Sivetrys Lisaev, first of her name, bastard daughter of the great Brevan house Orlovsky, has declared herself queen of the new country of Rivenholm. She's very irritated about it.

Her subjects are of the opinion that it's been a long time coming, and anyone further from her capital than Candlemere keeps asking, "Wait, she wasn't already?" Generally, it's the opinion of the River Kingdoms that any warlord that declares and enforces a tiny strip of land within spitting distance counts as royalty, because that's kind of what people just do in these lands. Someone showing up and declaring herself in charge of Shrike, the Kamelands, the Narlmarches, and now Dunsward? And actually managing it? Investing in bridges and roads and clearing the lands of monsters? Making sure any farmlands are sorted out with proper Plant Growth at organized and predictable times? Yeah, that's a queen, even if she's a bit weird and insists on calling herself 'baroness' or whatever. Kings and queens always want their own special titles, this isn't actually any weirder than 'Lord of Thunder' or whatever the latest upstart is going with. The people of the River Kingdoms are practical about this. If it looks like a king, talks like a king, and gives orders like a king? It's a king. Or, well, in this case a queen, but same difference. Her stubborn refusal of the title was pointlessly resisting the very current that she's also using to gain power. This was only a matter of time.

That doesn't mean she has to like it, though. But yes, yes, fine, if Brevoy's scheming and infighting houses will actually go and officially declare her larger-than-average strip of land an actual official kingdom, its own polity and everything, then she will at last bend to the whims of politicking. She decided to stay here and fight a gods-damned lich for these people, her people, so she will tolerate a crown for them as well. That said, she'll have more style to it than the rest of these idiots that are her 'peers.' She will be having a coronation, and will have a tasteful crown of silver, mined from her own damn lands, instead of some kind of gigantic gold monstrosity.

She'd really rather be dealing with another lich, though. At least it'd maybe cause her to break into seventh circle. Okay, she doesn't mean that, one Vordakai was bad enough, she does not actually wish for the suffering of hundreds for the sake of her personal power, but still. If instead there just happened to be another lich around, that needed killing, that'd be great. Pity, she'd have to pop over to Ustalav for a chance at that, and she's gone and gotten a kingdom to keep from bursting into flames and infighting and general banditry.