After leaving the conference room, Dunha walked down the hallway with two guards.
Once she reached her room, she ordered the two guards to wait outside before entering.
"Wait here," said Dunha. "I will come back out in a few hours."
"Understood, your Highness. Please rest well," said one of the guards. "The city will probably be a living hell in a few days..."
"..." (Dunha)
Dunha ignored the guard's comment and entered her room. After entering her room, she got on the bed. Dunha then stared at the ceiling as she got lost in thought.
"When did it all go wrong?" she wondered.
The first thing she remembered was the fateful night that changed her life forever. It was the night when her father met a gruesome end on 1773.10.31 after being attacked by dozens of assassins during a council meeting. It was reported that he was stabbed over a hundred times with at least 30 of them being inflicted while he was still alive.
His death haunted Dunha for many years as he died on the day when she left the capital city out of anger due to an argument between each other. She still blames herself and continued to wonder if her father would still be alive if she had stayed with him that night.
After the death of her father, Dunha became the 6th ruler of the Star Kingdom at the age of 18. The first few months of her reign went smoothly as she slowly recovered from her depression. However, a year later, a problem occurred after one of the Eastern Kingdoms, the Azidahaka Kingdom, began to attack and raid numerous Starian frontier towns and villages.
The attacks caught the kingdom off-guard as the Azidahakians were initially peaceful with the Starians, due to the non-aggression treaty that was signed by the Azidahakian King and Dunha's father. Dunha later found out that the previous Azidahakian king was overthrown by his second son during a coup and the new king's first orders were to provoke her kingdom into war for unknown reasons.
To avenge the deaths and suffering of her people and for violating the non-aggression treaty, Dunha took 1,200 of her best soldiers to confront one of the raiding parties that was being led by a fearful Azidahakian Great General.
However, the confrontation ended in disaster when it was revealed that the raiding party was just a decoy. When Dunha and her battalion confronted the raiders, they were led into an ambush that forced the Starians to retreat with heavy losses.
Out of the 1,200 soldiers, nearly 300 people were either killed or wounded while another 50 were captured. Among the captured Starians was Mellia Beckerwood, a close friend of Dunha who was also one of her lieutenants.
Dunha's defeat, the capture of Mellia, and the large number of causalities inflicted during the ambush took a heavy blow to the Starian army's morale while it increased the Azidahakian's morale.
After Dunha recovered from her wounds, she sent out a few messengers to negotiate the return of the captured Starians with the Azidahakians in exchange for ransom. However, the Azidahakians refused to negotiate and beheaded the messengers instead which greatly infuriated Dunha.
Dunha began to rally as many soldiers as she could from several military outposts that were near the capital and managed to gather an army of nearly 15,000 soldiers to march east with her and lay siege on the stronghold where the captured Starians were reported to be held captive by several spies.
Dunha originally intended to launch a head-on assault on the stronghold, however, her subordinates advised her to starve out the stronghold inhabitants instead. She agreed and surrounded the entire stronghold to prevent food and water from being delivered to the Azidahakian defenders.
The stronghold managed to hold out for over 73 days before the occupants surrendered due to starvation and thirst.
Once Dunha and her army entered the stronghold, they captured the occupants and searched for the captives. When the Starians eventually found the captives, they were horrified to see what happened to their comrades during their captivity.
The Starians learned that all of the male soldiers were executed shortly after capture while the female soldiers were taken to the stronghold where they would be brutally tortured and violated by the Azidahakian soldiers for many months. A few dozen women from the raided towns and villages were also among the captured.
The tragic sight of their tortured comrades greatly enraged the Starian soldiers and caused them to massacre all of the Azidahakian prisoners before setting the entire stronghold ablaze. Approximately, 1,000 Azidahakians were put to the sword.
The Azidahaka Kingdom would later use this massacre as an excuse to officially declare war on the Star Kingdom.
🔸🔸🔸
Dunha began to chuckle.
"Heh. Those were some crazy years." Dunha thought. "If only I wasn't a naive fool back then... Well, I guess it's too late to regret now."
Dunha proceeded to leave her bed and walked towards a table that had a bowl of water and began to wash her face.
After cleaning herself up, she went back to bed and suddenly began to feel tired.
"Why do I feel so weak all of a sudden?" Dunha wondered. "I guess I overworked myself again. Perhaps some sleep will help me."
Her visions slowly began to get darker and darker until she saw nothing. Eventually, she opened her eyes again and stared at the dark ceiling.
"That was a good nap," said Dunha as she stretched her body. "I must've slept for a few hours. I haven't felt this refreshed in years."
She then got off the bed and had a strange feeling.
"That's odd... Was the bed always this big?" Dunha wondered as stared at her bed. "Maybe it's my imagination? Oh well."
She decided to shrug it off and walked towards the door.
"I should go back to the meeting room. Charles must be having a headache from dealing with those idiots," Dunha thought.
When she exited the room, the guards outside turned around.
"Princess, is something the matter?" one of the guards asked.
"Hm?" (Dunha)
This question puzzled Dunha.
"Huh? Am I hearing things or did he just call me a princess??" Dunha thought. "Coming to think of it, how tall are these guards?"
To Dunha's surprise, she had to look up to see the guards' faces.
"There's still a few hours left before sunrise. The princess should go back to bed," said the other guard.
"Are they trying to cheer me up after making that comment earlier?" Dunha wondered.
Dunha began to chuckle.
"Enough with the jokes, I have an important business to attend to with commander Charles," said Dunha. "The undead should arrive soon and we should be ready to at least put up a good fight."
The guards looked at each other in confusion.
"Did the princess perhaps suffered from a nightmare?" the first guard asked.
"Is her Highness still in her room?" the second guard asked.
"I believe so. I shall report to her that the princess has woken up from a nightmare," said the first guard.
He proceeded to walk away into the dark hallways with a lantern. The two guards' conversation confused Dunha even further.
"Eh? Her Highness? But I'm the queen here!"
Dunha thought.
Dunha then looked down and realized something was very wrong. She was wearing a pink pajama.
"I don't remember changing clothes... Hold on a second..." said Dunha as she looked at her hands.
She noticed they were rather small.
"Why are my hands so small?" she wondered. "Where's a mirror?"
Dunha began to run towards the nearest mirror and upon seeing her reflection, her jaws dropped in shock.
"H-How is this possible?!" Dunha shouted.
Dunha saw the reflection of a small child with brown hair and eyes and realized it was her.
Dunha somehow became a small child.
(To be Continued)
2020/02/16