Three and a half years after the invasion.

Indis sat at her desk, finishing off a letter with a flourished signature. She folded it up and sealed it with one of the many magical stamps at her side. This stamp meant the letter could only be opened by key members of the Morning’s Shade, more specifically, those whose imprints had been put upon a Morning’s Shade signet. She handed the letter off to the messenger who waited by her desk at most hours of the day. He checked the stamp mark and went running.

Taking over the Morning’s Shade had not only been easy but one of the best decisions she’d made in her time as civilian seated to the council. When she had gotten word that Hildebrandt no longer wanted to be their leader, she had very quickly offered herself up as a replacement. Being a member of the order herself and already one of the leaders of the Endarian council, Hildebrandt had agreed.

Before long, she had the organisation assigned as a civilian task force under the jurisdiction of the civilian seated, who just so happened to be herself. In a sweeping move, she had given herself more power and secured her place on the council because people knew that as long as she stayed there, the Morning’s Shade would work for them.

The order she had just sent off to them was due to a resurgence of demon dens in the kingdom. It happened every year as winter ended. Animals would leave their winter burrows or hibernation and suddenly the dormant demon dens would have a significantly increased food supply. Their population would increase dramatically and they would start probing into towns and villages nearby. As such, she sent off almost every team in the Morning’s Shade to hunt down and eradicate as many of these dens as they could.

Doing so had a dual purpose for her. Mainly, it would help keep her people safe but as a bonus, it would build their goodwill toward her as people saw her task force roaming around killing the demons that were hounding them. Sure, the military seated General Faian would be doing the exact same thing but Indis had made it very clear in the proclamations the council made that the Morning’s Shade was under the control of the civilian seated. Which was her.

The way the council worked suited Indis just fine. There were the civilian and military seated to the council and then there were the civilian and military councils. Each council was built up of eleven members who assigned their respective seated to the council member, those people currently being herself and Faian. Each council group had authority over their own areas of responsibility with some matters that were deemed important enough being ruled over by both councils.

Every member had responsibilities within their own civilian or military council and would bring related issues to be debated and then voted upon, with the seated to the council being the deciding vote in a draw. Members held office for four-year terms at which time a kingdom-wide vote was taken. They had yet to take one of these votes, with the current members having been assigned after the invasion as an emergency matter to get the kingdom back up and running before any more people died. That very vote was six months away now and Indis had been currying as much favour amongst the people as she could to maintain her position amongst the council.

Most of the other council members had gone home for the day, leaving the castle at the top of the hill in the capital to return to their families down below. Indis sometimes wished she’d ever had the opportunity to live a life like that.

She stood up from her desk and walked out of the room, nodding to the guard on duty. When her mind was off on a tangent like this, she often found it easier to work through her thoughts on the move. That hadn’t been the case a few years ago but her time as a Morning’s Shade member traveling across the country with Zalia, Zen and Ember had affected her.

The tall lavish hallways and communal areas of the castle were hauntingly familiar to her. They might be decorated differently, used for a different purpose and lived in by different people but they were the same rooms and halls that she had grown up in. She sometimes expected her friend Prince Alistair to walk around the corner and crack some wise joke about one lord or another. He had been the only person who could break the mask she put up so easily and so often.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

In her mind, Prince Alistair and King Alistair had been two different people. The man he had become when his father had died and he had taken the throne had not been the same man that had walked these halls with mischievous abandon with her. Both she and Faian had thoroughly searched the castle and capital for any explanation as to what had happened to Alistair to cause him to turn like that but neither of them had come up with any evidence or leads. One day he had been an energetic, mischievous, charming and funny prince, the next a cold, calculating thrall of the demons without any apparent reason.

But that was enough thinking about the past, it was the future she needed to look to.

Despite Zalia having turned Et’s Way into some kind of animal haven, something she should have expected, Indis was somewhat happy with how that whole ploy had turned out. The woman was kept close and invested into a part of the kingdom now and that was all she had been working towards. All she had to do to keep up appearances was appear disgruntled every now and then and Zalia would continue living as she had been.

She had known that first day that keeping Zalia close would yield great results. Someone with three classes was just bound to end up attracting the attention of powerful beings and someone who came into the view of powerful beings was likely to make a few friends amongst them. And she had, thus bringing the salvation of the kingdom.

The concept of power had always been interesting to Indis. Someone such as the king of an entire kingdom like Endaria theoretically had an unimaginable amount of it yet within the span of a few weeks, that was all gone to a power from another world. Someone like Zalia on the other hand was given power by nature of luck or circumstance, a power that couldn’t be taken away unless by death. As she advanced in rank, the gap between her and others of her rank would only increase due to the scale of abilities.

The power Indis had was different from both of those. She had been neglecting her advancement as a magic user only having reached Bronze rank as of the year before, some two and a half years after Zalia, Ember and Zen had. Her power didn’t exist in her magic, nor did it exist by luck of circumstance or having it handed down from her parents. The power she had was in her ability to manipulate others into doing what she wanted without them knowing. People thought that made her a bad person, Zalia thought that made her a bad person, but that wasn’t true.

At the end of it all, everything she did was for the good of the kingdom and its people. Yes, she had manipulated Zalia into the position she was in now but that was so the kingdom would remain safe. Yes, she had done things to maintain her position amongst the council as the civilian seated but that was so she could continue to keep Endaria safe. And yes, she had lied to friends, allies and everyone around her but all of it for the kingdom. If it came to it, she would die for the safety of the kingdom.

That was what Zalia didn’t understand about her. She didn’t need her to understand though, as long as Indis, and therefore the kingdom, could continue getting what was needed.

Today she had to make a decision. One she had been putting off for a few months now. Recently, General Faian had been pushing back on a lot of the things Indis had been trying to do. At the start, it had been mildly annoying and just a little amusing. The general was obviously fed up with Indis’ ploys and politicking, which she somewhat understood. She thought she knew what was best for the kingdom just as Indis did, they simply didn’t agree with what the other thought was best in all cases. Indis had been willing and able to work with the woman for a long time now but with the increased aggression of what the general was doing just six months out from the election vote, she would have to start acting now.

As such, she stepped up to the office of one of the other civilian council members and knocked twice politely.

“Come in!”

She opened the door, walked in and closed it behind her.

“Oh! Civilian elected Indis, I didn’t expect to see you this late at night. How may I help?”

Indis sat down casually in the chair on the other side of the woman's desk and folded one leg over the other.

“I’ve got a proposal for you.”