Combat was control. Just like dancing. Just like music.

As much as she systematized, structured, and ordered the world for the benefit of her subordinates she herself was not bound by her own rules. Her rules were her control, her music, her drumbeat she imposed that made all the world move according to her order. There was no other way to rule. Hearts [i]aligned[/i], that was their nature. And as the heart fell to beauty so did the mind learn its place and the body submit in turn. This same process worked in reverse. Such was the nature of battle.

A demonstration. 

See how she controls the flow of the glass snake as the limestone controls the course of the river? Yielding, melting away, exposed raw. The crystal river thinks it triumphs over the stone by revealing its bare bones, but those bones are granite and no rage of water or shattering of crystal shall wear it down. The river may rage and flail but its actions are constrained, its body brought to heel, imprisoned within the designs of granite. As its body is forcibly bought into alignment so too follows its mind - it realizes its defeat and slumps its glittering head. As its mind accepts her control so in time will its heart follow. 

She lowers her staff. The glass serpent is woven into a binding of stone. Each pillar of stone like a needle and the serpent twisted and knotted through them over the course of its many predictable lunges until it is tied back and bound by its own body, a snarl amidst her knitting that soon enough she'll pull on the end of until it resolves itself into another link of cloth. 

And now, back the other way. Control hearts and the bodies will follow. 

"Princesses," Adila speaks. "I am Princess Adila the First, the secret master of the Watch. Princess Alina is in danger. Princess Kazelia is in danger. My namesake, Princess Adila is in danger. A terrible and -"

Her control slips. Terrible and wicked princess, that's what she should have said. Why was it difficult? Eupheria was objectively both of those things, a dire threat to Hyperborea and you [i]should [/i]have seen it before she fell and you did nothing -

"A terrible curse has befallen each of them," Adila said. There was no time to follow thoughts like that, thoughts that turned the earth to cloud and made it seem like she was falling too. "Only together do we stand a chance of breaking it."