Crown Prince Jing Han glanced at the map spread out over the table in front of him. His advisors stood with him until he motioned for them to sit down.

"Where is Dana?" he asked, swiping back his blonde hair and allowing a nearby attendant to secure his hairpin once again.

"She's on her way, Your Highness."

The Crown Prince did not respond as irritation spread through his veins. He grabbed his cup and drank the wine inside of it, the lazy flick of his wrist in the direction of his shoulders indicating to the attendant that he wanted a massage. He grunted as her small fingers dug into his muscles, well trained and methodical, he was very glad this was something they were all trained to do.

His ears pricked up at the sound of bustling outside of the room and a simple wave of his hand sent the attendant back to her place.

"Your Advisor kneels before you."

The Prince's lips curled into a smirk as her voice reached him and he told her to rise, which she did and promptly strode over to his side.

"Your Highness, the reserve forces we've deployed have made great progress." Dana said, her eyes smiling. She slid back a sleeve and pointed to the map on the table, gaining Jing Han's attention as he listened in carefully. "The reserves came in from the north, over Oma mountain and quickly quashed the borderland communities who weren't informed by the Palace of their situation. The Palace was actually quite close to mountain, but in order to prevent any last minute conflict, I instructed them to take the west, east and southern parts of the country first, then the central land and finally the Palace. Currently they're finishing up in the south and they plan to begin the takeover of the centre in a few days time."

"You little fox, you!" Jing Han chuckled, tapping her nose. "Playing with your prey."

The other men in the room pointedly ignored their exchange as the Prince shamelessly flirted with his advisor whom he was openly courting. He was under a lot of pressure from his parents to get married and show his strength as a future leader, which was why he was assigned the minor task of taking back Ranhara. Baby steps, his father had said while his mother repeatedly tried to get him to meet with her first choice for a wife which, after he finally caved, he found out was Lady Dana - the daughter of the powerful Lord Zhang in Reeth. She had studied hard to become an advisor but often was overlooked, being a woman, her views and ideas were not taken seriously. That was, until, the Crown Prince himself was beaten by her continuously in chess during their meetings and she had proven her strategies to be effective during other minor incidents.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He was smitten, to say the least.

"By the end of the week Ranhara will be back where it belongs."

"And the Witches?" another advisor chimed in, catching the Prince's attention, who began to reply:

"The Witches-"

"Who cares?" Dana interjected, her sharp eyes passing over every face in the room as Jing Han was fixated on her in wonder.

He had to marry her.

"Is their King still alive?" the advisor huffed, folding his arms before quickly straightening himself up upon seeing the Crown Prince's face.

"As far as I'm aware, but there's no use in worrying about him."

"I'll take care of that personally." Jing Han added.

"Your Highness," Dana began, "Allow me."

"No." Jing Han shook his head. "A Princess ought not to get blood on her hands."

"A Pr- Your Highness." she blushed, bowing her head. "In any case, we expect to move on the Palace at the weekend, just in time for Foundation Day."

Her reminder brightened the room considerably as the advisors began talking amongst themselves about how much better their national day would be with the reclamation of Ranhara. Their people had long felt that it was unfair that an entire province of people were forced out to accommodate displaced Witches, but they weren't prepared to start any international incidents because of it - they stuck to the treaty exactly as it was agreed. They weren't doing anything wrong.

It wasn't their fault that the Ranharan historians had failed to record the event.

That they had failed to inform their people that they were living on borrowed time.

Ignorance didn't deserve compassion.

King Zhan stared at the map on his table, Ara on his right, Min, General Lang and several other advisors gathering around. Large red splotches of ink indicated places where the Demons had already taken over. They weren't even leaving room for escape - the bastards were surrounding them on all sides.

"Ara..." Zhan began, exhaustion weighing him down. "What's the situation at the temple like?"

"We're running at full capacity, but we don't know yet how effective the barriers we've put up are. There's so many sick and injured people who can't leave, I just... I just want to get them out of here safely. Even next door to Kijj, I know they're all werewolves but we have no other option at the moment - they're too sick to make it to Western Pernesia. If there was just some way to disguise ourselves and get through the western counties and over the border, they have a hospital only a few miles away."

Zhan nodded in understanding. "Well, I don't know what we can do there, but I'll leave that task to you."

Ara frowned, about to retort until Min cut in with his own report and experience in the east, General Lang taking over from there and soon her predicament was forgotten about as the others discussed what was working and what wasn't against their enemies and regardless of whether their attacks were physical or magical, the sheer number of Demon soldiers made it nigh on impossible to fight back. Even if every person in Ranhara had stayed, they would still be outnumbered five to one and the casualties would be immeasurable.

Ara looked back at the men at the table as she excused herself to get back to the temple.

She had doubted herself for a while, but...

No.

She slipped through the door and back into the stone corridor, making her way outside again.

It was the right thing to do.