Ah, the one million dollar question. Good idea for a vote.

I'll stick with Simon. He makes the most sense. For just about every other candidate in the list there's a good reason that it can't be him or her. The younger ones seem unlikely as Cowl is SC material. The actual SC members are accounted for during DB. Peabody probably as well because his being AWOL during that time would have been noticeable. And the phone call at the end of War Cry is probably with Cowl.

I generally don't think much of TT or alternative universe possibilities because I believe that the law of the conversation of history is very real and limits these options severely.

My second vote would have been other.

Neen is one of the spies. That's the whole purpose of the silkweavers. It wasn't about humans, Cavendish used them to press the cats into service or at least to threaten them enough that they stay out of the way.

Neen was the only cat still walking around in Habble Landing.
His dad was not happy with him, but he wasn't in a position to oppose him, that's why he looked at Neen before he said "Send them to the ropes". Wearily. He was gambling that Raul and his humans might be able to survive and report back to the humans. But he knew that it was real risky.

Examining her really carefully to get the best info for later influencing/manipulation of her to proceed, perhaps ?

Or check her out for a Nemesis infection. Maybe she usually sends her Knight to deal with infected mortals, but as Lloyd Slate was out of it at the time, she had to find another way to stop a further spread of the infection.

Hi,

Priscellie is correct. Kalare is on the west coast.
I'll look in the books and find the references which led us to placing him there.
One was in the last book CaF where Amara flew east from Kalare into Attica where she and Bernard stopped to clean up.
Another were the families involved in Kalare's kidnapping victims in CuF. Placida, Ceres, and Atticus.
I'm still looking through the comment file but those two stand out.

M.

Hm, yeah. I think I found another one: In the prologue of CaF, the conversation between Miles and Amara, where Miles said that the Canim protect Kalare's northern flank, while Kalare protects their southern. And that they could attack Kalare from two sides if the Canim were out of the equation.

There's another theory of mine being flushed out down the toilet.

I guess the forces Miles and Aquitaine were commanding must be attacking Kalare from the east, from Attican and/or Placidan territory. And if Kalare's on the south-west coast, both the southern and the western flanks are protected by the sea. But there's the problem imho: Where on Carna is Forcia? None of the characters mentioned anything about Forcian legions or about what Lord Forcia was doing.

I'd suggest it's the territory the Canim have occupied if the holder who was fleeing from the Canim raiders that Tavi first met hadn't been expecting Ceresian military. (p. 252, hardback ed. CuF, ch. 31) It's theoretically possible that the Canim occupy both Forcia and a part of Ceres, but that begs the question why the Forcian legions aren't fighting them.

Another theoretical possibility would be that Forcia is north of the Tiber, where the First Aleran are stationed, and that Placida is further north. But that would also mean that the Forcian legions had every reason to help fight the Canim, yet they don't. Not to mention that it'd be rather unlikely that so many Placidan ex-Legionares settled around the Elinarch if Placida was very far away.

If Forcia's a peninsula south of Kalare, like you had on your first draft, the Kalaran swamps wouldn't really be the southernmost part of Alera, like it's said somewhere, iirc. And there's the problem that Kalare could be attacked from the south, so they would already have the option to open a second front on him. Except if Lord Forcia is neutral for some obscure reason or if he's secretly joined the rebellion (but nobody mentioned it so far, or could prove it   ). That would at least explain Kalare's 7 legions: 3 Kalaran, 3 Forcian and 1 rogue, but that doesn't sound right imo.

I'm tempted to put Forcia on an island west of Kalare. And the Canim didn't try to settle there cause Sarl thought they'd still need their ships if they had to defend that place, so he couldn't burn them. 

Hi,

I best start my 2 cents here with the confession that I'm geographically challenged. So my suggestion might be completely off.

Looking at the maps you came up with so far (great work btw!), I was wondering why you'd put Kalare somewhere with a west coast. I can't remember a passage in the books where this is implied and I think that some of the problems you're running into might be solved if you switch Kalare to the south coast. The westernmost states would then be:

1. Antillus (north)
2. Placida (middle on the north-south axis, but clearly west, north of the Tiber)
3. Ceres (south, south of the Tiber, kind of a large west-east span, but not a lot of north-south)
4. Forcia

I'd put Kalare east of Forcia, with a south-coast only. Ceres would then be on the north of both Forcia and Kalare, those two states being longer on the north-south axis than the other way round.

The Blackhills could be a mountain range that divides the western southern states from the eastern ones, with just a couple of passes between them. I think that the Tiber river could have its source in the Blackhills, because the Tiber seems to be the border between Ceres and Placida, and the southern tip of Placida's lands - where the First Aleran was first stationed - was in the Blackhills as well, probably the northern tip of that mountain range.

With such an arrangement, you can more easily put the city of Ceres on the marching route between Kalare and Alera Imperia, with no other big obstacles between them - assuming that the Tiber isn't that large farther east and nearer its source. It'd also better explain how the First Aleran moved away from the theater of the war when they were ordered to guard the Elinarch and why Kalare would invite the Canim in the first place: his own lands would be far away from the threat and the Cane would only be a problem for his enemies Ceres and Placida.

If there's a reason Kalare has to be on the west coast, you can just ignore the stuff I've written.