

Thanks for the feedback on this story, and I'm sorry for my delayed response. The summer was a chaotic time.<br><br>I did worry about the lack of a direct confrontation in the ending, but I made a conscious choice to keep the focus on Isabella's internal conflict. I hope to return to Isabella in another story soon, and I expect that one to have more action in it.<br><br>This story fits within a larger world that I'm constructing, and I have a number of stories set in the same city. I hope to share several more with the Aphelion readers in the near future.